Xenogears is a 1998 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation. It is the debut entry in the larger Xeno franchise. The gameplay of Xenogears revolves around navigating 3D environments both on-foot and using humanoid mecha dubbed "Gears". Combat is governed by a version of the "Active Time Battle" system. The story follows protagonist Fei Fong Wong and several others as they journey across the world to overthrow the all-powerful rule of Solaris and uncover mysteries concerning their world. The story incorporates Jungian psychology, Freudian thought, and religious symbolism.
Created by Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife Kaori Tanaka as a proposal for Final Fantasy VII, it was allowed to be developed as its own project; first as a sequel to Chrono Trigger and then as an original game with a science fiction premise. The characters were designed by Kunihiko Tanaka, while the gears were designed by Junya Ishigaki and Yoshinori Ogura. The designs were portrayed during in-game cinematics through the use of anime cutscenes. Due to time constraints and the team's general inexperience, the second half of the game's plot was primarily told through cutscenes.
The game was almost not localized due to its religious content; its localization was handled by SquareSoft staff and translator Richard Honeywood, who described it as one of the most troublesome games of his career. Xenogears received critical acclaim, with many calling it a work of art due to its heavy religious themes and elements of Jungian psychology. Praises particularly went towards the storyline, gameplay, characters, and psychological and religious themes, but received criticism for the rushed pace of the second disc, due to a lack of gameplay and excessive narration. By 2003, the game had shipped 1.19 million copies worldwide, gaining a cult following. While a direct sequel has not been developed, Takahashi would later found Monolith Soft and develop the Xenosaga trilogy and Xenoblade games as spiritual successors.
Gameplay Xenogears combines traditional role-playing video game structures such as Square's signature Active Time Battle system with new features particular to the game's martial arts combat style. It features two slightly different battle systems: in the first, the player controls human characters in combat manipulated through the sequencing of learned combos. The second, making use of "gears", introduces different sets of statistics and abilities for each character. Xenogears features both traditional anime and pre-rendered CGI movie clips by Production I.G to illustrate important plot points. The player advances the protagonist and his companions through a three-dimensional fictional world.
Battle system
Battle in Xenogears is a variant of the Active Time Battle system found in games such as Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series. Most enemy encounters in Xenogears are random. When a battle begins, there is a transition to a separate screen with a combat interface. Player-characters use a combination of martial arts moves, "Ether" (magical) attacks, and special "Deathblow" combinations, which are learned through the repetition of specific proportions of strong, moderate, and weak hits. All offensive actions use Action Points (AP), costing either three points, two points, or one point, corresponding to the intensity of the attack.
Characters can use a variety of magical abilities for both offense and ally-support. These abilities are limited by the number of available Ether Points (EP), which must be replenished using items during exploration (non-combat) sequences. For most characters, these abilities are attributed to "Ether", a mysterious power to which (presumably) all humans have access. Some characters' magical abilities are referred to by different names, implying differences in their origins. For example, Fei's magic is called "Chi" and Citan's is called "Arcane". While fighting in gears, human Ether abilities are amplified, though some change or become unavailable during this type of combat.
In addition to hand-to-hand combat, the characters sometimes fight from within giant robots called gears. In gear combat, the limiting factor of AP is replaced by fuel, with each attack consuming an amount corresponding to its power. For these battles, "deathblows" may only be executed after first building up the "Attack Level"—represented by a number in the bottom-left of the gear combat interface—through the execution of strong, moderate, or weak attacks. One deathblow is allowed per point on the Attack Level gauge. There are three levels for normal gear deathblows and, beyond the third level, an "infinite" level with its own set of deathblows. To reach "Infinity Mode", a character must stay at attack level 3 while performing any other action. With each turn, there is a chance that Infinity Mode will be reached. Having a duration of three turns, Infinity Mode allows fuel to be recharged in much larger quantities and, while in this mode, gears have access to "Infinity" attacks. Gears can regain fuel with a "Charge" command. The gears can activate "Boosters" which enable them to act faster at a cost of extra fuel per turn.
