Customer Reviews

Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse Official Strategy Guide (Signature)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're like me, you don't always get the time to really sit and explore an RPG to it's fullest. Despite my best attempts at playing a game straight through without help, I always find information that proves that there was A LOT I missed out on.

The game guide for Xenosaga II is a big help. The game has a huge back story, and sometimes it's easy to get caught up in it and forget that you have a battle system to master and a strategy to work out. This is a good guide to walking you through some of the basics of using the battle system, which is completely different from the first game.

What I liked best about this guide is that you usually get a really good solid strategy for boss fights. Although whoever wrote this guide must have not had the struggle I had with a few bosses. A lot of the main enemies you fight are pretty tough, and it's really easy for your party to suffer some serious losses, and the guide doesn't offer much advice for survival.

If you're not sure what an area is going to be like, this guide may give you a few pointers as to who would be best for the party based on their general skills. There are also a few pointers on the best way to customize your characters, although I found that they didn't recommend a few abilities for some characters that I felt were very important.

One frustrating thing is that there are 3 hidden bosses in the game, and the book only mentions them and gives NO INFORMATION on their stats, only where to find them. These bosses are the hardest that you'll fight in the game, and it's a real pain to have to restart over and over again when you get beaten to a pulp in less than a minute. You'll have to go online and search yourself for the most useful information on these bosses.

The book does offer a good, detailed walkthrough for the Robot Academy Scenario. There is also information on the Segment Addresses, the G.S. campaign, and a list and description of abilities, items and Ethers. Their side quest information is good and the best source for those who want to complete EVERYTHING in a game.

Overall, it's a good game guide. Not the best, but still a good item to have if you're playing the game and getting frustrated.

I'm not a big fan of stradegy guides. But I sure know what's a good one. This book has alot of tips and good boss stradegies, such as enemy data and HP, type weakness, break zones, etc. However, I feel uncomfortable with the layout of the maps and how the key works. It's a bit confusing. Especially with the location of the items and sometimes I wonder why the GS quests couldn't have been put at the end of each section instead of making me flip all the way back to the book. It's a hassle there because most, if not all new proceedings in the next stage, a couple of new GS campaigns are avalible and it's very annoying to always flip to the back of the book and wondering which GS route you have to do.

Also, there are confusing instructions making it almost impossible to find out what they're trying to make you do. Those are just one of the two major things that irks me. (It's not that bad but it's still confusing if you skip the key.) All in all, it gets you through the game, has amazingly good heads-up on notes you should keep in mind, and it has a lovely fold out poster. But I think you can get through the game just fine without it, it's just that it gets you through puzzles quicker. I'm one of those people who really hates game puzzles.

While the Xenosaga pt 2 guide does most of it's job at covering the game in it's full entireity, it also does this without doing too much to spoil the storyline. It still does manage to at times divulge a little too much information (such as spilling the beans on who the final boss is; it could have easily not revealed the said boss' identity.) The guide also does a good job at making up for the instruction manual's lack of acting like a regular RPG instruction manual (I.E. giving a basic idea of the story.) And a final plus is that the guide has some decent artwork and screen shots throughout it, as well as a poster for Xenosaga nuts to hang up.

The only flaws that the guide has though is that it leaves out the mention of the 3 hardest optional bosses in the game. It only has them in the monstary listed as "Extra Boss 1, Extra Boss 2, ect". It gives the gamer no strategy to fall back on for tackling these thrills, nor does it even mention how one gets to them (besides giving the general area they are found in.) This is a rather large dissapointment, and something that is rather common amongst Brady Game guides. They didn't do as bad a job as they did in the past (FFX-2's 100 floor dungeon comes to mind), but they still could have easily stuck a few more pages in to tell the gamer how to tackle the hidden challanges in the game.

The guide does deliver on almost all counts other wise, and it is highly recomended for anyone wishing to finish the game in a sane amount of time (~34 hours).

Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse Official Strategy Guide (Signature)HAVING THIS BOOK IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO ENJOY THE GAME FULLY. A BEAUTIFULLY DONE PUBLICATION THAT IS CLEARLY WRITTEN.

It's always helpful to have a strategy guide for when you get into a tight spot, or to find those elusive items :)

I love Xensaga. I just finished the first one and can't wait
to start on this one. If you like the thinking games, then
this is for you!

The best guides the buy are by Brady Games...they are the most helpful when stuck in a game...they stend to include lots of picures unlike some of the other guides. The signature series look espicially sharp!

This game guide, is good in that it explores every aspect of the game, all the bases are covered. Just what you'd expect from a good RPG strategy guide. However, I found the walkthrough section to often be incomplete. It just neglects to tell you important things! A few times it is even down right wrong. Once I saw the order that events are supposed to be performed reversed in the strategy guide! I think that a little more time needed to be put into proofreading this guide.

I have to give it 3 stars simply because it would be hard to play the game without a guide and there aren't exactly an abundance of guides for any given game out there and the game is certainly worth playing. You might be able to find a decent strategy guide on the internet, but a the official guide, no matter how shoddy, is nearly always better.

I got this strategy guid because I love playing these video games. I could have bought the strategy guide for 16.99 in store, but I bought it cheaper through amazon even with the cost of shipping. I got it in a few days and it was in excellent condition. My hats off to everyone involved in sending my package.

I received the product in under a week after I ordered it. It was received in bubble wrap and is in very good condition; there weren't even any creases on the binding. I would not have expected to find a copy in a bookstore in this great a condition.