Xenosaga is a console Role Playing Game(RPG) with loose ties to the Xenogear?s game. Square released Xenogears, and Namco has released the Xenosaga game. You control a party of characters from one to three in a Final Fantasy style of battles. The setting is sci-fi with space ships traveling from different planets. Do not however think you will get to see an entire planet; more like a block in a city. The game starts innocently with a 2001: A Space Odyssey style. Later in the game you begin to realize exactly how twisted this game really is, and is hinting towards. There are a decent amount of religious references in this game.

How does this Game Play?

In towns, or on spaceships it plays like any other RPG with an angled above view. The battle scenes play similar to Final Fantasy games. That is of course the small percentage of the game you actually play. Why do I say that? Well you spend most of your time with this game watching cut scenes. Some of the cut scenes last as long as forty-five minutes. It is common to watch a long cut scene, do something small on the spaceship, and sit through another long cut scene. Thankfully you can hit a couple of buttons and bypass the cut scene. The problem with doing that, is the entire story is in the cut scenes. It almost feels like Namco was not sure if they wanted to release an anime movie, or a video game.

How engaging is the story?

The story is sadly not very engaging. It is however highly enraging to most followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus and the twelve disciples are reduced to some magical monoliths that produce demonic enemies for your characters to fight off. God himself is the bad guy, and servants of Satan are the good guys in this game. It is like the designers of this game took the book of Revelations and did a role reversal. A lot of persecutors of Christians will find the story engaging.

How are the Graphics?

The graphics are very nicely done, as long as you like blood and gore. That blood and gore is shown in graphic detail. Many of the female characters also dress extremely seductively(including a 10 year old girl), which is shown also in graphic detail.

How is the Sound and Music?

The sounds are nicely done, and the music is usually decent. Again as long as you want to hear the sounds of a person being ripped apart. A few areas the music was annoying, and I turned off the sound. The voice acting is average at best. There seemed to be very little real emotion in the voice acting. Almost like the characters were mindless drones. No emotion from a character after watching almost everyone they know getting mercilessly slaughtered seems a tad bit unrealistic to me.

How appropriate is this game for Christians?

You can make your own choice, and your own decision on this one. As a Christian I see no reason to play this game. I received it as a gift, from someone who knew little about the game. There is some discussion whether there was a real rape, or it was just mind rape of a ten year old girl. Either way, why would you want to expose yourself to that kind of repugnant material. Plus the character committing the rape is an angel of God. One of the characters you play on your team; in other words one of the ?heroes? has ?666? on the back of his hand. This game considers those that take the mark of the beast to be heroes. In other words, this game is an out and out attack on our beliefs. In my humble opinion this game is not appropriate for any believer of Jesus Christ, it will only offend you.

Overall & Conclusion

This has to be the worst RPG I have ever played in my entire life. The designers seemed to have gone out of their way to be offensive to Christians. I am unclear how they sneaked by a teen rating for this game, when by all accounts I made, it is definitely adult material. There is not one positive Christian figure in this game. The preacher is portrayed as a lunatic, the angel a psychotic. This game could be considered hate speech against Christians, and I have heard some label it as such. There is nothing new or innovative in the game play. God bless you, and thank you for taking the time to read my opinions.