xenosaga question

i have episode one and i beat it and enjoyed a lot of what it had to offer
but i never got episode two
last summer i saw episode three at fyi for $5 so i had to pick it up

my question is: would you guys recommend me playing it or is it highly recommended to play episode two first?

You need to play episode 2 to really appreciate the story. As you might remember this is a very story focused trilogy, your missing out on a third of it if you skip ep. 2.

You can skip II, if you want. Ep3 has a huge database section that explains the basics of what happened in Ep1 & 2 and the missing year cell phone game that was never released anywhere, but Japan. Think the only scene that you won't get is when the group almost get hit by a discarded mech gun, at the end of disk 1. In the beginning of Ep2, Cannan and chaos discard the gun arm to kill multiple mechs....

You may also want to read this for Ziggy's history. Although, the tease to the black testement is really introduced in Ep2. So you won't really understand the relevance to the translation until about mid way thru Ep3.
http://zarathustra.kaisho.org/

You should try to play 2 before you start on 3.

It's a pretty story driven game. Playing the second one first might be a good idea

Just like others have said play II before III, but be forewarned II is the worst Xenosaga game out of the trilogy imo. Not to say it was completely horrible, but it was not as fun to play as I and especially III.