Battling

Battling is a minigame in Xenogears. It is a 3D fighting game with Gears as playable characters. It is playable by going to C Block in Nortune. The minigame must be played and won several times to advance the story.

Gameplay
Battling's gameplay is completely unlike the rest of Xenogears, being real time, 3D, being able to move the player character, and having multiplayer. Like Xenogears' regular combat, Battling is also inspired by fighting games.

In it, two Gears battle, with the screen facing side on, with the goal of the reducing the opponent Gear's Durability (health) to zero. Battles take place in a 3D map that has various terrain types, elevations, and flatness, which effects attacks. At the edge of the map is a ring wall, that stops all movement against it.

Players have access to three attack buttons: A, B, and Ether. A and B for most attacks are rekkas, which allow for different combo attacks that change depending on what step of the combo the user is in and what button they press. Ether attacks are homing projectiles! Some hits of a rekka have the ability to act as launchers, sending the opponent high up in the air, and when they land, they will be knocked down. They are vulnerable when in knockdown state, although only provided the player has a hitbox that reaches them. The player can also juggle them with another launcher before they land. Remember that Battling is a 3D game and so hitbox and terrain elevation matter! Ether attacks are homing projectiles, and increase the heat gauge when used, and they can also be used while midair, unlike A and B attacks.

Gears' movement is very fast and slippery to catch, being able to use booster and jumps for evasion and running away. Using the booster also increases the heat gauge. When the heat gauge is full, a indicator will turn from blue to yellow, and using booster or ether attacks will now do damage to the user's gear. The indicator will turn red when the heat gauge is full and the user's Gear has no durability left, meaning they cannot use anymore booster or ether attacks. The heat gauge constantly decreases when doing anything that doesn't increase it.

When getting hit, the player cannot control their character and they take damage, and this called hitstun. When the player's block gets hit, their Gear takes less damage, and they go through a state known as blockstun before being able to release block and act again. In addition, damage dealt is consistent across the roster, as Gears have had their defences balanced by the coordinators.

There is no timer, and mirror matches are impossible.

Movement
Pressing up moves the character away from the screen, and down moves them closer. Right and left right toward or away from the enemy (running has a turnaround). When close to the opponent, pressing away from them does a backdash. Triangle does a jump. When jumping, the player is locked into their trajectory and can only do Ether Bullets, so be careful! Actionable immediately upon landing, and cancels attack ending lag early. Circle button is booster, which lets the player accelerate their regular movement! This doesn't work when doing a back dash. L1 is the block button. Like jumping, it cancels the recovery frames of some attacks early. Since blocking can be stopped immediately, this lets the player start another attack earlier than normal, by doing an attack, blocking, unblocking, and then attacking again.

Attacks
Square button gives the player a A attacks. Cross button gives the player a B attack. R1 uses an ether attack, a projectile attack that homes in to the opponent, and doesn't interrupt movement.

Special Mode 1
Special Mode 1 is a sort of freeplay mode, where the player is put into a fiery menu that lets them choose to play versus, practice, or tutorial mode.

In the versus menu (Bonus Battling), the player can choose to play versus the computer, or a second player. They can also select computer versus computer ("Demo Mode"). Under these different versus modes, there is configuration settings. These settings change the number of rounds (confusingly referred to in the menu as "matches"), change computer algorithm to use ("Easy," "Normal," and "Hard"), and turn rubber band on and off. Rubber band adds a literal rubber band between the Gears, forcing them into a maximum proximity with each other, and reducing the effectiveness of otherwise oppressive, full map zoning strategies (otherwise known as the ground based footsies Xenogears is known for). Waiting on the setting menu for long enough triggers a demonstration fight between two computer Gears in a void, with heavy motion blur due to afterimage effects not present in regular battling.

Special Mode 2
Special Mode 1 becomes available after completing the story segments of Battling, and allows the player to earn Battle Points(BP), which can be used to exchange for rewards when speaking to the BP-Exchanger Girl. There are different Gear levels, and the player is forced into a fight progression with Weltall.

Practice Mode
Practice Mode gives the player infinite resources to practice techniques. It has no heat gauge, and no health bars. It can be accessed from either the Special Mode menus (via talking to Receptionist), or by asking about the controls from the Informationist. The player can only choose which Gears participate in Practice Mode by accessing it via the Receptionist.

In the top left of the screen, there is an interface that has a basic input display, attack damage, and attack frame data. The input displays Cross A and B attacks, and ether attacks, and their rekka comboes. For A and B attacks, the first number in attack frame data displays the start frame of the attack's hitbox, and the second displays when the hitbox ends. The data shown is slightly off, usually by just one frame, and is also inconsistent.

Enabling rubber band on Bonus Battling before selecting practice enables the rubber band during practice.

Settings Menu
The pause menu has settings that allows the player to change the frame rate and opponent settings. The opponent settings include player 2 control, and are as follows: Bystander: Do nothing On Guard: The computer will guard for several second intervals, and then stop blocking. After some time, they will continue blocking. Controller2: The opponent will be controlled with the second controller. Up and At'em: Slowpoke: Magic Firer: Regularly fires Ether Bullets. Magic Jumper: Fires Ether Bullets in the air regularly. Kangaroo: the computer jumps periodically. Give Chase: The computer will pursue the player with regular movement. Run Away: The computer will attempt to use regular movement to stay away from the player once in range. Back Dash: The computer will back dash whenever close enough to the player to backdash. Easy Battle: Normal Battle: Hard Battle:

The available frame rates are 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 fps. Battles take place in 30fps. Lower values act as slow motion (there is no frame interpolation; it is just playing game logic at a lower rate than what it was designed for).

Pressing L2 in the pause menu blurs the background more for some reason.

Playable Gears
All story-required Battling rounds use as the player-controlled Gear.