1. It has very, very limited voiceovers. I think it says an hour animated footage, with about 50 minutes of that happening in the first few hours of gameplay. The last 10 minutes happening at the end but it's one of the longest games ever so you barely remember it from the beginning. In fact the opening scene, doesn't make any sense or have any relevancy til the second disc.(It's such a great scene though.) Most of the characters you don't hear their voices untill the last scene(it's a kick ass scene so it's worth it.) It doesn't matter though cause it's the best games ever made with the best story, and the music is so smurfing ridiculous good you don't want people talking over it. Just be prepared for much, much reading, espescially on disc 2(which is a disc many people despise, I think it's the most interesting.

2. The battle system shares a bit with xenosaga but xenogears is a thousand times better. The agws are called gears in the game, and they are a much more integral part of the game. Because it's such a long game, you do plenty of fighting both in the gears and out of them. The two forms aren't radically different, hand to hand you watch energy, can cast magic, you string things together in combo's, like say triangle, triangle, square. There are deathblow's which are as you can guess sort of limit breaks, that you need to save ap for. Each turn you gain levels, so that you can string attacks together more complicated, the longer you don't attack. So level 1 might just be only triangle, triangle, the higher levels, the more attacks. The gear's fighting is fairly similiar, you gotta watch your fuel, I forget the rest. It is a long game but I think the battle system is fun throughout, not repetitive like Xenosaga's.

I consider Xenosaga a sort of bastard stepchild of Xenogears, it has a it's moments but it's nothing to Xenogears. Xenogears has it's flaws sure somewhat crusty graphics, sometimes horrible translation, a story that is so big and complex it was probably too much for one game(all of which I feel sort of add to the charm of the game), but has by far the best story, some of the best characters, best music, and one of the greatest world's ever contained in a video game.