yeah, I was playing this a while back, and I stopped fairly late in the game because I was getting my ass handed to me. The most likely reason that I like XS2 despite its obvious faults is that it's the only XS game ever to hit Europe (being a rather rare find nowadays) so back then I had no knowledge of what XS1 and XS3 we're like. Of course, I imported the two later, and they are definitely better than the second, but I wouldn't go as far as calling XS2 and utter failure. It has nice idea, they just aren't that well incorporated into the game. Kinda similar to DMC2 actually, since that game too both doesn't deserve and does deserve much of the flak that most gamers and reviewers give it. DMC2 isn't a bad game in the end either, it's just completely underwhelming when compared to the rest of the games in that series. Stop comparing for a little while, and the game actually stands pretty well on its own, although with glaring faults, still. Exactly the same can be said about Xenosaga Episode II.