This review contains spoilers
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.
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.