A spectacular sequel to the original, Xenosaga II makes its mark through several convenient advancements.
As usual, the series follows the storyline of Vector employee, Shion Uzuki and her companions, through a space age story about a lost relic called the Zohar. [SPOILERS AHEAD] The sequel picks up 14 years ago, when the planet Old Miltia was in chaos and on the brink of destruction. In order to try and salvage the government's most prized cybergenetic soldiers, the President sends in one of their most skilled AMWS pilots, along with a skilled new comer, Chaos, to fly into the chaos and destruction in order to rescue the Miltian government's secret weapons from destruction. But before you get there, you run into some of UTIC's soldiers, and just when thrings start looking rough, you are saved from destruction by Jin Uzuki. Of course, this all turns out to be a flashback made by the cyborg Canaan while in a repair pod. Now, we return to our storyline with Ziggy, Jr., and MOMO on their way to MOMO's appointment. As usual, things get out of hand, and you run into trouble with an enemy AMWS.
At MOMO's appointment, you discover that someone has hacked into MOMO's brain, and reprogrammed it so that her maintainance will go bad. Enter the longest flashback of the game: the dive into MOMO's subconcious. This is a flashback that will take you all the way through the first disc, and is what was left of MOMO's memories as a human being. Apparently this is when Jr., Gaignan, and Albido were younger, and they were assisting in the research into MOMO's disease as a human. There are a couple of sequences where you and the team follow Jr's younger group on the dive at the beach side. This is a quite interesting session, because you first encounter UDO, a rather tough form of opponent. At the end of the first disc, you fight Albido, and from there things heat up with the reappearance of Old Miltia. After that, there is some filler stuff that you have to do, and then you get to go back to Old Miltia, and walk the ruined parts that you went through earlier while it was still standing. This time, though, you actually go through the large tower called Labyrinthos. This is a time consuming maze of traps and enemies. After that, there is the plot twist in which the Zohar turns Old Miltia into a giant fortress, and you have to infiltrate it.
[END OF SPOILERS]
All-in-all, the game is very time consuming and interesting. The graphics are a bit better than the first, and they help the story flow a bit better as well. Some of the cutscenes are a bit legnthy, but if you don't like them, just skip them by pressing the start button and then the triangle. Don't worry, Namco doesn't make you sit through a half hour cutscene unless you want to! Another visual aid is better control over the camera, so that you can actually tell what's what in the game.
The gameplay is pretty close to the original, with some added extras. You can now walk around and do side missions for other people that you meet that may need your help, as well as play through the regular game. If you like doing puzzles, there are a lot of puzzles to do and earn bonus stuff for doing. On top of the added extras while you are playing the game, there are also bonus dungeons to complete once you have beaten the game that make it quite interesting.
Battling with Xenosaga II has been improved from the original game's outdated battle system. Now, instead of having to control those pain-in-the-ass AMWS while trying to fight alongside your characters, you can fight in a custom battle system designed specifically for the AMWS. That's right, your party now consists of one or two AMWS, and those pesky robotic enemies that you may have had to fight on foot can now be taken on with the AMWS. It's quite convenient. On top of that, the general outlook of the battle system has been improved so that combat is a bit easier. Everything you do is still controlled with the circle, square, and triangle system, except your combo attacks have been improved, and the whole boost system has been recalled and advanced. A pull up menu with the option of swapping out party members and using Ether or Special techniques has been added by pressing the x.
Didn't grab something along the way the first time through? No problem! Return back to that moment in time and do it the right way using the UMA shields. Some of the places even allow you to go back through them using your AMWS instead!
Some of the newer audio tracks in the sequel are excellently placed and sound perfect. Unfortunately for those of you who have been treated by America's favorite button, the cross button, are going to be disappointed because the confirm button in this game is the circle again.
There have also been some new features added in the menu that allow for better customization of your character. You can now learn Ether attacks and Specials through the EP buying system in the menu. You can also assign or learn double techniques (techniques that use more than one person) using the menu. Equipment on this game could have been a bit more organized, but there's not much to complain about considering you can change and improve some stats for each character as you move on in the game. Experience still levels you up, but it's up to you to teach yourself new moves. You can now change the lead character of your party, and this I found quite useful. Instead of always playing as the creepy looking Chaos, you can change it to someone less creepy like Ziggy or Jr.
Customization has also been carried over slightly to the AMWS to allow you to increase stats and equip armor. There is still much to improve as far as AMWS customization, but at least we're getting somewhere.
Here's the breakdown:
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Storyline: 10 out of 10
Battle System: 8.7 out of 10
Character Development: 10 out of 10
Gameplay: 9 out of 10
Audio: 9.5 out of 10
Graphics: 9 out of 10
Cutscene Graphics: 9 out of 10
Sidequests and Mini-Games: 8 out of 10
Replay Value: 9 out of 10
Overall: 9 out of 10
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This game completely overhauls the original Xenosaga's blatent flaws and mistakes by adding some new features and keeping some of the older ones. I strongly recommend it to any fan of the Xenosaga franchise or series, fans of story-based RPGs (there is a bit of catching up to do, so I suggest you play the first a little bit), fans of science fiction games, and any fan of futuristic games.