You've already seen and drooled over our previous coverage of Xenosaga Episode II. Finally, we got a chance to try the full flavor of the Xenosaga Episode II: Beyond Good and Evil with the demo disc that was included in the recently released Xenosaga Freaks fan disc. If you haven't played through the first Xenosaga or don't want to see minor spoilers stop reading here. However, if you are as psyched about the game as we are keep reading. Oh yeah there are some screen shots of the demo at the bottom of the article, too.

The demo of Xenosaga Episode II starts out with the part of the familiar trailer seen in the Xenosaga Reloaded disc. There are a few new images like KOS-MOS riding the slick Blade Runner styled bike and a shot of Jr. in a snow field. Of course the trailer is played with some energetic techno opera, which more specifically sounds like a mix of the Sephiroth theme from Final Fantasy 7 (One Winged Angel) mixed with that techno opera song from the Fifth Element. In any case understand that the background music is good. After the brief trailer you're thrown into a giant mech controlled by both Chaos and Cannan. The mech has the ability to destroy objects in the background by pressing square (just like in Episode 1). You'll need to destroy the debris with this ability to move around through the city. After a few seconds you'll encounter an enemy gear and get to try out some mech combat. The E.C. Asher has two basic attacks to use one that is a melee attack where the mech goes flying towards an enemy with its giant fist swinging and the other pulls out a giant gun that fires a few rounds. Normal attacking charges your mechs energy bar, which allows you to use special moves. Alternatively you can charge the energy bar yourself with the charge option. Charging your mech up allows you to unleash some of the cooler and more powerful moves. One move calls a giant laser beam and the other move is an ice attack that looks similar to Chaos' ice shoulder move. After a little bit of mech combat you get seriously under attack where you see another mech being attacked to. The other mech contains Jin Uzuki, Shion's brother who was notably absent in Episode 1. Soon Chaos and Cannan find their mech disabled and Jin takes the helm of the fight. He actually cuts a mech in half with his sword, which looks pretty impressive.

After you leave your mechs you're on foot. A brief scene shows Chaos outside of his mech where rain is pouring down on him and on the surround scenery. The rain works really well on the dark dreary background of the high tech city you're in. Of course you won't be walking around causally, enemies are ever present. Combat on foot has had a huge upgrade from Xenosaga Episode 1. The same idea is present where you mix buttons to do different combos, but it is executed quite differently. First of all your characters have different skill levels, rather than action points. Basic moves like two hit combos just take your turn up. You can opt to charge your character to gain a skill level, which allows for a longer combo or a finishing move. A great addition is the game displays a list of combos your character can do on screen so you can plan your characters moves. When you attack an enemy you can hit them in different zones, which the game labels as A, B or C. The zones are essentially a high, mid and low attack areas. If you hit a certain area, that is a weak point you can deal extra damage. The demo allows you to control a party of three, which is initially Chaos, Jin and Ziggy. You can switch Shion in from the in game menu. The characters don't have all of their moves, they each have a deathblow move and their combos. Jin is the main character with ether moves, one is a familiar healing move named Medica. The highlight of the demo was seeing a "double" attack. When you charge up skill levels of your characters to a certain point you can call both of the characters to do a deathblow move in the same turn. Not only does this do devastating damage the graphics are pretty cool too. We got to see Chaos use his Ice Shoulder attack with one of Jin's sword combos. Chaos starts by freezing the enemy and then Jin slides back to charge his sword up. He finishes by cutting the enemy's ice prison in half.  Something that is less aesthetically cool, but more pragmatic is the boost system.  A nod to the original battle system, boost is back where you can switch the order of turns in what is essentially turn based combat. This allows you to have characters attack with combo after combo before an enemy even gets a turn. All of the options give players a wide variety of tactics to choose from. Another benefit of having all these options is that they keep the enemy encounters from getting boring.

The battle system wasn't the only thing to get an upgrade. The graphics for the series have gotten much better too. The full motion video received a major upgrade compared to Episode 1. Instead of the more cartoon-like drawings all of the characters look more grown up. All of the characters have more details and more facial expressions than seen in Episode 1. In battle the graphics don't drop. The character sprites look much better than their Episode 1 counterparts. The mechs are a lot better designed than the polygonal messes seen in Episode 1. Chaos' ice shoulder attack has a good use of lighting and reflective textures to make realistic ice. When the ice shatters you get a good taste of what kind of particle effects are used in Xenosaga Episode II. The scenery also looks awesome. The level we saw had a really good rain effect. There are also some well placed neon signs that add atmospheric lighting to the level and add to the futuristic style of the game.

For those of you that want to import this game, which if you haven't figured out looks really good, it isn't the worse game to import out there. Of course the voices and the story are in Japanese, but the menus are all in English. This means you could play through the game with little knowledge of English. Another reason to import this game is for the Xenosaga Episode II collectors package. The package includes Xenosaga Episode II: Beyond Good and Evil, a KOS-MOS action figure, the bike that KOS-MOS uses and a special booklet. The set is for true collectors and fans of the series. For the rest of you looking for a good RPG Xenosaga Episode II: Beyond Good and Evil has a June 27, 2004 release date for Japan. Although no North American release date has been announced we expect Namco will bring this game out around Winter 2005.

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