Poll of the Day > What's the verdict on Xenoblade Chronicles 2?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do people like it?

people do

It's not spectacular but I think it's worth playing. I thought the story and characters were meh but the game was fun enough. I liked XCX better, admittedly.

Probably the best JRPG on the switch surpassed only by the first game.

It's a good time. Not as good as the first one, and it's not without its frustrations (though I say this having not played it in like four years and I believe there have been several QoL improvements since then, especially to affinity grinding), but it's well worth playing.

PK_Spam posted...

Probably the best JRPG on the switch surpassed only by the first game.

Including ports like Tales of Vesperia?

Is it any good? I heard it's on PC now but not sure...

I like my hardline jrpgs, but don't really care for the Tales of or Persona series (even though I like Star Ocean and traditional SMT)

It was overall a good but deeply flawed game, and the more you hope for a game like XC1, the more disappointed you'll be.
Excellent music and environments/exploration (XC1 and XCX are better, but it's still good).
Side quests are better than XC1 and worse than XCX (where the side quests were better than the actual main story...)
Plot is bad until late game and then is ok. Final chapter kinda "saves" it, but not not in a way that redeems the first half of XC2's plot. Can't go into more detail than that w/o spoilers, have to keep it vague.
Characters are voice acting are hot garbage, especially Rex and Tora, whom you'll unfortunately hear from a LOT.
Combat is...hard to pin down. On one hand, once you figure it out it's more fun than XC1 for a while. Then you realize every single combat and every single character and choice of blades follows the exact same strategy of "painting" different colors then using a chain attack, and the combat gets really repetitive and dull (while as in XC1, every character actually played differently and even had different builds... XC2 is all about "color coordination" for the elements). And long before then, it will just be slow and confusing b/c above all else it is SO FUCKING NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED.
Oh, and the game is drowning in tedium with all of the merc missions, field skills (and the constant swapping of blades to meet them), blade affinity charts, and most of all the random "gacha" method of finding blades.

It's worth noting the prequel expansion, Torna: The Golden Country is basically a total improvement over the base XC2 game. Combat is streamlined and improved tremendously, there's no tedious merc missions, you always have all your blades "equipped" for field skills, no gacha, and good lord are the characters and voice acting a massive improvement!
Plot's actually worse than XC2, though.

I'd give XC2 a 7/10 and Torna a 8/10.

streamofthesky posted...

It was overall a good but deeply flawed game, and the more you hope for a game like XC1, the more disappointed you'll be.
(Truncated)
I'd give XC2 a 7/10 and Torna a 8/10.

I'd say that review is very fair and on point.

SilentSeph posted...

Including ports like Tales of Vesperia?

Tales of Vesperia is cracked to the core but I love it in spite of those things, but it still doesnt come close to the Xenos and how theyve set the bar for JRPGs with me

Verdict? Not sure. I didn't care for it. Battle system isn't my cup of tea.

I enjoyed it

Gaawa_chan posted...

I liked XCX better, admittedly.

I also agree with this. But I enjoyed XCX more than the first one, as well

Second best game of all time, first being xenoblade X, tied for second is xenoblade chronicles. god tier games, people complain about the designs but honestly they're great and anyone who doesn't like the game is a liar and a traitor to the world of video games and the people's government that resides there

XCX was weird. I loved a lot of things about it, but a lot of things also just weren't good (which is also my overall opinion on the soundtrack). I really want a sequel, both so they can actually finish the story and so they can build on what they started to make something that really works well.

If nothing else, I'd like to see the battle system expanded on and balanced better so there's more than one worthwhile endgame build. Abusing Blossom Dance was leagues better than anything else you could do (a couple other infinite Overdrive builds that abused Ghost Dance were viable, but nowhere near as strong), and Skell combat mostly turned into a matter of stacking as many damage boosts as possible and playing rocket tag with superbosses because their damage scaled so much faster than the defensive options that were available.

PK_Spam posted...

Tales of Vesperia is cracked to the core but I love it in spite of those things, but it still doesnt come close to the Xenos and how theyve set the bar for JRPGs with me

I've really gotta give XC2 a shot, whenever my backlog shrinks a bit. I was thinking about getting it for my nephew for Christmas, then stealing it and playing it myself. I could cut out the middle part and buy it for myself but that's not as fun

the game itself isnt much fun either

1>X>2

You can't eat Xenoblade2 or the Switch. You can sell it to help buy food tho.

adjl posted...

