Well sadly the game's development was kind of screwed over from the very beginning. Technically Episode 1 was suppose to be all of Shion's story as in all three games were suppose to be the first episode and then it was going to jump into a new timeline. The first major trailer for Episode 1 had stuff from Episode 2 in as well. Then they got split into two games and then Episode 2 and 3 were suppose to rap up Shion's plot but some executive decided they could drag the series out by making the series smaller so a lot of content was cut from Episode 2 that ended up in Episode 3, but Episode 2's redesigns were such a turn off for fans and gamers alike that the team had to fight to get Episode 3 done and it's success would determine the fate of the series. While the game got great reviews, it didn't sell as well as Namco had wanted and the franchise got unplugged.

Course I do commend them for doing a better job with finishing the series over what happened with Xenogears but I actually liked how Xenogears resolved itself whereas I have objections to how Shion and KOS-MOS story resolved and Wilhelm's part in everything. After the party deals with Yuriev, I start to lose interest in the plot.