Quote Originally Posted by computer-geekz View Post
I thought the biggest problem with Xenosaga II was that it seemed very rushed. The excellent music and combat system from Part I were thrown out the window, in exchange for a mishmash of neo-Megaman music and a cumbersome sort-of-strategic battle system. Also, the voice acting changed around far too much for my tastes; KOS-MOS went from female android to valley girl (I exaggerate just a little), and chaos went from a calm, kind "young" man to a moody-sounding, monotone teenager. That being said, I think chaos's new voice was more appropriate to the overall character, but the sudden change was just too much of a distraction through the early parts of II's storytelling.

The story was fantastic, continuing on from the first and creating more questions than answers. The big problem I saw story-wise, though, was that Part II's story came to a close too quickly. My understanding was that they were trying to get the game out as quickly as possible, so they pushed off some story elements to Part III that should have been in II.

Had they taken their time with this game and gotten it right, I'd bet there would indeed have been Xenosaga Parts IV and V, as originally promised. II put off too many of the fans, I think, which is what probably most helped kill the series prematurely.

Anyway, to answer your original question, if you liked the story of Part I, you will like Part II. I can't guarantee you'll like the gameplay, but if you ever plan to play Part III (which I HIGHLY recommend), you should definitely play through II.
To be honest, the whole series has been rushed. Xenosaga is a perfect example of a series destroyed by the publisher and developers having different ideas of where to take the project. If you ever watched the original trailer for Eps.1 (the infamous 8min. 8sec. trailer) you'll see that Eps. 1 and 2 were supposed to be one game.

The trailer featured scenes from Eps. 2 in it utilizing the the graphics of Eps.1. Both the scenes where chaos and Jin talk outside on the Uzuki estate and the battle between Jin and Margulis in Labyrinthos (and for us Xenogears fans, the symbol of Kadamony is seen in the background of the room )

Unfortunately, Namco got impatient and had the game released prematurely so most of what became Eps. 2 was cut. It would be like releasing only the first disc of FFVII...

With Eps 2 we got a new problem. Namco took over and decided to listen to all the feedback for the game... Causal gamers were put off by Eps.1 numerous cutscenes, they hated certain voices, and many didn't like the heavy anime influence to the character designs. Basically the game was streamlined to appease everyone and in the end made everyone angry and ultimately killed the project. Throw in the fact that Namco had most of the staff of Eps 1 fired mid way through the project and brought in a new and inexperienced team. The game was a disaster waiting to happen.

By Eps. 3, they company decided to listen to feedback from the die hard fans of the franchise and not so much of the casual consumer. I also feel the team was so embarrassed about Eps.2 that they decided to go all out to make Eps 3 as good as possible.

The original idea of Xenosaga was that it was going to span throughout time and be a serial. Shion's story was supposed to be Eps.1 not Eps. 1-3. Most Xenogears fans feel that Saga was supposed to follow a timeline similiar to the one put forth in Perfect Works. Perhaps Namco didn't understand or Monolith Soft decided to curb their ambition a little. I guess we'll never know...