History VideoGame / Xenogears

* AncientConspiracy: [[spoiler:To count them all: firstly [[GodofEvil Deus]] spawned the human race to repair the damage it sustained and Miang is it's primary agent across human history to ensure humanity grows the right way. Secondly, [[TheOmniscientCouncilofVagueness Cain and the Dazel Ministry]] create of Solaris, a country founded by Cain to originally take control of surface to better direct it's development, and though at first resort to using force eventually use subtler methods to control it. Third, [[MagnificentBastard Krelian]] wants to manipulate all of the latter to achieve his own ends and travel [[AscendtoaHigherPlaneofExistence the Path of Sephirot]]. Fifth [[BloodKnight Grahf]], who is badass enough to make a conspiracy all by himself, wants to use Deus' power to rule the universe, or destroy it. Finally, the Zohar itself wants to use the -Contact-, in this case Fei, to destroy Deus and free itself.]]

It has been suggested that the primary reason for sudden change in style on disc 2 is due to ''FinalFantasyVIII'''s production. Squaresoft pulled team members and resources away from the ''Xenogears'' production team in order to more efficiently get ''Final Fantasy VIII'' done on schedule. This may be because they considered that game more important (being a ''FinalFantasy'' title).

Interestingly enough, the game's creators have [[WordOfGod stated]] that in its early development stages, Xenogears was planned to be ''FinalFantasyVII'', and later, ''ChronoCross''.

* ChinesePeople: Fei Fong Wong is an homage to mythical Chinese hero Wong Fei Hung, previously played by Jet Li in the ''Once Upon A Time in China'' series and Jackie Chan in the ''Drunken Master'' series.

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* HeroicSociopath: Id. He is actually a villain, but [[RuleOfCool so awesome]] that no one really cares.

* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Played straight, toyed with, explored and subverted. While the main character is a bona fide ChosenOne, it could be argued that the entire story of the game is a cosmic, magnficent XanatosRoulette perpetrated by one of the central villains in an effort to first fulfill the [[BecauseDestinySaysSo destiny of the universe]] and then [[ScrewDestiny subvert it]] so that he can have his cake and eat it too.

* CrowningMusicofAwesome: [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrowningMusic/Xenogears It has its own page.]]

* AbusiveParents: Karen and Kahn Wong: [[spoiler:Karen was possessed by an ancient spirit and began to conduct horrific experiments on her son, Fei, upon learning he was [[TheChosenOne the Contact]], and years later Kahn stalked and psychologically tormented Fei under both the guise of the Wiseman and unwittingly as Grafh, though he did it as a StealthMentor in both cases]].

** SuperPrototype:
*** Both Elly and Miang's Vierges are a straight examples: both Gears sport a lot of new technology, most of which is useless for regular Gears.
*** Seibzehn and Achtzehn, though future developments of the technology behind them went in significantly different technological directions instead of just being scaled down for mass-production.
*** [[spoiler: Alpha Weltall]] was "super" because the prototype used LostTechnology that the second model's designers didn't have access to. The design compromises involved become a plot point.

* AfterTheEnd: Zeboim was a civilization with technology analogous to our world TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. [[spoiler:Miang and Cain]] engineered its destruction because of lifespan shortening genetic damage of its population. Nearly all the Gears excavated from the ruins of the world originated in the Zeboim era.

* AIIsACrapshoot: [[spoiler: Deus]]

* AncientConspiracy: All over the place.
** [[spoiler:To count them all: firstly [[GodofEvil Deus]] spawned the human race to repair the damage it sustained and Miang is it's primary agent across human history to ensure humanity grows the right way. Secondly, [[TheOmniscientCouncilofVagueness Cain and the Dazel Ministry]] create of Solaris, a country founded by Cain to originally take control of surface to better direct it's development, and though at first resort to using force eventually use subtler methods to control it. Third, [[MagnificentBastard Krelian]] wants to manipulate all of the latter to achieve his own ends and travel [[AscendtoaHigherPlaneofExistence the Path of Sephirot]]. Fifth [[BloodKnight Grahf]], who is badass enough to make a conspiracy all by himself, wants to use Deus' power to rule the universe, or destroy it. Finally, the Zohar itself wants to use the -Contact-, in this case Fei, to destroy Deus and free itself.]]

