Xenoblade Chronicles 2

[Armagon]

My copy is already installed on my Switch and i'm just waiting for it to unlock at Midnight.

[Armagon]

First impressions so far (contains very mild Ch.1 spoilers)

Spoiler

• The voice acting is definitely a lot better compared to what the trailers show
  • That said, Rex's English VA really needs to work on those battle cries
• The fight choreography in cutscenes is amazing.
• Music is amazing, as expected from Xenoblade
• Characters are pretty likable so far
• Bana's voice actor fits him so perfectly.
• I've played through Ch.1 and i'm in the beginning of Ch.2. This was on handheld mode and the game runs pretty well. Resolution drops, yes, but not as bad as it sounded from reviewers.
  • The game drains the battery pretty fast though.
• Battles also feel faster. They look slow when you just watch them but when you actually play the game, it feels a lot more natural.
• Hooray for the game actually teaching me how to play. I think this game may have the best tutorials in the series.
• Sidequest navigation is the best in this game. There was one hide-and-seek sidequest with three kids. If this was Xenoblade 1, i'd probably spend like 30 minutes searching. But thanks to this game's sidequest navigation, i was able to find all three kids in 5 minutes.
• Malos said shit. I think this is the first Nintendo game ever to actually say a swear.

[Hardin]

So I'm part way through chapter 2, and I'm really enjoying it so far. So far I think the first couple hours have been stronger than those of the previous 2 games. 

[Armagon]

Ok, i'm a bit upset. I've used 3 Rare Core Crystals and all three have yielded Common Blades. I know it's possible to get Commons from Rare Core Crystals (and vice versa) but what the actual fuck is the % rate for getting Rares from Rare Core Crystals?

Edited December 2, 2017 by Armagon

[kingddd]

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

Ok, i'm a bit upset. I've used 3 Rare Core Crystals and all three have yielded Common Blades. I know it's possible to get Commons from Rare Core Crystals (and vice versa) but what the actual fuck is the % rate for getting Rares from Rare Core Crystals?

unfortunately it seems pretty low for a lot of people.  Some people have went almost 15 and they got nothing.  You can increase your rate by using your characters stat luck but that is still RNG based in the end.  It's gacha roll at this point.

[Shiki]

2 hours into the game and haven't left the first area during all that time. Check.
Got to Chapter 2 and thought, what did I get myself into. Check.
Started Chapter 3 and I have no idea how to get to the next main story spot. Check. (no seriously, how do I get to that place?)
That's Xenoblade alright. I'm enjoying it.

About that Blade Bonding system ... we're rolling on the gacha even here? What has my life become?

Spoiler

I got 3 Rare Blades, 1 from a regular core, 2 from rare cores. I found 1 after the boss battle with that dumb duke and the other after draining the poisoned water for a side quest.

First one was Nim and she came from a regular core. I am really confused by her design but using her is a lot of fun with those knuckles.
After her followed Boreas who bonded with Nia since he appears to be more of a healer/mage.
The last Blade I got was Electra and she unlocked a Side Quest. I wonder if this holds true for all Blades but at least Electra requires a lot of things I can't do right now.

 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Talandar

[Armagon]

43 minutes ago, Talandar said:

Started Chapter 3 and I have no idea how to get to the next main story spot. Check. (no seriously, how do I get to that place?)

You have to go to the left side of Gormott. Just follow the pointers on the top screen. Those pointers are so helpful and removes a lot of the tedium that quests had in previous games. I do recommend staying in Gormott and doing some sidequests though. Uraya does not mess around. I got rekt a few times and i haven't even gotten to the main section of the Titan yet.

43 minutes ago, Talandar said:

The last Blade I got was Electra and she unlocked a Side Quest. I wonder if this holds true for all Blades but at least Electra requires a lot of things I can't do right now.

Every Rare Blade has either a Side Quest or a Heart-to-Heart. Or both.

