Saga Frontier 2 is wierd.  Very wierd.  And depressing.  Very depressing.  And what's wierd about the depressing stuff is that the reason it's depressing is because it's good, which is wierd.  Er, anyway, what I mean is, Saga Frontier 2 oddly enough, with few exceptions, doesn't have very much characterization.  That is, you don't have characters having very many flashbacks about their pasts or ranting to other characters for hours on end.  Most character rants span about 3 lines of text, unlike... say, Xenogears.  At least for Wil's scenario.  There is one character that gets a lot of talk and incite into his feelings, and that's Gustave the 13th, which I guess would be the main reason why he's featured as the main character even though Wil Knights gets more stage time, player time, and overall more time in general.

So... anyway, I think I'll handle this in list format.  Like a game review, except with tons of spoiler and more free thought since I'll assume you already played the game.

That was a spoiler warning by the way if you didn't realize that.

Anyway...
 

Gameplay:  I like Saga Frontier 2's level and art system.  Too bad you keep the characters for such a short time which actually makes it kinda pointless, even for Wil.  Sigh...

Graphics:  The graphics were bright.  Twas a fun change of pace from the dark CG graphics that the latest Final Fantasies used.

Music:  The music was even brighter.  Much of it was incredibly happy.... which, for some reason in certain scenes made me even more depressed (I guess it was realizing that the happy times would end as the cool characters would be leaving or dying soon).  The music has an awesome beat and I love all the piano use in most of the tunes (I like the water boss music that plays for the Ice Megalith beast and Water Lord).

Story:  I enjoyed how Saga Frontier 2 was broken up into separate mini-storylines.  And not just how there were two different overall storylines (Wil and Gustave).  Within the main storyline, there were lots of ministories (though most of them were mandatory) that had very little to do with the over-all storyline (or none at all).  Dunno, maybe I just wanted to stretch my playtime as much as possible instead of bulldoze through the game, but I enjoyed things like seeing Nebelstern's flashback, dodging monsters through treetops, and painting rainbows across the sky.  Saga Frontier 2's really bright and cheerful graphics and music did help that enjoyment immensely, though:)

Story Gameplay:  I decided to play the two story archs hand-in-hand.  In other words, when one got ahead game-calendar wise, I'd play the other until it caught up.  It turned out rather well, I think, because I got a good mix of both story (Gustave) and action (Wil's) as well as got to enjoy the characters longer because they didn't die off as quickly.  (Eleanor never to be seen again after the next Wil scenario?  Well, I'm playing Gustave's right now so she'll still be there for just a little longer).
 

Gustave

Well, guess I'll start with Gustave's, first.  Gustave XIII's storyline was really nice.  But that's basically all it was.  A story.  Sure, in some scenarios, you got to actually PLAY as Gustave, but in most of them, all you heard was talk.  Some of them, you heard lots of talk, got a really quick little play time where you run through an area or did an army vs army battle, then just more story.  I know quite a few people who've played through Gustave's story arch first then didn't bother to play Wil's because they realized that they weren't really playing but just seeing scene after scene after scene (Of course, Wil's isn't like that).  Certainly, due to the heavier emphasis on story, Gustave's story arch had a LOT more characterization than Wil's.  This allows for the characters in Gustave's to be more popular than the ones in Wil's, too.  However, you rarely got to play as any of those characters for more than 1 or 2 scenarios before you'd never play them again.  Yeesh.

Specific Gustave Scenarios

The Firebrand Tragedy:  A cool scene.  However, it seems most players think "What the hell just happened?" after this scenario.  The thing about humans transforming into monsters when their anima is consumed is used and explored a lot more in Wil's.  :P

Anima Faith Fiasco:  For some reason the game pointed me to here while I was playing Gustave's story arch.  Wierd since this is more of a Wil scenario than a Gustave scenario.  Gustave's pretty merciless when he slaughters all those poor cultists, eh?  Guess a faith that follows animas (which he doesn't have) just pushes the wrong buttons for him.  Well, yea, maybe it was because he really wanted to avenge Phillippe that much, but I thought it was fitting that Gustave would be so adamant in slaughtering a bunch of Anima believers when everyone said he was a good for nothing for having no anima.

