Omega, try to ignore most of the bad reviews over it, I picked it up about a month ago and fell in love with it, I am currently playing like 5 other games so I am only half way into chapter 4. Anyway...about the AGWS ( or gears ), they do have a use, just they are not as important as they were in Xenogears, there is one battle that comes to mind at the end of Chapter 3, using two of em ( one with chaos ) makes it very easy and is sorta a must ( something to do with the boss saving and you grinding your teeth to reset the console hehe ).

Some people may consider this a non square game, and the debate rages on, see....technicly yes, it is NOT a square game, however because the "series" was originaly going to be square doing it, you can see where this is going, not like this would happen, but think of like square major FF guys leaving, going to say...konami and making a game called "Final Saga" or somethin ( ok bad example lol ) that is VERY similar to FF to the point you swear it all takes place in the same world and whatever. Its not really a xenogears 2 nor is it xenogears 0 or 1, although it is at the same time, this of course pretty much has to do with square owning it etc...

Anyway, to give you a more blunt example of the gameplay/game, its a cinema-fest alright, but depending on how you like your rpg's this can be really nice. Basicly you start off getting to know each character and their story, almost like missions, in each chapter you CAN level up and explore in a somewhat linear way, but it does get better as you get further into the game, alot of it takes place in space on ships, at times some of the movie parts can seem a little long, but normaly I have found them to be fun and interesting, they range from warm silly little cute parts to darth vader and luke type themes or just basic convos so you get to see what each person is like, there is a really funny part at the start of chapter 3, when you read someones hat and get to see how he acts, it made me laugh alot.

The battles are not exactly complex, although it will take a good while to fully understand how everything works including boosts and mechs ( AGWS ), when guard you get combos and stuff, KOS MOS has this awsome mini gun like weapon and it just rocks ! They also throw in emails and VR type stuff, there is a fair bit of goodies and secrets to hunt around for, you can even get some weapon upgrades and profit from emails...and of course the manditory card games and crap like that.

Anyway, from what I have played, its solid and a really amazing rpg, I rank it exactly beside xenogears, I think its that good even though they are different but really part of the same universe ( at least I would say they are ), for cash it costs....buy it....I highly doubt you will be sorry.