And speaking of the Heart-to-Hearts, can i just say, these easily surpass those of the first game. Heart-to-Hearts are fully voice acted this time around and, from the two i've seen, they involve the entire party, not just two characters.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Armagon

[blah the Prussian]

My lord, Jin is edgy.

[kingddd]

Just did a full gacha summoning blade session with 14 common, 2 rare ones.

I got 2 rare blades from the summon.

so yeah very RNG luck based.  You could essentially roll for nothing at this point.  Common blades aren't worth your investment imo especially when you get a rare one you'll want all your resources to be put into that one.  Note 1 one them was from a common crystal while the other one was from a rare one.  The best way to tackle this is to use a luck accessory since that's the biggest influencer so far.

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2017 by kingddd

[Armagon]

Got my first Rare Blade 

I'm still in a part of the game where i can only equip two Blades but Azami is my first Rare Blade so it works out for now.

1 hour ago, kingddd said:

so yeah very RNG luck based.  You could essentially roll for nothing at this point

I honestly don't know how to feel about this in the long-run. I've been able to get by with Common Blades just fine but i don't want the game to require me to use Rare Blades to win. And i did hear about some people not having certain field skills at a certain point in the story, so their progress was halted. Don't know if you need Rare Blades for that or if the Special Blades can help out.

I do appreciate the fact that it's seemingly impossible to get Rare Blade duplicates, though. 

[kingddd]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Got my first Rare Blade 

 

I'm still in a part of the game where i can only equip two Blades but Azami is my first Rare Blade so it works out for now.

I honestly don't know how to feel about this in the long-run. I've been able to get by with Common Blades just fine but i don't want the game to require me to use Rare Blades to win. And i did hear about some people not having certain field skills at a certain point in the story, so their progress was halted. Don't know if you need Rare Blades for that or if the Special Blades can help out.

I do appreciate the fact that it's seemingly impossible to get Rare Blade duplicates, though. 

Not sure about the progress halt since I haven't encountered it.  But Xenoblade X did this too with some party member's required a certain affinity to continue a main story mission.  Luckily most of them were low enough that it shouldn't take long to do so.  But yeah it seems like they didn't learn their lesson with this for story progression either.

Yeah I understand how you feel.  On one hand though, I think you can go through the entire game without rolling any of the blades tbh but it really sucks that if you want certain arts or certain weapon skills it's all randomized and you just have to hope the game will give you the blade style you want.  And it's not always the optimal one you want either.  I really don't like this kind of randomized skill system.  Sure in Xenoblade 1 you needed to find a drop to level your arts to level 10 but you can at least still use those arts up to level 7ish which by that time it's all you really needed for the final bosses.  X's system just requires a lot of grinding which imo is the better way to do it then some randomized system.

[Armagon]

44 minutes ago, kingddd said:

On one hand though, I think you can go through the entire game without rolling any of the blades tbh but it really sucks that if you want certain arts or certain weapon skills it's all randomized and you just have to hope the game will give you the blade style you want.

Arts are determined by the Driver. If Rex bonds with two Axe Blades, one Rare, one Common, both will have the same Arts. The Rare Blade just has it's own Specials, along with field skills and sidequests/Heart-to-Hearts. The Arts themselves don't really bother me since it's the Driver determines them, not the Blades. It's only the field skills where i feel it may become an issue. I've yet to lose a battle because i lacked the right Blades.

Now, i can't compare it to X since i've never played, but i do feel that the battle system in 2 is much better than the battle system in 1. There's a lot more strategy to it and it feels really satisfying pulling off combos. 

[The DanMan]

Just got off the carrier, jumped back to the Trade Guild Inn before I (likely) ran into Morag. Nia's level 17 and Rex and Tora are level 15 (I ended up playing as her while trying to get through the labyrinth that is the Carrier). The Rare Core Crystal dropped from the boss got me a Common Blade. But Nia, with a luck enhancing accessory, got this from a Common Core Crystal:

Thankfully, Nia had already been using a Katana. 