Johan the Assassin:  You get slightly extended play here but not much.  This scenario was a lot of fun though due to watching all the goth scenes and all.  However, it was rather pointless (you can beat the game without even accessing this scenario, even).  What's really interesting is if you go to a town right after completing this scenario, then you get Kingly Gustave, Ventarbre, and Johan for your party.  Yay.  Too bad that's the only time you ever get them and you don't get to do anything storyline related.  It's wierd how Johan is poisoned by the scorpion poison but doesn't die from it until ten years later at the Southern Fort scenario

Memories of a General:  To give you an idea of how cool and loveable the characters of Saga Frontier 2 are, I'll just have to say that this one almost made me cry just because I knew it'd be the last time I'd see Nibelstern or have him in my party, the ONLY time I'd have Cielmer in my party, and I got to play as Narcisse in the flashback even though he permanantly left Wil in Wil's scenario quite a few scenes ago.  That's damn depressing, dammit!

The Southern Fort:  I dunno... this scenario was... stupid.  Bah.  What a horrible STUPID way for Gustave to die.  Heck, you don't even get to find out who killed him or who was responsible for the attack.  It's just like, somewhere, the storyline people thought "Hey, it's time for Gustave to die.  Let's have him die in a random attack against his fort due to Dirk's incompetance.  Oh, and kill Johan too even though the player only got to play as him for a short while and we dedicated an entire background and storyline to him."  Yes, this scenario was very very tragic (ARGH!  Gustave, Johan, and Flynn all gone in one scenario!!!! ARGH!!!!) but it was still stupid.  I can't help but think that something was incomplete, here, storyline wise...

Kelvin's Last Battle:  And while we're on the subject of death scenes that just don't do the character justice, Kelvin gets to pass away with text saying, "Kelvin's anima left on its long journey two years later.  He is 71."  What a pathetic way to kill off what was probably one of the most popular Saga Frontier 2 characters.  Yeesh.  Show some respect for your awesome characters, you evil depressing game!

Fake Gustave Arrives:  Unless they're playing Wil's scenario at the same time or before this one, the player has no way of knowing the signifigance of that anime rock that that random person found on the dying bandit before he became Fake Gustave.  O_o

Elderitter:  So..... why did they see fit to make Sargon fight through sooooooooo many slimes?  O_o  Damn slimes...

Battle of South Moundtop:  Forget slimes, here's where the real torture lies.  Course, I think we all know that already so I'll spare you the talk of how hellacious this evil EVIL scenario is.  However, I will go out and say that it's kinda silly that if you get to here for both Wil and Gustave's story archs at the same time, Gustaf says he'll leave to protect David, then returns after the battle (game storyline wise) is won, then you do the actual battle, and Gustaf isn't there.  Oi.  I managed to beat it by cornering fake Gustave and winning a round, then he failed to retreat.  Talk about lucky.  I tried replaying this in the new game + but couldn't beat it, of course, but I do think that I've found new uses for the defend command... not sure how much it'll help though (make the troops in the front during battle defend while the back ones attack when dealing with steel troops?).  Of course I liked David's speech at the end.
 

Wil Knights

Now here we have the real console RPG part of the game, gameplay wise.  Wil's actual storyline wasn't as big in scope as Gustav's.  Gustav's had a lot on world politics while Wil's was just about chasing after an egg or going on adventures:P  But the glut of the gameplay took place in Wil's.  Almost all of the scenarios had a level or dungeoun to go through and you had the full four party members in most of them.  Sometimes even more.  In Gustave's, you get three at most not including army battles, of course.

Specific Wil Scenarios

Wil's Departure:  Heehee... if you don't recruit Narcisse at first, he's with Tyler and he comments to Tyler, "Are you sure you want to team up with this newbie?"  Hehehe... newbie... He also insults Cordelia if you recruit her first then him and she calls him a sick man.  Mua ha ha!

Infiltrate Alexei Gang:  If you're playing the new game + and you played future scenarios with Cordelia in them, the game won't let you kill off Cordelia here to prevent plot loopholes.  :)  She'll say she's not feeling well if you try to pick her.  If you do pick her, she gets a pretty sad death scene.  This scenario was annoying because it was hard figuring out what to do in order to find that bratty kid.  Yeesh.  And the townspeople keep giving you the cold shoulder.  And Alexei's an ass.

