Xenogears | 10

Xenogears is definitely one of the top RPG's made by Square. This game is filled with interesting characters, awesome battles and beautiful anime cutscenes. The soundtrack is one of my favorites as well. The game really shines when it comes to story-telling and fans of great science fiction stories will love it. However, the story is very complex and can get very confusing. Playing this game twice through may be necessary to understand it, but that wasn't a problem for me, I loved it just as much the second time through! The game's soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard, unfortunately the game doesn't do the soundtrack justice. You may feel that you're hearing the same song over and over again. The only downsides of this game are the Gear battles and the dubbing of the anime scenes. The Gear battles are very cool, but they are used too heavily in the last 2/3 of the game. It would have been nice to fight as the characters more often. The dubbing of the cutscenes is pretty off, but not enough to ruin them. Overall, this is a great RPG for gamers who like very deep and though-provoking sci-fi/fantasy stories. Potential players must enjoy reading game text because there is PLENTY of it in Xenogears, especially on Disc 2. The amount of difficulty is very high, FF7 is a cakewalk compared to Xenogears. I found myself barely surviving boss battles near the end of the game. I "died" at least 10 times while playing Xenogears, that's more deaths than all my other RPG experiences combined and I have played many RPG's. This is an excellent RPG for any gamer, but RPG first-timers may be a bit overwhelmed. This is the kind of game that shows people that video games are not just for kids, because this one certainly is not. A good age range for this game would be anyone over 16 mostly due to the complexity of the storyline. Of course, there are younger gamers who can handle Xenogears, but this game is more adult-friendly than others in the genre. The game contains very few curse words and a small amount of sexual innuendo, but nothing really bad. Xenogears is a must-buy for all RPG fans, young and old, especially. If you don't already own this game, pick it up right away!