Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht

"(Import) Epic... cinimatic... fun... and Xenocard^.^"

It's important that I start off this review by saying I don't really like Xenogears. That's just my feelings on it. I was much more fond of reading the script than I was playing the game. Since I gave this game a 9/10, if you liked Xenogears you'd likely rate it higher. As with most of my reviews I'll be joined by Rieka, a review tag narrator (what she says is in italics) and she liked Xenogears so this is going to be interesting.

Control: 10/10 Very rarely does an RPG ever have bad control
She's right, actually. Triangle brings up the menu, X cancels, O accepts, START pauses, holding R makes them walk or you can use the analogue for speed control... Not really much to say here.

Story: 10/10 Shed a tear, laughed, and cheered.
The story of this game is amazingly executed. Gorgeous voice acting, wonderful camera work, amazing plot twists, beautifully directed cinematics and the most wonderful, beautiful ending I've ever seen in a videogame, movie or book. I've never cried so much from joy at an ending in my entire life!

But alas, it's only episode 1. Many plot elements and even characters go unresolved. This only makes us long for episode 2 that much more. It's not like it hasn't been done before, though. MGS, Soul Reaver, Star Wars...

Also, pure sci-fi RPGs are very hard to come by. Even ones like Shadowrun and FF8 still have many fantasy elements. The feeling of sci-fi purity which Xenosaga emits is beyond ultimate.

Characters: 10/10 From somebody who got an A+ with honours in Character Design in school, I'm so jealous.
I'll field this one because Dragnfly (JEdwards) will be biased. He'd have given it a 50/10. The characters in this game are all very lovable and very, very real. This poses a small problem though. It's regarding the villain, Albedo.

After a certain scene I felt... I don't know... Weird. Like that feeling you get when somebody you don't know is staring at you or when a guy shakes your hand and won't let go. Let me mention a true story. When I was about 13 a boy from school had caught a mouse. While a bunch of us were deciding what to do with it, he stabbed it to death with a piece of metal. The feeling I had then is the same as the feeling I have about Albedo. Working with Dragnfly I think I'd be used to shocking characters like these but Albedo is... He brings back bad memories for me. This is when you need to ask how much is too much. Dragnfly will say he's a marvel of character design but in my opinion they really should have toned him down. Any character which makes me feel scared to be alone at night is a bad character design in my opinion.

On the flip side, he's right in a way. The fact that he can have that kind of effect on me means he is very well-written. I'm kind of tossed on the idea.

As for the other characters, they are amazing too, though not in a bad way. Chaos is very deep, Jr's had it rough and this is very well-portrayed, MOMO is very lovable, and Shion is the most well-written main character in any game I've played.

This brings us to the two extremes of the game. Ziggy and Kos-Mos. Ziggy is kind of... Well... He's just there. I never really used him and didn't like him. I sure hope they enhance his design for the next game.

Then we come to Kos-Mos, the anti-gnosis combat android. She is at that level of cool where, if you need to use the washroom real bad and Kos-Mos suddenly shows up on screen you hold it because you don't want to miss the inevitably cool thing she's about to do. I'd also love to have hair like that. I do have one small issue with Kos-Mos. When you see the 3D model, say when selecting an ether attack, there seems to be a large focus put on drawing attention to her breasts. Maybe I'm just a pervert Nobody doubts you but it seems very planned. Though not DOA, it sure is attention-grabbing. You're a pervert. AHEM! Anyway...

The secondary characters are also amazingly well designed. Everything from politicians to combatants, the characters are all very real.

BGM: 9/10 2/10 It kind of has two BGMs
Like many games I play, I give this two BGM scores. You see, alot of Xenosaga's BGM is just ambient sounds of the ship's engines, water running, ect. Although it's fade-in and fade-out is a bit too sudden, leading me to believe the characters are hard of hearing they are very good sound effects. Now, whenever a cin or combat occurs we are treated to absolutely beautiful mood music. This adds alot to the game's focal point, the story. I personally feel it suits this type of game better.