* AssistCharacter: Two of them, one on each side of the conflict:

* BadassNormal:
** Bart, Billy, and especially Citan. They're all theoretically normal humans, in the same party as several magic superweapons, the ''least'' of whom is a genetically-engineered street brawler.
** If you think about it, Seibzehn and Crescens are BadassNormal ''Gears''. Neither one ever gets upgraded into an Omnigear, but they're just as powerful as the Gears that do.
*** Both of those are [[SuperPrototype Super Prototypes]], though, so they don't count. Vierge is also Omnigear-class, though that's mainly because Elly's piloting it ([[spoiler: Elly in her Omnigear would be a GameBreaker [[CutscenePowerToTheMax if you ever got to control her]]]]).

* CooldownHug: See CrowningMomentOfHeartWarming.

* CrutchCharacter:
** Elly.
** Bart too. He's useful for most of the first disc, [[spoiler: and is the first to get his Infinity Plus One Gear, which has abnormally high HP for that point in the game]]. But towards the end of the game there's not much he can do that somebody else can't do better.

* CurbStompBattle: There's a few of these and usually the "good" guys are on the receiving end:

* EvolvingAttack

* FauxSymbolism: In a game that arguably handles many of its symbolical and mythological themes quite well at times, a lot of the towns are [[NamingConventions named after months in the Jewish calendar]] for no adequately explained reason.

** Fei - {{The Hero}}
** Bart - {{The Lancer}}
** Rico - {{The Big Guy}}
** Citan - {{The Smart Guy}}
** Elly - {{The Chick}}

* GeniusBruiser: Citan

* GodIsEvil: The creator of mankind turns out to be a [[spoiler: previously broken [[SealedEvilInACan malevolent interstellar war machine]] in severe need of death.]] [[spoiler:Well, the creator of the humans on that planet, anyway. The creator of the entire universe shows up later on, who's basically a decent guy (for a CosmicHorror anyway) who just wants to go back home after being trapped in the universe he accidentally created for billions of years.]]
* GoingCosmic: Disc Two.

* GuideDangIt

* {{Im A Humanitarian}}:

* KingOfAllCosmos: [[spoiler:The Wave Existance.]]

* LastDiscMagic: The titular Xenogears.

* LetsPlay: [[http://whatdoesgodneedwithastarship.com/ What Does God Need With A Starship]]

* LimitedWardrobe: Somewhat averted. However, Rico never takes his big orange bomb collar off even though he technically hasn't been a "prisoner" of the Kislev Empire for quite some time.

* MechanicalEvolution

* MindScrew: The storyline is a bit messy and hard to understand, though [[AllThereInTheManual Perfect Works]] clears some of it up.

* {{Muggles}}: Constantly subverted and explored, among others in Hammer, who ends up [[spoiler: betraying the party out of despair and bitterness over being an ordinary person surrounded by heroic, special people.]] He's got a point, too, since...

** And arguably, the entire point of Ramsus' character is that [[spoiler:he was made to be an ''imitation'' of something special, then simply discarded when the real thing turned up]].
*** That said, perhaps because of his nature as [[spoiler:a clone of Emperor Cain]], he can interface with all 12 Anima relics

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Dr. Citan Uzuki, physician by trade; mechanic, physicist, psychiatrist, historian, biologist, and GeniusBruiser by hobby.

* OrcusOnHisThrone: Emperor Cain. Unlike most [[TheEmperor Emperors]] in video games, he pretty much does nothing at all, and is more of a figurehead than anything. When even your OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness talks down to you, you know you're not much of an evil overlord. The only reason he's still around at all is because [[spoiler:for some reason, he can't be killed by anyone except ''himself''-- which is why Krelian and Miang needed Ramsus, his clone, to stick around long enough to off him]].
** It's because he [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn doesn't really want to be evil anymore]].]]

* PetalPower
* PiecesOfGod

* PsychoSerum: -Drive-. 'Nuff said. Which is made all the weirder by the fact that you can ''buy it'' from Big Joe at the end of the game. And it gives you ''permanent'' increases to your stats-- [[GameplayAndStorySegregation with no bad side effects or penalties to other stats]], no matter how many you use.
** Those may be a different Drive.

* SpritePolygonMix

* StuckItems
* SubmarinePirates
* SuperPoweredEvilSide

* ThemeNaming: And then some.

