Wow. This is a long game.

Let's start with some basic game info - it's a massive RPG. It's space opera. It's only part one. The subtitle comes from the German philosopher Nietzsche, and means "the will to power." It has many cutscenes. It's not a Square game.

That's important - any RPG these days inevitable invites comparisons with the giant of the genre. How well does Xenosaga stack up with, say, FFX? The answer, it turns out, is pretty well.

Graphics - 8.5/10

I'm a gameplay nut. Graphics are nice, but not essential, and can cover up serious flaws in gameplay (see also, the Final Fantasy Which Is Not - the one between 7 and 9, whose name we dare not speak). But the Xenosaga is fairly pretty, especially when you consider that the game came out a full year ago in Japan. It's even more impressive in cutscenes - almost all of the cutscenes are done in the engine, so it has to be flexible and powerful - Namco doesn't have the FMV power Square throws around so effortlessly, so it makes up for it with a very nice engine. Battle scenes are fairly clean, and combat effects look polished, always a plus. The amount of detail is excellent.

Sound - 7/10

The sound is there. I really didn't notice it that often, except when it had something important to tell me, which is as it should be. My only real qualm is the voice acting - it's not bad, but it's not good either, and often uses random pauses to attempt to get the lip synching right.

Music - 9/10

The music is gorgeous. It's usually an excellent counterpoint to what's going on, and it's very well done. Except there's not enough of it. Some scenes don't have it when I think they could use it, and there's only one battle theme, which gets fairly repetitive after 50 or so hours.

Plot - 10/10

I admit it, I'm a sucker for massive tales of surrealism and universe-altering weirdness. I also have a deep weakness for space opera, and I never get tired of female cyborg killing machines (technically, KOS-MOS is a robot, but hey...) even if they wear garters for no apparent reason. Xenosaga has all these things in spades. Many people have expressed some dismay with the number and length of the cutscenes. They need to get over it. Yes, you spend a lot of time watching cutscenes. But if you didn't have them, you'd have hours of text boxes instead, and who wants to page through that? The ability to skip cutscenes is a very welcome feature, especially since nasty bosses tend to come after cutscenes.

Gameplay - 9/10

I put 60 hours into the game, and still don't know if I like the combat system or not. It seems to have a lot of potential, but there are some flaws in it - for example, the display in the lower-right that's supposed to show the order of the next several combatants is very nearly useless, even disregarding Boost. Boost, by the way, is the ability to interject a character's turn into the middle of the queue, so that they can act immediately. There are very few limits on this ability, and it breaks combat at higher levels. Other than those few caveats, I found nothing in the game to really dislike.

Replay Value - 6/10

RPGs, as a general rule, have limited replay value. This is especially true of an extremely long game, like this one. However, there's a lot in this game to replay for. There are numerous interesting sidequests (including the one that breaks the game - items that do 9999 damage to everything mean the game is over) and the minigames are interesting without being annoying (Blitzball, anyone?). I'm especially fond of the card game. Card minigames have shown up in a lot of RPGs lately, but this one seems to be a keeper. The rules are simple, but have enough scope to keep the game fresh, and unlike certain Square-spawned games of similar ilk, possession of the best cards does not guarantee victory.

Overall (not an average) - 9.5/10

It's not perfect. But it's close enough for my tastes. I'd place it above FFX easily (a complete and utter lack of Tidus the Wanker, for one thing), but it's not quite up to the perfection that men call FFVI. This game is worth buying; it's far too long to rent, anyway.

SHAMELESS PLUG: As a special note, one of the authors of the official strategy guide is an acquaintance of mine, so buy it too.