Showdown Alexei!:  Okay, who's the asshole programmer who decided to put those griffins there?  Nice to know that there are random enemy monsters which can slaughter your entire party easily without breaking a sweat flying all over the place.  Hmm.... Wil knocks the egg with Alexei deep into a chasm then soon after detects it in town again?  Wow, that egg sure does know how to travel quickly.  Especially since it's just a dumb egg!  Wierd.  Ahem.  Well, I thought it was sad when Paul said after his wife's death, "Excuse me, Wil, but I'm going outside now to cry."

Tycoon Wil:  I don't know why, but I found the scene where William raises his arms in celebration then morphs into a huge monster and attacks Wil to be hilarious.  Maybe it's because it was so spontaneous.

Anima Faith Fiasco:  Oooookay, so, Wil detects the egg here then in a later scenario after Gustave slaughters the faith, pirates have it?  Wow, that egg DOES know how to travel....

Into the Forest:  What's the point of this scenario?  Seriously, Eleanor goes into the forest to scale a tower so she can find out how to get to an ancient city or something, then that's it.  WTF?

To the Monster Nest:  What's the point of this scenario?  Seriously, Eleanore finds this big ass glowing thing in the mines then leaves to report it and you never hear of it again.  WTF?

Lifetree Island:  I still don't know what's so important about the life seeds that Narcisse would make Rich swear an oath like that.  Oh, and you can pocket away the life seeds by equipping them on Rich then he won't give those ones to Narcisse.  Too bad nothing storyline related happens cause of it (Drat, no way to have Rich break his promise to Narcisse:P) but at least they're good for restoring LP.  Narcisse's comment if you bring him nothing.  "So there were no life seeds there?  Well, it's probably better that way."

To the Fossil Caves:  What's the p... ah nevermind.  Did you know that if you don't find that big thing to cash in for 1000 chips and just leave the cave after killing the fossil beast?  Rich comments, "There are some wierd things in this world."  :P

To Paint a Rainbow:  What's the p.... hmm... a majority of Eleanor and Rich's scenarios were pointless, neh?  Still, I did have lots of fun playing through all of them.  Rich and Eleanor are a cool team.

Return of the Egg:  And then Eleanor just dissappears until Rich dies.  Stoooooooooopid!  This pisses me off even more than Gustav and Johan's lousy spontaneous random death.  Really, you actually PLAYED AS HER and the game's not going to give you any closure on Eleanor?  Bah!

Battle of South Moundtop:  Same thing.  Gustaf leaves to protect David but doesn't protect David when you actually play the battle.  Grr...

The Last Battle:  Available only when playing New Game +.  What's the point of this, anyway?  You can only do it with Ginny's party and you can do the last battle anyway just by playing through the last Megalith scenario and running past the elderitters.  Yeesh.
 

Characters

Ah, now the good stuff!  The characters in Saga Frontier 2 rocked.  They all look so nifty.  Course, right when you get really attached to one of them, that one goes out and dies or worse, dissappears without a trace.  .........

Gustave XII:  Wow, what an ass.  Booting his own son and wife like that.  Sheesh.

Gustave XIII:  Gustave XIII was neat.  Course, I guess when you have a lot of scenarios dedicated to showing your character and developing it, you'd turn out cool too, if you were an RPG character.  Gustave was also really powerful, what with all that steel of his.  Interesting how he gets banished cause he can't cast spells yet in the end the spell-less steel troops are the real juggernaughts on the battlefield.  Course, he did start a new era and all so I guess it makes sense.  However, in the end it was David at the battle of South Moundtop that completed what Gustave set out to do.  Gustave XIII died way too early in the game, in my opinion.

Sophie:  Gustav's mom.  She was so nice to her son.  No wonder why Phillippe missed her.

Gustave XIV:  Who?  Oh, that guy.  Wow, his stage time was... short.  Chop chop!

Phillippe:  Boy, was he disgruntled.  Course, I still liked Phillippe.  He was just really disturbed, I suppose.  Too bad for what happened to him.

Phillippe II:  Who?  Oh, that cute guy.  Wow, his stage time was also short.  Course, so were the stage times of lots of the characters in Gustave's scenario.  They sure had an interesting tendency to get whacked shortly after being introduced.

