Thirteen years later, I've beaten Xenogears.
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| Lib-Art.com |
And the peasants rejoice.
I'm going to write two entries about the latest game to come off the Almost Got 'Em list. One will be a more traditional Backlog post about the gameplay, the characters, the experience of playing it again after all these years, and so forth. This one though, this one is about the story. The story, the thing that sets Xenogears apart from every other title of its kind to come out and still has fans clamoring for a remake or sequel. The story, the epic narrative that made Xenogears an enduring classic, remembered even to this day as one of the greatest games ever made. The story - which doesn't hold up at all to the passage of time.
Somewhere along the line, video games changed, for the better, in the way they present narratives. The consequence is that the sheer epic scope of a game attempting to tell a story the way Xenogears does suddenly becomes the friend from High School you remembered as captain of the football team, then you bump into to discover he's gained 50 pounds, lost all his hair, and never moved out of his parent's house. I want to get out of the way from the get-go that I'm not saying the story is bad, just that its delivery is so antiquated now that I don't know if anybody who grew up on today's games would have the attention span to deal with it.
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| Pictured: Modern game audiences. |
So let's take a little time to discuss a tale grand in scope and ambition, and grievously lacking in execution.
