Crispin Freeman has that way with people, he is Alucard and Captain Tylor.

I liked the first game despite some superfluous game mechanics and some awful pacing with the story. I still consider the scene with Chenrenkov at the Cathedral Ship, that whole sequence actually made the entire slow pace in the beginning worth it and its my favorite sequence in the entire series.

I don't like Episode 2, they botched the dungeon design, the battle system is only good in theory but it made battles incredibly tedious and samey after awhile (which is why I'm not surprised FFXIII suffered the same problem since it practically stole this game's battle system). The character building system is awful and the games one sidequest ping pongs violently back and forth from terrible to competent. The story also feels like mostly filler compared to Episode 1 introducing the cast and conflicts, and Episode 3 completing them. I do like the U.R.T.V. story sequences and the E.S. Units are a huge step up from the AGWS despite the AGWS being more engaging from a gameplay standpoint.

Episode 3 is my favorite though I do feel Shion and KOS-MOS' character redesigns are a little too slutty... and the game feels absolutely rushed at the end and entire story sequences fall flat if you haven't been keeping up with the rest of the Xenosaga mythos. Yet the battle system and music are amazing in this game, the dungeon designs are much improved and the story overall is actually really good. Of anything, I'm just happy I finally got to (SPOILER)smack down Shion, cause I really feel she had been asking for it since the first game since she's pretty selfish about things and nearly gets the party killed several times throughout the series trying to protect a combat android designed to wipe out an alien menace and has a living god trapped inside of her that can potentially end the universe... and most of this is shown to you in Episode 1, yet she still coddles her... So you have no idea how many times I replayed that sequence.

I do feel overall that Xenosaga does lose itself with the philosophy and religious context, some stories bring up interesting ideas but then drops them and in later titles tries to bring them back in and act like it's been an underlying theme the whole time. I honestly don't feel the game gave a satisfying conclusion to the Realinas story. I also don't care for Wilhelm as a villain, partially because he spends two of the games on the sidelines just being overly cryptic about everything in the five seconds he ever shows up in, and his goal was interesting but I felt it came too late in the story and wasn't really brought in as neatly as the other plot elements.

Albedo, Yuriev, and Voyager are probably my favorite villains, Ziggy, Jr. and Jin are my favorite of the heroes. Mathews and the Elsa Crew are my favorite important side characters, while the Professor is my favorite ascended extra.

Episode 3 has the best soundtrack and I feel Pied Piper has the best story/writing.