Updated 04-May-2020.
Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about XENOGEARS!
My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: Xenogears is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console . the gameplay revolves around navigating 3D environments both on-foot and using humanoid created by Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife Kaori Tanaka as a proposal for Final Fantasy VII . allowed to be developed as its own project, first as sequel to Chrono Trigger . the game was nearly left unlocalized due to its religious content . by 2003, the game had shipped over a million copies worldwide . Takahashi would later find Monolith Soft and develop the Xenosaga trilogy Xenogears features both traditional anime and pre-rendered CGI movie clips by Production I.G . the player advances the protagonist and his companions through a three-dimensional fictional world . player-characters use martial arts moves, “Ether” attacks, special “deathblow” combinations . all offensive actions use Action Points (AP), costing either three points, two points, or one point characters can use “Elemental Deathblows” to attach elemental attributes to physical combos . a total of 28 AP may be accumulated for combo attacks . characters can also use a variety of magical abilities some characters’ magical abilities are referred to by different names, implying differences in their origins . while fighting in gears, human Ether abilities are amplified . in gear combat, the limiting factor of “deathblows” may only be executed after first building up the “Attack Level” to reach “Infinity Mode”, a character must stay at attack level 3 while performing any other action . to reach gears can regain fuel with a “Charge” command and activate “Boosters” when gears have no fuel left, they can no longer execute attacks, use special options, or use boosters . gear HP restoration abilities gear fuel, parts, upgrades may be purchased in shops or from individual vendors . a church-like organization known as the Ethos has excavated gears for the preservation of the world’s culture . much of the Xenogears plot and backstory is detailed in the Japanese-only book . produced by the now defunct DigiCube, it details the history of the universe from the discovery of the Zohar the game begins on Ignas, a continent with two countries, Aveh and Kislev . Fei and Citan at first appear to be from this land . they originate from the capital cities of the floating countries of Rico lives in a Kislev prison, spending his days as a gear-battling champion . solaris, a hidden city of advanced technology, is home to several characters in the game . Maria and Chu-Chu significant non-playable characters include Krelian and Miang . they serve as the game’s main antagonists . Grahf, a mysterious man with immense power, serves as a major antagonist . the events surrounding Fei’s arrival at the village cause him to have retrograde amnesia . he pilots an empty gear and fights the enemy, accidentally destroying the village . Fei meets Elly, Fei wakes up in a Kislev prison and meets Wiseman, a mysterious masked man . he originally brought Fei to Lahan, but he and Elly are separated from the rest the group discovers a young girl composed of nanomachines . the group fights Id, the mysterious red gear’s pilot, who wants the girl . Fei and his friends ally themselves with the floating city of Shevat, the only city capable of resisting Solaris . Bart regains his throne and initiates peace between the two countries and Stone is the party learns that Citan has been working for Emperor Cain . Citan is actually a double agent on their side . the gazel ministry seeks to revive God and achieve eternal life . lacan blamed himself for Sophia’s death during the war and became Grahf . with the help of Miang, they have transmigrated their minds into other humans since . Krelian and Miang dispose of the Emperor Fei’s gear transforms into the Xenogears and Grahf appears, revealing that he had been inside his father’s body . Wiseman stops him, giving peace to Fe Deus had become self-aware and took over the Eldridge . the captain initiated the self-destruct sequence in an attempt to destroy it . he could destroy Deus and the Zohar in order to free itself both Deus and the Zohar survived the explosion and landed on a nearby planet . he was the sole survivor, but was soon united with the woman that the Wave Existence had created for him as a companion Abel’s incarnation lived during an ancient technologically advanced era in Zeboim . Ramsus, revealed to be a biologically engineered clone of Emperor cain, attacked one more time Krelian tells Fei he only wanted to end pain and suffering of human existence . he wants to return everything back to when it all began, when all was one, to ascend to realm of God . Fei reject the scenario of the game was written by director Tetsuya Takahashi and by Kaori Tanaka . Fei and Elly return to their planet along with Xenogears and reunite with Xenogears was an early concept conceived by Tetsuya Takahashi and Kaori Tanaka for the Square game Final Fantasy VII . it was “too dark and complicated for a initial concept was to make Xenogears a sequel to Chrono Trigger . it was decided to make it a completely original title . Takahashi was frustrated with the Final Fantasy series . the word “Xeno” had been decided between staff from an early stage . the game’s use of anime cutscenes was chosen . it was difficult to properly recreate Tanaka’s Gear artwork into 3D CGI a large portion of story and artwork did not make it into the final game . the themes and story were greatly influenced by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung . Xenogears may not have come out in the u.s. due to “sensitive religious issues” the english translation of the game was the first in which an english localization team worked directly with Square developers. Honeywood unintentionally had a hand in the Japanese naming of Deus: the staff were originally going to call it Yahweh . Seeing it as a good pun, the staff used Yabeh as the score contains 41 instrumental tracks, a choral track and two songs . Xenogears belongs to the traditional music genre, according to mitsuda . there are two vocal tracks included on the the scene was removed for pacing issues, as it would have made the combined opening movie and introduction scenes last roughly ten minutes . an arranged soundtrack of Xenogears also composed and arranged by Mits the album features five vocal tracks and five instrumental tracks . the main lyricist, Junko Kudo, wrote the lyrics to four of the five vocal songs . Mitsuda wrote lyrics to the title track a 20th anniversary concert was held in Tokyo, Japan on April 7 and 8 . Xenogears God Slaying Story was published by Shueisha in 1998 . Xenogears was voted the 16th best video game of all time by its readers in a poll held in 2006 . it was re-released as a Greatest Hits title in 2003 Xenogears was voted the 32nd “Best Game Ever” in 2005 . it was placed in the same position in IGN’s “Top 100 Games – Readers Choice” feature in 2006 . Xenogears remains one of the most keenly eulogized PlayStation RPGs . the game’s story and characters were well received . Electronic gaming monthly said it is “rich in story and character IGN says storyline is intricate, engrossing, “deep, complex, and once in a while confusing” GameSpot says story is “excellent” but can be “a little preachy at times” Game reviewers largely praised Xenogears’ gameplay . next generation praised Square’s Active Time Battle gauge . Xenogears is the first Square game to feature voice overs and anime cut scenes . egm says they are “some of the slickest animation cinemas” they have seen . in 1999, Tanaka revealed that a project related to Xenogears was being developed . there was speculation that Namco and Monolith Soft’s Xenosaga was a prequel when it was Takahashi: “it’s probably more suitable to say that it follows the direction and style of Xenogears” “we figured we should start everything from scratch all over again,” he says . Xenogears staff worked on Sands of Destruction, a role-playing game for the nintendo ds . gears from the game, along with avatars of Fei and