Sound Effects: 9/10
From voice acting to gunfire the sound is amazing. Nothing beats Kos-Mos' X-buster on a good sound system. You FEEL the lasers cutting into the enemy. They suit the game very well and nothing gets annoying. Although I'm sure when MOMO summons her gear she's saying ''Kitty Egg Soup!'' That'll likely be different in the English version.

Graphics: 10/10 In perspective, this is equivalent to FF7 on PSX time-wise. Meaning the PS2 still has alot more muscle to show off. That said, note that the gameplay looks almost as good as shows like Run=Dim or the FMVs of ZOE. Absolutely amazing.
The graphics in Xenosaga are beyond that of FFX or MGS2. Far beyond. Character animations are smoother and more natural and their facial expressions are supreme. Even better scripted than in movies by Disney or some of Japan's famous animators. They're also not afraid to show combat and action scenes in cinematics, which is a plus. The entire game takes place in deep space so they have no problem filling it with fleets of ships, aliens, mechs and explosions. Anything beam or energy related in this game uses the cymex PS2 glow plug-in which looks beyond beautiful. Especially when yosed over 70 times on screen at once.

Fun Factor: 8/10 Not a long game, but hear us out
Since the gameplay was the main reason why I disliked Xenogears I had low hopes for this. I was amazed. They fixed EVERYTHING! Absolutely EVERYTHING! No more clipping causing you to go through an annoying dungeon all over again. No more fights that take forever! No more dreading a 2nd playthrough. Xenosaga sports a major bonus. The ability to skip almost anything from some attack animations to any cinematic to the ENDING! This isn't the only bonus of this. You can also pause the game anywhere and the save points are very abundant. No more having to play over the same scene 30 times because each time you had to leave or the power went out.

The combat is also very fun and battles are wandering, not random. This is a big bonus. It also has combat difficulty! An RPG with combat difficulty! I was amazed. Sadly, the final boss goes down in four turns.

I do have a problem with the gears. They're good at first but about 1/8th into the game they become useless as your characters are doing far more damage, can be revived and healed at will and are much faster. I was lucky to get 500 damage out of a fully beefed-up gear while Kos-Mos was pimping enemies for 1500 a turn, x2 because she would boost and go twice.

As far as minigames go, Xenosaga has some good ones. There's a drilling game similar to those evil claw machines in amusement parks. There's also a casino with cheating slots and fun poker (with an added hi-low game to keep/double your winnings after a successful hand) and an Armoured Core 2-esque deathmatch. Although it's controls aren't the best, it's good mayhem action and isn't forced on you like it was in Xenogears.

Then comes Xenocard. Xenocard is a CCG similar to Battletech, Animayhem, Magic the Gather, Legend of the Five Rings... It's a long list. One time when we both had three days off we soon realized we'd spent 42 straight hours playing Xenocard and didn't even notice! Xenocard is very addictive and everything from deck construction to exhibition matches to card collecting to tournaments is perfectly executed. In my opinion it's the ultimate minigame. I would've paid $50cdn JUST for Xenocard and had Xenosaga be the minigame.

Difficulty: 4/10 (closer to 5 the better)
I shouldn't rate this in an RPG but Xenosaga warrants an honourable mention. It has difficulty. You need to think to win some battles and since not all fights net you reward money you have to be extra careful. It suffers from pathetic-final-boss syndrome but that's a given with RPGs.

Feel: 10/10
The most important score to me. Although not for everybody this game has that certain umph which makes you want to play and play some more. Truly a job well done in this department.

Instruction book/packaging: 9/10The lucky jerk got the LE box import, so expect this to be long and bloated.
Not so. Just short and sweet. The game's package is simple yet nice. It has the famous Kos-Mos angel pic on the back, some screenshots, some text. It's not bad but it's not eye catching until you look at the back. The instructions are on very flimsy paper but I've been told all Japanese instruction booklets are like these. The instructions are in Japanese. I didn't read them. Didn't need them. The game's that easy to understand.

Overall: 9.8999999/10
A must for any RPG player who values story over dungeon crawls. Although the dungeons are cool and fun there aren't very many. However, I promise you the raw feel of this game will keep you hooked and Xenocard will keep you in it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/02, Updated 06/30/02