Marie:  Who?  Marie seemed important but actually kinda just... dissappeared from the storyline somewhere along the line and became only referenced to.  Yeesh.

Johan:  Another example ala Gustave XIV or Phillippe II.  Too bad, he was cool.

Judas:  They really shouldn't have killed Johan so quickly!  A showdown with him and the girl who also passed the scorpion test with him would have been neat, dammit!  Ah well... Judas doesn't even get her own original sprite.  >:}

Bart:  Bart was cool for what little you saw of him.  Had nothing to do with the main storyline though (the pirates scenario was optional).  Still, I'm surprised they didn't make him playable.  Sure, you would have only got to play him for one scenario but they made Ventarbre playable and you don't even get to play as him in ANY scenarios.

Ventarbre:  This is like the guy that's there almost since the beginning and watches everything happen:P  He's a good friend of all the main characters in the game, hehe.  Wil, Kelvin, Gustave, Gustaf, Cielmer, he knew them all.  Even though he was a playable character, there are no actual scenarios where you get to play as him (to play as him, you need to go to town right after Johan's scenario.  Wierd.  And he's only thirteen years old!  :P)  I beileve Ven is Cielmer's apprentice because he refers to him as "Master Cielmer" but who knows?  While Ven was friends with so many people, for most of those friendships it's only referenced to and with the exception of Wil and Gustave, you never see any of those scenes of him with those other main characters.  O_o

Kelvin:  You actually don't really get to play him for long, though he gets a lot of stage time.  Kelvin was a cool character who had to put up with Gustave and was quite frustrated with it, hehehe.  He sadly had a stupid death scene... well, okay, he didn't even have a death SCENE heresay.  Although the final text was rather tragic.  "His life was one long battle."  Still, I think poor Gustave had a much harsher life than Kelvin did.... though Gustave did die earlier and didn't have to put up with the diplomatic hassle that Kelvin went through.

Nibelstern:  Yet another player character with actual little play time.  You get to play as him in his flashback and he participates in the battle of Bucket Hill and that's it.  Yeesh.... they could have utilized all the cool characters of Gustav's storyline just a bit more, don't you think?

Cielmer:  AGAIN!  You only get to play as him in Nibelstern's scenario.  EVIL!  And he looked so cool.  Cielmer was neat.  He goes out of his way to bring Gustave to Gruegel and realizes Gustave's greatness despite Gustav's lack of anima.

Leslie:  Another underutilized character.  At least Flynn got to die with Gustave but Leslie just poofed.  And she was cool, too.

Flynn:  The childhood friend of Gustave that was lucky enough to actually get closure and die.  Oh wait... that's not good.  Guess Leslie should feel happy then.  >:P

Dirk:  Flynn's son.  He got Gustav whacked!  Then he poofs.  Oi.

Phillipe III:  Kelvin's son.  He poofs in Gustave's but it's mentioned in Wil's scenario that he died.  Wierd how he got to pass the firebrand ceremony to his son instead of Charles to his son.  Guess Charles was too busy being the count of Jade or something.

Charles:  Idiot.  How the heck did he get a son like David?  Wouldn't he have taught his son to be an ass like himself?  Wierd.  Well, it's a good thing for the world that his son turned out all right, at least.

Cantal:  Stupid moron that tries to get power then dies of natural causes and during all that you never actually get to PLAY the game but just read stuff.  Yeesh.

Nicolette:  Actually slightly underutilized.  While it's implied and stated that she caused a lot of trouble, unlike Fake Gustave she doesn't give the player a hellacious army vs army battle to play through>:)

Fake Gustave:  He looked cool.  And you could play as him for a very short time too.  Weeeee.

William Knights:  William Knights was a nice guy, but he became extremely obsessed with the egg, hehe.  To the point where he put an entire town in danger and thoroughly peeved off his own son about the thing.  Unlike Gustave, he rejoins again for the finale of his story arch.  Old man Wil was a bit low on the hp side, though, but was still a good spell caster and at least gave you the feeling that all that levelling up at the beginning of the game wasn't COMPLETELY a waste.  Just........ mostly a waste.

