10 Essential PS1 RPGs (That Aren't Final Fantasy)

When it comes to RPGs of such massive scale and scope, Xenogears should need no introduction (unless you were never fortunate to play it outside of America/Japan). An enormous tale of deicide, duality, the soul and the id, you'd think that'd be enough for one game.

But no, Xenogears goes one further and adds more, with arching stories of reincarnation, religion and its use of mass control/brainwashing, and even a Soylent Green-esque side narrative in there too. This may sound a lot for one game, and cracks do start to show towards the end of the second disc in terms of pacing, but it's still a fine example of storytelling to this day.

Protagonist Fei knows nothing on his past, which may sound like a staple trope of RPG's. But further on, it transpires a lot of the supporting cast all have some skeletons in their closet, and each character is thoroughly explored in this epic. Whilst not all of them have to be explored, it's such a rich experience, you'll only robbing yourself if you don't.

Mixing a unique style of 2D anime-styled sprites on 3D backgrounds, Xenogears played up on its anime inspiration with fully animated and voiced cutscenes. Coupled with a stamina-based combat system, and the ability to jump on the world map (look, for an RPG in 1998, this was a big deal), Xenogears was groundbreaking for its size at the time.