[Shiki]

13 hours ago, Armagon said:

Those pointers are so helpful and removes a lot of the tedium that quests had in previous games. 

I honestly find these pointers misleading with the terrible terrible map.
If I had to criticize from my current experience is the poor navigation. Most of the time you don't know where you are and where you have to go. They throw a name or two in the dialogue but without knowing where they supposed to be you're just walking around trying to find that one way point without dying against 40+ enemies.

[kingddd]

46 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Now, i can't compare it to X since i've never played, but i do feel that the battle system in 2 is much better than the battle system in 1. There's a lot more strategy to it and it feels really satisfying pulling off combos. 

Personal opinion for me is

X >>>> 2 >>>>>>>>> 1 in terms of combat.

The biggest advantage that X has is the freedom to build a playstyle towards your specific needs and you can change classes for your main avatar to however you feel like and it works out really well because eventually you have tons of combinations of Arts, Weaponry, Gears and options for you to build your characters and art sets freely however you feel like.  The issue is that party members aren't very useful postgame and you're better off building one character over the others but this only an issue if you want to take on the super bosses.  The rest of the game they are fine for what they do.

2's biggest advantages are definitely the combo system and it's a lot more NPC team oriented.  The limitations has its benefits where you have more resource management that you have to figure out what's best for your specific needs and makes the party members a lot more unique feel to it.  I think my biggest issue is that like in 1, it still feels a bit automated at times.  There are definitely more button presses but the new autoattack system I feel works and at the same time still a bit of a sleeper at times.

One feature I didn't like that they removed is there doesn't seem to be an indicator that tells you what kind of aggro the enemies are anymore.  And this makes it hard for me to determine if I want to initiate or can sneak around the enemy.  We had it in 1 and X and I have absolutely no idea why they removed it completely here.

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, Talandar said:

I honestly find these pointers misleading with the terrible terrible map.
If I had to criticize from my current experience is the poor navigation. Most of the time you don't know where you are and where you have to go. They throw a name or two in the dialogue but without knowing where they supposed to be you're just walking around trying to find that one way point without dying against 40+ enemies.

Interesting. Sometimes, when the pointer is pointing at a place that's too far, i just bring up the Skip Travel map. Both my main and quest objectives are shown. Try doing that.

I just took a quest in Uraya that required me to get four item drops from a monster.....and the map actually shows you where the monsters you need to take down are. Also, shoutout to the quest system telling you how much of an item you have out of how much you need. In Xenoblade 1, you had to go into you inventory to find out how much of an item you had and it got really tedious if you had a lot of items.

2 hours ago, kingddd said:

One feature I didn't like that they removed is there doesn't seem to be an indicator that tells you what kind of aggro the enemies are anymore.  And this makes it hard for me to determine if I want to initiate or can sneak around the enemy.  We had it in 1 and X and I have absolutely no idea why they removed it completely here.

This. I know Takahashi (or someone from Monolith Soft) said it was a conscious decision because they wanted the players to have a learning experience identifying which monsters aggro on sight and which ones don't. But like, why though? There's a 100+ monsters in this game, i'm not gonna remember them all.

On a side note, there doesn't seem to be any sound-based enemies. I walked very slowly past some Vangs (the bats) and they still aggro'd. Where there sight-based Vangs in the first game?

[Etrurian emperor]

I got a rare blade on my very first try. It wasn't one I really wanted but nice to see I got luck on my side.

My experiences are very positive so far. I'm very fond of the different accents already.

The only thing I'm not so keen on is the map system. Its very unhelpful. 

