How do you improve upon perfection? By upping the stakes, the character development, not worrying about catching lightning in a bottle again and allowing the story to flow and let Clementine grow and experience multiple beautiful facets of life not yet tainted by the apocalypse. The drama is unreal, with more twists and turns than ever before-- containing some of the best moments and arcs from any game period. You'll love these characters, you'll hate them, you'll cry your eyes out, and you'll never forget the goat Kenny.

This game is not perfect, but it scratches an itch I didn't know I had when I first played it in 2021. Replaying in 2023, has been a very enjoyable experience and I am confident if it gets a sequel, I will be replaying it a third time. Incredibly satisfying combat and a pretty good story to boot.

Pros:

- The hack and slash combat is fantastic and very fluid if you get the hang of combos, which alternate between attacks with the protagonists' weapons (sword for Yuito, throwing knives for Kasane) and telekinetically throwing objects strewn about the levels. The animations for these attacks and finishers are incredibly satisfying, with proper weight and “build up” (that tension you feel when a special move is winding up, common to action anime).

- The SAS system (borrowing psionic powers from companions) is very engaging and allows you to approach battles in several ways. Too much happening at once? Move at superspeed with SAS Hypervelocity. Enemy covered in oil? Set them alight with SAS Pyrokinesis? Is there a distant armored enemy obscured by smoke? See through the noise with SAS Clairvoyance, break their shell with SAS Duplication, and move into the kill range with SAS Teleportation.

- The story is high stakes and pretty interesting, with more than a few emotional moments (much more than I was initially expecting. An interesting bit about the story is that it is "split" between the male protagonist (Yuito) and the female protagonist (Kasane), with their storylines running together at the beginning and then diverging. While Yuito's campaign raises questions about the world and its narrative, Kasane’s campaign answers them (a bit of an oversimplification). Yet both stand on their own.

- The “bond episodes” (hanging with/learning more about your companions) add a lot of depth to the characters and make you care about them. Completing them not only provides insight into their personalities, backstories, and development, but also unlocks new abilities with their SAS connections. These characters all have their own “cliches” but provide a unique spin on them such that they never feel uninspired.

- The "brainpunk" aesthetics are VERY cool and make you feel like a badass (exemplified by mechanics such as “brain field” and “brain drive”). As an example of one of these aesthetics, SAS connections are literal connections maintained by neon wires plugged into the characters’ backs, and operating them means accepting the pain they bring when they piece the skin to interface directly with the brain. Additionally, the enemy artstyle is disconcerting and truly alien; they stutter around and writhe in inhuman manners.

- The add-on DLCs (I bought the Season Pass so I'm talking about them cumulatively) add a lot of different weapons, plug-ins (which enable buffs and different mechanics for your characters), mechanics, and bond episodes which greatly spice up the endgame (aka: going for 100% completion). It is fairly cheap (I think around $20) and I believe it's worth the money.

Cons:

- This isn’t technically a con, but I will say that this is NOT an RPG, it's a hack-and-slash.. You can choose weapons for your character and their companions, but it's only one type per character (sword, knives, hammer, torch, etc.) and for most of the base game weapons, the only difference between them all is their appearance and how much damage they do. Many of the DLC weapons have additionally effects that allow for limited build-crafting, though “build-crafting” isn’t really something you do in this game.

- While I enjoyed the story, there are a few parts that are very convoluted and you would probably need to think about them for a while to make sense of them. Plot twists are abundant and while this provides intrigue, it can also make the narrative feel unfocused or hurried. Additionally the story is meant to be played with Yuito first and Kasane second, as Kasane's story spoils Yuito's, which is somewhat awkward and can be frustrating if Kasane’s campaign interests you more at first.

- The side quest system is absolute garbage, being very one-note and finicky (“kill ____ enemy with ____ attack”), and in my opinion are only worth doing if you want cool weapons or 100% completion (and you only need to complete 30 to get all achievements). Instead of completing them throughout the course of the game like how I assume I was supposed to, I just grinded them for a few hours after completing both campaigns.

- Without getting into spoiler territory, some of the bond episodes ignore a glaring issue raised in the main story (they are designed to be played alongside the main story), and as such, the events of those bond episodes come off as downright bizarre. I have a feeling the teams writing the main narrative and the bond episodes were two separate groups that merged their work at the end, only to figure out they could not coexist in their original forms, leading to stop-gap rewrites.

- Yuito is the classic anime protagonist, and while he has some great moments and unexpected depth, he is very "normal but also exceptional" and can be a little dense. He’s not all bad, but there are times that will have you questioning what’s going on in that head of his. Objectively, Kasane is much more interesting, but somehow can be even more confusing than Yuito in her actions at times.

- The game has both Japanese and English voices; I have only played with English voices and so I can say that it certainly has those "weird dub" deliveries at times. In general, the English dub is good though.

Objective rating: 4 stars
Subjective rating: 4.5 stars

There are many ways a video game can be difficult. It can force you to succeed with minimal room for error, like Celeste or Katana Zero. It can give you some room for error, but if you screw up too much, you end up failing, like Dark Souls.
Xcom 2 is different. You can get 3/4 soldiers killed on a mission and you'll be mostly fine. Heck, the tutorial first mission has you get 3/4 soldiers killed. You can screw up during combat without everyone immediatly dying (unlike something like Fire Emblem). You can make suboptimal plays on the world map and won't get a game over anytime soon. In fact, it's incrdibly difficult to get a game over in this game. You either have to really screw up multiple missions in a row, basically choose to ignore the Avatar Project, or fail one of very few critical mission.
But your mistakes pile up. And if you make too many mistakes, your soldiers die. And if too many of your soldiers die, you can't defend the avenger when a UFO hunts it down. Or you neglect some upgrade path and feel yourself becoming more and more powerless.
I've never played a game as difficult as Xcom 2 with as much room for error, and I love it for that.

It's the best tactical iso strategy to date. The expansion's good too, but I didn't find it as necessary as others.

It's perfection all the way through. The gameplay is expertly tuned, always hovering between challenging and comfortable. It keeps you on your toes. There's always more ways to make it harder.

Leveling up characters is unbelievably satisfying. The high-level skills and equipment are all useful and powerful. This means losing veterans is painful and memorable. Naming your characters is extremely important to the core gameplay experience. Give them silly names and curse at them as they miss the 87% shot.

The UI deserves special mention. It's rock solid. I never found myself struggling with movement or actions, it's unobtrusive but informative. There are satisfying boops and bonks for every action. Criminally overlooked element of the tactical strategy experience.