(which is also my overall opinion on the soundtrack)

Would have been a lot better if the 3 worst songs weren't the ones you hear the most.

I haven't XC2, but XCX desperately needs a rerelease.

papercup posted...

XCX desperately needs a rerelease.

It really does!

LinkPizza posted...

It really does!

Which ones are already on the Switch?

PK_Spam posted...

cracked to the core

Cracked to what core?

Revelation34 posted...

Which ones are already on the Switch?

Just XC1 and XC2...

LinkPizza posted...

Just XC1 and XC2...

Should I hold off on 2? I got 1 but haven't played it yet.

Revelation34 posted...

Should I hold off on 2? I got 1 but haven't played it yet.

TBH, I'm not really sure you need to play XC1 to play XC2...

Xenoblade 2 has a pretty good jrpg story imo but I hate the gameplay and gacha mechanics

Revelation34 posted...

Should I hold off on 2? I got 1 but haven't played it yet.

Xenoblade 2 is almost entirely it's own thing

CarefreeDude posted...

Xenoblade 2 has a pretty good jrpg story imo but I hate the gameplay and gacha mechanics

Really? I didn't mind the gacha. But I got most of the ones I liked when playing, so maybe that's why. And I kind of liked the gameplay once I got use to it...

LinkPizza posted...

Really? I didn't mind the gacha. But I got most of the ones I liked when playing, so maybe that's why. And I kind of liked the gameplay once I got use to it...

I think the reason I didn't like the gameplay was due to the disconnect between cutscenes and actual fights. Cutscenes had these insane flashy, fast combat sequences, which were immediately followed by slow clunky gameplay

CarefreeDude posted...

Xenoblade 2 is almost entirely it's own thing

I meant more like 1 which is a definitive edition.

CarefreeDude posted...

I think the reason I didn't like the gameplay was due to the disconnect between cutscenes and actual fights. Cutscenes had these insane flashy, fast combat sequences, which were immediately followed by slow clunky gameplay

I guess I can understand that... I don't think I ever really looked at it that way...

It's probably just a preference thing on my part. The tales of battle system would have been a better fit

CarefreeDude posted...

It's probably just a preference thing on my part. The tales of battle system would have been a better fit

I didnt really play the Tales of series, so I cant really say much about that

LinkPizza posted...

I didnt really play the Tales of series, so I cant really say much about that

Tales' combat system is pretty similar to Smash's: You move mostly in two dimensions and combine a regular and a special attack button with different directional inputs to perform different attacks, which can be strung together into combos. Each game has further mechanics to spice that up a bit, but that's the gist of it.

GanonsSpirit posted...

Would have been a lot better if the 3 worst songs weren't the ones you hear the most.

The absolute worst was having the flying theme not only override the area music, but to cause it to restart when you landed. The flying theme wasn't good, by any means, but it was at least tolerable, in my books. The area music, on the other hand, was generally really awesome and I really enjoyed listening to it. Starting the area music from the beginning any time I jumped for more than 2 seconds was a massive pain.

adjl posted...

Tales' combat system is pretty similar to Smash's: You move mostly in two dimensions and combine a regular and a special attack button with different directional inputs to perform different attacks, which can be strung together into combos. Each game has further mechanics to spice that up a bit, but that's the gist of it.

It changes a fair bit w/ each game, feels more like they're never happy w/ the combat system than "improvements". At least until Arise, which is the best combat I've seen in a Tales game (though I've only played a few) and I hope they keep it.

In any case, I prefer Xenoblade's combat w/ the arts and auto attacks. It's a nice compromise between the strategy of turn-based and the excitement of real time.

The absolute worst was having the flying theme not only override the area music, but to cause it to restart when you landed. The flying theme wasn't good, by any means, but it was at least tolerable, in my books. The area music, on the other hand, was generally really awesome and I really enjoyed listening to it. Starting the area music from the beginning any time I jumped for more than 2 seconds was a massive pain.

