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.

Development
Development can be traced back to the pre-production of Final Fantasy VII, of which several different scripts were being pitched by different teams within the company. One of these concepts was created by Tetsuya Takahashi and Kaori Tanaka, with Hiromichi Tanaka serving as producer. This early version was rejected as a Final Fantasy title for being "too dark and complicated for a fantasy." However, the executives did see potential and allowed the project to be greenlit as an original title. This was a good thing for Takahashi, as he had grown tired of the Final Fantasy franchise and wanted a change of pace.

This title, now under the codename "Project Noah," reached bumps in development almost immediately. Early plans had this title be a sequel to Chrono Trigger, but clashes between the team and the executives as well as unspecified practical difficulties caused the sequel angle to be abandoned and it shifted to a wholly original property. This caused another issue later on, as the more science fiction aspects of Chrono Trigger bled through to this finalized concept and did not fit into a fantasy setting, so direction was changed one more time to be a mix of the two genres. Development lasted two years, a relatively quick turnaround period for a team with little experience together. This is the stated reason why the second disc is mainly narration with little gameplay, the team simply did not have enough experience to completed everything they wanted to include in an efficient manner and compromised with the second disc. The game finally released on PlayStation on February 11, 1998. Square initially were hesitant in localizing the game into english due to the "sensitive religious issues" present throughout the game. This was also the first instance of the english localization department working directly with the development team to stay as faithful to the original as possible while changing as much as they could to avoid controversy. The game released in North America on October 20, 1998.

Plot
Xenogears centers around the protagonist Fei Fong Wong, an adopted young male in the village of Lahan, brought by a mysterious "masked man" three years ago. The events surrounding Fei's arrival at the village cause him to have retrograde amnesia. During an attack on Lahan from Gebler, Fei pilots an empty gear and fights the enemy, accidentally destroying the village. As a result, Fei and Citan, the village's doctor, leave with the abandoned gear to get it away from the village. Fei meets Elly, a Gebler officer, and then Grahf, who claims to know about Fei's past and admits to spearheading the attack on Lahan to unlock Fei's abilities. Eventually, Fei and Citan are picked up by Bart, a desert pirate and heir to the throne of Aveh. Fei again loses control of himself inside his gear while Bart and Citan are attacked by an unknown red gear. Fei wakes up in a Kislev prison and meets Wiseman, a mysterious masked man, who originally brought Fei to Lahan. Fei is able to escape with the help of his friends, including a new one, prisoner Rico, but he and Elly are separated from the rest of the party and accidentally shot down by Bart.

They are rescued by the Thames, a mobile floating city. After learning Elly's whereabouts, Gebler attacks Thames to kidnap Elly and Miang, a Gebler officer, unsuccessfully attempts to brainwash her. Gebler leader Ramsus, who holds a vendetta against Fei, attacks Thames, searching for him. Afterward, Billy, an Ethos worker onboard Thames, allows Fei to use the Ethos' advanced medical technology. Bishop Stone, Ethos' leader, reveals to the party Ethos's true purpose of controlling the land dwellers, or "Lambs", for Solaris. The group follows Stone to Zeboim, an excavation site. They discover a young girl composed of nanomachines, which is what Solarian leader Krelian seeks. Stone takes the girl while the group fights Id, the mysterious red gear's pilot, who wants the girl, but is stopped by Wiseman. The group returns and finds Fei awake and standing at his gear with a case of anterograde amnesia. Fei and his friends decide to ally themselves with the floating city of Shevat, the only remaining city capable of resisting Solaris, joined by Shevat locals Maria and Chu-Chu. During this time, Bart regains his throne and initiates peace between the two countries and Stone is destroyed. Upon entering Solaris, they encounter Emeralda, the nanomachine colony. She attacks at first, but recognizes Fei, referring to him as "Kim", much to Fei's confusion. In Solaris, Fei learns that Citan has been working for Emperor Cain and that Solaris has been producing food and medicine out of mutated humans in the Soylent System facility. The party also learns that the Gazel Ministry seeks to revive God and achieve eternal life, while Krelian seeks to possess Elly. They escape from Solaris before Id destroys it as Citan was really a double agent on their side because Cain was actually against the Ministry. Back at Shevat, Citan informs his friends that Id is actually Fei's split personality, with Fei's gear turning red when he switches to Id due to their connection.

