Tetsuya Takahashi, born in 1966, made a living as a game designer back in the 80s and 90s. He began his
carer at Nihon Falcom, best known for their RPG series Ys. After that he went over to Square,
where he was involved in the fifth and sixth succession of the Final Fantasy-series.
Takahashi never thought he would one day be the director of a game, but after his wife came up with an
original story idea, they would submit this idea for the next Final Fantasy project. The executives
considered the idea to be too dark and complicated for a fantasy, but their boss was kind enough to give
Takahashi a chance to launch a new project and direct it.
Having had an interest in religion ever since being a child, after meeting with the chief priest of a
Buddhist temple near his family's home, and developed a strong interest in the areas of ideology,
philosophy, and religion, Takahashi wished to indirectly cut deep via his project, the RPG Xenogears.
Inspired by philosophical, esoteric, spiritual, mythological, psychological, and scientific ideas - which
happened to be part of common interests he shared with his wife - Xenogears was born as a story
about human existence; "where do we come from, what are we, where are we going." Xenogears, as much
as anything, is a series of arguments put forth by the characters, which in turn ultimately expresses
Takahashi's personal truth.
Using the story idea originally thought up by his wife about a female A.I. that gives birth to a new mankind
as a basis, he created the first incarnation of the Xenoverse. For his subject matter he chose a large-scale
motif of Christianity - especially the Gnostic school of early Christianity - which many of
Xenogears' ideas attempts to parallel. He thought that by choosing a Christian motif it would have
historical weight and they would be able to mix in and blend anything associated with Christianity.
The central story line is built around the question of "How does religion come about?" with the history
of a new mankind alluding to our own Earth history, and the twist of it actually being our future.
Setting his story as a part of an infinite flow of history in a fictional representation of our own
universe, Takahashi intended its 'truth' to be reflected in its audience as "light from a mirror" while
touching their hearts.
In the official sourcebook Xenogears: Perfect Works~The Real Thing~, Takahashi included almost a
complete history of our universe. This addition may seem excessive, but Takahashi's intent was to tell
two more major "Episodes" of the story, having said that with the first game, encompassing Episode II~V,
he felt that "only one part in 3 was actually there."
The script is written in a very high level of Japanese. Several Japanese players have expressed problems
understanding parts of the story due to the difficult symbols, some even preferring the English translation
as it is easier to read.
The first and only official English edition of Xenogears was done in 1998 and was the first Square
game translated by Richard Honeywood, following Ted Woolsey's departure. Honeywood created an actual
localization team and improved the translation process at Square. Before him, there was no team and the
translations were just one-man work. Xenogears is the reason JRPG translations started to improve.
The translated script was inconsistent and overall sloppy because it wasn't done entirely as a team as
future games would be. Each translator was given a portion of the script to translate and they did so,
then it was all put back together and re-encoded into the game.
Since its appearance in 1998 the work has flown under the radar of academic critics while gaming magazines
have both praised and derided Xenogears. A common observation is that, in his use of gaming as a
story-telling medium, Takahashi seems to cripple what is the basic foundation of enjoyment for a game.
Nevertheless, many of those fortunate to have experienced it actually holds that Xenogears is one
of the greatest epic stories in the world. Despite this, Takahashi considers Xenogears to be "a
noble failure" that turned out differently from how he wanted it.
In 2002, Takahashi created Xenosaga with his own company MonolithSoft Inc. The Xenosaga
trilogy is a re-imagining of Xenogears Episode I that also fell short of accomplishing what
Takahashi set out to do, split up in shorter disjointed parts, including cellphone games and online
flashmovies, due to a different director taking over the helm of the series, and therefore less popular
than the earlier work, even if it is in some ways superior. It centers around the Cosmo War arc in the T.C.
4700s of the Xenoverse timeline and is considered to be the second part in 3 of the Xenoverse. Before
Takahashi and MSI decided to cancel the series, ending it in 2006, it was thought that Xenosaga
would also re-imagine Xenogears and then conclude with the mysterious third and final story arc.
As works of science fiction, all their rich elements are in balance and plausible - not the patchwork
confederacy of made-up languages, contrived customs, absurd aliens, and meaningless histories that are
the hallmark of so many other, lesser science fiction works. The works also use the element of mystery to
a large extent, telling a very complex and intricately written story line that is filled with western
theological references and allegories while emphasising on characterization; exploring human psychology
with a depth even rivalling the literature of Dostoyevsky.
Xenogears and Xenosaga have many of the elements that define epic form. They're long,
narrative stories; they follow the exploits of a hero (or anti-hero); they involve warfare and the
supernatural; they begin in the midst of the action, with earlier crises in the story brought in later
by flashback; and they express many ideals of humanity.
In 2010, Takahashi created Xenoblade. The title suggests some sort of sequel, but, although a
very creative work, Xenoblade is a very different kind of game with a story more in the vein of
"a boys' manga", as Takahashi put it, with bigger game exploration and more action oriented, getting
more positive reviews by gamers who like to play games for pure fun. It is staged in a new universe on the
bodies of two giant gods who created the world. Since the game was originally called Monado: Beginning
of the World the game is not considered to be part of the Xenoverse, but rather the new "Monado-verse."