Let's recap for those that aren't too familiar with this rpg series. The Xenosaga series is a spin off series from the Playstation game called Xenogears. Xenogears was not a very successful rpg game in terms of sales and market awareness from the general public, but it was a game that had a small but very strong cult following of fans. Xenosaga Episode I was the spin off game from Xenogears for the Playstation 2. However this time around, under the direction of Namco, Xenosaga Episode I was marketed and develop with the clear direction that the mainstream general video game audience would be its targeted audience as oppose to just the small rpg genre video game audience. Episode I stunned the video game world with its epic movie style story line with massive voice acting, top notch visual graphic, and a soundtrack that is more of a Movie CD soundtrack than a video game rpg soundtrack. This is the kind of thing that you currently would only see from the Final Fantasy series. Since then, Xenosaga has established itself as one of the dominance rpg series that would rival the Final Fantasy series despite having only one game under its belt. With the much anticipated announcement and sneak peek of Episode II, fans were a bit bewildered as to the change in graphical looks and voice actors involved. Does this change hurt the game? In a sense it does, simply because people are used to seeing the game look one way and not the other way. Does it hurt the overall presentation and enjoyment of Episode II? No it does not. Episode II continues where Episode I left off and that's as one of the top notch rpg game out there.
STORY
Ready for another adventure, Kos-Mos?
I just love my brother.
Episode II starts off right where Episode I left off. After rescuing Momo from Albedo and escaping Proto Merkabah, the badly wounded ship, the Elsa, headed for Second Miltia where Momo will be re-united with her mother so she can be examined for the Y-Data that's stored inside of her. However during the examination, Momo was left in an unconscious state due to a booby trap that Albedo left inside of her subconscious. Shion and her friends must make a dive into Momo subconscious in order to save Momo. During this time in crisis, the U-TIC organization plots to obtain the original Zohar that is buried in Old Miltia, an event that the second Miltian government cannot allow. The race against time is pitted at Shion and her friends as they must save Momo and head to old Miltia to retrieve the original Zohar before the U-TIC organization, leading fans to an exciting climatic conclusion to Episode II.
Clearly Episode II was design as a backdrop story that further develops the characters of Xenosaga and ties up any loose ends that Episode I didn't fully explain when introducing these characters, the pass events of the Miltian Conflict, and the summoning of the Gnosis by Joachim Mizrahi to the fans. Of course since this is only Episode II, you won't get answers to everything and even more revealing revelation of events are introduced to the story to keep the whole sub plot interesting. The story of Episode II is told and played out in a nicely fashion that makes the whole game enjoyable. However even though Episode II story is done is a good fashion, there's a sense that it's not a fully complete story like with Episode I. This is due to the fact that unlike Episode I, the main plot of the Xenosaga series which is the conflict between the Gnosis and the civilization of the galaxy takes a back seat here and away from the limelight in Episode II while most of the story events in this episode are base on the events that lead up to the Miltian Conflict, the creation of the U.R.T.V series, and the confrontation of U-Do. Again these developing plots are written and directed exceptionally well; it's just that you forget that the real story behind the Xenosaga Series is about the Gnosis War when playing through Episode II so it seem like a shorter story due to just focusing on pass events of the Miltian Conflict instead of current events. Let's put it this way, if Episode I was the introduction to the Gnosis war then Episode II is the introduction to the events that led to the Gnosis war.
Score 9/10
CHARACTERS
My name is Jin. I'm the new guy.
