Genre: RPG
Year: 1998
Developed by: Square Product Development Division 3
Published by: Squaresoft
Platforms: PSX
#106
Feeling Like: Baring Fangs at God
If Final Fantasy 9 is screaming for a remaster, then Xenogears is begging for it. I put them side-by-side on the 500 for a reason; they’re both spectacular games that are far from immaculate, either due to the system they were released on or budget limitations. The ideas surpassed what was possible, but that shines through in the experience. Xenogears is wonderful, weird, creepy, insane, heretical and impossible to forget. Not many games try to incorporate the ideas of Jung, Nietzsche and Freud. Nowadays, I’d have a hard time believing a developer would take a risk with something like Xenogears. But that was the magic of the 90s, emerging technology and increasing fandom meant companies were willing to go for broke in search of new audiences, or riches.
I may be sounding flighty and ennui in my opening paragraph, but diving into the world of Xenogears will do that to a person.
True to the game itself, me even being able to play Xenogears felt like some sort of metal puzzle. I didn’t have a PlayStation, so that method was out. I was traveling quite a bit to and from Mount Allison, so my laptop was glued to me. I purchased the game at a game convention, justifying that I would now feel comfortable emulating it.
ePSXe was not the easiest program to get games running on a PC, but with some forum help I got it running moderately smoothly. I even got an adapter from a shady third party website that allowed me to use my GameCube controller.
So, I was playing a PlayStation game on a PC with a GameCube controller. Makes sense.
The game starts out in a rather cliche way – you’re an adopted fellow named Fei Fong Wong who has amnesia. You live in a peaceful village named Lahan. You live a simple life, until an attack on the village spurs the plot forward that includes a corrupt church, desert pirates, a prison break, floating cities, twists, tragedies, a large dose of philosophy and gears, this game’s version of mechs.
The story feels big, maybe too big. I got a whiff of Neon Genesis Evangelion, where a seemingly action oriented adventure about human controlled robots taking on aliens is far deeper and more grim than at first glance. Xenogears was remarkably effective at making me feel, even if I was confused some of the time. Character motivations make sense, with interesting takes on the standard tropes. Once the game gets going, the “kid with amnesia from a small village” premise seems like a million years ago. Even reading the synopsis on Wikipedia gives me pause…and chills. Uncovering a conspiracy surrounding a type of medicine and the Emperor is just one layer of the Xenogears onion.
To be honest, I can’t adequate convey why Xenogears is a step above most games in this regard. The themes of religion, fate, humanity, personality, slavery and the very nature of existence are heavy subject matter for any work of art, let alone an RPG from Japan. This is one of many videos I watched to try and get a handle on it. I’m still not sure I do.
The stuff I did understand was the combat and music. Both are astounding.
Combat hinged largely on combos – the more you use a specific type of combo, the more experience you gained for that particular move. I’m always a fan of systems that don’t rely on just button mashing the attack button and you will not win unless you fully embrace it. Punches, slashes, whips and kicks have satisfying thuds when they land and the dynamic camera really makes every encounter fun to navigate.
I can’t say enough about the music. While the set pieces and big moments are thought provoking and introspective, nothing in Xenogears would work nearly as well without the masterful soundtrack by the absolute legend, Yasunori Mitsuda. This may be his finest work, and that is really saying something considering he also composed Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.
I can already picture myself back as Fei, learning some closely guarded secret about the universe with “Bond of Sea and Flame.”
“The Floating city of Shevat” certainly gives me Kingdom of Zeal vibes. Equal parts mysterious, and sad.
“The One Who Bares Fangs at God” may be a strange title or poorly translated, but it’s so ethereal and otherworldly that I couldn’t care less.
“Small Two Pieces” checks off the “cheesy sounding pop song with lyrics” but hearing this as the end credits hit nearly made me tear up.
“Emotions” is a tranquil, relaxing World Map theme.
The theme that plays in the Yggdrasil, Bart the Pirate’s Ship, always gets me pumped – even if it does take a little while to get going.
It’s not an official Xenogears song, but it’s partly responsible for one of the best remixes I’ve ever heard – “Xenosphere” by Oceanfire.
I’ve read that the length of the game and the soundtrack don’t match, ie the game is too long and there isn’t enough music to support it. I suppose that’s true, it’s not as lean as other RPGs of this era and there aren’t as many individual songs, but that doesn’t stop a few select tracks from being transcendent.
Despite the excellent soundtrack, enjoyable combat system and big emotional impact, Xenogears suffers in the 2nd disc. Either the game was rushed, or the budget was cut, or the team at Square simply bit off more than it could chew. Either way, the majority of the story is told to you by the main characters sitting in rocking chairs, with images showing what happened. I actually liked the effect at first, but when it starts to skip entire dungeons I was a little disappointed. Fans of the game everywhere will likely say the same thing, and it’s the main reason why a remake/remaster of the game with a proper 2nd half would be a godsend.
This isn’t the type of RPG to recommend to just anybody, even at the time. It doesn’t hold your hand, the difficulty can spike at certain bosses, the mech fights require very close attention to the fuel gauge, and if you’re not taking notes during the plot, you may be confounded by the end.
However, the 500 is all about how games make me feel and Xenogears did just that. There’s a priest who fights alongside you with a shotgun. There’s an Emperor who looks like he dropped out of Jim Henson’s nightmare. There’s a friendly doctor who annihilates enemies with a samurai sword. There’s a romance that doesn’t make you want to turn off the screen. You can pilot giant mechs, and that’s always a plus. The fully 3D world looks amazing for game of this scope. It’s one of those messy games that needed more time and money, but because the ambition was so high and Square trusted the player to buy into the premise, it mostly succeeds.
The 500 