Cordelia:  Cordelia was neat.  Obviously, she had one of the neatest dress-up.  She also wielded a mean spear and was a sentry.  A sentry is a bodyguard for diggers.  Rather interesting to think of the fact that Wil's love and such a pretty lady was his bodyguard.  :)

Labelle:  The game has hints that Labelle likes Wil, too, but of course it's not as obvious as Cordelia and Labelle gets so little stage time.  And she kinda sucks in battle.

William (Labelle's sister):  He reeeeeaaaaaally sucked in battle.  And he was annoying.  He did have a funny "death" scene, in my opinion, though>:)

Narcisse:  Heehee... he called Wil a newbie.... eeheehee.  Narcisse rules!

Tyler:  Hmm... well, other than that he's a nice guy, Wil's friend, half-werewolf (which was NEVER stated in the game, by the way.  Just in official character designs), and looked brutish but wasn't.... there actually wasn't much to Tyler.

Patrick:  Course, there was even less to this guy.

Raymond:  Ditto.  Raymond, Patrick, and Tyler were basically mercenaries.

Eleanore:  So was she.  Yeesh.  But Eleanor was such a damn good spell caster, and she was Rich's partner throughout most of his scenarios!  And she looked damn cool.  And she actually got two scenarios of her own... albeit pointless.  Heck, Eleanor and Rich were extremely pointless except for when Rich encountered Misty.  Oh, and I'm very annoyed with how she just dissappears like that after the rainbow scenario.  Eleanor was one of my favorite characters.  I just liked her arrogance, cool outfit, and her team-up with fellow playboy Rich was cool.

Rich:  At first I thought he was a loser.  He kept dying in Eleanor's scenarios.  But Rich was cool because he's always picking up more girls.  And he's Eleanor's partner.  And Eleanor mocks him a lot and calls him hopeless.  Mua ha ha!  Though... poor Rich.  To die such a forgotten death, miss the birth of his baby, and the lady he spent all his time adventuring with wasn't there for him in the end (because she just randomly dissappeared!  BAH!)

Julia:  Raaaaaaaaainbows!

Diana:  Was it me or was it just kinda random how Rich paints a rainbow for Julia then ends up married to Diana in the next scenario?  Of course, even more random was that Eleanor was never to be heard from again.  .....

Sargon:  Why would this fifteen year old randomly be found with Eleanor?  Was she leeching money off him?  Was he her boytoy?  Should we ask?  Anyway, it's too bad he had to get possessed like that.  Sargon and those ridiculously large arms of his was cool.

Ginny:  She's 14.  FOURTEEN!  So......... why does Roberto hit on her?  Why is there a bunch of fan art depicting her with Gustaf as a couple?  Scaaaaaaaarry.

Gustaf:  Okay, Saga Frontier 2 had great hairstyles.  But even so, I had seen them all before in anime or video games.  Except for Gustaf.  Gustaf's hair is INSANE.  That is all.  Well, okay, he's also an extreme power player when he wields Gustave's sword (By the way, Ventarbre calls Gustaf, "Master Gustave.")

Primiera:  Well, she was pretty interesting.  Her interactions with her disgruntled stepmother, Nicolette, were rather tragic.

Roberto:  I like mediators.  Mediators rock.  Yep!  Twas one of my favorite jobs in FF Tactics.  Too bad Saga Frontier 2 didn't have guns so they made Roberto specialize in bows instead, but ah well:)  He even had a mediatorish battle role, "Diplomat".  Heehee...

Meythia:  Well, she was cute.  It was wierd how such a cute girl actually, stat-wise, was a tank (she starts out with incredibly high HP O_o).  She's right with her quotes in the final battle though.  Ventarbre sending such a young girl who was only an apprentice to take on something as incredible as the egg was a rather mean thing to do.  :P
 
 

Ah........ now I'm fooling around with my new game + in Saga Frontier 2 trying to see if there's more to Eleanor.  The new game + was rather dissappointing.  You only got to keep your arts (can't even keep your chips?  Bah!) and that's about it.  And there's nothing new to do.  Just revisit old scenarios, maybe do some stuff like kill Cordelia but there aren't many times in the game where you can do things like that, etc... still, it's nice being able to again see all those characters that were lost permanantly to the storyline.
 

And that's all.  Huzzah and all that stuff.