Episode II marks the return of all the original and supporting casts of characters plus the introduction of a few new characters. The most noticeable new character is Jin, Shion's brother as a new party member. Each character has their own unique personality which had been established in Episode I. Strong character development is here much like in the first episode but this time the focus is more directed toward Jr and Momo. There are still background developments from the other characters but as a whole the story is more focus on Jr and Momo. This is understandable because if you look at the Xenosaga series as chapters in a long story then Episode I was about developing Shion and Kos-Mos and Episode II was about developing Jr and Momo. One can take a guess that Episode III will start to focus more on Chaos and Ziggy. What makes the cast of characters so strong is that not only do they all have a bit of a unique personal story to them, the characters are portrayed in such a humanistic way that they seem so real life like that we can grow to love these characters very easily. Individually there isn't a strong character that stands out amongst the cast of characters but as a whole, this is one of the best casts of rpg characters around. Episode II like with Episode I is heavily filled with voice acting. Certain changes to the voice acting had to be change to make it more Americanized for the mainstream players. New voice actors were hired to replace some of the previous voice actors in the cast of characters while other voice actors returned to the characters they played. The most noticeable changes in the voice acting casts are the voices of Shion, Momo, and Chaos. There is no good or bad to the changes as it's a matter of personal opinion and taste. Some may like the change in Momo voice but don't like the change in Chaos voice and vice versa. One thing is clear is that at first, the change in voice actors will be a bit unsettling but like with all the other changes, you'll be used to it once you reach mid way point of the game. The voice acting is good but it does take a bit of getting used to from the different voice actors involve now.
Score: 10/10
GRAPHICS
Shion is calling me.
The top notch visual graphical standard Xenosaga carries continues in Episode II. However there are some changes from Episode I, some good and some not so good. The overall quality still remains excellent. The improvements you'll notice are the environmental backgrounds which now even have greater details and polygons making the environment looking very rich with 3-D realism of real life environments, character models and the clothes they wear all look clean and smooth with rich texture details giving the model a more realistic approach than ever before. In essence, the game visual graphics now have that more realistic looking style than what was presented in Episode I. This can be good and bad depending on how you look at it. This is more directed toward the changing designs of the character models. In order for the character models to be more realistic in look and details, their designs had to be changed slightly from the Japanese anime influence style to a more Americanize realistic look. This isn't really a bad thing because if you look at the character models as a whole, they look good. However there is that initial shock of seeing an entire character getting a facelift into a totally different look than what was presented to the fans in Episode I. Three characters that have the biggest facelift changes are Shion, Momo, and Kos-Mos. These characters look less Japanese anime and more realistic in this game. Shion now look like an American sexy woman than the timid girl with glasses that was shown in Episode I. Momo now looks more mature than before and Kos-Mos look more human than android, especially Kos-Mos face where she now look like an American grown woman than the Japanese anime robotic look. These changes to a more Americanize look aren't bad overall; it just takes some time getting used to than what was presented to us in Episode I. By the time you approach the mid way point in the game, the new look of the character models becomes the norm. Despite the game looking smoother and realistic, there is still one flaw to the character designs. This flaw is that the characters all have big hands with little details to them. I'm not exactly sure why that is and why the game designers were lazy in not designing the models hands a bit better. They spend so much time getting the face and body designs down right that they forgot about the hands. It's a minor flaw but it's still a flaw that keeps this game from having perfect graphics.
Score: 9/10
MUSIC
You hear that? The angels are singing.
There are video game music and there are video game soundtracks. What's the difference between the two? Well for one, I like to refer video game music as a video game that has some catchy tunes running in the background while you are playing the game to keep things entertaining and fun. Video game soundtrack is something where I refer to a video game where the music isn't just some catchy tunes running in the background. Its actual songs and musical scores from a fully orchestrated band used to strengthen a story scene or an important event in a story. In a sense, bolstering the overall importance of the game. Xenosaga Episode II has a musical soundtrack and what a soundtrack it is. Almost every single track is a powerful rendition and grabs that attention of gamers and completely makes its mark on the players signifying that you are indeed playing a Xenosaga game. You cannot play this game and not notice how the effect of the soundtrack will have on you and the story. Some examples of excellent tracks are, In the Beginning, Opening Theme, Fatal Fight, and of course my favorite, Image Theme. There's no way can anyone say this isn't a powerful soundtrack. Now the question is how does it compare to the soundtrack of Episode I? Well it falls a little bit short on the comparison. It's hard to measure up to the tracks of Pain and Spirit from Episode I and I doubt not many rpg soundtrack out there can do that. But falling short doesn't mean that the overall musical soundtrack isn't impressive. If you have the money and know where to get the soundtrack, then I would highly recommend you go out and buy Episode II soundtrack. It's just that good.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
Air Attack Zone
Blessed Miracle on your allies.
