Xenogears

Mixing science fiction, religious and psychological themes, Xenogears is a jRPG created by masters of the genre from Squaresoft, and the first installment of the Xeno series, which currently consists of several titles, e.g. Xenosaga and Xenoblade.

Story

Thousands of years ago, the mighty god Deus fell on Earth. The leaders of one of the flying states, Solaris, want to revive the god and use the being to gain not only absolute power, but also eternal life. The main protagonist, Fei Fong Wong, becomes an involuntary participant in the long war between the forces of Aveh and Kislev and is accidentally involved in their intrigues. During his long and twisted adventure, he encounters many allies who help him stop Deus from enslaving all mankind. The story presented in Xenogears is considered to be one of the most complex stories ever presented in video games. The scriptwriters referred, among other things, to numerous theories of psychology, religion and science.

Mechanics

Xenogears is a typical jRPG. A party of heroes led by the player explores the world, encountering various characters along the way and performing quests that push the story forward. An important element of the game are random battles with opponents, which take place in Active Time Battle, which is a system used in other hits of the Japanese studio, such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy. Compared to the aforementioned productions, Xenogears offers two types of battles, which offer slightly different premise. In those with a direct involvement of the heroes, the decisive factor are the AP points, which determine the number of attacks. In turn, in battles conducted at the helm of huge battle mechs, gears, their capabilities are determined by fuel reserves. In both types of confrontation, players attack by tapping the appropriate buttons assigned tovarious attacks, each of which requires a different number of AP points (or fuel in the case of machines). Individual strikes can be chained into combos, the execution of which launches a special attack, the so-called deathblow.

Technical aspects

Xenogears is one of the first PS1 RPGs to use 3D graphics. The story is told not only through dialogues and cut-scenes presented on the game engine, but also through impressive CGI animations and animated inserts. Illustrator Kunihiko Tanaka is responsible for chara and mecha designs. Due to the complicated story and difficulty of the topics covered by the game.

Last updated on March 15, 2020