Xenogears was a barely funded, rushed, half completed game. It's what gamers today would have called "barebones" and it's amazing how many people tolerate this because you know they wouldn't tolerate it anywhere else. They tried real hard to make the plot and setting of the game confusing as it can be by using themes such as ancient technology, reincarnation, religion, time lapse, sci-fi to inter-dimensional shit. During this era, Square thought that having a complex plot = good plot. They tried this with Chrono Cross too but as we all know having a clusterfuck of a storyline doesn't make it good.
The amount of downplay of how bad the 2nd disc is fucking hilarious by GameFAQs. I've made Xenogears complaints everywhere on the Internet(Reddit, FB Groups, IGN, GameSpot, Discords, Luelinks) and GameFAQs is the ONLY video game websight that will go to the beyond to not ONLY defend Xenogears but to also proclaim it as one of the best games ever.
The 2nd disc consist mostly having a main character sitting on a chair in empty space literally telling you the plot. That's not even an exaggeration or a lie, it's literally what happens. I thought I may have bought an alpha version of the game when I first saw this shit but naw. They literally pulled that shit off. It literally turns into a graphic novel.
The battle system consists on 2 main things; human fighting and Gear fighting. The human fighting seemed normal and somehow unique at first for a JRPG. But as soon as you get Gears and get to the Gear dungeons, shit goes down fast. You learn leveling up as humans is almost meaningless because most of the major fights are with Gear. Gears aren't strong based on level, it's based on equipment. Be as strong as you want as humans but you are only as strong as the available equipment that are sold at the store LMAO!!! There are only about 2 interesting human dungeon IMO. Also the deathblow mechanic is some inconsistent horseshit with no real consistent way to level it up or being learned. I mean gamers conjured a theory on how to learn them properly but it's a clusterfuck. See for yourself:
The problem isn't that game is bad. It certainly has it's charm I mean it has giant robots, it is made by Sqaure, it has good animation for its time, martial arts fighting, the subplot of anti-Christian, the horror subplots... it definitely has some positive. But not enough to say it's one of the greatest RPGs of all time. And that's why it's one of the most overrated game of all time. Despite the game's heavy heavy flaws, the majority of people still think this game is some fucking grand leisure of a game.