[Game Review: Xenosaga Episode 1: Der Wille Zur Macht]

Box Cover Art
The Most Impressive Graphics for the PS2 to date

There is no denying that even though Xenosaga is an RPG, it has the most impressive graphics every seen on the PS2. Whereas most RPGs trail behind in this category, Xenosaga uses brilliant 3D rendering and the CG is absolutely gorgeous, it is almost as if you were watching a movie. Although the combat and quest mode graphics are a bit less than the cinematic events, they are still the best quality graphics out there. Everything is beautifully done with rich detail and good use of colours.

A great score of Music, but why only for select parts of the game?

Yasunori Mitsuda is my all-time favourite when it comes to game music. For Xenosaga he made a whole score that rivals Xenogears. However, one of the downsides, in my opinion, is the the fact that there are many areas and parts of the game where there is no music at all! A lot of places will just be sound-less or have vague engine/motor/computer sounds as background. I would have preferred it if they would just use toned-down musical scores as backgrounds for places like the Durandal, the Kukai Foundation, the Dock Colony, Pleroma, the Elsa etc. Great music, but there should have been more of it. Another thing is, the ending songs made no sense at all. Small Two of Pieces for Xenogears was such a poetic song that matched the ending. No doubt Pain and Kokoro are great songs, but how in the world do they match the ending?

The core: Gameplay

Gameplay is the core of any game. Unfortunately, Xenosaga was full of gameplay errors and aggrivating missions. A lot of time is wasted with useless fetching missions, where you go from one location to another, then back and forth, you get the drill. It is not as bad as the Hack Sign games, but still bad. Also the game box says: Over 80 hours of solid gameplay! Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but there is no way that I would need 80 hours for this game. I completed it the first time in 36 hours, and then the second time was 45 hours, because I wrote a 83 page Walkthrough while I was playing. Even with the mini-games (which you can all master in little over 2 hours) you would never come to 80 hours of gameplay.

So what about the story?

Anyone who has played Xenogears must have expected it to have a killer story. And I would say it does, but the catch is that the game stops in the middle of the story. The main bad guys are all still alive, you still do not know who chaos is (even though I think I know who he will become), and everything about U-Do, Lost Jerusalem, Shion’s parents, Old Miltia and the Y-Data are all a complete mystery. Of course I understand that Namco wants us to buy Episode 2, but to me it just seems as though they really do not know where they want to take the series yet. Of course, any Xenogears fan will get Episode 2 because (spoiler) we saw Lacan at the ending on Episode 1, and we all know that Nephilim has some connection to Mother Sophia. The thing I missed in this game was the excellent way the characters interacted in Xenogears. The characters are so 2-Dimensional that it hurts. I hope they will improve that a little in the next episode.

Replay Value

Unless you missed out on a lot of the side-quests, there is really no point in playing this game a second time. You really don’t need all the accessories or weapons or A.G.W.S. to be able to finish the game, and there is no really challenge in doing the side-quests or anything. The replay value therefore, is quite low, whereas I played Xenogears 5 times through, just so I was sure I understood the story. But is it fair to compare those two all the time? I guess not, but it’s too tempting not to.

So should I buy it?

Yes, go ahead and spend that $30 on this game, it is definately worth your money. I know a lot of critics are giving this game a lot of bad reviews because they compare it solely to Xenogears. But even Xenogears had a lot of flaws, and I think Namco is doing a great job. Even the creator of the Xeno series said in an interview that Namco allowed him to make the game he wanted to make, suggesting that Xenogears of course, was not made the way he wanted (and we all know that Xenogears was rushed off at Disc 2). Give this game a chance, you will feel good once you really get into the game.

Game Rating:

Graphics: 10
Music: 8.5
Gameplay: 7.5
Replayability: 6
Story: 8.5
Overal: 8