Xenogears is an RPG for the Sony PlayStation, developed by Squaresoft. Xenogears' development started with the intention of making it the sequel to Chrono Trigger, but it soon took on a life of its own. Originally released in Japan in 1997, not many people thought it would make it stateside due to its heavy religious undertones and mature themes. However, it did see a North American release (although unfortunately not a PAL one) and quietly flew under the radar. Despite its lack of promotion and relative obscurity, Xenogears managed to develop a dedicated following and is considered a cult classic among RPGs. Xenogears was later re-released as a PlayStation "Greatest Hits" title, with the new Square-Enix logo, but original copies of the game still go for upwards of $100 in some instances.
The premise of the game centers around a young man named Fei Fong Wong, who during the course of the game, discovers his identity, learns the truth of the world he lives in, and even goes up against God itself. It has a story so complex that it generally takes a few playthroughs to absorb all of the information. While a turn-off for some, for many others, myself included, this is Xenogears' best quality. Unfortunately, not all of the story was realized due to time constraints during development, so many things were cut, and in fact the second disc is more like an interactive book than a game. This is the one area where Xenogears suffers - it just wasn't as great as it could have been. However, what it is is still a great game. With an innovative gameplay system that includes character and Gear battles and a soundtrack composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, this title has enjoyed lasting respect from fans of RPGs, and perhaps even video games in general.
Members of the team who worked on Xenogears, including Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga, would later leave Square to form Monolith Soft. The Xenosaga series soon followed. Although not a direct prequel to Xenogears (most likely due to legal reasons), it shares many of the same plot devices and themes and can be considered an alternate retelling of events that could lead to Xenogears. Monolith Soft has also worked on games outside of Xenosaga, including NamcoxCapcom and the Baten Kaitos series (with tri-Crescendo).