STORY

The story begins with the space vessel, The Eldridge, which is carrying some kind of precious cargo, and its attack by some force that has invaded their computers and compromised all of the ships systems. This in effect turns the ship against its them, causing escape pods with people to be shot down by the ship's own cannons and the engines to go awry. The Eldridge's captain decides to take matters into his own and hands and self-explodes the craft, sending it plummeting down to the surface of a near by planet. As the smoke clears and the debris lay still, a single young woman with indigo hair stands on the beach to watch the birth of a new day.
Thus begins the current story of Fei Fong Wong in the tiny village of Lahan, where he lives without remembering much of his past due to an unknown trauma. Then as Lahan is visited by a stolen Gear, or a giant combat robot, that's piloted someone from the war-ridden countries of Kislev and Aveh, sending Fei and his allies into battle for more than a country. They find out that their fight is for the right to exist and to fight the intentions of an "ancient" evil that will make them all gods in its eyes. The story is a very complex tale of technology and science with the usual dosage of RPG magic. Fei and his friends all grow together to make an unstoppable fighting force. However, they don't always get along at first. If they did, then there wouldn't be much left for story branches...but I digress. It will leave you guessing and thinking as you play throughout the game. And with up to 50-60 hours of gameplay, you will have a lot of time to fall into the storyline, which is the main driving component of Xenogears. This story's sheer epic feel and spirit will have you begging for more!

It was the first game that used animation in the FMV sequences and they were far more effective than CGI.  They added to the story and made it feel more like an anime film than a game. 

	This scene is at the beginning of the game when a group of mechs attack Feis town and destroy the town.  Fei is looking of any survivors and this is the first scene where we see the powers of ID. It doesn't make much sense, just like the rest of the game.
	In this scene we are watching Fei as a young boy and this occurs after he uses his powers to protect his father from a man called Gharf. Fei doesn't know this yet but he is in fact attacking himself.

It used a unique system for battle, more akin to a beat’em’up.  You would learn a special set of moves that you have a short time to pull off before you hit you enemy.  These skills sometime were given to you before you were able to use them. It did make the game a bit more purposeful.  I only wish I had an import Playstation; I could have played this properly.  All I had was a copy and I destroyed it after twenty four hours as agreed on the site.  I might get a modded PSX and then I’ll be able to get this game for the USA.  It’s that good.

Update

I have finally finished this game and it took me approximately one hundred and twenty hours.  The main story is convoluted at best and just plain rubbish at worst.  It is like a really badly done day time soap opera.  The characters all seemed to have some problem.  The only character that seemed relatively stable was CHUCHU. 

The graphics was a major problem; I'm not too bothered about the quality but the way that they are displayed.  There were many times when I couldn't see where I was going due to buildings, walls and any other objects getting in the way.  I didn't like the puzzle sections that were thrown in for the sake of extending this game.  There is way too much dialogue.  I reckon from the hundred and twenty hours of game, that seventy hours of it is dialogue. 

Most of it revolves around the developing love between Elly and Fei.  I personally found it tedious at best and wished they would get back to the main story.  If you like love stories in games, knock yourself out.

I would say that this is an average game, that at best is tolerable and at worst will make you want to throw your controller at the screen.  The battles are too frequent and usually start when you're trying to find out where the hell you are and where you're meant to be going.  The only purpose they serve is to level you up and then act as a nuisance.  I hated the battles.  It's not like you are actually fighting. 

The graphics look terrible; I'm not saying that I'm a graphics whore or anything but, they really look terrible today.  I think that maybe back then they would have looked great.

The story does not have one single original idea.  You can see exactly where they got all their ideas from

All the names of the relics are months of the Jewish calendar.

They stole the idea of an artificial intelligence from Ghost in the shell.

They got the idea of the ID from Sigmund Freud.

The Zohar that is found in 2001 is too similar to the black monolith found in 2001.  The black monolith acts as a star gate and I think you will find that the Zohar does exactly the same job and that would explain how humans are able to make contact with the wave existence.

Deus ex machina; sound familiar? it literally mean "god out of machine".

If there is an original idea that they didn't just rip off other peoples ideas, I didn't find it.

Chu Chus is nearly as big as a mech

It is a poor game and I now know why Squaresoft didn't release it in Europe.  It isn't worth the hassle playing.  Even Final Fantasy 8 is better than this piece of tripe.

The back History

2001:  In the year 2001 humans discover a device that they Call Zohar.  It is vibrates an infinite amount of magnetic energy.  I have no ides what that means and what purpose it serves.  I instantly thought of the black monolith when I read this.

some point in the future, the humans come in contact with something called the wave existence, that somehow seems to how from a different dimension to the universe we know.  They merge the wave existence with the zohar and that enable mankind to travel into space.

Man leaves Earth (dubbed old Jerusalem for some reason) and go looking for a habitable planet.  They eventually land on a planet or a planet in a star system m62.

Hundreds of years later; man inhabits two thirds of the galaxy and decide to have a war or something like that.  In the middle of the war, they develop a system called the Deus system (Yahwah).  This is a living weapon and no there is mention as to what purpose it serves and why they made it living.

After Deus destroys a planet, the creators decide to dismantle the Deus system into three important components (Deus, Zohar and Kadomany).  It is put onto the Eldridge.  This is then sent somewhere but in the long flight, the Deus thing wakes up and through Kadamany takes control of the Eldridge and plots a course to Earth.

This is where the opening scene starts.  This can be confusing if you don't know the back story.  In the scene we see the destruction of the Eldridge and eventually see some naked women standing watching the bit of the ship hit the surface of the planet.  What we don't see is Able.  He is the first reincarnation of what eventually become Fei Fong Wong.  He is lead by the Deus to it and makes contact with the wave existence.  That last sentence is very important.  He escapes in a life pod and is the only human that survives the crash.

Once on the surface of the planet, they Deus creates a human called Elyham (or Elly for short) to act as his mother.  Elly is also imprinted in every women to eventually resurrect the Deus system.  Another mother like figure that is created is a women called Miang.  She seems to serve a similar purpose.  She is reincarnated in another women as soon as her previous host is killed.  The difference between her and Elly, is that Elly is only reincarnated five times; the same for Fie Fong Wong. 

The third Life we see is Fei, who is now called Lacan and Elly is called Sophia.  Another war is ensuing and Here is where the first mention of Krillian.  he loves Sophia and wants her to love him but she's in love with Lacan.  Lacan paints a portrait of Sophia.  I don't know how important that is in the overall scheme of the game.  Sophia sacrifices her life to end the wars and Killian looses faith in god and says; "If god is dead, then I will create god with my hands", or something like that.  He sends the next five hundred years perfecting nanotechnology to enable him to resurect the Deus system.  Lacan goes off and tries to merge with the Zohar and the result is the spilt of himself into two entities; Ghraf and ID.  Both of them go off and destroy over ninety percent of the population.

Krillian punishes Queen Zephyr and a handful of other people with immortality.  If that is punishment then, send some of that punishment my way please.