Ugh, there were so many damn unforced errors w/ the sound track. Which was good overall, but ends up seeming bad, b/c the fucking NLA and Black Tar themes are so fucking awful and so fucking omnipresent.
The flying theme kicking in so fast is annoying. And picking a song that's been disrupted back up from where it's left off isn't hard to do, I've seen other games do it.
And it's the only Xenoblade game w/o volume sliders, so you either have to listen to the awful music or mute the entire game (I literally did muted "night runs" of NLA for side quests periodically, cause fucking hell that song is like nails on a chalk board for me. My wife found it funny how I'd be in NLA and see the sun starting to set and then desperately run for the barracks or a time change station before it was TOO LATE, lol)

Volume sliders would also have helped with the terrible music/voice balance. There were so many cutscenes where the voices were drowned out by the music. Fortunately, cutscene music was generally really awesome, which kind of made up for that, but it was still not exactly ideal.

I think NLA would have benefited from a jukebox feature. So much of the game is spent there that any single track was doomed to get overly repetitive even if the themes had been better, so letting the player pick what to listen to (possibly doing something like what Smash does for custom stages, putting together a playlist and adjusting the chance that each song shows up) would have been great. It would have worked thematically, given the futuristic setting, and could even have been unlocked via a sidequest where you establish yourself as the official Music Dude for the colony. Similarly, putting "radios" in Skells would also have made sense and added further options for environmental music (including, presumably, toggling whether or not there's a flying theme).

CarefreeDude posted...

I think the reason I didn't like the gameplay was due to the disconnect between cutscenes and actual fights. Cutscenes had these insane flashy, fast combat sequences, which were immediately followed by slow clunky gameplay

Dont play the earlier Xeno games then, which have, but are not limited to

• a guy who beats up a team of mechs on foot
• a guy who can destroy a town as an afterthought and open black holes gets into a fistacuffs fight against the heros
• a robot who wipes out an entire army, millions strong, in one hit

adjl posted...

I think NLA would have benefited from a jukebox feature. So much of the game is spent there that any single track was doomed to get overly repetitive even if the themes had been better, so letting the player pick what to listen to (possibly doing something like what Smash does for custom stages, putting together a playlist and adjusting the chance that each song shows up) would have been great. It would have worked thematically, given the futuristic setting, and could even have been unlocked via a sidequest where you establish yourself as the official Music Dude for the colony. Similarly, putting "radios" in Skells would also have made sense and added further options for environmental music (including, presumably, toggling whether or not there's a flying theme).

I thought each zone should've had its own theme, but a jukebox works even better.
But they couldn't even be bothered to let you add party members via a central console (which is used for literally everything else, even buying skells!), a feature available since at least Suikoden 1 in 1995. Instead you had to run around NLA to find people every single time you wanted to add them to the party.
So I doubt they'd have ever considered something as convenient as a jukebox.

Like... I love XCX, but damn if it didn't have a lot of really weird flaws and annoyances.

I loved XCX but got overwhelmed trying to 100% it. I think I had 125 hours in the game and I hadn't gone past chapter 3. Just so much to do, and worse yet, a TON of missable moments and connections. There being so many missables and a lack of information online made me reluctantly put it down. It was incredible while it lasted, however. Exploration was the best in the series.

XC1 was meh, and then you hit Graur Plains and see the scope of the game and it becomes this incredible experience. I'm pretty sure I was one of the only ones with a complete affinity chart at the time I beat it. I was walking around the entire world, speaking to every npc every 3 hours (in-game), with every single party member lol

XC2 is awesome, but I thought it was the weakest of them all. Still worth a playthrough if you enjoy Xenoblade in general. My game tip is to nudge your character around after every first hit of your weapon. Fills the gauge way faster and makes the combat feel more engaging.

streamofthesky posted...

I thought each zone should've had its own theme, but a jukebox works even better.
But they couldn't even be bothered to let you add party members via a central console (which is used for literally everything else, even buying skells!), a feature available since at least Suikoden 1 in 1995. Instead you had to run around NLA to find people every single time you wanted to add them to the party.
So I doubt they'd have ever considered something as convenient as a jukebox.

Like... I love XCX, but damn if it didn't have a lot of really weird flaws and annoyances.

Yeah. I didnt really like having to run around to find everyone. Though, it did help me to learn the areas really well

supergamer19 posted...