[Armagon]

Anyway, i just finished Ch.3 so here are my thoughts on the game so far

Positives:

• The story is much better than the first game. Xenoblade 1 had a great story but it started out slow and it didn't get good until after the Ether Mine and Prison Island (the first time) was when it really started to become good. Meanwhile, Xenoblade 2's story got good in just one chapter and it's stayed good. One of the biggest advantages in Xenoblade 2's story is that everyone in the party is relevant. In Xenoblade 1, the party members had varying degrees of relevancy, with Riki being basically non-existent in the plot. Of course, i just started Ch.4 so this could change but for now, let's just say that the first 20-or so hours of Xenoblade 2 are better than the first 20-or so hours of Xenoblade 1.
• The combat is much better than in Xenoblade 1 because it's more strategic and also really satisfying to pull off.
• Rex is a really good protagonist. Never does he ever feel generic imo. Same goes for Pyra.
• Actually, that goes for all the party members.
• The voice acting, while not as good as the voice acting in Xenoblade 1, is still very good. Much better than what they sounded like in the trailers.
• The Heart-to-Hearts are fully voiced. Nuff said.
• Actually, i'm gonna add on to that. Heart-to-Hearts in this game seem to involve most or all of the party members and i love that. Was this the case in X as well? I know in 1, it was just between two party members.
• I'm actually surprised some people are having issues with the navigation because i feel this is the best one yet. Not once did i ever feel lost during a sidequest.
• The Blade system, even if it's random, works well so far. 
• The world is beautiful. Uraya is right up there with night-time Satorl Marsh and night-time Sylvalum for most beautiful Xenoblade locations.
• The towns feel very much alive to the point that i don't really miss the NPC/town Affinity Chart
• Xenoblade 2's music>>>Xenoblade 1's music>>>>>>>>Xenoblade X's music.

Negatives

• When Skip Traveling to another Titan, the game takes a few seconds to catch up so you end up spawning in an area with unfinished textures and stuff for like two-four seconds.
• Why is X the Skip Travel menu and not the main menu? This is more of a personal nitpick because Xenoblade Chronicles 3D's main menu button was X and 2 is just messing with my muscle memory
• The Skip Travel menu defaults to Argentum instead of whatever Titan you're on.
• Rare Core Crystals spawn Common Blades more often than Rare Blades and that shouldn't happen. 
• The SP cost to level up Arts starts to get high after just one level up. It doesn't appear that leveling up Arts is as important as it was in 1 but c'mon.
• Not being able to see what aggro type the enemies are.
• Whenever a Blade unlocks a new part of their Affinity Chart, you have to actually go into their Affinity Chart to activate whatever it is they got. Instead of the game automatically unlocking it when you complete the requirements. This can very easily be fixed.
• Changing targets during battle feels awkward and outside of battle, you just can't. At least i haven't been able to.
• I know i said the voice acting is good. And it is. Except for when Rex just can't scream. His screams just sound forced. 

If i had to rate the game right now, it'd be a 8.7/10. This rating is expected to go up the more i play though. I mean, this game is already my Game of the Year.

On a side note, does anyone know the name of the battle theme that plays when you fight other, non-story important Drivers? It's so good and i haven't been able to find it yet.

 

Edited December 3, 2017 by Armagon

[Shiki]

9 hours ago, Armagon said:

Interesting. Sometimes, when the pointer is pointing at a place that's too far, i just bring up the Skip Travel map. Both my main and quest objectives are shown. Try doing that.

That doesn't help if there is a height difference; which happens quite often with the map structure of Gormott. It is even more infuriating if you happen to have the wrong clould level during your search.
Also finding the shipyard was an entire different beast since it was on a whole new map section; if you didn't unlock that section you can't find it on the map either.

I highly prefer the navigation and readibiity of XC1's map. Finding the Side Quests may be more difficult but at least I know where I'm going.

[kingddd]

Few things I will say is that, handheld mode is the one I played this game a lot on and I don't recommend it if you want to take screenshots in it.  You're best to play the game in dock mode if you want good screenshots.  The game uses a heavy amount of dynamic resolution worst than Zelda BOTW and most of the time goes below 720p in many cases to the point where your screens will look very pixelated.  It's very much much playable but it's obvious the game is optimized for dock mode and not for handheld.