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: A few of them, the two most prominant are that you can somehow use Elly/Sophia's [=OmniGear=] El Regerus outside of the one scripted battle it appears in, and that you can recruit Ramsus as a playable character after [[spoiler:Elly merges with Deus)]].

* VanillaEdition: Despite the fact that only the one version of Xenogears ever came out (meaning there's no LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition to contrast), the final product was supposed to have '''much''' more content, including Omnigear forms for Crescens and Seibzehn, among other things to more fully flesh out the second disc. However, time and money weren't in enough abundance to permit this to happen.

*** Vierge is a straight example: a lot of new technology, most of which is useless for regular Gears.

* AttackDrones: The Aerodes on some gears are basically the funnels or bits from the Gundam series: small remote weapons controlled by special people (elementals in xenogears' case) that mount small beam guns to execute multi-range attacks.

* [[spoiler: BigBrotherIsWatching: The Gazel Ministry keeps track of your movements through the game's ''[[OhCrap save]] [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration points]]''.]]

* BigBrotherIsWatching: The Gazel Ministry keeps track of your movements through the game's ''[[OhCrap save]] [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration points]]''.

** [[spoiler:To count them all: firstly [[GodofEvil Deus]] spawned the human race to repair the damage it sustained and Miang is it's primary agent across human history to ensure humanity grows the right way. Secondly, [[TheOmniscientCouncilofVagueness Cain and the Dazel Ministry]] create of Solaris, a country founded by Cain to originally take control of surface to better direct it's development, and though at first resort to using force eventually use subtler methods to control it. Third, [[MangificentBastard Krelian]] wants to manipulate all of the latter to achieve his own ends and travel [[AscendtoaHigherPlaneofExistence the Path of Sephirot]]. Fifth [[BloodKnight Grahf]], who is badass enough to make a conspiracy all by himself, wants to use Deus' power to rule the universe, or destroy it. Finally, the Zohar itself wants to use the -Contact-, in this case Fei, to destroy Deus and free itself.]]

* {{Gotterdammerung}}: Zeboim, an ancient civilization that blew itself up through nuclear war. A good deal of its technology was lost. [[spoiler: It's also revealed that another incarnation of Fei and Elly were here, when they created Emeralda.]]

** SuperPrototype: Vierge, Seibzehn, Crescens. To an extent, [[spoiler: Alpha Weltall]], though it's "super" because the prototype used LostTechnology that the second model didn't have access to (leading to a minor plot point).

** Miang assists Ramsus every time he fights the player, [[ThatOneBoss until she becomes a boss herself]].

* BossInMookClothing: The Bloody Bros., reincarnations of [[ThatOneBoss Redrum]], who appear as normal enemies in Solaris. And you have to fight ''two at once''! Thankfully they're rare.

* ChekovsGun: You think that there might be a badass story about how Bart and Sigurd lost their eye? Nope, turns out it was caused by a mechanical accident on the Yggdrasil. However, their eyes do play a bigger role in a future event.

Xenogears was released by Square Enix in 1998 for the original Playstation. [[LoveItOrHateIt Considered either a masterpiece (by fans) or a steaming pile of shit (by non-fans)]], it is nonetheless a cult classic. It is particularly remembered for a uniquely convoluted plot spanning ten thousand years, themes cooked out of Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism and Jungian psychology, and an atmosphere that was remarkably {{Anime}}-like for its time, leading to the game's infamous hour-long cutscenes.

Xenogears was released by Square Enix in 1998 for the original Playstation. [[LoveItOrHateIt Considered either a flawed masterpiece (by fans) or a steaming pile of shit (by non-fans)]], it is nonetheless a cult classic. It is particularly remembered for a uniquely convoluted plot spanning ten thousand years, themes cooked out of Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism and Jungian psychology, and an atmosphere that was remarkably {{Anime}}-like for its time, leading to the game's infamous hour-long cutscenes.

** Imagine Xenogears with a fully fleshed-out disc 2. For that matter, imagine Xenogears and {{Xenosaga}} as parts of a massive six-game epic.

* ThirtyGambitPileup: By the time you reach the second disc you're probably thoroughly confused as to who's working for whom. [[spoiler: The three top-level factions are Krelian/Miang, Cain/Citan, and Grahf.]]