Board 8 > XBC2 Torna beated (spoilers ahoy)

(+) Yeah! (+)

It took me a while to finally play Torna ( I got burned out playing NG+ ) but wow, I was a big fan.

The community element is obviously very side-quest heavy, and it's the biggest part of the game. I didn't mind it, as many of the quests were well done. It also helps that the party is full of pretty good characters - no Rex, no Tora, no Poppi. Some of the sidequests end up showing off Mythra's development, and some show off the other blades developing after not spending enough time with other blades. The blades suffer jealousy and arrested development, and those issues come out in the open.

That said, the large pile of side quests did feel like busywork at times. I think going from community 2 to 4 in one long stretch to progress the plot was probably not the best decision in terms of pacing. But I also love the exploration in the game, so between treasure hunting, unique monster hunting, and filling out my affinity charts, I did have stuff to keep myself entertained.

I gotta say, Torna was a really well designed Titan. Maybe the best one in all of XBC2. And jeeze, some of the scenic overlooks (the capital and the ending platform) were wonderful. This was really strong. Gormott suffers the same issues as the main game - it kinda sucks to travel around early on. It's a lot better as you can explore more and more, but the middle is somewhat of a confusing tangle of pathways. I love the scenery but I think it just comes at a cost of being a crummy early titan in terms of exploration.

The music was good. I like the re-arranged jazz versions of the songs on Gormott really good idea.

The story was good. I usually dislike prequels but this had a great way of fleshing out characters that benefitted from it. You spend a dozen+ hours solving everyone's problems and then they all die. There's a real sense of loss that permeates the game.

The final battle was interesting. I haven't done the golden monsters yet. Not sure if I want to farm for beta scopes once again.

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Torna was really good yeah. XB2 kinda left a bad taste in my mouth with it's terrible gatcha mechanics but Torna kinda made up for all the flaws.

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Blade gacha is a legit "what were they thinking" design decision that darn near ruins XBC2. Torna is a legitimately better experience than the main game for stripping out all of that garbage.

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I spent over 130 hours grinding blade cores in mor ardain to get kosmos in chapter 3 before playing the rest of the game.

I regret nothing

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A little bit of gacha would have been OK maybe. I think the drop rates are terrible - what is the benefit of people spending dozens of hours in a SP game that way? Or whatever. I didnt collect em all. Iirc they nerfed the core farming so i moved on

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Torna best Titan and the "final platform" is probably the moment that cemented it as my favourite map ever

(I hope you jumped off)

I've called it this before but yeah can't help doing it again, it's basically Majora's Mask in XB form and I love it.

also I was doing all the sidequest stuff as I was progressing the game so I when I found the plot wall I was already done so I was never really blocked off lol

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I didnt jump off!

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