Another thing I noticed they removed from X and did the same thing in the original is that if your main playable character dies you're immediately brought back to the last landmark spawn.  Which I have no idea why they got rid of this since Xenoblade X, they implemented a timer to respawn where if you die your NPC friends can beat the enemy within timeframe and you don't have to respawn and you won't lose the battle immediately.  Which was really helpful for those moments where you die but the enemy's low hp and your party members should be enough to kill them.  It was one of the bigger improvements in combat and I have no idea why they removed this.

Edited December 3, 2017 by kingddd

[blah the Prussian]

So I'm near the end of chapter 2 and I have to say(do not give me spoilers on this) the Empire doesn't seem that bad. Like, they

Arrest Nia as a terrorist but if she's with Jin she is 100% a terrorist. We see no evidence that their rule over wherever they rule is bad aside from Fatass McEvilman being kind of a dick. I'm kind of wary of suprise villains with a point because they did this exact thing with the Mechon. Overall, on Team Empire until further notice.

[Armagon]

5 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

So I'm near the end of chapter 2 and I have to say(do not give me spoilers on this) the Empire doesn't seem that bad. Like, they

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Arrest Nia as a terrorist but if she's with Jin she is 100% a terrorist. We see no evidence that their rule over wherever they rule is bad aside from Fatass McEvilman being kind of a dick. I'm kind of wary of suprise villains with a point because they did this exact thing with the Mechon. Overall, on Team Empire until further notice.

 

 

Honestly, the Empire of Mor Adain might be one of my favorite empires in fiction. I'm so used to games (*cough* Fire Emblem *cough*) and anime making the invading empire like, the embodiment of all evil and they strip away the basic human rights of whoever they invade but then we just have Mor Ardain who doesn't do anything of that. There's an NPC in Torigoth who mentions that, despite Mor Ardain having conquered them, they never interfered with Gormotti culture. Like, (sidequest spoilers below)

Spoiler

there's not even any hatred between Ardaininans and Gormotti, aside from one sidequest that involved a Gormotti and Ardainian couple who decided to run away from home to get married because the Gormotti's father disapproved of the marriage simply because his daughter's lover was Ardainian.

 

[The DanMan]

Second Rare Blade get:

Funny how it worked out. Rex was using a generic, water-type axe blade... only to get the rare, water-type axe blade.
Doubly funny: both Rex and Nia have each gotten a rare blade of the other's default element.

Only real criticisms are a bit of a slow start and the map being a bit clunky. The combat is a huge step up from the first game; Cancelling, having to keep close to your Blade, commanding your allies to fire off specials, switching between Blades; the first one, honestly, kinda felt like it played itself a lot while you just kept away from the front of the enemy and fired off arts whenever they charged up. Here, there's rarely a moment that doesn't require input; it feels like a nice mid-ground between the original's and X's combat system.

[Thane]

I've finished watching a walkthrough of the game now, so here are my thoughts on the story and characters as someone who has only watched the game. Spoilers for the entire game ahead, including the ending.

Spoiler

Positives

• Very interesting setting with plenty of variety. I like the attention to detail with the different accents on the titans, complete with Torna and Pyra having American accents.
• The end goal is nice and feels like a natural conclusion of the state of the world. Reaching Elysium will hopefully save the population of Alrest since the very ground they live on is dying.
• While not as important as it should've been in the grand scheme of things, I liked the faction conflicts.
• I liked the subversion with the third sword. They really got me there; I thought it would be another one of those super swords that'll magically solve all the world's problems, but that wasn't the case.

