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 and praise as one of the greatest video games of all time. 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
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