My friends, my inner circles, the people who I've talked about Xeno with (whether Gears, Blade, or Saga) has told me that this is the one. This was the game that did it for Xenosaga. And I believed them, so I played through 1 and 2. I think they're not that bad of games, but they certainly existed as a way to set up the world and the characters. I was especially frustrated with 2's combat, enemy design and dungeons. They weren't really that much of my jam, but they still had great character moments and an interesting story premise. This might come off as a negative start to the review perhaps, but let me tell you. My friends, everyone who told me this was the one? They were right.

This game is full of payoff. Almost everything is improved. The visuals and art style are a massive step up, the character designs are amazing (my favorites being Shion, Jr. and chaos), the dungeons and enemies are so much better designed (it may be easier, but it's not designed in a bullshit volatile way)... but most importantly, the combat. By god, everything works here. Even the worst party members have a use, whether it's chaos and Jr. for utility or MOMO who dies by getting a lovetap from an enemy. I ran Shion, KOS-MOS, Ziggy and Jin for all of the game and I played it in a more aggressive way to break the enemy as soon as possible and cash in on damage. It's so fun the way it is designed, it's extremely addicting in a way neither of the other two were and even some of the Blade games or Xenogears did not feel this fun. I had such a blast with this combat system, I actively wanted to find every enemy and beat them to gain more SP and gain new skills to play with. God, it makes me miss it the more I type it out. One last thing I want to mention is that Yuki Kajiura does an incredible job for the soundtrack. Basically every song fit the mood, it has emotional tracks, it has foreboding tracks, it has tense tracks for the bosses, it has awesome sick guitar riff tracks when two cool anime women fight each other. It's such a massive step up from the previous two, it is actual insanity.

Then... the story and characters. First off, I truly appreciate the Xenogears references. If you played Xenogears, you'll know what I'm referring to. Second, the story has so much pay off and while it is probably backloaded with having to speedrun all the villains at once, but there were so many satisfying conclusions that I don't think it's that big a deal. Another thing I want to mention is that I love that Shion is a clear, defined protagonist. The first one is honestly slightly more of an ensemble cast and the second focuses slightly more on Jr./MOMO which is good for them, but Shion was the one that lured me in the most. This story is genuinely incredibly and the ending made me fucking sob in the end, once the title screen came up and the soft piano hit. Which now leads to the final point, the characters. I wasn't sure how I felt in the previous two, but now it's clear. I love Shion Uzuki. She's now one of my definitive favorite protagonists. She went through so much in her life, she feels like a person I can relate to, she's badass, she's strong, she's emotional, she's awesome. I always liked Ziggy and MOMO and none of that changed here, they're both still great here and got their good conclusions here. Jr. took quite a bit to warm up, I was not immediately sold on him first, but eventually I grew to love him in this game. The URTV/Dmitri Yuriev story was always interesting, but it ended on a massive bang. Jin started off as a cool addition to the cast from 2 and ended off an incredible character, his end was one of the ones that made me cry in the end. KOS-MOS has always been awesome and she's just always been this consistent and great and I hope to see more of her in the future. chaos has so much going on that it's hard to really know how I am feeling about him, but I do think he is really neat and I grew an appreciation for him more overtime. What a fantastic cast in the end. I'm happy. I can easily tell this game was made with love and care and I love all of it, even if I was not that much sold in the start.

The last thing I want to mention is... spoilers for Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed, but I really hope the falling light that orbits near the Earth or Lost Jerusalem is either KOS-MOS or Shion's crew. It's already a perfect ending, but the idea of Xenoblade and Xenosaga being this connected fills me with glee, excitement and hope.

This is going to be a long review, but if you want a TLDR, this game frustrated the hell out of me.

I'm gonna list the positives right off the bat, because this game does have good parts and after some time thinking about it, I think I appreciate Xenosaga 1 quite a bit so I didn't have that big of expectations for this game. I did want to give it a fair shake.
- The story is still great! There's especially great scenes in this game, from Juli and Ziggy wanting to keep each other alive longer for MOMO, to Jr/Rubedo basically being one of the bigger focuses of the game when I thought he was just alright in the first game, to any Albedo scene. There's one scene between Shion and Jin that is quite touching late at the game that I really like.
- Jin is a great addition to the cast. He's super cool, we needed a wiser member of this team and all of his fight scenes are absolutely sick.
- The actual dungeon design is improved on in this game compared to Xenogears and Xenosaga 1. They're all pretty short, to the point. Some have puzzles and while I did not really care for it at first, it did break sort of the... I suppose boredom of only walking from point A to B in the previous games.
- There's actual music in the dungeons and worlds.

However, there's a couple of downsides. Quite a few of them that are irritating and brought my mood down quite a bit.
- You know, Xenosaga 1's art direction wasn't my favorite but it was kind of endearing in a way. This art direction though is a massive shift and honestly looks quite hideous.
- A lot of the main voice actors have changed from the first game and that makes me sad, because I liked the original voices quite a bit. No flame to the voice actors here, but I preferred how it was.
- Since there are no shops and not interesting sidequests, I don't really see the point in travelling around anywhere and that really sucks because the world of Xenosaga can be really interesting and really cool.
- This combat system... it's a cool concept and it can be fun for some boss fights, but it's far too punishing. While you are too busy stocking up and setting up your big combo, you are getting wailed on and it's just a game of "catch-up" so you don't die before the enemy does. It's not that fun in my opinion.
- That also leads to the enemy design, which is awful in this game. They just have really irritating gimmicks, far too much HP, and sometimes ruins dungeons because enemies can be so annoying that I do not want to grind combat at all.

So while this wasn't my favorite, I do look forward to Pied Piper, a Missing Year, and eventually Xenosaga 3 which from what I hear via friends and general word of mouth, is a massive step up. Can't wait for it, as the Xeno series has grown to mean a lot to me and I always like seeing the series at its highest highs.