I found out that Xenogears turns 25 this week. The Playstation classic RPG that launched Monolith Soft, the almost-Final-Fantasy-VII about cool mechs, is now old enough to get cheaper insurance in the U.S.
I still haven’t played it. Which means that this Xenogears turns 25 article is the second time I’ve waxed poetic about media I’ve never tried out myself. But for some reason, this game sticks with me in a huge way.
Back in America, I actually own a copy. I, in fact, own a copy of every single Xeno Series game, all 13 physical releases so far. Even if they’re released by three different publishers and don’t explicitly connect at all, I still collect Xeno-related stuff, completely off the power of how much I love Xenoblade Chronicles. I’ve got Collector’s Editions of what I could find, art books, even the DS Xenosaga game.
And yet to this point I’ve only actually played through the first Xenoblade so far. Xenosaga, of course Xenogears, and even the Xenoblade sequels, have ended up becoming really big “one day” games for me. Ones I really want to play, but continuously put off for years on end because I want to find the “right time” to dig into them.
It’s easy to procrastinate on stuff for literal years when you’re a busy adult!
Xenogears, in particular, supposedly has a sorta rushed Disc 2 that doesn’t conclude the game that well. It’s exactly the kind of game that deserves a remake, preferably in the HD-2D style in my opinion. I really think that style is a good foundation for future mid-budget remakes. And it’d be really nice on Switch, in general. That sort of makes me want to put it off until that happens!
But… now that Xenogears turns 25 this week, perhaps I should just get it over with and play the damn thing.
It’s supposedly about 55 hours long, or maybe 70 hours because I’m kind of slow at RPGs. That’s almost as long as Fire Emblem Engage, which I am *almost* finished with as of this writing, probably gonna wrap it up this weekend. Maybe I could speed the game up with an online copy and play on fast modes when needed? I don’t know if it’s even that kind of RPG though. I’ve heard the text scrolling is too slow and can’t be changed… Maybe there’s a mod out there to fix it? There’s a few here, but I don’t know how much they’ll help the game go on faster.
Either way, I’m not sure I’m ready for another super long RPG, but I do know that as Xenogears turns 25, I ought to try it out very soon.
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