Review by: Jonathan Hynes Published: March 28, 2003

Back when Xenogears was released in 1998 on the original PlayStation, its creators were disappointed with how it turned out; they felt that Square denied them the time required to perfect the product. As a result, a substantial part of Square’s development team left to form Monolith Soft with the intention of continuing on with their vision of the Xenogears saga. Since then, this overachieving RPG has thrived on positive word-of-mouth, rising into the top 20 of all-time best-selling RPGs in the U.S. and Japan. A sequel, or in this case, prequel, made perfect sense for Namco when they decided to take the newly formed studio under their wing. Unfortunately, Squaresoft still owned the rights to the Xenogears brand, and the team was forced create a new series in which Xenosaga was episode one of six. Whether you view this as a true prequel to Xenogears or an entirely new saga is your prerogative, but both games bear uncanny similarities.
( read more… )
|