Retro Thursday: Xenogears.

Hello and welcome.

This week on Retro Thursday, We will be talking about a Playstation 1 (PSX) Game: Xenogears.

So, I recently bought a psp. One of the main reasons I did this,was because I heard you can play PS1 games on the PSP and it works like a charm. And since I had a large library of PS1 games (RPGs specifically) that I had never completed during my PS1 days, I thought this was my chance. What I didn't realize before I bought it; you must play the game remotely on your PS3 or use custom Firmware to play the games. Not wanting to shell out $500 more, I opted for the ardous process of getting custom firmware on my PSP.

NOTE: All the games I play on my PSP I OWN the physical disc, and are not available on the Playstation Store in the US. If a game becomes available on the Playstation store in the US you should buy it (as of the date of this post, Xenogears is not in the US Store , but on july 25th it was made available on the Japanese store) I do not promote, or condone piracy. Nor will I provide any information on how to put custom firmware, etc on you PSP.

Another reason that I was excited to play these PS1 games on my PSP is summed up by two EVIL words: Battery Backup. As many of my friends could tell you, I have a very unlucky history with games and memory cards that use a battery backup, instead of solid state memory like SD cards and sony's MemoryStick. I have lost countless hours of RPG and other game progress because of this (the main reason I have so many unfinished PS1 and PS2 games....). The ability to back up my saves (which I do weekly, now) and the assurance that, if my battery dies I won't have to start ALL over, Made this a perfect fit. Seeing as this is the third time I have played Xenogears (First time I had a bad disc, so had to wait a few years before I got a better disc.  Started over, and lost my save more than half way through....))

But enough about my sad gaming history, we're here to talk about Xenogears.

Released in 1998, Xenogears was produced by Hiromichi Tanaka (producer of the great Secret of Mana), and Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final fantasy) among others.  The Anime cutscenes where drawn by Koichi Mahimo, who was a lead animator for the Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion animes.

Music (some of my favorite square music) was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) and definitely exemplified his own style, rather than trying to emulate Nobuo Uematsu ( And not putting himself in the hospital for it!).

Xenogears had me hooked from the first time I played the demo which came with my friends Final Fantasy 8.  The interesting thing about this title, Square almost did not release this game in America (it never reached the European  PAL territories) due sensitive religious themes (which I find pretty humorous, considering half of the PS1 RPGs where about killing "god").

Probably, the most interesting aspect of this game is the unique (for the time at least) battle system.  Using a "Combo" system of weak, medium, and strong attacks (Triangle, Square, and X buttons.) you learn new "Deathblows" based on the amount of times you press certain attack sequences.   As you learn new deathblows your "Gear" (bipedal mechs that are used to fight larger enemies) also recieves new attacks.  The magic or "Ether" system in Xenogears feels pretty tacked on at times, the only really useful Ether attacks are the ones that heal your characters.

Xenogears is also supposed to be the 5th installment of 6 in the Xenogears universe (sounds like Starwars math to me...).  The first four chapters where released as the Xenogears : Perfect Works, an encyclopedia of Xenogears art and history that was released only in Japan.  The 6th volume of the Saga was never released, but many fans thought that Namco's Xenosaga was going to be a sequel.  This wasn't that strange of an assumption given that about 70% of the original Xenogears staff worked on Xenosaga.  Unfortunately for most fans, Namco and Square weren't best buds so the rights to Xenogears remained with square.  Xenosaga is more of a reset on the whole Xenogears universe.

Well, that is enough for me.  Gonna go hook up the PSP to the TV in my hotel and play some more Xenogears!

~K