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
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 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.