I loved XCX but got overwhelmed trying to 100% it. I think I had 125 hours in the game and I hadn't gone past chapter 3. Just so much to do, and worse yet, a TON of missable moments and connections. There being so many missables and a lack of information online made me reluctantly put it down. It was incredible while it lasted, however. Exploration was the best in the series.

XC1 was meh, and then you hit Graur Plains and see the scope of the game and it becomes this incredible experience. I'm pretty sure I was one of the only ones with a complete affinity chart at the time I beat it. I was walking around the entire world, speaking to every npc every 3 hours (in-game), with every single party member lol

XC2 is awesome, but I thought it was the weakest of them all. Still worth a playthrough if you enjoy Xenoblade in general. My game tip is to nudge your character around after every first hit of your weapon. Fills the gauge way faster and makes the combat feel more engaging.

Yeah. XCX would take forever to 100%. Which is why I tried to do a lot, but not everything. And I liked the more compact affinity chart in XCX instead of XC1. Too much trying to connect EVERYONE

streamofthesky posted...

I thought each zone should've had its own theme, but a jukebox works even better.

I figured a jukebox for each zone, with separate playlists for night and day. Maximum customization.

streamofthesky posted...

But they couldn't even be bothered to let you add party members via a central console (which is used for literally everything else, even buying skells!), a feature available since at least Suikoden 1 in 1995. Instead you had to run around NLA to find people every single time you wanted to add them to the party.

Yeah, that was baffling.

streamofthesky posted...

Like... I love XCX, but damn if it didn't have a lot of really weird flaws and annoyances.

Indeed. It's such a good game in so many ways, but there are so many silly things wrong with it.

supergamer19 posted...

I loved XCX but got overwhelmed trying to 100% it. I think I had 125 hours in the game and I hadn't gone past chapter 3. Just so much to do, and worse yet, a TON of missable moments and connections. There being so many missables and a lack of information online made me reluctantly put it down. It was incredible while it lasted, however. Exploration was the best in the series.

100% in X is an ordeal. More than any other game in the series, it did an amazing job of capturing the feel of exploring a mysterious, hostile planet and organically developing the colony as you did so, but there's such a massive buttload of side content along the way that I can see why trying to get all of it stressed you out too much to stick with it. It might be worth taking another stab at it now that the game's been out for several years and the online information has been fleshed out further, but it's still a huge undertaking to try and get everything.

I enjoyed what I played of XCX but I had to stop because my old TV was somewhat small and the majority of the text size was intended for ants

First one was boring, never played the second

Zareth posted...

First one was boring, never played the second

What about X?

LinkPizza posted...

What about X?

Nope

Zareth posted...

First one was boring, never played the second

Whaaaaaat?

the first one has some boring bits (alcomoth) but once the second act goes along and you start getting some clues to contextualize whats been happening, its basically full speed to the end with even more big moments along the way

X is alright. I like Elma well enough and I think its cool you can outdamage your mech by a lot on foot and beat the strongest super boss in like 3 seconds

Never played it but I certainly enjoy the artwork of Pyra and Mythra that Ive seen ( )

PK_Spam posted...

I think its cool you can outdamage your mech by a lot on foot and beat the strongest super boss in like 3 seconds

Blossom Dance builds can outdamage Skells in terms of sustained DPS, but I believe you can churn out more burst damage with the highest-tier Skells if you completely load them up with damage augments against the target type (since you can stack as many as you can collect) and use whatever the highest damage attack is. That will just straight up one-shot the superbosses with no setup, whereas you need to at least activate OD and get your multiplier up to make Blossom Dance broken. It can really only do that once before that attack cools down, though, and it's a major glass cannon build that won't last at all if the target survives that first shot.

https://i.gyazo.com/e13b1a30131b703960856ead070b2410.png

its got a lot more to do than xc1 but in different way

both games are fantastic in their own rights but 1's probably better... but for a toilet minmax game i play 20m a day, xc2 was sick

i am literally never gonna understand their localization choices though. they traded well-known jp references for much more obscure greek ones just cuz western. and then there's jin.. who got localized to shin. both are super fucking japanese! why even change it!

i can get localizing very obscure stuff english readers aren't gonna get, but Yoshitsune/Benkei were fine. why make it some weird transcription of Achilles/Patroclus noone's gonna get...