Xenogears - Gameplay

Gameplay

Xenogears combines traditional role-playing video game structures such as Square's signature Active Time Battle system with new features particular to the game's martial-arts combat style. It features two slightly different battle systems: in the first the user controls human characters in turn-based combat manipulated through the sequencing of learned combos. The second, making use of "gears," introduces different sets of statistics and abilities for each character. Xenogears features both traditional anime and pre-rendered CGI movie clips by Production I.G to illustrate important plot points.

The player advances the protagonist and his companions through a fully three-dimensional fictional world. There is an overworld map with visitable cities, geographical sites, and other important locations spread out across several continents. A couple of locations encountered throughout the game exist not on the original world map, but in the sky. At first, the party only travels on foot, but is eventually permitted to make use of a variety of vehicles, including their gears and the "sand submarine" Yggdrasil.