An examination of what other works have, or may have, influenced 1998's Xenogears
[Last updated 2026.02.09]
For some reason the story of Xenogears has often been assumed to have been heavily influenced by Squaresoft's earlier game Chrono Trigger and the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. The passage of time and various interviews with the developers have instead revealed other, more varied influences. And in this analysis I will be making the case that the works that have primarily influenced Xenogears' story are actually Final Fantasy VI, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Childhood's End, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the original Star Wars trilogy.
One purpose of this analysis is to better organize and properly list all the various works that are either confirmed to have influenced Xenogears or are suspected to have influenced Xenogears. As such this article remains an incomplete and ongoing work. Having an article separately devoted to the influences behind Xenogears also allows me to move a lot of that stuff from the History of Xenogears article which has become a bit too cluttered with that discourse, being already very long as is. And making a separate article specifically about works that influenced Xenogears should make it easy for me to simply link to it whenever the subject of an influence is brought up in other sections or articles. It will also make things easier to find.
Types of influences
Before I start I would like to establish what types of influences I will be examining in this article. Xenogears is a work famous for containing a lot of "references," allusions and influences from religion, science, philosophy, psychology, history, novels, Japanese animation, and cinema. YouTuber TJTheEmperor recently made a series of videos titled The Complete Xenogears Reference Guide attempting to cover all these subjects but made no real distinction between what specifically were references and what were influences. References and influences are not the same. A reference intentionally alludes to something and is similar to a quote or a parody while an influence is something often unspoken, disguised, heavily altered or reworked - and perhaps even unconscious on the part of the writer - so that it is recognized as a similarity by fewer people in the audience, if it is recognized at all.
The reason I will be using the word "influence" and not "reference" is because a reference is also always an influence, since the author is obviously familiar with what they reference (thus having been influenced by it), while an influence is not always a reference that intentionally alludes to something the audience is supposed to get or notice. Authors generally want to hide most of their influences to not risk coming across as derivative. So while I will include references in my analysis, they will probably be the least interesting part of this article. Also, I will only examine fictional works that have influenced Xenogears here, not non-fiction works or historical concepts.
I will be distinguishing between five different types of influences during my analysis and mainly be talking about similarities, leaving it up to other fans of Xenogears to decide for themselves which particular type of influence they think may be at play. The five different types of influences or similarities should be established as follows:
1. Intentional reference.
Those influences that are drawn attention to through the reuse of unmistakable names, designs, or concepts from other fictional works.
2. Obvious or confirmed influence.
Those influences that are only partly reworked or easily overlooked but can still be recognized as a fairly obvious influence that may even have been confirmed by the author or designers themselves in interviews or production notes. Even if the influence is almost impossible to notice until a designer brings it up in an interview or production note it still belongs to this category if it has been confirmed.
3. Subtle or subconscious influence.
Subtle aspects influenced from other works the creator or co-writers may not even be fully aware of themselves due to the number of things they are exposed to and the way the brain subconsciously processes ideas during relaxation or sleep.
4. Shared influence.
Indirect similarities due to Xenogears and another work both taking inspiration from an older work or concept.
5. Pure coincidence.
Those similarities that may actually not be influences at all, just coincidences.
Due to the length of this article I have split it up into three sections: one page examining influences from other games; a second page examining influences from Anime; and a third page examining the influences from cinema, TV and novels.
Other games that influenced Xenogears
Anime that influenced Xenogears
Cinema, TV and novels that influenced Xenogears
During the examination I will be using a lot of images in the style of charts that compares other works with Xenogears to make the case for similarities and thus potential influences. Since these works must have been released prior to 1998 (or even prior to 1997) to have been an influence, those images will be displayed to the left while images from Xenogears will be displayed to the right of them.
* These articles will obviously contain spoilers for both Xenogears and the works that influenced it.
