Twenty years ago this day, Square released the groundbreaking Xenogears for the PlayStation console. Originally conceived as a possible FFVII and even Chrono 2, the game known as Project Noah became it's own cult hit and propelled the careers of Testuya Takahashi and his wife, Soraya Saga, as well as showing off once again the talents of Yasunori Mitsuda, Masato Kato, and Hiromichi Tanaka. The ambitious title began before VII's development but was completed a year after it. The rookie director's ambition overstretched the budget and so the second half of the game had to have several moments cut and the entire second disc was given a more "artistic" design in order to complete the game. Months later, his team would release Perfect Works to help fans fill in the gaps left by the unfinished game. Square's refusal to continue the ambitious series led to key members of the team to leave Square and form Monolith Soft with help from Namco.

Set on the continent of Ignas, where two mighty empires war with each other using ancient giant robots called Gears that are excavated from the ruins of past civilizations, the story follows the tale of Fei Fong Wong, an amnesiac artist with some skill in martial arts and piloting. Accidentally thrust into the war after using an experimental black gear to try and save his home village, Fei wanders the globe and gets involved with sand pirates led by the rightful ruler of Aveh, becomes a prisoner of the industrial Kislev, journeys to the Aquavy islands where a religious order battles monsters called Wels, and even travels to the sky city of Shevat, which was banished from the earth five hundred years ago. He battles the forces of Gebler, a military organization belonging to the mysterious Solaris Empire who secretly control the surface world from behind the scenes. His journey to learn who he is will span both time and space and he will learn why the mysterious masked warrior named Grahf calls him the "Slayer of God".