XENOSAGA EPISODE II Jenseits von Gut und Bose review:3 stars (Great sequel, but not too innovative) - While I'm not fan of the series (In my opinion Xenogears is still a better game) this continuation improves in every aspec, visuals, battle depth, and exploration. The game was given a more mature look to the characters, but if you played the first game you'll notice that the graphics are the same. The Sound department is inproved a little bit (The first game to me lacked sound in exploration mode making it a little borred). The story is as deep and intriguing as expected and a lot of unanswered questions from the first game are answered here. If you haven't played the first one you'll feel lost at the begining but you'll catch on soon enough.

Now for the battle system. Its almost the same as the previous installment, except this time the enemy has different zones were you can hit them. With different atacks you hit different zones of your enemy and most enemies have their own weak zone. By hitting the weak zone the enemy breaks his defense and you can inflict more damage. Further more, you can boost ahead and combo the enemy with your party. There are a lot of atributes to consider, for example your attacs can either do piercing or slashing, physical or ether attacks. Since each of your party members have different atributes, that makes everyone usefull. However, once you figure out how to use stocks and boosting toguether some characters become unnecesary in many battles, therefore in time they become weak because you dont use them offten.

The exploration mode is deeper than before, with side missions to complete, thats a welcome adition. Some gamers will find the cut scenes exiting and interesting , but other gamers will preffer more gaming time, Good thing that you can skip the scenes. With upgrades to every aspect this sequel is a decent one, but it doesnt break the innovation barrier. Its a great unique RPG.
4 stars (Playing a movie) - So when I played Episode 1... I was blown away. The graphics were stunning and the storyline was so amazing. Not to mention the extremely thought out and creative characters. So when I heard that the sequal was coming out I was very excited. I wasn't too dissapointed. A lot has changed in this game but I guess we have the new director to blame for that. Lets go over these changes.

Characters: The designs have changed extremely. I won't say improved or not because I love both designs. This game is done more realistically and I must say Shion is a big improvement!

Music: The music has gotten worse in my oppinion. The music, though it fits the game, is nowhere near as powerful and magical as the music in the first game. I was dissapointed but one thing I do love is that there is more fighting music. A bit more varity makes it tolerable to have the volume on when in a dungeon.

Storyline: Still... wonderful! The story is amazing and I can't tell you how much I love it! There is a lot of religious undertones and when you know a thing or two about the references it makes the game that much cooler!

Battles: Ok... the first game all I heard from my friends was that the gameplay was too simple... I agreed. So what happened is they didn't want anyone to complain about the simplicity that they make it so complicated it takes you the entire game to figure it out. I am finally getting the hang of the Zone/Break thing. Double attacks are pretty cool!

Length: This game was way too short! With all the memory it took to load the LONG LONG video sequences it seemed like 2 discs ment longer game. Though... if you want to play for 40 hours like the box advertised... you do all the sidequests, which are annoying, and long, and its the only way you can get cool items, segment addresses, and double attacks. Some of these things you can only get when you play the game a SECOND TIME!!! I don't wanna play the game a second time just to get a new attack when I beat the game without it!

But all in all... this game did a fairly good job. It was good for what it was. I hope that X3 will be better though3 stars (A severe disappointment ) - The original Xenosaga was a massive epic set in the universe of Xenogears (though not directly related.) The anime art style was innovative, and fun, and the story well thought out, deep, and engaging. Early on it was made clear that Xenosaga was meant to be a trilogy, so naturally Episode II was inevitable, and I was looking very forward to the new entry as many plot threads were left untied at the end of the original.
This installment disappoints in a number of ways. First, the art style has gone from being an anime, to being an attempt at more realism, which isn't easy to pull off on PS2. I normally do prefer realism, but I loved the art style of the original here, and felt that there was no need to change it. Many of the game play mechanics were confusing, I never got a double attack going, it seemed overly complex compared to the original. The game suffered from severe frame rate drops frequently, and worst of all the story was convoluted, and about half way into the game completely looses track of its own plot, either that or it feels that way because rather than focusing on the story and primary quest the game drowns the player in too many nonsense side quests, many of them taking far too long, and many of them having a hook that they cannot be completed until playing through the game a 2nd time. Namco really made me mad because I normally like to get absolutely everything in an RPG, but this game you have to literally play through the game 20 times just to complete one of the side quests, and frankly, I have too many other games to play, I'm sure that other people would feel the same way.
On the plus side, there were a handful of interesting revelations in the story. I am eager to see the third game, but I certainly hope that Namco shifts its focus back to the story and the main quest. Side quests are good, but there should only be a small handful of them. The average player will spend about 25 hours out of the 40 it takes to complete this game (as complete as possible for 1 time through) on side quests and that's just far too many.

XENOSAGA EPISODE II Jenseits von Gut und BoseAmazon Features:
Strategy (Strategic)
Video Games
PS2 (PSX2)
Sony Playstation (Play station) 2
Playstation2 (Play station2)
Action
Adventure
Role Playing Games (rpg, rpgs)
PlayStation 2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Strategy/RPG

XENOSAGA EPISODE II Jenseits von Gut und Bose is the CD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 29.99USD.