The brains behind the Mechwarrior franchise officially did the "Giant Lumbering Robot" genre to death. The Heavy Gear people, not waiting for the corpse to cool, jumped onto the bandwagon with considerable alacrity, and in a flurry of mixed metaphors proceeded to pound the dead horse further into the ground than I had previously imagined possible. Thus you can imagine how I cringed when I saw that SquareSoft's next title seemed to revolve around massive Voltron clones. Luckily, Xenogears is not one of those games.

Granted, it does have giant robots, and the giant robots do have giant guns, and the giant guns do make beautiful eye-candy explosions, but the similarities end there. First of all, you can check your twitch skills at the door. Xenogears is a role-playing game.

Now, I imagine that there are some people out there who are starting to get tired of seeing SquareSoft pump out RPG after RPG. I'm not one of those people, nor can I relate to them on any level other than cellular. I love these games, and am yet to be disappointed by the storytellers at Square, and it would seem that the rift in my life caused by the time between Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VII is going to be neatly filled by Xenogears.

The story behind Xenogears is that of two rival kingdoms who, for reasons that have long been shrouded by the mists of time, feel an overwhelming compulsion to bomb one another back into the stone age. This lofty goal is made much easier to attain through the use of "Gears", which are the aforementioned giant robots. However, and I feel that this is one of the main strengths of this game, the story doesn't revolve around the gears. It revolves around Fei.

Fei is a young man with an unknown past who was left in a small village by a mysterious man with little more than the shirt on his back and an in-depth knowledge of a myriad of ways to brutally end a man's life using common household objects. This village is where the game begins. The game's 10+ minute opening anime movie freezes on a picture of a city engulfed in flames, which turns out to be a painting in progress that Fei is applying to canvas. From this point on the game follows Fei as he wanders the village, tries to break up a friend's marriage, and goes to visit a friend in the mountains. This little jaunt gives the gamer ample time to experience Xenogear's innovative combat system, and gives him a taste of things to come when the return trip is interrupted by a squadron of gun-toting gargantuans. So far, this doesn't sound like anything new. We've seen giant robots. We've seen mysterious kung-fu masters. Granted, I don't think we've ever seen a mysterious kung-fu master piloting a giant robot, but it's still not all that terribly original. So what does Xenogears have to offer us?
Plenty. First of all, the combat system is one of the most interesting and enjoyable that I have seen in a game of this type. Each character has three types of attacks. Each type of attack takes up a certain number of action points (1, 2, or 3, respectively) and you can keep attacking until you run out. Seven action points is the most that a character can have, but this is plenty to do some serious damage. In addition to this, certain combinations of attacks create special combos that can have effects ranging from Street Fighter-esque fireballs to laser beams to sheer physical brutalizations. Asides from these combo attacks, there is a full range of the expected magical spells (in two flavors, Chi and Ether) and restorative items to round out the supply list.

This isn't to say that combat is the only thing this game is good at. The engine behind Xenogears is extremely well designed. I'm used to games where when you're walking around the world you can rotate the screen left or right with the shoulder buttons on the controller, but I have never seen it done so effectively. Walls in rooms clip in and out of view so smoothly and clearly that I found myself rotating the screen in amazement. Someone obviously put a lot of effort into making this game run well, and it paid off immensely. The environments you find yourself walking through are all beautifully rendered. One scene, for example, sets you in the upper balcony of a large cathedral. I do not exaggerate when I say that this is the most absolutely beautiful scene I have seen done in a console game. Sunbeams stream in through stained glass windows, statues hover majestically near the altar, and the entire effect is amazingly well done.

Now, before I heap the accolades too high, this game does have some serious issues. For example, while most of the graphics are wonderful during the FMV and anime cut scenes, they aren't quite as impressive once you get into the actual game. I mean, I expect to see characters look a little bit pixilated on a 53" screen, but these were ugly. There were times when I was tempted to go find a ruler just to see how far across the pixels actually were. This problem was especially distracting whenever a character would walk towards the foreground. I'm not saying that it seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the game, but I have a great deal of difficulty taking a man seriously when he looks like he's composed of legos.

My only other major problem with this title is one that I didn't think I would ever find myself complaining about. I have never been one to chastise a game for being too plot heavy. I completely believe that after playing the latest shoot-em-ups, it's good to sit down for a while with something a bit more cerebral. Unfortunately, Xenogears takes this theory to a bit of an extreme. There are tons of in-engine cut scenes in this game. Scenes where you'll be strolling along, merrily playing the game, and suddenly the computer will take over to develop a vital piece of the story line. Now, this isn't normally a problem, but a typical cutscene in Xenogears lasts 3 to 6 minutes, and they are constantly occurring. The amount of time you spend playing Xenogears is nearly equaled by the amount of time you will spend just watching things happen, and while the storyline is interesting, it's nice to feel like you have some control over the events. When control keeps being snatched away from you, it is difficult to sustain this illusion. Graphics: The graphics in Xenogears ran the gamut from breathtaking to slumber-inducing. The anime cut scenes were all spectacular. They were animated and drawn very well, and greatly added to the story. Personally, I'm a long time fan of animation of all kinds, and it was nice to see it used so well in a video game. However, the graphics in the game's engine were often somewhat flat and overly pixilated. They were never so bad that they detracted from the gaming experience, however.

Interface: I had previously mentioned how well done Xenogear's engine was, and I'm not about to retract that statement. It is marvelously well done. The problem comes when you try to actually play a game in an entirely 3D rotatable environment. There is always a compass in the lower right hand corner of the screen, but it doesn't help all that much. It is very easy to get disoriented in this game, especially when exploring a new town. You may rotate the camera one way to find an entrance to a building, rotate it three more times for various activities in the building, and by the time you leave to move on to other things, you've probably forgotten which way you were going. This can be somewhat frustrating, at times, but you get used to it as the game goes on.

Gameplay: Xenogear's gameplay is simply top notch. The combat engine is lots of fun to play around with, and the vast multitude of moves available to each character, either on foot or in mechs ensures that it never gets boring. The only problem is that there aren't nearly enough opportunities for this facet of the game to shine, as control is constantly being wrested away from the player so you can watch yet another in-engine cutscene. Regardless of this, though, the game is extremely fun.

Sound FX: The shooting of the guns, the slamming of the punches, and the clanging of armored fists against armored bodies are all very well done and believable. While they do sometimes get repetitive, such occasions are rare and easily overlooked.

Musical Score: I don't know who it is that SquareSoft keeps getting to compose music for their games, but they should keep him-- and give him a raise. The music in Xenogears is among the best that I've heard for a game of it's type. It changes along with the action in the game, and keeps things moving along very well.

Intelligence & Difficulty: The enemy AI in this game really isn't much to speak of. Enemies hit you, heal themselves (if they can) when their life gets low, and then hit you again -- pretty standard RPG fare. The overall difficulty of the game seems very well balanced. Most of the more difficult fights in the game require a strategy of some sort of be worked out, and the player usually feels rewarded when victory is achieved.

Overall: In a lot of ways, Xenogears seems more like a novel than a game. Partially due to the amount of time you spend reading on screen text while the game plays itself, and partially due to the complexity of the plot. If you like games with solid, well thought out story lines, then you will find Xenogears very enjoyable. Even if you don't, you'll probably find the game well worth your while to give a look. However, I can imagine some gamers with shorter attention spans quickly tiring of the game and going back to more immediately gratifying amusements.