The Sin & Punishment series has a ridiculous story...

Lol yeah Resonance of Fate I beat that game and i dont have a clue what is was about.

I would argue the opposite. Xenogears starts out convoluted and then becomes clearer and understandable with the second disc. Although, to truly understand it you need to read Perfect Works or a summary of it.

This is how the plot goes chronologically,

spoilers ahead:

- Humans find the Zohar which accesses and binds an entity called the wave-existence. This entity describes itself as a sort of existence in which our four-dimensional universe is contained. The wave-existence (or at least how Fei perceives it) wants to be free from the Zohar.

- Humans use the Zohar and wave existence as a power source for their planetary weapon Deus.

- Deus is tested at the edges of the known mapped universe. Deus is not controllable. They try to decommision Deus.

- (Intro to Xenogears.) Deus takes control of its transport ship, The Eldrich. It kills the crew, and crashes into the planet that Xenogears takes place.

- The only survivor of this crash is Abel (alluded to in the game, but not really fleshed out - so this is confusing.)

- Some time before or after the wreckage, Abel makes contact with the Zohar. The wave-existence creates Ellyham due to this contact.

- A part of Deus, called Kadomony is responsible for creating humans. It creates the Mother (the one who is in the stasis pod rotted in the second disc), then from her Cain and the ministry (the ministry are the guys who are in the computer.)

-  At this point there are three beings that are reincarnated/transfer bodies. Abel (Kim, Lacan,Fei) due to his contact with the Wave Existence. Ellyham (Sophia) due to the Wave-Existence creating her to complement Fei, and Miang who has the mother element created by Kadomony to nurture humanity so that it can be harvested for parts for Deus. Miang is a little different from Fei and Ellyham in that her consciousness only transfers when she dies. Miang can also be interpreted as a Deus in human form.

- All of these happen by the intervention of the Wave-Existence and Deus/Miang in the genetics of human beings. That is how the reincarnation works.

- Cain and the ministers are immortal. Cain was tasked by Deus to help protect humanity. In the early days he did this by acting as a living god. Ellyham/Abel opposed Cain and so he, Miang, and the ministers killed them.

-  Cain eventually felt guilty, and tasked himself with helping all of humanity become immortal, like him.

- Fast forward approximately 6,000 and you have the Zeboim civilization. Because of whatever reason they are unable to have children. Kim (a reincarnation of Abel) and Ellyham develop nanomachines to replace human beings - hence Emeralda. They were helped to do this by Miang. Miang became impatient and tried to seize Emeralda, killing Kim and Elly in the process. Then she instigated a nuclear war to reset humanity.

- 3,500 years later Cain is in power in the country of Solaris. Solaris became an empire with many colonies, in which they tried to use humanity to pursue the original goals of Deus/Miang. Many of these colonies revolted against Solaris and a war ensued. As a deal Shevat (the largest rival of Solaris) made a deal with Solaris that they'd not fight if Solaris handed over Miang. Knowing Miang will just transfer bodies, Solaris agreed. At the time the leader in all ways of the burgeoning city of Nisan (which was part of another empire called Nimrod at the time) - Sophia - was a reincarnation of Ellyham. She eventually died in the war because Shevat didn't help Nimrod and its allies, per their agreement for Miang.

- Due to Sophia's death, the reincarnation of Abel at the time - Lacan, sought after the ultimate power. He eventually found the renmants of Zohar, and contacted the Wave-Existence again. Due to his anger, however, he became Grahf and sought to destroy Deus. Alternatively Nisan's military commander - Krelian - who also loved Sophia to an extent, sought after making his own god. He eventually allied with Miang and Cain. He tricked Cain in believing that he sought to make humanity immortal. And he was a pragmatic ally with Miang. During the war with Sophia, the twelve members of the ministry died. Krelian brought eight of them back through the use of a computer. They are the guys in the room that you see throughout Xenogears talking on the monitors. Their goal at this point is to get new bodies and become gods.

- Solaris sets up the ethos and limits humans genetically, so that they can maintain power over the world.

- Right before Xenogears Fei is born, he is abused by his mother (who is possessed by Miang at the time) and experimented upon. This fragments his identity and he develops dissasociative personality disorder (this explains the whole Id storyline.) Eventually his father his mother is killed by Grahf and Fei - in his current personality - end up in Lahan village.

- *Xenogears takes place* : Miang wants to ressurect Deus, Krelian wants to become part of the Wave-Existence, Grahf wants to kill Deus by destroying the world, Cain wants to help humanity become immortal, the ministry wants bodies and to become Gods, etc, etc.

Anyway, Xenogears makes sense when you understand Perfect Works, but still it made more sense at the end of Disc 2 than it did before Disc 2.

That just confirmed how convoluted that story is. What a mess. I actually do love the story, but I wish it could have been fleshed out more in the game and not require the use of an outside book (which I just learned about now). Also, wasn't Xenogears technically the "5th" game in a series of 6, but none of the other games were ever made?

Honestly, I wish they would go back to the Xenogears storyline and finish it. Would be fun.

from the title alone I though the two game series you listed and yeah the first in both those series weren't complicated but just game 2 was enough to go extra crazy, then to be followed by prequels and sequals

Is that a compliment?

Gonna agree with the nominations of Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts franchises. As a singular game, Xenogears stands out prominently in my mind. If 14 year old me has to take notes to follow your game's story, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah it is complex, but my argument was that it made more sense not less, at the end. Wheras you thoight it got more convoluted. When you see the opening scene and then you are in a less technologically advanced war a second later  you think "wtf?" But then 60 hours later you understand. Also Xenogears is episode 5 not game 5. I doubt episodes 2-4 (which are in my spoilers) would've been a game. We would see episode 1, which is essentially xenosaga ep 1-3, and episode 6 which would be a separate story that takes place after xenogears. Otherwise Xenogears is self contained.

Xenogears, but for good reasons. It's difficult to take in the story as its coming at you, but even when you don't understand details or characters being presented to you it's still ripe with mystery and "holy shit" moments as everything eventually comes together. It's that convolution that keeps everything ticking to some degree. The well written characters also help :P. And even when you look back at it after you complete the story, there's so much that happens it feels almost like a world with a long drawn out history behind it...sort of like ours.

Even the real world has a pretty convoluted history. Some societies were buried by conquerors for instance, and we will never know if lets say certain cultural aspects/items/inventions from some countries originated from them. They could have stolen a few that we all now take for granted as their culture.

Haven't played the all the Kingdom Hearts games or others mentioned in this thread, but I'd agree with this. Love the ZE series, but the story gets confusing, to say the least.