Xenogears is awesome!
 

I could just leave it at that, but since spam makes me (and the mods) sick, I guess I'll just have to wax on about one of my top 3 games.

(It had been stolen from me some years back, and I finally was able to replace it. 56 total on ebay for a near flawless black label copy that arrived on... St. Patrick's Day. As well as my federal refund. BEST ST. PATRICK'S DAY EVAR!)

And now because I love lists like Fifth loves hookers, here are the top ten reasons why Xenogears is awesome.

10. One of the best intro's to a game I've ever seen.

9. Giant Fuckin' Robots!

8. Fun and flashy combat that's a step above button mashing.

7. Cool minigames. (Speed FTW!)

6. Complex and smart villains.

5. Men. Of the sea. Never say die!

4. Any scene featuring either that red-haired badass or his gear. (You KNOW who I mean.)

3. One of the best videogame soundtracks ever.

2. Satisfying (and tear-jerking) ending.

1. Cause I said soooo. (slowly waves hand)

Sure, it has a few issues. But you don't have to be perfect to be really fucking great.

The Wandering God

P.S. Screw all you haters, I like the second disc just as much as the first.

Well yeah the second disk kinda did suck and I'm still saddened that (spoilers) we couldn't actually play through those parts of the game instead of having it narrated to you and jump to the boss fight or whatever.

Oh and btw The Wandering God, you totally left Grahf and Citan off that list. Their reason for being on that list needs no explanation if you've played the game.

Spoilers
Can you give me any specific examples of how you could of played through what was narrated? I've never gotten the point of how the gameplay would have been expected to work. And besides, it's not like the entire disc is like that anyway.

And if I put everything that had a reason for being on the list, on the list, I would have had to make a top 50 or something ridiculous. I didn't even go into the intricate (and yes, at times obtuse) plot. But that's what other people are for.

"Dost thou desire the power?" That was this close to being on the list.

The Wandering God

Spoilers
Off the top of my head I do remember them detailing going into bases near the end looking for the anima relics or whatever they were called and basically jumping directly to the boss of the dungeon. They were also numerous times where instead of playing through the events as you did in the 1st disc you were told what happened and then played through a dungeon/base. You're right it didn't happen the entire 2nd disc but it still felt bad. I also hated how you couldn't revisit half the places at the end of the game.

Man, I loved that game. I wish my save hadnt been deleted though, I never beat it.

Such a great game; at least all of Disc One was, anyway. Unfortunately Square tried to rush Xenogears through production, and Disc 2 suffered a tad. Several segments of Disc 2 were intended to be more playable than they ended up.

Hey, is that the first version of Elly or something as the Cap's daughter in that intro?

Anyway, what I loved about Xenogears was how the story was so damn thorough. I mean everything that happened had meaning and it wasn't just the story about a few significant characters, it was the story about an entire planet from creation onwards. Of course I didn't understand the ending for the life of me, but ehh, details. Also, Bart kicks ass even if he likes incest a bit too much for my liking, but then again, isn't Elly and Fei's relationship inherently incestual as well after all these generations?

Actually...

The captain's daughter on the spaceship in the beginning was probably from Earth and thus isn't Elly. The "Elly" that keeps popping up generation after generation didn't happen until AFTER the crash when Miang gave birth to the human race on that planet. Also the first Elly was the one with Abel (where Cain ran them down in the desert). Also I don't really think Elly and Fei (Abel, Kim, and Lacan)'s relationship was really incest since it was their spirits that were born again hundreds of years later and in different families.

No kidding, whats with Bart and Marge. Unless they're cousins in the political sense or sopmething, otherwise, its just straight up incest.

This was the first game I've played where the story went "You know what? Fuck this will-they-or-not shit, we'll let 'em have sex!"

Seriously.

To add to this:
Actually, the first and second anima relic dungeons were, well, partially complete. There was a very obvious lead-up to the second in which nothing was followed through, but these weren't so bad.

The Eldridge, however, was particularly blatant. You are told of finding the ship and going through it, rather than actually doing either, and fight two bosses in succession, when you obviously should've dungeoned through a damn ship.

That time where you create the giant, Yggdrasil gearzord thing was also obviously missing quite a bit of playing through, perhaps, the nether regions of the castle to activate the damn thing. So too with the part where Elly tries to help the Wels and they fuse into a giant Wels-thing. Sufal Mass or something like that, where there probably should've been some playing through the installation.

The part that hits me hardest is how, say, the return to Kislev is the perfect place to add to the characterization of Rico, of which much was planned. I mean, it obviously fits in there. However, since that never materialized, Rico is left perhaps the least interesting character, and he deserved better than that.

Then, in the Merkava, you fight through the very last section of it. You go through it again, or rather, something similar, as the last dungeon, but there clearly would've been a pre-version before that that just got hacked off.

And back to the eldridge, after you get your ass beat, there's the long scene where Elly comes to rescue you. She gets her Omnigear, the one Omnigear you never get to use through the game. Well, that gear's code all exists in a final, usable state. However, the march up to Golgoda and the boss fight with the tweedledum and tweedledee, using said omnigear, wasn't created, so the vestigial code is left buried in the game, uselessly.

So... uhh... that.