Board 8 > Xenoblade 2: Four sample tracks and a message from Takahashi-senpai

(+) Yeah! (+)

Elysium of the blue sky - Yasunori Mitsuda
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/switch/ad...ound/bgm01.mp3

Action Battle (temp) - ACE
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/switch/ad...ound/bgm02.mp3

Action Start (temp) - Kenji Hiramatsu
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/switch/ad...ound/bgm03.mp3

Elpis Soul Cave(?) (temp) - Yasunori Mitsuda
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/switch/ad...ound/bgm04.mp3

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/switch/adena/index.html

Message from the Takahashi from the JP official website.

Development started at the end of 2014~start of 2015 before they finished development on X. They made this game so both the fans that enjoy the story of Xenoblade 1 and the exploration of X can both enjoy.
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did someone say mitsuda
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The Mana Sword posted...

did someone say mitsuda

Mitsuda has been hyping the eff out of the OST on twitter for months, too. He said he was brought to tears at the recordings.
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oh fuck that battle theme
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Action Start is totally Engage the Enemy-esque

oh that guy was the + in ACE+ huh?... really glad they brought him back
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foolm0r0n posted...

Action Start is totally Engage the Enemy-esque

oh that guy was the + in ACE+ huh?... really glad they brought him back

Me too!
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These not working for anyone else?
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They didn't work for me except on the site
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these boobs are made for walking
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Found this song on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5OaR4UA8s0

I don't know which battle theme is better, this or Black Tar!
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I also have trouble deciding between good music and a pile of extremely pungent feces
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oh god I forgot that these are MUSIC SPOILERS

time to enter avoid mode
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I had been disappointed in these trailers because nothing wowwed me like the trailers for the other two Xenoblade games. I still remember the emotions I felt seeing that Skell take off for the first time There are no red flags in these trailers for me, I'm just not as excited.

I don't know anything about game development, but I wonder if they're reusing assets from XC. It looks like XC running on Dolphin, but they swapped the character models.

I don't care too much about gameplay. If they can give us a great, heartfelt story accompanied by an amazing soundtrack, that's probably enough to make the game worth it. That and exploration...I want to see more of that.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

That and exploration...I want to see more of that.

Okay I'm getting much more excited now watching the live Treehouse video
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I don't really care about gameplay as much myself, for me xenoblade is about the relationships between different characters. XC had such a great cast that all mesh well together and felt cheesy yet natural. XCX had probably the worst cast in the history of games but it made up for it by delivering awesome human relationships between the people who lived in NLA.

XC2 could really go any way, but from the glimpses, it really doesn't look like it's trying hard to be anything but safe.
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ugh you can't attack while moving anymore.

Thats going to make the game feel so much slower
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Rambunctious Valcro

Still love the tyrant nomenclature
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

Rambunctious Valcro

Still love the tyrant nomenclature

holy shit holy shit spoiler

Territorial Rotbart is back!
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so it looks like from the menu... probably 6 playable characters.
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Noticed that, other than Pyra, none of the Blades seem to be laser blades like the Monado.

SantaRPidgey posted...

so it looks like from the menu... probably 6 playable characters.

Plus a metric fuckton of Blades.
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I'm confused about something. Is the sword also the girl or just something the MC pulled out of her chest?

Back to multiple towns...fucking love it
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The girl is the blade, and like powers it up while you're fighting. But she's only one of many blade personas. I had to stop watching, but I thought I saw the other party members had the blade personas following them too.
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I've been watching a minute here and there while at work - what's your guys's take on this? is it legit? is the anime a problem? voices if you can hear them?
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So apparently they were almost done putting all the english voice acting into the game (like 2 weeks out), which generally is a rather late step, so almost certainly no delays, I guess?
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ok I'm mildly hyped after seeing that video. Different species of playable characters, wider cast, landmarks and exploration are staying in, battle system is familiar but fresh.

at worst this will be a Xenoblade Chronicles Lite which is still a damn good game.
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Yeah, other party members had Blade characters following them as well.
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transcience posted...

I've been watching a minute here and there while at work - what's your guys's take on this? is it legit? is the anime a problem? voices if you can hear them?

Looks fine. The only problem is the voices are a bit off, but Xenoblade 1 had the same problem at this point and look how that worked out.
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I was also interested to hear that you travel through numerous titans, with each having different environments. Looked like they're actually living beings in this one.
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I can't really hear the voices in the stream. And since we're not seeing cutscenes, the anime character design isn't very noticeable. Game looks a lot like XC, with the biggest difference being the battle system with the "blade" assist characters. Movement and camera is similar to XC, so the exploration looks more in line with XC than XCX.
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EndOfDiscOne posted...

I had been disappointed in these trailers because nothing wowwed me like the trailers for the other two Xenoblade games. I still remember the emotions I felt seeing that Skell take off for the first time

Same for me, but that's a good thing honestly. The massive hype that the Xeno X trailer built up, only to be completely let down by the final garbage game, was just so bad. I'm totally fine with this one being a safer, more of the same Xenoblade 1. It can't reach GOAT-tier like that, but it will still end up being a super good JRPG.
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The voices in the trailer seem cool. They do have the Xenoblade cheesiness. But the delivery is really bad in some parts... Xenoblade felt like it had really good delivery so the cheesiness worked, this might be annoying.