Negatives

• While a minor complaint, the silly designs make it difficult to take some characters seriously. I'm not talking about Pyra being stacked, I'm talking about the fact that her prancing around half-naked doesn't match her personality at all. This is doubly strange because at least in the beginning of the game they do acknowledge that she sticks out, yet they forsake wearing the robe later. The most bizarre example of this, however, is the artificial Blades. Poppi looks like a cute girl, as did Lila, but the mass produced Blades look nothing like them at all. Poppi can also don a maid uniform and get double D's, which is as strange as it is distasteful. The obvious waifu appeal of Blades in general just rubs me in all sorts of wrong ways.
• The more obvious anime tropes are flat out unnecessary, and it's almost shameful how robotic their implementation is. From the hot spring scene where the camera, as it often does, zooms in on Pyra/Mythra's assets, and the scene where Mythra ends up sleeping in Rex's bed because golly gee she's just such a horrible sleepwalker you guys!
• The clash between gameplay and story is weird. There are so many boss fights where you defeat an enemy and then in the following cutscene you get your ass handed to you.
• Pyra knows so much valuable information, yet only shares it when the story deems it prudent. The fact that the main cast doesn't try to ask her more questions when she's obviously hiding something, even though it could prove useful to their journey, feels unnatural.
• Torna fucking sucks. It's effectively a circlejerk of people talking about how bad and powerful they are, and whenever they're defeated they manage to get away. The fact that we're supposed to feel any sort of sympathy with them is beyond ridiculous. Jin the edgelord literally stabs Rex in the back and kills a lot of innocent people, yet they defend him later because he looks sad, even though he says he wants to destroy the world. I don't know what it is with Japanese games and wanting to save the bad guy hottie because he's tragic, but it needs to stop yesterday.
• Rex is the most generic, uninspired, lackluster piece of cardboard I've ever seen, yet everyone can sense his greatness. Yes, he gets his ass handed to him a few times and gets scolded for his mistakes - I'm not trying to argue he's a Mary Sue or anything - but everyone seems convinced that he'll bring about great changes, that his eyes are special, etc.
• Finally, and this is another problem with Rex, any tension the game could've hoped to build for its climax was ruined when he went to grab the third sword. It disappears in his hands, he gets a vision, and then...he says it's alright because he's realized something. That effectively meant that no matter what the story threw at him, he'd overcome it with the power of deus ex machina. The difference in power level, the advantages of the enemy, everything was apparently alright, and that meant there were no challenges left to overcome.

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by Thane

[Shiki]

Reached Chapter 4.

Spoiler

- Yeah, the map isn't getting better. For one, height difference makes the compass useless. Even if you think you are close to your goal you might on the wrong way since the way leads somewhere else and you need to go somewhere different entirely. The minimap doesn't show resource points, Hearts-to-Hearts or anything that would help you to find Quest items. This is definetly one of my major gripes with this game.

- Finally the game lets you off the hook with its tutorials. Combat was still a tad slow but now with 3 Blades and Topple mechanics it's quite a bit faster and more tactical, too.

- Jap >>> Eng voice acting. No contest here. I'm just going to point to Zeke's introduction (the man is hilarous btw.).

- RIP Vandham. You were the best merc. Roc is going to stay in Rex's line-up forever.

- I'm getting blocked by Field Skills requirements during Sidequests which is really annoying. That one quest with the Nopon singer requires me to have Keen Eye Lvl.2 and I only have Keen Eye Lvl1 on one blade.

- My luck in this game is starting to look like EX. Aside from the 3 I already mentioned I got even more rare blades:
Adenine (Wind, Knuckle, Hlr): Another Knuckle user but she seems more interesting and less confusing than Nim.
Azami (Dark, Cannon, Atk): Yeah ... I'm not using you with that design.
Perceval (Dark, Katana, Tnk): Interesting. I might use you with Rex but ...
Wulfric (Earth, Spear, Atk): This guy is filling the 3rd spot. Superstrength is very useful for chests and barrels. But I think Wulfric is available to everyone.

- It seems like the Vess sidequest will have her as a reward. Cool.

- Does anyone know how to earn a Salvager Rank?