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Rpg
Publisher: Namco
Disc:2 DVD Discs
Memory:34 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control:Yes
Vibration Function:Yes
Digital Control:Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: February 2005
Episode II gameplay is pretty much the same as Episode I, however the gameplay has been revamped a bit with some new interesting features. But the usual features that you saw in Episode I are back. The game is pretty much linear so you won't have much trouble finding out where to go and what to do next. A new thing that I've notice is that there's quite a bit of puzzle solving elements in this game than what was in Episode I. This can be a good or bad thing depending on whether or not you enjoy solving puzzles. Like with Episode I, the game is broken up into 2 modes, Character Battles and A.M.W.S Battles. Let's look at the features of both modes.
Ethers:Ether is just another word for magic. Ethers fall into two categories, offensive and defensive ethers. There are quite a large number of ethers available in this game but the most commonly used ones are the healing ethers and the status curing ethers. One thing to mention that is new in this game in the introduction of Ether combos. Basically an ether combo is an ether that does an area effect on all your party members or on all the enemies you are fighting. In order for an ether combo to occur, two conditions must be met. The first condition is that the two party members that are performing the ether combo must both have that particular ether. The last condition is that the partner of the ether combo must be boosted ahead so that his/her turn is suppose to follow the person that is going to start the casting of the ether combo. Once both conditions are met then an area effect ether combo will take place. All in all I didn't find much use for ethers besides the curing ones. Skills:The skill system has been revamped to a more flexible system with even more skills to choose from. All party members can now have access to the same skills instead of just some particular skills that was seen in Episode I. There are four class levels of skills. In order to have access to the skills for each class, you need to first unlock the class by using your class points. After which you can unlock the skills by using skill points. After both objectives are achieved, you can equip the skills you have unlocked. This is a very good skill system. Only drawback is too many skills and not enough equip slots are available to equip those skills. Event Slots: Nothing new here. This is basically a return of what was featured in Episode I. Basically event slots are conditions that are placed at the beginning of each attack turn. These conditions give special effects on the battlefield. They only last for one turn before a new event slot replaces the one before it. An example of an event slot is the "Increase Critical Hit" slot. During this event slot, there's a very good chance that all hits will deliver a critical hit for the entire turn. A smart player will use these event slots to their advantage. Boost: This feature return from Episode I but was left untouched without any revamp. Those are that are familiar with the boost system in Episode I shouldn't have any problem picking up the boost system at all. The concept of boosting is that after a few turns and hit, your party members as well as the enemy can boost themselves ahead of their turn in the battle system to take an action faster. In essence it's cutting in line ahead of the other players that were supposed to go first. Boosting is a great way to set up major damage combos. Stock:This is a new feature introduce in this game. Stocking is basically instead of using a character turn to take an action; they are saving it for later usage. You can stock up to three times before the stock meter is max out. When you do decide to use your save up stocks, it would basically be like attacking three times in row on one turn due to the fact that you've saved up your attack turns from before by stocking. With the combination of stocking and boosting, you can do some amazing damage combos with your party members. Double Attacks:This is the double attack combo feature in this game between two party members. The type of double attacks varies within party members. In order for a double attack to occur, the characters involve in the double attack must have stock up a certain required number of stocks then the character that is to follow the person who is starting the double attack must be boosted. Double Attacks look nice and all but in reality they aren't very useful in this game. The fact that you have to use up your stocks and boost to get off a double attack doesn't warrant using a double attack because most double attack don't do that much damage when compare to using a stock and boost combo to deliver regular combo attacks. Combos: This is basically the regular attacks of your party members. By pressing either, circle, square, or