finished Nobunaga's story
I've started playing on Hard mode...and man, this game is actually tough. Enemies with spears will just poke you mid-combo all day, so it's not just mashing square for easy wins. Even peons will block, too. Also, fighting Mitsuhide on Nobunaga's last mission was pretty annoying because he has a ton of health and defense and doesn't flinch when you hit him. THERE'S ALSO A TIME LIMIT and he does a ton of damage to you with one combo. Still, I think it's a better balance than DW7's difficulty (i.e. none lol) or WO3's (instead death for one split-second mistake).
It seems like there's no reason to use Power weapons. Every character has a Power, Speed, and Normal weapon. Power weapons have higher attack, but are slower, Speed weapons attack faster but have much less attack power, and Normal is somewhere in between. The problem is, Power weapons are just so slow and you're going to get poked out of pretty much everything that the damage you do with one hit isn't enough to compensate for interrupted combos. Ehh.
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XS2 is the only good Xenosaga game - Lady Ashe
http://backloggery.com/cwistofu