Anime designs look pretty damn terrible. Boob girls for swords is pretty cringey. In-game graphics do look very dated...
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Kinda afraid this won't live up to X, but hopefully they end up taking more elements from that than we've seen.
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why are the character designs so bad, and almost incongruous with the rest of the world?
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yeah, there's something about the anime style that makes it feel like a Tales battle system.

it's weird though because Xenogears is pretty clearly an anime style but doesn't feel cartoony in nearly the same way.
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That's because Xenogears has far superior character design
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WazzupGenius00 posted...

why are the character designs so bad, and almost incongruous with the rest of the world?

Forced by Nintendo due to focus testing with dumb nerds probably
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transience posted...

yeah, there's something about the anime style that makes it feel like a Tales battle system.

it's weird though because Xenogears is pretty clearly an anime style but doesn't feel cartoony in nearly the same way.

... wait, the anime art style makes the battle system seem like Tales?
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yeah it doesn't make any sense
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Looks like xenoblade to me
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Just watched the trailer.

man didn't expect to be de-hyped.

That looks like a step back from Xenoblade X (and Xenoblade) in most ways. Still has Xenoblade X's amazing environments it seems but argh pretty much everything else. =(

it's xeno- so i'll probably still really like it but argh

did we miss xenoblade x 2 for this
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The four tracks are great.
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Listened to the tracks again. If they can do some epic, moving cutscenes to Action Start like they did to Engage the Enemy, that along would make this game worth buying.
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/14/e3-2017-xenoblade-chronicles-2-is-more-than-a-simple-sequel

When Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was announced, it seemed to put paid to the idea that the Xenoblade series would be Monolith Soft’s take on a Final Fantasy-like franchise - each game similar in style and approach, but fundamentally different in story and character. That ‘2’ implied that we’d be be returning to the classic Wii RPG’s strange setting, the backs of the godlike Titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis.

So I put it to Monolith Soft studio head Tetsuya Takahashi: if this is being pitched as a sequel to the first Xenoblade, what will we find inside? “It's a completely different world, with completely new characters. It's a different game.”

Oh.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 feels most aptly described in the same terms as a fairytale - in the same way that cultures from two different parts of the world can both tell different versions of the Cinderella story, it boasts the same structure and kind of location as the first game, but filled out with new details. We still have a linear storyline, set along a string of vast, exploration-filled areas, and we’re still on (and inside) Titans, just not the same ones.

“The way I see it,” says Takahashi, “I feel as though Xenoblade 1 and 2 are connected and linked in the sense that they're linear and story-driven games, whereas Xenoblade Chronicles X was more focused on open world and exploration, and maybe an online aspect. I feel like I'd like to continue to create games separating those two aspects out.”

Jettisoning X’s character customisation and mech-assisted go-anywhere approach, this is a game that aims to build on the heritage of the Wii entry, right down to its awkward but lovable British-accented localisation.

But that’s not to say there’s a lack of new ideas. The key mechanical change seems to be in the game’s adoption of two different kinds of party member, Drivers and Blades.

“Drivers are basically humans”, says Takahashi. “Then there are these things called Core Crystals. Throughout the game, you'll collect many of them, and if a Driver touches that Core Crystal, a lifeform is created. That lifeform is what we call a Blade.

“The Blades endow the Driver that they're linked with power and a weapon. Each Blade has different roles that it can play, so the concept is that, by attaching different Blades, the player can decide what kind of role they want to play in the game.”

There’s a Pokemon-like thrill to the idea of collecting new Blades and switching between them as main character Rex fights. It also brings a new element of intrigue to one of the series’ best features.

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Jeff Zero posted...

That ‘2’ implied that we’d be be returning to the classic Wii RPG’s strange setting, the backs of the godlike Titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis.

Not at all given the ending of that game...

But fine, it's a new world. That explains why the code name on the website is Adena, and the first was Monado. It will probably be weirdly forced into the Xeno universe just like Xenoblade 1 was though.
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I liked the trailer. In a way it reminds me (in a great way) of Final Fantasy Legend and that tower to paradise. I feel like I didn't have much of a problem with the voices and character models. One of the lines didn't fit quite right I guess. The environment, relationships and story will be what drives the game for me anyway.
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Using Final Fantasy as the example there seems like an odd choice. "We thought the 2 meant a direct sequel and not just games that are similar in style like Final Fantasy".
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The real takeaway there is hope remains for Xenoblade X-2.

But uh, I mean the branding seems weird if they're gonna just jump between the two styles but keep them all Xenoblade but now number them and yeah. I mean, having read his explanation I get what's going on, but for anyone who doesn't read that...
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Character designs are iffy at best, both in design and art style. Those damn pants! I miss X1's style.
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Xenoblade Chronicles X-2 ~Eternal Calm~
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