After Krelian manipulates Ramsus into assassinating the Emperor, the Gazel Ministry uses the Gaetia Key, an artifact that manipulates the DNA of massive numbers of humans around the world, turning them into mutants called Wels to collect flesh to reconstruct their god, an all-powerful war machine called Deus that crash-landed on the planet ten thousand years ago. During this time, Elly and Fei become romantically involved with each other and learn that they are the reincarnations of Sophia and Lacan. Lacan was a painter while Sophia was the Holy Mother of Nisan around the time of the war between Shevat and Solaris five hundred years earlier. Lacan blamed himself for Sophia's death during the war and, with the help of Miang, became Grahf and sought to destroy the world. Although defeated, he and Miang have transmigrated their minds into other humans since. Krelian disposes the Gazel Ministry because they are no longer necessary and kidnaps Elly, the Mother, with Miang who must be sacrificed in order to revive Deus. Miang is killed by an enraged Ramsus as he realizes he has been used, and Elly turns into Miang. Before becoming absorbed by Deus with Krelian, Miang revealed that Deus is actually the core of an interplanetary invasion system created by a federation of spacefaring humans, one that was deemed far too dangerous for use and was therefore dismantled. Fei, as Id, attempts to make contact with the Zohar. Wiseman, who reveals himself to be Fei's father, stops him, giving peace to Fei's other personalities. At this time, Fei makes contact with the Wave Existence—an extra-dimensional being who is trapped inside Deus and is the source of power for all gears—and learns that he must destroy Deus to free humanity. Fei's gear transforms into the Xenogears and Grahf appears, revealing that he had been inside Fei's father's body.[28] Grahf tries to merge with Fei but is defeated and sacrifices himself.

Fei had discovered that he is a descendant of Abel, a young boy who was a passenger on board the Eldridge, a spaceship that was being used to transport Deus, who had become self-aware and took over the Eldridge. Amidst the confusion, Abel was separated from his mother and accidentally made contact with the Wave Existence through the Zohar, Deus' power source. It gave him the power to one day destroy Deus and the Zohar in order to free itself. The Wave Existence also sensed Abel's longing for his mother and used the biological computer Kadomony to create a woman for a companion. When Deus gained full control over the Eldridge, the captain decided to initiate the self-destruct sequence in an attempt to destroy it. Both Deus and the Zohar survived the explosion and landed on a nearby planet along with Abel, under the protection of the Wave Existence. He was the sole survivor, but was soon united with the woman that the Wave Existence had created for him as a companion, Elly. Abel and Elly, at first, led a happy life, but Deus had also created Miang, Cain, and the Gazel Ministry to begin a human civilization on the planet, one which would be under their control to one day be turned into Wels and be absorbed into Deus to recover its strength. When the now-adult Abel and Elly discovered this, they openly challenged Cain and the Gazel Ministry, but lost and were both killed. However, through the power of the Wave Existence, they are able to be reincarnated in later eras to combat Deus.[14] One of these incarnations lived during an ancient technologically advanced era in Zeboim, where Abel's incarnation went by the name Kim and created Emeralda. Ramsus, revealed to be a biologically engineered clone of Emperor Cain, who had a change of heart overtime after killing Abel, created by Krelian and Miang as a means of controlling Deus who was rejected in favor of Fei, hence his hatred of the latter, attacks one more time and is finally defeated. He is later rescued during an attack and convinced to let go of his anger and aid the group.

Fei sets out to destroy Deus and free the Wave Existence and Elly. In Merkaba, the party defeats Deus, but they realize that the energy released from the Wave Existence's shift will destroy the planet. Elly, inside Deus, tries to move it away from the planet and Fei, in his Xenogears, follows to save her, but both disappear in the rift. Krelian confronts them, telling Fei he only sought to end the pain and suffering that comes with human existence by reverting everything back to when it all began, when all was one, to ascend to the realm of God. Fei rejects Krelian's ideology with his love for Elly, but Krelian challenges Fei, telling him to prove this love that could make him independent of God, and calls forth Urobolus, a gigantic serpentine incarnation of Miang. Xenogears appears and Fei uses it to defeat Urobolus, destroying Miang for good. Krelian releases Elly and reveals to Fei that he had planned to become one with God along with Elly. During her time with Krelian, Elly had seen inside his heart and realized it was full of sadness and despair for all the atrocities he had committed. Despite everything, Elly says that Krelian truly loved people more than anyone else. Because no one will forgive his sins, he declines Fei's offer to return and ascends to a higher plane of existence along with the Wave Existence, telling Fei and Elly that he envies them. Fei and Elly then return to their planet along with Xenogears and reunite with the rest of the party.

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, Arcane for Citan,Control for Maria and Ether for everyone else. All characters besides Maria and Chu-Chu have another option called "Combo" where the player 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
The attack system is very basic: there are three different levels of attacks, each doing different amounts of damage and using different levels of energy. Pressing Triangle uses a weak attack and one point of energy, pressing Square uses a strong attack and two points of energy, and pressing X uses a fierce attack and three points of energy. At the beginning of the game, the player only has three energy points to use per turn, meaning one could string together one fierce attack, three weak attacks, or one strong attack and one weak attack. After that the character's turn ends. It is not required to use all points in a turn, because if the Circle button is pressed, the party will stop attacking and have the remaining points go towards increasing their AP. Throughout the game, it is possible to gain up to seven points from leveling up and an additional one once a certain point in the story is reached. It is also possible to perform button combinations to use a Death Blow which are much stronger attacks. The first combination that can be used is Fei's Death Blow performed by pressing Triangle then Square.

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

Item
The character uses an item. This takes up that character's turn.

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

Combo
Given you have enough A.P. accumulated, the character 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 the player is in an area that can be traversed with a gear AND previously were in said gear. Calling the 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. It is unknown whether it can still be transferred onto a Playstation Portable following the removal of PSP purchases on July 2nd, 2021.