Xenogears

Xenogears is a role-playing video game developed and published by Squaresoft. It was released in Japan in February 1998, and later in October of the same year in North America for the Sony PlayStation.

Playable characters

 * Fei Fong Wong
 * Elhaym Van Houten
 * Citan Uzuki
 * Bartholomew Fatima
 * Ricardo Banderas
 * Maria Balthasar
 * Billy Lee Black
 * Emeralda Kasim
 * Chu-Chu

Gameplay
Xenogears takes a top down perspective in a 3D world with 2D character sprites. Battles take place in the same way. Gears are modeled in 3D in battle. Battle uses the ATB format to attack with a max of 3 characters in your party at once.

Battles
Battles over world encounters are mostly random and overworld enemies can't be seen. In battle each player has a few options shared amongst all of them. These are Run, Item, Defend, and Attack. Special moves are called different things depending on the character, either Chi for Fei, Spirit for Rico, and Ether for everyone else. All characters besides Maria and Chu-Chu have another option called "Combo" where you can string together multiple death blows given you have enough AP.

On foot battles
About half of the game takes place with battles that take place on foot, character vs. character. These are simple fights where the objective is to knock the enemy out using your attacks. There are a few different options:
 * Attack
 * Defend
 * Item
 * Run
 * Combo
 * Call Gear

Attack
This is very basic, you have 3 different levels of attacks, Triangle being a weak attack which uses 1 energy I don't know the name. Square which is a strong attack which uses 2 points, and X which is a fierce attack and uses 3 points. At the begining of the game you start with 3 points to use to attack per turn so you could string together 1 X attack, 3 Weak attacks, or 1 strong attack and 2 weak attacks. After that your turn ends for that character, You don't have to use all points in a turn though if you press O you can stop attacking and save the remainng points and have it go towards you A.P. Throughout the game you'll gain up to 7 points to attack with when you level up and 1 when you get so far in the game. You can also do button combos to preform death blows which are stronger attacks. For example you start out with Fei's Triangle, Square death blow.

Defend
This blocks a single attack against that character, but you might still take damage if the attack is strong enough.

Item
You use an item. This takes up that character's turn.

Run
You can flee the battle, but if it fails that character's turn is over.

Combo
Given you have enough A.P. accumulated, you can string together multiple death blows in 1 character turn. The animations play faster too. Doing this will spend any A.P. you used for the combo.

Call Gear
This option becomes available only if you are in an area that can be traversed with a gear AND you previously were in said gear. Calling your gear takes up an entire character turn.

Other releases
Xenogears was rereleased on Playstation Network for Playstation Portable, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita in Japan and North America. With the closure of the Playstation 3 store on July 2, 2021 and the Playstation Vita store on August 2, 2021, this version will become unavailable.