Xenogears: a Different Retrospective

Many articles have already been written about Xenogears over the years. For those not familiar with the JRPG genre, the game was released by Squaresoft (now known as  Square Enix) in 1998 for the Playstation, during a period of the US gaming scene which could be summarized by a single word: transition. Today I introduce this guest-written article for mainly the die-hard fans.

The 32 bit era
In the late 1990s, with Sony’s entrance into the gaming business, video games were being marketed to a bigger, mainstream audience. Sitting in front of a television set with a controller came to be known as a Gen X activity rather than child’s play. However, local developers had not quite grasped the idea and the best titles were still being made in the land of the rising sun.

The internet also made a foothold in most households. Gamers could get the latest information on these Japanese titles, with the local release following 3-6 months later. This did not pose a problem for the impatient, as a game could be imported through internet retailers also. There were no more visits to the local comic bookstore, paying several times the retail price for a tattered copy of Final Fantasy IV.

These importers came to be the l33t of the 32 bit era, even though the term hadn’t been invented yet. They often claimed fluency in Japanese, and would proclaim how perfect these games were on message boards, fueling the hype of the rest of the gaming community.

It was a truly exciting time to be playing video games. It was easy to find people who shared and appreciated your interest. At the same time, the market was not fully developed and rumors and exaggerations often ran amok. It was during this climate that Xenogears was born.

US release
Xenogears had an 8 month delay between its Japanese and US release. It was widely whispered that Squaresoft deemed the religious imagery in the game too controversial, and there were no plans to market the game across the Pacific initially. While this made a good story, the facts simply didn’t quite add up. Final Fantasy VII and VIII, both flagship titles guaranteeing localization had similar delays. And when Xenogears was finally released, its contents were virtually identical to the original.

It did moderately well in United States, selling 200,000 copies as opposed to a million in Japan, partially due to the size of the US market in the 90s. (This was  about to change over the next few years). No religious groups ever mounted a lawsuit or boycott against the game. However, the themes failed to make a lasting impression compared to the melancholic facade of Cloud and Squall, and the title was now barely remembered as “that game with religious themes”.

There was certainly a lot of Christian references within the game. However, with a more critical eye, and putting the game in context of its original audience – the Japanese – revealed a much different picture.

The Japanese perspective
A full discussion of the game cannot be initiated without first covering two points – a summary of the game, and the material it references from. Without spending the rest of the article on the plot:

The story takes place on a distant planet where wars are fought using giant, piloted robots. Directing the events through the Church is the Solaris Empire, which harbored the secret of the world. As it turned out, the inhabitants were derived from a biological program to be parts for the body of Deus (Latin: God), a gigantic bio-weapon that crash-landed on the planet a millennium ago. The lead protagonists, Fei and Ellie, soon realize their fates are  intertwined to that of the Deus…

Many reviewers commended the plot as insightful and complex. They neglected to draw parallels with another popular Japanese franchise at the time – the Anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion”. Both were the products of the third revolution of the Japanese robot genre. To understand and appreciate Xenogears one must understand the homages and references it draws its ideas from and pay its respects to, from the Japanese perspective.

1) The robot Revolutions

Mazinger Z – 1st Revolution
The protagonist is a jock who loves robots piloting by choice, and he has a jock personality. Character development is nil. The science is usually fiction without basis. The plot centers around a number of episodes fighting against a monster of the day and finally the evil boss.

Mobile Suit Gundam – 2nd Revolution
The protagonist is a normal but a bit on the arrogant side guy who loves piloting a giant robot because he has no choice. He usually matures as the plot develops and the robot technology runs on somewhat believable science. The plot relies heavily on a war between different cultures and ideologies.

Neon Genesis Evangelion – 3rd Revolution
The protagonist is an anti-social who hates piloting but does it because he has no choice. He matures as the plot develops but his maturity backfires and reverts back to his innocence towards the end as Armageddon approaches. The robots are often part-biological, and their origin mythological. The plot revolves around a secret society working towards a grand reconstruction of humanity.

The late 90s was that transition point, and Xenogears was really paying homage (or in other words, plagiarizing)  the EVA idea with everyone being a spare part of the Deus.

2) The “Classical” literary works and their catchphrases and its persistence in Japan
Japan is still pretty old fashioned. A lot of pulp novels treading on common ground did not help things.

Their detective novels still place heavy emphasis on fingerprints and alibis, there is hardly even an that requires a GSR test. Their adventure games are linear. Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) reflects that perfectly. The plot fell apart after CSI was introduced.

Because of their Katakana system a lot of foreign expressions have high uptake and became common phrases – e.g. Sekuhara (SEXual HARessment)

A lot of pseudo-science terms in EVA type works. EVA’s human instrumentality project was a homage to Cordwainer Smith’s works (an SF author who lived from 1913-1966!), A lot of psychology terms was used loosely, like the ID/Ego/Superego from Sigmund Freud’s writings.

3. Other works about remaking the world – Shoujo Revolution Utena, G Gundam
Saving the world (Which is what Fei and Ellie wanted to do) vs remaking the world, which is what the bad guys wanted to do

The bad guys are not so evil anymore, they’re just misguided

4. Homage to other super robots – Combiners, Arena Fights, Macross
Gears in Xenogears are parodies of well known Super Robots. The combiners of the elemental, Maria Siebzehn is homage to Tetsujin 28 (a robot left to an orphan by his/her father), Bart’s transforming mother ship is a homage to Macross)

5. The haunting music of Mitsuda Yasunori
Celtic Music was hauntingly appropriate for the atmosphere of Xenogears. In the early days of video game music, when they “feel” novel and exciting. Current generation of games fail to generate that sort of emotion, even if the music might be technically better, and I am not referring to the the simplicity of the orchestration here, for Xenogear’s orchestration was exceptionally complex).Digicube (Square’s music publishing arm) folded too, which didn’t help the current state of affairs.

In Conclusion, looking at post Xenogears era, the development teams had split and formed a separate studio called Monolith, and later developed a trilogy of sequel / prequel which is set in a parallel universe (for copy right reasons), XenoSaga could never live up to the classic Xenogears, for obvious reasons that I am not going to discuss here.

Even though Xenogears was not as popular in the West as it should, the publications (For example Perfect Works) are worth a load nowadays on eBay. So there actually is a cult following who appreciates a true piece of art. Would Xenogears have been a classic if it was released in this day and age? Probably not, since without the hype generated with the hype of non-localization, and with the decline of Japanese development vs Western Development, and simply Xenogears would be dragged down by the current state of JRPGs being in decline, with their generic plots, dull gameplay, and uninteresting protagonist.

Xenogears made its mark upon the world with its controversial release and constantly feeds our nostalgia, of what was before, and what could be. How will the world remember Xenogears,  as memory of the 32 bit era gradually fades away? The world has changed, the gaming industry has changed, the gaming population has changed… but that is discussion for another time.

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