Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Bose is the 2004 followup to 2003's Xenosaga 1 and is in a few ways better then its predecessor and in many ways worse.
Let's talk about the pros of this game first because even this dumpster fire has some good things going for it. First of all, the soundtrack is honestly way better then Xenosaga 1's soundtrack in my opinion. I also appreciate how faster this game is overall in comparison to Xenosaga 1 (but this could be an emulation thing also as I heard 1 is way slower on emulator). I also think the story itself is great when it comes to Jr, MOMO and Albedo as the game explores their backstories more and the plot elements that this game covers like more background on the Miltian conflict for example are greatly appreciated. Also the intro is super cool and well choreographed, showing you the Conflict as it was happening. That is all the things I can say about this game though.
Where to begin with the negatives... Firstly, the artstyle. I think they were going for a more realistic artstyle BUT they did it in a way where they kept some of Xenosaga 1's models and created new models for characters like KOS-MOS, Shion, chaos and others which just look UGLY as fuck. It's actually offensive in some cases. Secondly is the combat of the game. The combat of this game is basically the same as from the last game, however instead of equipable items and skills that you gain from levelling up and combat, you have a class system which lets you get the spells and skills you want. This I think is worse then the traditional RPG systems because there isn't really much customisability as a result of this system. They also replaced the voice cast to a new one (except for Jr and a few others) for no reason and like, why??? You also don't have an item economy in this game (which is NUTS, what were they thinking) as there are no shops, no money and you can only get items through battles and even then you will have barely any revives/healing items anyways because the balancing of this game is utter dogshit.
The balancing of this game deserves its own section as it is designed against you in a variety of ways. In this game, you have way more boosts and the ability to stock up extra moves (which you HAVE to do to get through battles) but to compensate for that, the enemies are more spongy and way more heavyhitting which again comes back towards my item economy point. You also fight enemies and bosses that have 3, 4 or 5 enemies at once and can summon more which makes things way more frustrating as this balancing only favours one or two enemy fights. They also made half the cast basically useless because of one character who is ridiculously overpowered for no reason, MOMO. Basically, she can do insane damage if you stack up her turns and if you keep landing crits on an enemy as she does 5x the damage if an enemy is launched or downed. If a RPG forces you to rely on one character to get through its broken systems because of how overpowered they are, the game sucks I'm afraid.
I really wanted to like this game as there are good ideas on the table for this one and the few things the game did right are better then what 1 did. However, the absolutely broken combat of this one made me quit a game because of its bullshit for the first time ever. The worst Xeno game bar none.
Let's talk about the pros of this game first because even this dumpster fire has some good things going for it. First of all, the soundtrack is honestly way better then Xenosaga 1's soundtrack in my opinion. I also appreciate how faster this game is overall in comparison to Xenosaga 1 (but this could be an emulation thing also as I heard 1 is way slower on emulator). I also think the story itself is great when it comes to Jr, MOMO and Albedo as the game explores their backstories more and the plot elements that this game covers like more background on the Miltian conflict for example are greatly appreciated. Also the intro is super cool and well choreographed, showing you the Conflict as it was happening. That is all the things I can say about this game though.
Where to begin with the negatives... Firstly, the artstyle. I think they were going for a more realistic artstyle BUT they did it in a way where they kept some of Xenosaga 1's models and created new models for characters like KOS-MOS, Shion, chaos and others which just look UGLY as fuck. It's actually offensive in some cases. Secondly is the combat of the game. The combat of this game is basically the same as from the last game, however instead of equipable items and skills that you gain from levelling up and combat, you have a class system which lets you get the spells and skills you want. This I think is worse then the traditional RPG systems because there isn't really much customisability as a result of this system. They also replaced the voice cast to a new one (except for Jr and a few others) for no reason and like, why??? You also don't have an item economy in this game (which is NUTS, what were they thinking) as there are no shops, no money and you can only get items through battles and even then you will have barely any revives/healing items anyways because the balancing of this game is utter dogshit.
The balancing of this game deserves its own section as it is designed against you in a variety of ways. In this game, you have way more boosts and the ability to stock up extra moves (which you HAVE to do to get through battles) but to compensate for that, the enemies are more spongy and way more heavyhitting which again comes back towards my item economy point. You also fight enemies and bosses that have 3, 4 or 5 enemies at once and can summon more which makes things way more frustrating as this balancing only favours one or two enemy fights. They also made half the cast basically useless because of one character who is ridiculously overpowered for no reason, MOMO. Basically, she can do insane damage if you stack up her turns and if you keep landing crits on an enemy as she does 5x the damage if an enemy is launched or downed. If a RPG forces you to rely on one character to get through its broken systems because of how overpowered they are, the game sucks I'm afraid.
I really wanted to like this game as there are good ideas on the table for this one and the few things the game did right are better then what 1 did. However, the absolutely broken combat of this one made me quit a game because of its bullshit for the first time ever. The worst Xeno game bar none.