Plot
Setting Xenogears initially takes place on Ignas, the largest continent of the Xenogears world and the site of a centuries-long war between the nations of Aveh and Kislev. A church-like organization known as the Ethos has excavated gears, giant robot suits, for the preservation of the world's culture. Although Kislev originally had the upper hand in the war, a mysterious army known as Gebler appeared and began to assist Aveh. With Gebler's help, the Aveh military recovered its losses and began making its way into Kislev's territory. As the story unfolds, the setting broadens to encompass the entire world and the two floating countries, Shevat and Solaris. Solaris, ruled by Emperor Cain and an AI collective known as the Gazel Ministry, commands the Gebler army and the Ethos and secretly uses both to dominate the land-dwellers. Shevat has been the only country to evade the control of Solaris.
Much of the Xenogears plot and backstory is detailed in the Japanese-only book Xenogears Perfect Works. Produced by DigiCube, it details the history of the Xenogears universe from the discovery of the Zohar to the start of the game. According to the Perfect Works schematic (as well as the game's end credits), Xenogears is the fifth episode in a series of six, with events spanning multiple millennia.
Characters
Xenogears nine playable characters come from different areas of the game's world. The game begins on Ignas, a continent with two countries, Aveh and Kislev. Fei and Citan at first appear to be from this land, although it is later learned that they originate from the capital cities Aphel Aura and Etrenank of the floating countries of Shevat and Solaris, respectively. Fei is the story's protagonist, and has initially lost his memories of his past. Elly, a beautiful Gebler officer of Solaris, is destined to be near Fei and falls in love with him by the end of the game. Citan is a man whose knowledge of the world and technology often aids in the party's quest. Bart, a desert pirate, is also from Ignas and is the rightful heir to the throne of Aveh. Rico, a demi-human with incredible strength, lives in a Kislev prison, spending his days as a gear-battling champion. Solaris, a hidden city of advanced technology, is home to several characters in the game. Billy, a pious worker for the Ethos religious group, was originally from Solaris. Maria and Chu-Chu are both from Shevat, the floating city and the only place resisting Solaris' domination. Emeralda is a humanoid being constructed by an ancient civilization from a colony of nanomachines, and was retrieved from the ruins of the ancient civilization Zeboim.Krelian: A nanomachine... a molecular machine... Until recently, we were only able to produce... materials which were several times the size of this. Thanks to that girl, the one we obtained from the ruins of the Zeboim civilization, we are now able to make it this compact and elaborate. Significant non-playable characters include Krelian and Miang, both leaders of Solaris who seek to revive Deus, a mechanical weapon that fell to earth thousands of years ago. They serve as the game's main antagonists. Grahf, a mysterious man with immense power, serves as a major antagonist; he follows Fei and his group and often fights them, though his goals remain a mystery until very late in the game. As being the Contact and the Anti-type, Fei and Elly have been reincarnated several times, while the Complement, Miang, has awoken in hundreds of women down throughout the game's history.
Story Xenogears centers around the protagonist Fei Fong Wong, an adopted young male in the village of Lahan, brought by a mysterious "masked man" three years ago. The events surrounding Fei's arrival at the village cause him to have retrograde amnesia. During an attack on Lahan from the Gebler army, Fei pilots an empty Gear and fights the enemy, accidentally destroying the village. As a result, Fei and Citan, the village's doctor, leave with the abandoned Gear to get it away from the village.Citan:And Fei... it may be a good idea for you to leave this place. There is no guarantee that reinforcements from yesterday's units are not going to come. Fei meets Elly, a Gebler officer, and then Grahf, who claims to know about Fei's past and admits to spearheading the attack on Lahan to unlock Fei's abilities. Eventually, Fei and Citan are picked up by Bart, a desert pirate and heir to the throne of Aveh. Fei again loses control of himself inside his Gear while Bart and Citan are attacked by an unknown red Gear. Fei wakes up in a Kislev prison and meets Wiseman, a mysterious masked man, who originally brought Fei to Lahan.Citan: The Yggdrasil was badly damaged and sank...I jumped in an escape-pod. Fei is able to escape with the help of his friends, including a new one, prisoner Rico, but he and Elly are separated from the rest of the party and accidentally shot down by Bart.Bart:Rah hah hah!! That's the power of the Bart Missiles!! Even Kislev's prototype can't stand up to it!! ...Uh, hey... S-stay back... Keep away!