Xenogears/Trivia

• Follow the Leader: It's the story of angst-ridden protagonist sucked into circumstances he barely even understands who hates mechs and fighting, and is prone to going on destructive rampages with his mech. The game also has tons of Contemplate Our Navels and vague foreshadowing, anOmniscient Council of Vagueness, tons of Faux Symbolism, and a Gainax Ending. Does any of this sound familiar?
• Hey, It's That Voice!: So very many in the Japanese version.
  • Fei is Hikaru Midorikawa. Ironically, he also plays Ramsus, but goes uncredited for that.
  • Elly is Yumi Touma, the only seiyuu more prolific than Megumi Hayashibara. Seriously, just check out her credits.
  • Citan is Hideyuki Tanaka, whose roles include Hal "Otacon" Emmerich.
  • Bart is Tomokazu Seki a.k.a. Domon Kasshu and Sousuke Sagara (among many others).
  • Billy is Yuji Ueda, who played Akito Tenkawa.
  • Krellian is Ryotaro Okiayu.
• Media Research Failure: Kahran Ramsus' second Omnigear, Amphysvena, is mistakenly assumed to be Vendetta aligned to a second Anima Relic. According to the Perfect Works, however, its actually Krelian's Omnigear—Ramsus pilots it because Krelian has no more use for it.
• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • A few of them, the two most prominent are that you can somehow use Elly/Sophia's OmniGear El Regerus outside of the one scripted battle it appears in, and that you can recruit Ramsus as a playable character after Elly merges with Deus).
    • These two originate from translated production notes in the Perfect Works books, outlining plans for El Regerus, Ramsus, and even Margie to be fully playable characters, only to have them get cut down to NPC status thanks to time and funding shortfalls.
  • Hilariously, you really can get the El-Regrs (Elly's Omnigear) by entering the final floor of the last dungeon and then going back out, but since its pilot is no longer in your party, it is useless. It's also playable in the Kislev battling minigame, but who enjoys grinding that?
  • For extra fun, it's possible to hack El Regerus into the game before Elly takes off, but it doesn't have a model for the overworld, causing a game crash.
  • There seems to be a rumor of a planned Xenogears OVA that takes place during the Zeboim era. So far, there's no evidence that such a thing was even planned.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Imagine Xenogears with a fully fleshed-out disc 2. For that matter, imagine Xenogears and Xenosaga as parts of a massive six-game epic.
  • Margie was originally going to be playable, hence the sketch in Perfect Works where she has an entire arsenal hidden in her cloak. Better known is the fact that Omnigear versions of Siebzehn and Crescens were designs but never implemented.
  • There is a rough sketch of El Seibzehn, Maria's Mid-Season Upgrade, in Perfect Works.
  • Kahran was originally planned as a Sixth Ranger, but this got canned when the budget ran out.
  • The intro for the game was meant to be longer, consisting of an animated opening credits (similar like anime openings) featuring the song "Stars of Tears" and the intro movie, but was cut. Word of God said it would make the opening very long (the combined length of the two would be roughly ten minutes, so yeah).
  • The game was originally pitched as Final Fantasy VII, but was eventually made its own thing because the story was considered too dark for a main Final Fantasy title.
• Word of Dante: The idea that Yui was Shevat's premier warrior and defeated Citan in a duel was actually a result of a fan mistranslation of Perfect Works. It has since been embedded into the community's image of her.
• Working Title: Xenogears was originally called -Project Noah-, but this was changed during development for unknown reasons. Presumably it's because Square didn't want the already controversial religious symbolism to extend to the title.