The main plot in Xenogears ultimately centers around the long and complex tale of Fei Fong Wong, an amnesia-stricken martial artist and painter who lives in the peaceful village of Lahan, and his relationship with a female officer from the mysterious military nation of Solaris named Elhaym Van Houten. Both share an equally important role in the storyline and many intriguing revelations await players who can follow the incredibly deep and philosophical storyline from beginning to end. Some of you may complain that the central plot in Xenogears is a little too convoluted for its own good, but just remember that much of the Xenogears storyline was heavily influenced by Japanese animation and anyone who has seen some of the more religiously symbolic and philosophically driven animé available, such as Gainax's popular Evangelion series, will realize that the somewhat confusing level of narration in Xenogears isn't really that uncommon, as far as Japanese cinema goes. In fact, people who have seen the aforementioned series will likely find a few references to its metaphorical storyline in Xenogears itself.

  For those of you who are worried about just what Xenogears' plot entails, I'll quickly explain. Much of the plot revolves around three religious beliefs: what it means to be human, selective reincarnation (or transmigration of souls) and the nature of the relationship between a man and a woman. There are a few scenes that contain brief or implied nudity and/or sexual content, but since the game is really geared more towards an older teenage audience anyway, this shouldn't really present much of a problem. That said, I'll now talk a bit about what really matters: the gameplay. Xenogears, like most other role-playing titles, contains a random enemy encounter system. When you're exploring the world map or any environment other than one of the towns, enemy encounters occur on a random basis. When you're randomly attacked, the screen "shatters" and then proceeds to display the battle. Every encounter in Xenogears takes place on a polygonal backdrop. However, that doesn't stop Xenogears from adhering to the rather traditional "good guys on one side, bad guys on the other" encounter layout. Personally, I think Xenogears' random encounter rate is too high in some areas.

  One area in which Xenogears deviates from the traditional though is the battle system itself. There are two modes of combat in the game, including on foot and in-gear. And while each type of combat is different, both modes are linked to a common set of commands. A four-pointed menu is used in each mode of battle, but it obviously varies depending on which mode of combat you're currently in. When battling on foot, you're given seven commands, which include Attack, Item, Defense, Ether (please note that the command varies between characters, as Fei's Chi and Citan's Arcane work in a similar fashion to the others' Ether command) Call Gear, Combo and Escape. If an enemy is too large to defeat on foot, you'll then be required to enter Gear battle mode by selecting Call Gear. Once in Gear conflict mode, Defense changes to Charge (which replenishes 50 fuel), Ether changes to Ether Machine, Combo changes to Booster (which gives speed in exchange for fuel) and Call Gear becomes Special Options (which includes all accessories on your Gear, such as Hit Point Restoration units). Also, when on foot, each character can store up to twenty-eight Ability Points, which can be used to launch some devastating offensive combinations, or "Combos", which are actually required to beat several of the bosses throughout the game...

  In order to perform a Combo, one must hold onto some stamina at the end of each turn by canceling out of their current character's turn (pressing Circle) after expending at least one stamina; in doing so, that character's remaining stamina for that turn is converted into Ability Points and added to that character's AP gauge below their Time and Hit Points. You'll have the choice of attacking your enemies with one of three strengths: Weak (-1 Stamina, Triangle), Strong (-2 Stamina, Square) and Fierce (-3 Stamina, X). Each one has a certain chance of missing and each can be pressed in sequence with one or more of the others to make a wide variety of different standalone Deathblows, like Fei's Senretsu, by pressing Triangle twice, then X. Of course, each combination attack must be learned over time and the more you use each attack strength, the more moves you'll learn based on that particular strength. Gear battles are similar, but differ significantly, in that they don't involve the same level of combo intensive fighting. Unlike character battles, Gears require frequent upgrading and refueling to win.

