Xenosaga 2 is a horrible horrible game. Every aspect of that game took a massive step in the wrong direction.

As Spuuky said, the battles with even normal guys take forever. It takes so long that you want to avoid battles by and large. The bad news (but kind of good) is that you can practically do just that and be fine. The battle system is so flawed that a simple strategy pretty much guarantees that you will never die. I can't remember what it was but I never lost a battle after I figured it out. It made the battles really drag on but it isn't like they were remotely short in the first place :/

smurf this game. Thankfully the third one was much better with the exception of Shion who took a major step backwards :/