<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The battles in this game are just ridiculous. Here's the 2nd to last boss battle looked like in the last 4K or so HP of its lifespan which took, oh... 20 minutes even though I can do 800 damage with just one person on a good round.
Chaos hits boss for 800 damage
KOS-MOS defends
Jr. defends
Boss begins charging for Sonic Buster
Chaos defends
KOS-MOS defends
Jr. defends
Boss uses sonic buster, bring everyone who used to at full (900ish) to 200
Chaos casts heal all (250 ish all)
Jr. uses Medic Pack DX all (6 AP to heal 300 all)
KOS-MOS uses Medic Pack DX all
Boss begins charging for Sonic Buster
Chaos hits boss for 600 damage
Jr. defends
KOS-MOS defends
Boss uses Sonic Buster
Heal up like last time
Chaos hits boss for 800 damage
Boss uses boost and uses Relief Goods, a heal for around 2200 damage
Depending on the turns sometimes I net so postive damage but sometimes I actually net negative damage and basically you just have to keep on fighting and hope it'd stop healing itself at some point.
Oh yeah, you're wondering why the other two members aren't attacking? This boss counters every physical attack with Sonic Buster (it can count as a charge round or the attack round depending on what stage it's in), not to mention physical attacks do 0 damage on him anyway. It's also immune to Beam damage so KOS-MOS can't possibly do anything to it. While Junior can do about 300-400 damage with his techs and problem is that every one of his techs begin with a physical move which gets countered even if it ends in a magical attack. Actually, even ether type characters like Shion typically have to begin with a physical attack before you can chain into ether type attacks so they won't be too useful here.
The total battle lasted 37 minutes, FYI. And this is not an isolated incidence. This game loves counters with a passion. Bosses love to counter every single one of your attacks with their strongest attacks which basically makes boss battles a one man show where your other two people just sit there doing nothing most of the time since they help more by doing nothing as opposed to getting flattened by counters. You're almost forced to level up just so battles wouldn't take forever and you wouldn't accidentally have the wrong person attack once and watch everyone die.
It also doesn't help that a lot of bosses are randomly immune to a lot of different attack types which renders certain characters useless. Generally speaking the boss is either immune to physical attacks which means the only persons you can use are Chaos (Spirit), Shion (Fire), Momo (no idea what her element is, probably spirit), and KOS-MOS (beam) but keep in mind bosses can randomly immune to certain elements too. The other half seems to be magic immune which has the opposite effect (except KOS-MOS, who has equally good Ether and physical attacks, assuming no further immunities). To make sure you really understand the boss is immune, bosses tend to counter everything they're immune to so you'll remember never to attack them. Xenosaga is the second game I've ever played where you use the defend command extensively because there is absolutely nothing for your characters to do on a counter-happy boss. Battles in Xenosaga isn't hard, at least once you get past the phase of attacking with everyone and get countered to oblivion. They're just long... very long, actually, and it's annoying.</div>
Chaos hits boss for 800 damage
KOS-MOS defends
Jr. defends
Boss begins charging for Sonic Buster
Chaos defends
KOS-MOS defends
Jr. defends
Boss uses sonic buster, bring everyone who used to at full (900ish) to 200
Chaos casts heal all (250 ish all)
Jr. uses Medic Pack DX all (6 AP to heal 300 all)
KOS-MOS uses Medic Pack DX all
Boss begins charging for Sonic Buster
Chaos hits boss for 600 damage
Jr. defends
KOS-MOS defends
Boss uses Sonic Buster
Heal up like last time
Chaos hits boss for 800 damage
Boss uses boost and uses Relief Goods, a heal for around 2200 damage
Depending on the turns sometimes I net so postive damage but sometimes I actually net negative damage and basically you just have to keep on fighting and hope it'd stop healing itself at some point.
Oh yeah, you're wondering why the other two members aren't attacking? This boss counters every physical attack with Sonic Buster (it can count as a charge round or the attack round depending on what stage it's in), not to mention physical attacks do 0 damage on him anyway. It's also immune to Beam damage so KOS-MOS can't possibly do anything to it. While Junior can do about 300-400 damage with his techs and problem is that every one of his techs begin with a physical move which gets countered even if it ends in a magical attack. Actually, even ether type characters like Shion typically have to begin with a physical attack before you can chain into ether type attacks so they won't be too useful here.
The total battle lasted 37 minutes, FYI. And this is not an isolated incidence. This game loves counters with a passion. Bosses love to counter every single one of your attacks with their strongest attacks which basically makes boss battles a one man show where your other two people just sit there doing nothing most of the time since they help more by doing nothing as opposed to getting flattened by counters. You're almost forced to level up just so battles wouldn't take forever and you wouldn't accidentally have the wrong person attack once and watch everyone die.
It also doesn't help that a lot of bosses are randomly immune to a lot of different attack types which renders certain characters useless. Generally speaking the boss is either immune to physical attacks which means the only persons you can use are Chaos (Spirit), Shion (Fire), Momo (no idea what her element is, probably spirit), and KOS-MOS (beam) but keep in mind bosses can randomly immune to certain elements too. The other half seems to be magic immune which has the opposite effect (except KOS-MOS, who has equally good Ether and physical attacks, assuming no further immunities). To make sure you really understand the boss is immune, bosses tend to counter everything they're immune to so you'll remember never to attack them. Xenosaga is the second game I've ever played where you use the defend command extensively because there is absolutely nothing for your characters to do on a counter-happy boss. Battles in Xenosaga isn't hard, at least once you get past the phase of attacking with everyone and get countered to oblivion. They're just long... very long, actually, and it's annoying.</div>