  While combos are still a large factor in Gear battles, they aren't as necessary in Gear combat. At the beginning of a Gear battle, each Gear starts with an Attack Level of zero. After attacking once successfully, that level raises to one. From that point on, you can use all of your "leftover" Attack Levels above 0 to attack with a two-button Deathblow. Level 1 allows two Triangle-based Deathblows, while Levels 2 and 3 allow two Square- and X-based Deathblows respectively. Eventually, your Gears will gain the ability to randomly hit Attack Level Infinity, allowing you to inflict massive damage for roughly three turns. Each move that a given character possesses is also linked to their Gear's respective Deathblows, attacking methods and combinations, thus making the twin battle modes quite complimentary to each other. Xenogears also makes use of an 8-angle rotatable camera, available via the L1 and R1 buttons, which can be used to navigate the variety of locales found in the game, more specifically the towns and cities. Each location is rendered in simple, yet detailed polygons and the characters, which are all sprite-based, are carefully overlaid on top of the backdrops; this makes the game look more like a two-dimensional RPG with an additional bit of depth.

  Making your way through the different environments is as simple as holding down the Circle button to run and then using the digital pad to guide your character in the chosen direction. The only real problem with the non-battle environments and scenarios is that there were way too many times when the game would zoom in way too close to a sprite-based character, thus making him or her either a headache-inducing blur or an indistinct grouping of pixels. Still, the game makes pretty good use of its graphics engine and keeps things in perspective most of the time. Another problem that I have with Xenogears is its repetitive use of textures in particular landscapes and battlefields. I'm sure that Square could have included a little more variety in certain areas of the game, as I've certainly seen the PlayStation do as much, if not more, in other titles of this nature and scope. Thankfully, Xenogears makes up for its lack of textures in some locations with an overabundance in others. And, despite a couple of poor voice-acting and lip sync problems, the title's professionally animated cutscenes, brought to life by character designer Kunihiko Tanaka, artist Yasuyuki Honne and the Production I.G. animation studios, almost compensate for its severe inability to convey realistic emotions through its often lacking in-game graphics.

  However, the second strongest point of Xenogears comes not from its visuals, but from the excellent musical score that accompanies them all. Produced by Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger fame, the Xenogears Original Soundtrack is one of the most diverse, ethnic and beautiful sound works I've heard from a video game in a long, long time. The only way to full explain the musical style in Xenogears is to realize that Square actually sent Mitsuda on a vacation of sorts to various places throughout Ireland. Not only did the composer develop a taste for the local melodies, but he also acquired a knack of composing his own takes on them. Thus, Xenogears' soundtrack really varies from the typical role-playing game set with numerous drums, snares, bagpipes, violins, flutes, harps, chimes and even choirs. Most notable of the score are the ending themes, which really are one of a kind, specifically the hauntingly elegant "Small Two of Pieces", with a profound, poetic lyrical set by Masato Kato, striking vocals by the very talented Joanne Hogg and a fitting musical backdrop from the mind of Mitsuda. Other songs that I loved include the very bold "Bonds of Sea and Fire", the lighthearted "Valley where Wind is Born", the adrenaline-pumping "Fuse", the touching "Lost... Broken Shards", the energetic "Ancient Dance", and the creepy "The One who's Torn Apart". Xenogears' music is very unique indeed.

  However, now that I've told you what's good and what's not all that good in Xenogears, let me say for the record that the game is far from perfect. One thing I just couldn't get over is how long the game is. Normally, I'd consider this a strength, but Xenogears manages to pack a total of seventy hours worth of game time into the very first disc alone, and as if that wasn't enough, the already convoluted narrative becomes roughly summarized in just ten short hours, which just happens to be the entire length of the second disc. I don't know who's idea it was to make the Xenogears narrative so lopsided, but with so many questions piling up in the first seventy hours and then being swiftly and simply answered in just ten short hours, it's obviously going to affect the plot in a very negative way.

  My other gripe with Xenogears is the fact that, despite its fairly decent English translation, which is the most direct translation I've seen from Square in years, the text display speed is so unbelievably slow, presumably due to the technical limitations of the PlayStation hardware. Of course, this wouldn't be a big deal if Xenogears wasn't such a text-heavy RPG. It isn't a completely fatal flaw though, since the fairly deep and entertaining plot more than makes up for it, but it can become a very patience-testing nuisance for most seasoned role-playing fans. In other words, the quality of the plot is offset by the speed at which it is delivered. Despite its major design flaws though, Xenogears is still a very worthy addition to any role-playing fan's collection, so if you're a big fan of Japanese animation, Squaresoft or even if you just enjoy deep, philosophical plotlines with scads of religious symbolism, this particular RPG should do quite nicely. And just think; according to Xenogears' producer, Tetsuya Takahashi, Xenogears is only the fifth title in a planned six-part series of RPGs.
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