Xenogears Mech Profiles?

[Mafty]

Is there any place with mech profiles/ lineart for the Gears from Xenogears? There seems to be a lot of them, but actual pictures are rather difficult to find.

[Seto Kaiba]

Is there any place with mech profiles/ lineart for the Gears from Xenogears? There seems to be a lot of them, but actual pictures are rather difficult to find.

What you see is what's available.

There really isn't a lot of published art of the Gears from Xenogears. Even Xenogears: Perfect Works has little more for each Gear than a "combat pose", 3/4 side view, and rear view of the game's 3D model and ones which figure prominently in the story have a page or two of uncolored line art showing various detail points of articulations or weapons.

[hitokirigarou]

If you know where to look, there are scans of the book that Seto Kaiba metioned.

[Arsarcana]

It's not even hard to find those scans, translated ones even.

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah, the general scarcity of Xenogears ANYTHING kind of works for and against it in that there's only really the one decent artbook (Perfect Works) and that because of that the fans of the game have translated the entire thing... for what little good that did them.

[MythSearcher]

You are lucky, or not.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08NY7VXYM/
Square Enix is trying to sell these poorly made models, but at least you can tell what they think of the Xenogears.

Well, they do also have the better made Bring Arts figures(compared to the above, look at the critics down there):
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07DXGS4RW/
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09GVLJ2FW

[Mafty]

Thanks, I've actually now found some of the profiles on a different wiki. It's kinda a shame that there wasn't more mech work related to the game. It seemed to be quite popular both locally and abroad, so you'd think that they'd capitalize on that by releasing models or gamebooks. It's also kinda odd that nobody tried making an Anime/OVA of the main game.

[Quiddity]

Unfortunately no anime for Xenogears was ever made (which would have been perfect for it as it had such a great story). But the spiritual successor, Xenosaga did have an anime adaption produced for the first game in the series.

[Arsarcana]

Unfortunately in mecha terms, most of the really cool stuff didn't show up until the second and third games (when the fact that there are mecha started to become plot-relevant) and the series reflects that. And the franchise got canceled with half the planned games and some teased side projects never to be made,, so nobody was willing to finance an adaptation of the later games. Pity, we might have seen the ES Judah actually do something to live up to its hype if they had animated those games.

Related aside since a link to the Bring Arts figure has been posted, damn you Squenix for making Weltall-Id's fancy scrollwork a shop-specific decal set. Couldn't you have made that universal and, I dunno, released a special version for your own store that gives it the wings of light effect instead?

[Underrated GM Custom]

I really adored the first Xenosaga, had the right mix of action and strange sci-fi storytelling. The Mecha were called AGWS pronounced Aeggs if I recall, they were a neat idea but seemed like an afterthought since most of the time your characters were strong enough to not warrant them, and taking the time to summon them every battle grew fairly cumbersome.

I don't remember much about the Mecha from later games.

[Arsarcana]

The later games introduced the AMWS (more like a Mobile Suit size-wise, versus the AGWS that are something like 3-4 meter mini-mechs) but more importantly it also formally introduced the Ein Sof, AMWS frames built around the plot-important Anima Vessels and which every major faction has a couple of. They're the spiritual successor to the Omnigears from the earlier game. Technically the first ES shows up in Episode I (Albedo's Simeon) but they don't become important until II. And in terms of their integration, while AGWS in Episode I were mostly a 'use it if you feel like it' thing and only occasionally were part of the story, ES combat in Episodes II and III was always plot-based.

[Mafty]

It seems like Xenogears started off as one of those series with mechs in a supporting role, like you could remove them from the story easily, and they may have been only added to widen the target audience. When the first game was successful, they may have decided to expand the mechs role, also their minor addition may be why there’s less merchandise related to the mechs to begin with.

[Kuruni]

It seems like Xenogears started off as one of those series with mechs in a supporting role, like you could remove them from the story easily, and they may have been only added to widen the target audience.

That's like saying you could remove mech from G Gundam easily (fitting since the last part of the game is more or less tribute to G Gundam).

[Mafty]

Sorry I misunderstood what the other posters were saying. It seemed like the mech played a small part in the story, but actually the mech are still central to the stories universe, even if they're not as prominent in the first games.

[Seto Kaiba]

Sorry I misunderstood what the other posters were saying. It seemed like the mech played a small part in the story, but actually the mech are still central to the stories universe, even if they're not as prominent in the first games.

Eh... it's kind of a yes-and-no situation. In a way, it's similar to Escaflowne. The mecha are important to the story in a broad sense, but in an immediate sense their relevance is limited almost exclusively to the combat system. The story itself is a complete mess as tangled and impenetrable as a granite octopus thanks to that writing style particular to the late 90's that assumed complexity and depth were the same thing. It's been jokingly - but not unfairly - said that if you have even a vague idea what's going on Xenogears isn't doing its job.

[hitokirigarou]

That's like saying you could remove mech from G Gundam easily (fitting since the last part of the game is more or less tribute to G Gundam).

The Weltall-2 reminds me of God Gundam due to the way they go into hyper mode.

[Underrated GM Custom]

The later games introduced the AMWS (more like a Mobile Suit size-wise, versus the AGWS that are something like 3-4 meter mini-mechs) but more importantly it also formally introduced the Ein Sof, AMWS frames built around the plot-important Anima Vessels and which every major faction has a couple of. They're the spiritual successor to the Omnigears from the earlier game. Technically the first ES shows up in Episode I (Albedo's Simeon) but they don't become important until II. And in terms of their integration, while AGWS in Episode I were mostly a 'use it if you feel like it' thing and only occasionally were part of the story, ES combat in Episodes II and III was always plot-based.

Thanks for the refresher! I recall Albedo's Simeon but don't remember much about the 2nd or 3rd games. As I recall there was an easter egg in the first game with Erde Kaiser which was a reference back to the Braves series.