I love the whole damn series even if Episode 2 has some serious problems.

I love Episode 1 cause it had some awesome moments and despite what people criticize about the pacing, I felt it was really good cause the build up to scenes like the end of Cherenkov or the Song of Nephilim with Albedo are just amazing. I also adored the combat system, even if the AGWS did suck but it never stopped me from collecting all of them anyway. I also adored the anime style character designs and felt Mitsuda made an awesome soundtrack for the game even if the Sound engineer didn't utilize it well since he relegated all but like five tracks to one time events and played the other five tracks over and over again...

Episode 2 suffered from a pretty awful transition, the "realistic designs" did no one any real good with most of the cast looking pretty ugly or suddenly jumping in age by a decade. The revelations of the URTV's past is explored but sadly reveals very little for the player that he couldn't have already guessed by playing the first game. The game ends on a pretty good note even if the combat system is otally screwed up by a poor scaling system that makes random encounters feel like boss fights. Seriously, the last battle takes less time to finish up than the battles against a full unit of soldiers in the same dungeon just because it takes smurfing forever to kill anything off in this game.

The music is 50-50 Kaijura's pieces are really good if a bit repetitive but are a godsend compared to the generic dungeon/town music by the other composer. The removal of proper towns and the overall "meh" customization system that only allows the player to build a party of semi-clones was a serious downgrade from the awesome customization systems from XS1. At least the Mecha fighting was a lot more fun even if it was bare bones as well.

Episode 3 pretty much drops everything that is Episode 2 (in fact it retcons a lot of it) and goes back to the first game in terms of design. Anime'ish designs (though not as hardcore as Episode 1) and the return of a better customization system for everything makes gameplay a dream come true. The plot is pretty good and resolves most of the issues beautifully and the game is filled with so many Xenogears shout outs you would almost think the team was deciding to actually make Saga canon with the Gears series. Music was excellent and it really is the best in the series.

My favorite part of Episode 3 was the fact I got to fight (SPOILER)Shion, who has been nothing but a total selfish bitch for most of the games and has nearly gotten the party killed more than a few times to protect KOS-MOS (who doesn't need smurfing protection) and so it was nice to finally let my party and myself take my frustration out on her. Good times.

Mecha combat is excellent and the game brings back all the RPG elements stripped away from the second title. They even brought back most of the voice cast except chaos but I actually liked his VA from Episode 2 (Digimon! ) than his original VA from Episode 1 (smurf you Love Hina! ). Overall Episode 3 is just a masterpiece compared to the rest of the series though I still hold Episode 1 in high regards and had no issues with it being Cutscenes: The Game.

As for shipping... I am way too logical for this. I would say Jr. and MOMO but there is a whole bunch of wrong going on here cause while Jr. is certainly an adult trapped in a child's body, MOMO is pretty much permanently made to be a child and may never grow up. So I can't see them working out as a couple though I'm sure if they ever showed up again, they would still be together in some way. I liked Allen but feel he's an idiot for pursuing Shion and feel the two deserve each other. Can't say much about Pelligri and Jin seeing how their story ended. In fact I feel sorry for Jin cause I feel he sorta got the shaft in character development, its obvious he played a large role in the plot and has a huge background story but very little is revealed compared to other characters.

I also can't say I was really happy with the revelations of chaos and KOS-MOS but I blame this on The Da Vinci Code kinda ruining the allure of Gnosticism at the time. I really need to play through Episode 3 again.