The combat is honestly awful. There's one dominant strategy for both of the combat modes and that's all you ever have to use unless there's a gimmick encounter. The encounter rate is an abomination unto mankind. The loading times for going between areas, opening menus, saving, and starting combat all really drag on the exploration experience, in my opinion. I love the aesthetic and exploration when the game isn't copy/pasted labryinthine metal corridors, but that does unfortunately make up a lot of the game. People complain about the second half of the game turning into Cliffnotes, but I was honestly relieved I didn't have to slog through 10 more samey dungeons with outrageous encounter rates.
I can't say the story really captivated me either. So much of it is people you don't know talking about things you don't know in places you've never seen before, and the pronoun game is played way too often. Once the story actually explained itself, I was already just checked out mentally. I hate when games throw around technobabble and lore words because it just makes the conflicts far less relatable and understandable, and Xenogears is guilty of this to an obscene degree. 5 of the 9 party members are almost completely superfluous past their introduction and you don't even get to use them that much regardless. I genuinely don't see how this game is so well liked and reviewed.