The sequel to Xenosaga I adds some new elements but also removes some of the better features of its predecessor.
The story in Xenosaga II focuses almost entirely on Junior. It’s all about his past with the other two URTV variants (Nigredo and Albedo) as well as their relationship with Sakura, Mizrahi’s daughter who is the template for MOMO. Countless flashbacks show what happened with Junior as well as fully exploring the reasons and causes of Albedo’s madness. The connection between all three variants is explored as well, including seeing there past and training and even glimpsing into the future of what the series will hold. The plot actually seems slightly normal until Disc 2. That’s when things really start taking shape. New villains are revealed and plot twists seem to pop up with some regularity. The overall package of the story is just brilliant. Once again we have a story that delves into philosophy and existence itself with an amazing intelligence rarely seen in any kind of game, even most RPGs. Anyone who played through the first game of the series knows this though and it hasn’t changed. Expect intelligent character studies as well intelligent discourse. The plot of Xenosaga is not for those that just like to sit down and play a game. Xenosaga makes you think.
With Xenosaga II, Namco has changed very little in the presentation department, graphics wise. The graphics engine is nearly identical to that of Xenosaga I; however, cosmetic changes were made to several characters. The character models are better defined, though they still have poorly designed hands, and facial details are much crisper. Shion underwent a makeover of sorts for no other reason than to make the game more appealing. One noticable issue is occasional stuttering with the frame rate in random places. The background shifts slightly as the game engine attempts to compensate, though this doesn’t happen often. Soundwise, the score for Xenosaga II isn’t quite as good as Xenosaga I. It has some great moments but some of the techno-style music gets extremely annoying quickly. The almost operatic music of the first game seems sadly absent though some scenes from the first return here, notably a brief sequence with the Song of Nephilim that will be recognized by players of the first game. It is the reason it loses a mark for Graphics and Sound to me. The voice-acting has changed quite a bit. It seems many of the voice actors from the first game are gone for the second of the series. In some cases it means a vast improvement (Shion), in others the new voice simply doesn’t work (KOS-MOS). Junior and many others retained their voice actors from before though.
The cast continues to have problems as they have simply too many great characters to utilize and not enough time to use them. Junior gets his due here but characters like Chaos and KOS-MOS are horribly under-utilized. MOMO’s past, or rather Sakura’s past is fully explored from within the mind of MOMO and that ensures she is properly used. Shion herself isn’t as much of a factor in this game as it sounded like she would be, though she does move the story along. Here, we also meet her brother, Jin, through flashbacks and eventually with him joining the party. Several humorous scenes involving Shion and Jin bring a sometimes needed dose of levity to the situations that occur during the game.
The gameplay is much the same as the previous game; you walk around freely and can see the enemies on screen so once again no random battles though in many cases battles are unavoidable anyways. You can use traps to gain the upper hand when you do enter battle and you must destroy obstacles to advance. The puzzles from the previous game are back as well. They can all be solved by using some logic and they really do add something to the game, though for some I can see that the sheer number of puzzles may be a deterrent.
In battles, you will find much of the same from Xenosaga I, except for one new and interesting component, Breaks. Breaks basically are things that cause an enemy to lose all its defence and become completely vulnerable. There are Air and Down Breaks and the party can also fall victim to them. These Breaks really change the entire course of battles now since you will not only have to stock regularly but also time Boosts properly. Many bosses require at least two party members to participate in an attack through expert use of boosting in order to break them. This adds a ton of strategy since without properly using Breaks; you will find yourself in danger constantly. Without using Breaks, many will likely find the game difficult to advance in. Each enemy has “zones” that you must target in a particular order to cause breaks so you must determine what attacks to use and in what order to cause the breaks. Once you figure out the break order, stocking up and unleashing a fury of attacks with all three members of the current party cause quickly whittle down even the strongest enemy’s health.
The AGWS, now known as ES, are now utilized through many points of the story. The first game rarely seemed to use them but here there are several long sections where they are needed. However, the ability to call them up in regular character battles is gone. Once you start using them though, you will quickly realize that is a good thing. In the first game, they were really useful during heavy attacks against the party. Here, they are considered as separate party members and any battle featuring them is bound to result in tedium. Whereas any regular character can use Ethers to heal and strengthen the party, only one ES in the game can do the same, meaning you have one ES constantly wasting turns healing both ESs in battle and the other trying to stay alive long enough to deliver finishing blows. Any sequence involving the ESs was quite frankly poorly executed and one of the worst features of the game. A major step back from Xenosaga I where they were actually decent to use. Also, now your mechs separately level up. This is the worst possible move Namco could have made. It takes a long time to level up ESs and it really is pointless considering the length of time you actually need them. They would have been well advised to let average character level determine mech levels but apparently they saw fit to separate the two. Poor judgement call by Namco.
Sidequests in Xenosaga II take the shape of the GS Campaign where you take on tasks from various people over the course of the game and attempt to help them out. Some of these quests are fun battle quests whilst others are either annoyingly fetch quests or just puzzle quests. There is enough variety to keep the sidequests from getting repetitive (other than the fetch quests) but still, there isn’t much in the way of sidequests here. Not really a surprise though since Xenosaga I also didn’t really focus on sidequests as well. The Segment Addresses and Decoders from the first game return and you will find yourself once again searching for them to obtain Keys.
The clear data from the previous game was disappointingly unrewarded as you only receive basic items for your efforts in the previous game. After Xenosaga II is finished, you can load up the clear data to continue on with a brand new sidequest that spans several areas and results in some boss battles that are much more difficult than the actual endgame bosses. Not an unusual occurrence in RPGs but the fact that even regular enemies in the areas are difficult seems to make the entire sidequest uneven, though it is meant to challenge the player by offering them something beyond the story’s quests.
The level up system is the same here but the skills system has been completely revamped from the previous game. Instead of Xenosaga I where each character had a set of skills they could select from a long chart, here we have a pool of skills that anyone in the game can use. It is disappointing to see an interesting skill system abandoned for a generic system found in countless other RPGs. With the new system, you spend class points to unlock several classes in each level of skills. Then you spend skill points to gain several different types of skills (EP skills, mastered skills and equippable skills). Once you finish an entire class, you unlock the next level. This means everyone can have the same exact skills which is nothing but a horrible decision by the developers since it takes away from the personality of each character that they have no specialized abilities.
Overall, Xenosaga II: Jenseits von Gut und Bose offers those that played the first game, the opportunity to enjoy the continuing epic story that truly is awe-inspiring. It won’t attract any new people to the series that didn’t enjoy the first game but it continues the saga nicely. There are however several issues with the game, most notably the uneven difficulty, the slow,tedious and horribly designed ES battles and the skill system revamp. These issues may deter those that enjoyed the first game. They apparently wanted to make some of the gameplay generic to appeal to a wider audience. Whether they succeed in that is unimportant, the fact they would take the excellent formula from the first game and mess with it in a poor manner is quite disappointing. The addition of the Break system saves the game overall from being a generic RPG (gameplay-wise) and one can only hope they take the best new features of Xenosaga II and incorporate them into Xenosaga III whilst eliminating the lesser features that bring down the overall enjoyment of Xenosaga II.
Graphics and Sound: 14/15
Control: 14/15
Story: 15/15
Replayability: 11/15
Entertainment Value: 15/20
Overall: 86.25%