Review of Xenosaga 1 + 2, only contains light spoilers
If you've already played episode 1 and 2, or at least understand their plots, I'd say give it a try! (Because otherwise you probably won't know what's going on)
In terms of difficulty, the latter half of episode 2 wasn't that hard. I defeated the super-boss on my first attempt despite being under-leveled, and took 68~110 damage from the final boss's main(?) attack. Even the penultimate bosses could deal more damage to me. I was also able to easily reach the damage cap of 9999 (outside of an E.S) multiple times on the final boss, although it could break my formation. The boss was essentially a damage sponge. Previous bosses, like those in the first half of episode 2, gave me a really tough time because I had to get used to E.S combat.
I think that Ziggy is consistently the strongest character in the game, he can inflict massive damage with the sword or bow while in an E.S, he can poison type B and G (but not M) enemies which deals great damage every time they attack, he can recharge and heal himself, he can easily use either ether or physical attacks on almost on a whim in episode 2(or by using a bow while in E.S), and he's generally very bulky. I feel like Momo is the weakest character as Shion and chaos can provide similar support: Shion can boost and has AoE healing, chaos also has AoE healing but provides more offensive support. Neither of them can revive other characters on the field like Momo can, but that wasn't that big of an issue for me. Momo leaves your party a couple of times which caused her to get underleveled compared to the other characters in my playthrough. I also didn't quite understand the battle system for most of episode 1 because most everything was in Japanese, although I did use that english patch. Even so, it is still imperative that you remember good formations, or skill details as you can't check them in english during combat although it still is possible to extrapolate what they do in some cases.
I don't have too much to say about the exploration, but it can get confusing or monotonous since all of the dialogue is in Japanese and, like in the case of KOS-MOS's final weapon, I never obtained it because I had no idea what I needed to do to get Hakase to give me her weapon, even the guide wasn't helpful, but such instances must be accepted if you intend to play the game yourself. The game also crashed when I went up a flight of stairs in Momo's subconscious, although it did not crash again after I reloaded my save, so make sure to save semi-frequently at least.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I finished the game mostly without the guide, only using it in certain places where I was stumped as to what I needed to do. In my opinion the combat didn't really get stale for me and if a certain section of the game because tedious, it usually didn't last too long. The bosses, at least until the latter half of episode 2, were quite the challenge, even the superboss was able to 1~2HKO everyone when I challenged him. The game took me around 30 hours to beat, although it was stretched across several months due to extraneous reasons.
I think that Ziggy is consistently the strongest character in the game, he can inflict massive damage with the sword or bow while in an E.S, he can poison type B and G (but not M) enemies which deals great damage every time they attack, he can recharge and heal himself, he can easily use either ether or physical attacks on almost on a whim in episode 2(or by using a bow while in E.S), and he's generally very bulky. I feel like Momo is the weakest character as Shion and chaos can provide similar support: Shion can boost and has AoE healing, chaos also has AoE healing but provides more offensive support. Neither of them can revive other characters on the field like Momo can, but that wasn't that big of an issue for me. Momo leaves your party a couple of times which caused her to get underleveled compared to the other characters in my playthrough. I also didn't quite understand the battle system for most of episode 1 because most everything was in Japanese, although I did use that english patch. Even so, it is still imperative that you remember good formations, or skill details as you can't check them in english during combat although it still is possible to extrapolate what they do in some cases.
I don't have too much to say about the exploration, but it can get confusing or monotonous since all of the dialogue is in Japanese and, like in the case of KOS-MOS's final weapon, I never obtained it because I had no idea what I needed to do to get Hakase to give me her weapon, even the guide wasn't helpful, but such instances must be accepted if you intend to play the game yourself. The game also crashed when I went up a flight of stairs in Momo's subconscious, although it did not crash again after I reloaded my save, so make sure to save semi-frequently at least.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I finished the game mostly without the guide, only using it in certain places where I was stumped as to what I needed to do. In my opinion the combat didn't really get stale for me and if a certain section of the game because tedious, it usually didn't last too long. The bosses, at least until the latter half of episode 2, were quite the challenge, even the superboss was able to 1~2HKO everyone when I challenged him. The game took me around 30 hours to beat, although it was stretched across several months due to extraneous reasons.
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