Xenogears, hands down.
Opinions go a far way, but I really consider Xenogears a remote number one story-wise as a fact.
The story is amazingly deep and philosofical.
And thats not philosofical as in a couple nice quotes and themes, but literally philosofical.
Its almost too much for a game. And in other media like books and movies you wont find much like it in the form of proza.
Its main philosofical influences are Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Buddhism.
And Freuds, Jungs and Lacans psychoanalysis.
Thats what I got out of it.
One play through will probably not be enough to grasp the whole story and world of Xenogears.
The Perfect Works book is also essential to understand the whole timeline of its more than epic history which consists of thousands of years, eventhough the games itself (gameplay-wise) does take place in one time on this timeline, its full of narrative and scenes from other periods short and long before the game itself.
The cast of playable characters, non-playable and villians is one of the most memorable too.
So is the music.
The games features two battles systems: a "normal" one consisting of characters fighting physically and another one in which the characters fight in large mechs, called gears.
''Hadouken!''
