Back on the PlayStation 1, SquareSoft was the undisputed king of JRPGs. Coming off an excellent run on the SNES, with games like Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI, their run on the PSX proved just as, if not more, impressive. Of course, Final Fantasy VII was their most notable, turning the series into an absolute phenomenon, followed by VIII, IX, and Tactics, but also titles such as Chrono Cross, SaGa Frontier, and Parasite Eve. However, as you can undoubtably guess from the title of this article, the standout for me is Xenogears. 

Here’s the part where I admit I’m extremely biased. I’d been aware of the wider Xeno series since about 2015 with release of Xenoblade Chronicles X, but it wasn’t until 2017 when Xenoblade Chronicles 2 released that I got my first real taste of the series. If we cast our minds back to 2020 (I’m sure you’d prefer not to), the first Xenoblade got remastered for the Nintendo Switch. So, after I played it through and replayed the second, I figured that this whole lockdown thing probably wouldn’t end in a while. I decided to go back to where the series, sort of, began (it gets complicated). I quickly found my favourite game of all time, one which I credit with making me who I am today.  

Anyway, what actually is Xenogears about? Well, a lot of things. The game is the brainchild of Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga, who had both been working at Square and made a name for themselves working on graphics and story elements in other games respectively. In 1995, they marry, and after their initial proposal for the game as Final Fantasy VII was rejected for being too dark in tone, they were allowed to make it its own thing. Primary inspirations for the game are Freudian and Jungian psychology, Nietzschean philosophy, and Gundam. Seriously, Takahashi had Gundam figures on his desk for the game’s entire development.  

The story starts out with a stunningly well animated cutscene of a spaceship being taken over and destroyed by some mysterious entity before everyone on board dies and the ship crashes down onto a nearby planet. From the wreckage emerges a woman with long purple hair who observes the sunrise from a shore. Great start! Did any of that make sense to you? Don’t worry, it will in about 40 hours. 

Cut to 9999 years later (I’m sure you didn’t miss anything important). On the continent of Ignas, two nations have been at war for so long that nobody remembers why – Aveh and Kislev. With the discovery of Gears, (the name for the cool giant robots in this game) the war took a turn in Kislev’s favour as they were able to excavate more of them. However, a mysterious military third party known as Gebler aligns themselves with Aveh and together manage to severely shrink Kislev’s territory. Near the border lies Lahan Village, which will be your lovely starter town for the game.  

We’re introduced to our protagonist, Fei Fong Wong, doing a nice bit of painting. We get to walk around and learn that Fei was brought here three years ago by a strange, cloaked man with none of his memories intact. But now, everyone’s in a great mood as Fei’s friends Alice and Timothy are due to be married tomorrow. Hooray! I’m sure nothing will spoil this beautiful moment.  

Least of all, me, because I’d really like you to play this game. Or you can watch a playthrough on YouTube. Basically, shit goes down and now Fei’s off on a journey to find purpose and the truth of his past and the war and all that good stuff and maybe kill a god along the way. 

But what about the rest of the game? Well, contrary to most of Square’s other titles that use 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds, Xenogears decides to go with 2D sprites for the characters and full 3D environments, and it holds up way better visually than its contemporaries if you ask me. It’s more in line with recent titles like Octopath Traveller and the remake of Live-A-Live really. Everything is animated beautifully. 

The gameplay mainly consists of exploring different areas of the world and fighting enemies. Standard affair for the genre. Combat is pretty unique though. Basically, along with the usual spells and items, you have a light, medium, and heavy attack. By chaining these together you can execute Deathblows, which are super strong. How many of each attack you can use depends on AP, which starts at 3 and grows to a maximum of 7 throughout the game. Any AP you don’t use gets stored, and with enough of it you can chain together multiple Deathblows on a single turn for massive damage. Gear combat works a little differently, but it’s close enough to get the hang of. 

But why play this game now, in 2026? It’s almost thirty-years-old! Well, due to Square being very stubborn about their IP’s nowadays, it’s extremely unlikely that Xenogears will get a remaster or release on modern consoles or PC. Instead, they’d much rather use it to sell watches for… £350?! But really, I think it’s a shame. Although by modern standards the gameplay is a little outdated, the story about love and war and the nature of humanity is beautiful, even if almost the entire second disc turns into a visual novel because they ran out of development time. Oops. The only platforms it’s on are the PSX, PS3, and Vita. 

If any of this sounds interesting to you, go give Xenogears a try. Maybe if enough of us do Square might actually do something with it again. 

Edited by Robin Smith 

Subedited by Lydia Gallagher