I know I'm probably opening up a can of worms here but every time I go into the Xeno-based topic on GameFAQs I always regret it.

Now, I know the following is my opinion and I know that other people are entailed to their opinion... but man... the minute I see someone claim that Xenogears is "the greatest role-playing game on the PS1" I just have to laugh

But before I get to my questions, I should probably lay out how I feel about the game myself.

When taken as a whole, I can see why Xenogears is an important game. I mean the scale of what it attempted to accomplish is impressive and should be commended... but I can't say 100% that it really accomplished everything it set out to do or did it well.

I feel that anyone interested in the game (or those interested in what Square was up to at this point in time) should experience the game... but mainly to see why it works and doesn't work. For those interested in game design it's a must play in my opinion because of this.

Back when this game came out GamePro gave it a 1.5 out of 5.0 in funfactor and well, I couldn't have agreed more. Yes, Xenogears is interesting... but fun? It was far from it in my opinion. If I remember I think the game clocks in at around 50-60hrs and there... was supposed to... be more... of it...? Holy hell!

These days I the only thing I have left is the soundtrack and... I feel that's all I need.

However, I guess the question I want to ask is... Xenogears was technically a failure, right? At least from Square's prospective...?

I don't really want to know this so I can throw it in people's faces... but when people start throwing around the word "masterpiece" I'm always thinking throw the word 'flawed' in front of that and I'll agree.

Anyway, again, I don't want to say my opinion has more weight than another person's... but man... I'd just love some more objectivity from the gaming community on this one.

But I'm probably barking up the wrong tree right?

It's everything both good and bad about Masato Kato's storytelling...longwinded, detailed, world-spanning narrative that exists at the expense of characterization and (at times!) gameplay.

When Xenogears launched in the US, there was nothing like it. It was of the first games with overtly religious themes in it (taboo in games back in 1998) and there were scenes (Fei and Elly "eating the meat") that simply doesn't exist in a lot of RPG's. Giant robots were also something generally new to us in 1998 RPG's. That said, there were a lot of spots where you just got destroyed. That's a plus for me, since challenging turn-based battles in RPG's seem to have died off over the years, but I can see casual players quitting and moving onto something else.

The game is flawed. The balance of storyline to gameplay is definitely in favor of storyline and I'd rather chew nails than do some of the dungeons again. But put yourself in 1998. The game was frickin groundbreaking. I'm fine with calling it a masterpiece. Albeit a flawed one.

As for the music, the soundtrack is easily one of the most essential soundtracks in VGM history.  That said, it also works far better in soundtrack-form for me because I thought there wasn't enough music for a 60 hour game. Some tracks you just ended up hearing far too frequently.

For what it's worth...

When you say "technically a failure from Square's perspective," I'm not sure if you mean in terms of critical response or in terms of revenue, but I don't think either would have much bearing in a conflict of opinion. I appreciate that you want something objective to temper your argument, but the argument itself is subjective. Poor sales or bad reviews are not going to convince a person that a game is poor if they happen to love it--if anything, observations on what you consider to be shortcomings might give them pause for thought. Your valid criticism of the game is really all you need to counter those who sing its praises.

Xenogears is HUGELY overrated.

The story is cool, the music is great, I even liked the graphics back then, but the game itself is just NOT fun at all.
It is FAR from a masterpiece. Never was, never will be.

To answer your questions, apparently Xenogears was a success both commercially and critically. I can't seem to find firm total figures though. By 2003 it had sold around 1.2 million but that was before the Greatest Hits rerelease so I can only assume the total is a good bit higher.

Everything else is in the realm of the subjective, not objective.

As it happens, I agree that it's flawed. I have memories of it crashing to a halt in the second disc and disappearing up its own rear end. That said, I still think it's a fantastic RPG overall. I think the world, atmosphere and music are stunning and back in the day it blew me away on my first playthrough in a way very, very few RPGs do.

Best Xeno game as far as I'm concerned. Masterpiece? Sure. As long as you accept that it's clunky, unbalanced, long-winded and at times sloppy. Then again, those also apply to Metal Gear Solid, and Final Fantasy VII, also considered ambitious masterpieces.

I love the character and mech designs (I think Junya Ishigaki should be getting more work), the music is bloody brilliant. The subject matter was great, I felt. Liked that my character was an unbalanced schizophrenic. I felt like the narrative didn't pull too many punches. I respect that. Say what you will about it's application of Freudian psychology or religious themes, but we shouldn't be expecting Dostoyevsky or Dickens over here in this medium. Not yet.

And yeah, the giant robot tropes really tickled something in me. The G-Elements? Shit was great! All the Gundam and Macross references and influences were big for me, too.

Yeah. I'll take Xenogears once more over a million playthroughs of Xenoblade.

Well, it was and still is my favourite game, period. Of course it's not without its (I would say minor) flaws, including some difficulty spikes and dungeons that are not fun, but its story and world (and, more crucially, the way it then tears down that whole world) immersed me in a way no other game has since. Disc two never bothered me at all - for me disc one was the game and disc two was like the epic, semi-interactive ending sequence.

This from a player who very nearly rage-quit back in '98 because of the Calamity fight.

i couldn't even get into the XG demo. games with excessive button-combo attacks just annoyed me.

What a rather timely topic.  I've just started my replay of Xenogears.  I haven't played the game since I beat it when it originally came out, and am only a little of the ways in (having past Blackmoon Forest).  I'm playing the game hooked up to my computer via a capture box and through Final Cut Pro 7.

The music is as good as ever.  The animated scenes still hold up pretty good, despite the bad lip sync in places, and the story so far is solid. But even this early in I have noticed a few flaws.  Mostly the  night scenes were overly dark, as was the forest and there were noticeable black lines in places when I turned the camera, not everywhere, but the most noticeable were the trees at Citan's house.

Cheers,

David

I completely agree. The story, worldview, and music make Xenogears unforgettable for me. When you first arrive at the desert town, and the camera pans through it with the amazing music playing, that moment is magical. I never really understood the weird leveling system, and the battle system was often tedious, but I was so engrossed in the game that those things didn't matter.

Well I've made further progress and just stomped a bunch of Gears attacking Bart's base.  Story is still really good, but that dang camera.  I swear, I much rather a fixed camera, especially if I'm supposed to be jumping because the camera, seems to turn just enough that my characters are almost hidden by something else.  The stalactite cave was the worst offender for this.  There should also be a option to reorient the camera back to whatever it was when you entered the area.  I spent over two hours running in circles cause  I'd turn the camera to see the characters and suddenly my sense of direction went all to hell.

Still really enjoying the story and music.  Also it's nice to know that despite FCP7 exporting noninterlaced uncompressed files about 320 GB for 4 hours, that handbrake can get that down to a nice 2.3 gb.  Only downside is using the highest possible settings takes about 20 hours, even with a 6 core mac pro.  On the upside, doing something like that on my old machine probably would have taken weeks (if I was lucky).

I'll post more commentary as I progress.  My only bug bear about combat is that it becomes easy once you have deathblows.  Even easier with Citan as he kicks ass and takes names.  Also my gears run very close to running out of fuel during combat, even after upgrading.  If I'm remembering right I should be able to fix that eventually by charging or something (or am I thinking Xenosaga)?

Cheers,

David