triangle in a sequence, you are performing a basic combo attack. Of course you don't just want to perform any type of combo sequence; you want to be able to perform a combo sequence that will cause a Zone Break. A Zone Break is when an enemy defense has been knock down that you can put them in an Air or Down State to do greater damage. Read next section on details of Air/Down State. Air/Down State: Certain party members can cause either an Air State or a Down State once a Zone Break as been achieve by using regular combo attacks. The concept behind knocking an enemy down or knocking an enemy up in the air is that once they are in either of those state, their defense has been weaken to the point that any follow up attacks while the enemy is in Air/Down State will do double the damage. It's almost a key to set up your combo to be follow by an Air/Down state to maximize your damage on the enemy. Specials: Special attacks are only available to Kos-Mos and A.M.W.S. Special attacks can only be deliver by stocking up first. Each special attack of course has a set number of required stocks up before you can use it. Due to the requirement of stocking up, Kos-Mos special attacks are practically render useless because her special attacks don't do enough damage to warrant using stocks for them. A.M.W.S specials are more practical to use due to the fact that you basically can only do a Stock/Boost/Zone Break/Air/Down fighting combos on the non character battle system so there's no point in saving stocks for anything else in A.M.W.S battle system. A.M.W.S: This part of the battle system is where your characters will be controlling giant robots to do their fighting. Things here have been gimped down from what was feature in Episode I. There are only three A.M.W.S with each one having a default pilot. You can change the secondary pilots on each A.M.W.S but you can't change the default pilot. Only one A.M.W.S can use ethers. All A.M.W.S have special attacks that require stocking to use. The boosting system is the same as in the character battle mode. However there are no Combos, Zone Breaks, and Air/Down state to be set up in A.M.W.S battle mode. It's a very limited feature compare to what is available to do in character battle mode. In all honesty, I didn't find much use of having A.M.W.S battle mode in this game at all.
The gameplay continues to be very good for the series but much like with Episode I, it's not the outstanding part of the game. Some of the new features such as Zone Breaks, Air and Down State are very enjoyable to play and allows the players to be more interactive in the gameplay but on the other hand, other features in the gameplay seem pointless to have and rarely used by the gamers. Double Attacks are nice to look at but you need to use Stocks to get them off and they don't do enough damage to warrant wasting Stocks on them. The importance of using Ethers has also been knocked down. The only Ethers spell that you will mainly need to use is Medica 2 (a healing spell) or similar healing spells, but outside of the healing spells, you don't really use Ethers at all. The A.M.W.S part of the game now plays a limited role in the overall gameplay. Only three A.M.W.S to choose from and out of those three, only one of them can use Ethers. Add in the fact that you barely use A.M.W.S in this game as well. At this point I'm starting to think that the game developers are moving toward eliminating A.M.W.S from the overall gameplay as the series move along. Having a choice between character battles and A.M.W.S battles, I choose character battles due to the fact you can do a lot more in character battles than in A.M.W.S battles. The revamp skills system is nice but there are too many skills to choose from and not enough slots to equip them. It needs to be balance more. The rate of encountering enemies is very balance and nice though. Not once did I think there were too many fights or too little fights. All in all, this game is about: Stock-Boost-Zone Break- Down/Air-Combo. That's all you really need to beat the game. And it's really a fun and very enjoyable game. Drawback is that actual in-story gameplay is a bit too short and certain features are rendered moot due to the Stock-Boost-Zone Break-Down/Air-Combo features of the game.
Score: 8/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
The battle against Dark Erde Kaiser.
This is a huge improvement from Episode I. On the surface, it doesn't look like much but once you look deeper behind the surface, you notice there are a lot of extra side quests, bosses, and various skills and special moves to unlock. In fact one would dare say that the amount of time you spend on completing all these extras would equal the amount of actual time you would spend on the actual story gameplay. In order to complete all the side quests and such, you'll probably need to replay certain parts of the game more than 12+ times, crazy huh? The bulk of the extras are divided into three groups, GS Campaigns, Robot Academy, and Segment Address.
