*Just a friendly warning that some content in my post may contain minor spoilers*

I'm around eleven hours into the game right now, and I'm in the Subconscious Domain, and I must say... it's pretty good so far. I believe I've done the G2 Campaign quests and got all the optional things I can for the time being, so I'm advancing the story. Anyway, here are my thoughts so far...

Pros

- Environmental/background graphics have really improved, along with the weather effects.
- Enemies look a lot nicer, and smoother. They upped the detail and movement in this one.
- (My opinion) Separating the character battles and Mech battles was a good idea. It's one less thing to worry about.
- I enjoy the new way to learn spells, skills, and whatnot. It's pretty massive.
- Most of the battle system is pretty cool. Especially the Double Techniques.
- I love the new menu design.
- The new G2 Sidequest is very fun and adds a lot to the gameplay.
- Speaking of gameplay, there's a lot more it seems. Not that I don't enjoy the lengthy cutscenes.
- The storyline is still very massive, complex, and keeps you on edge. Answers a lot of questions, and I'm sure it'll answer more.
- Switching out characters in battle is a nice touch.

Cons

- The character designs really suck in my opinion. MOMO doesn't look at all cute anymore, Allen looks retarded, and it seems like Shion is a totally new character. I dunno, I just don't like it. I'm slowly getting used to it though.
- Much like Harry Potter in the fifth book, Shion sucks. In this instalment, she seems very annoying and stupid.
- Some of the new voice actors don't belong. Shion's new voice actress seems to be trying too hard to be putting emphasis on her words, It seems forced. This adds more to the annoyance of her character. chaos' voice actor is Joshua Seth I believe, the dude who does Tai in the Digimon series. He's pretty good; I have no complaints about him for now. MOMO and KOS-MOS just don't sound right. The rest are pretty good.
- This isn't a very big con, because I like this combo system in battle... But it was better in Episode I.
- Still a little slow at the introduction of battles.

Heh, and I guess MOMO is to Xenosaga as Vivi is to FFIX. I found it funny when she was all depressed about being artificially created. Anyways, I'm going to enjoy more of the game... So overall it's pretty good. I like it.