Let's look at the Segment Address first. The Segment Address is a returning extra feature from Episode I. If you've played Episode I then you would be familiar with this. The concept of the Segment Address is that littered throughout the game in various areas are red hidden doors. Behind each of these doors is a chest that contains various items. In order to open these red doors, you need to find decoder keys that correspond with each door. Once you find a decoder key then it's just a matter of backtracking to where the red door of that decoder key is and opening it. One thing to note is that you won't be able to open all of the red doors until you finish the game and load a clear+ save file and replay the game again right before the last stage of the game. Certain extra areas that contain these red doors can only be access upon finishing the game and loading the clear+ save file.
The Robot Academy is once again a returning little extra side story from Episode I featuring the adventure of the weird Professor and his quest to build the ultimate robot, Erde Kaiser. The concept is the same as in Episode I. You help the professor find the robot parts and build Erde Kaiser. Once you have all the robot parts, the professor will build for you Erde Kaiser, a powerful robot ether spell for Shion to use. This time around, things are a bit more in-depth as you'll need to load a clear+ save file to access some extra dungeons and boss fights to complete the whole Robot Academy storyline.
Finally the GS Campaigns are the main bulk of the extra side quests. These campaigns are basically various tasks that are you required to perform for the citizens of Second Miltia and Kukai Foundation. Completion of each campaign will reward you with various rewards. And some campaigns will provide mini games and extra boss fights. There are a total of 36 GS Campaigns which is a lot. And much like with the Robot Academy and Segment Address, you won't be able to finish all the GS Campaigns without having to replay the game quite a few times using the clear+ save file.
On the surface, these extras don't seem like much but once you start doing them, you'll realize just how much there is to do and how much gameplay time it requires you to do them. By using the fact that you need to load a clear+ save file and replay the game to a certain aspect, the game pretty much already give you a reason as to why you need to replay the game again even though you finish playing the game the first time around. It's pretty neat how they manage to bundle in secret areas and extra bosses into a clear+ game save file. I've spent over 20+ hours of doing all the extra side quests in the game including replaying the game 12+ times. So it's safe to say there are a lot of extras and replay value at hand.
Score: 10/10
With the conclusion of Episode II, it's very clear now that the Xenosaga series has established itself as one of the premiere epic rpg movie story of all time. With the end of each episode comes more intrigue and thought provoking discussions on what to expect next in the next episode. Clearly anyone that played this game would be wondering what's going to happen next. Personally I can't wait to find out what's going to happen in Episode III. More questions than answers than ever before. This is the kind of rpg story that can capture the attention of its audience and hold their interest for a long time. In terms of gameplay, the length of the actual gameplay might be frown upon at first but the gameplay itself continues to be unique, cutting edge, and fun with a touch of the right balance between too many fights and not enough fights while exploring. Even puzzle solving elements are introduced in this game here for fans that enjoy that aspect of the game. The music, graphics, and characters of Episode II continue to uphold the bar of excellence, making this game a total rpg package for rpg fans out there. There's really no reason why any rpg fan would not like the Xenosaga series. Clearly the Xenosaga series has done what few rpg series has been able to do beside the Final Fantasy series, and that's to grasp the mainstream audience across the globe. Yes the game may have been Americanize a bit but it's all good and understandable. In order for a game to reach out to a bigger audience, certain changes may need to take place to make that game more acceptable to those that aren't familiar with the rpg genre. The Americanization of Episode II is nothing more than a cosmetic change, so while it may bother you a bit, by the time you finish playing the game after 40 hours+, you won't even notice the changes between Episode I and Episode II anymore. With Final Fantasy XII and Kingdom Hearts II still schedule to come out in late 2005 as well as other rpgs, it would be too early to be declaring Xenosaga II the rpg of the year, it would definitely be one of the nominees as the rpg of the year.
