Poll of the Day > How would you rate Xenoblade Chronicles 2?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I want to get it.

---

ive never played it but from what ive seen, its a 7.5/10.

Somewhere been Great and OK. Went w/ OK, but the 7.5/10 seems right. The Torna expansion was a lot better except the story which was somehow even worse, I'd say that's 8/10.

It's definitely a major disappointment compared to XC1.

it was boring

---

I think it's like a 9/10. The main issues are the last 3rd of the story being weak with the ending being very dumb and not enough post game challenges outside the DLC arena. Almost everything else though? Pretty much perfect. It's the first xenoblade to get multiple towns right where each feels like it's own legitimate place. Combat mechanics are a lot of fun. The way dodge tanks works is really fun to play although overdrive just IS more fun than team attack. The characters were all far more tolerable than I thought they were gonna be from video clips and rex actually ended up being one of my favorite "dumb kid protagonists". He is very earnest and hardworking but still comes across like a legitimate child character. The cat girl character is also great but maybe I just like the accent a lot.

The gotcha style blade unlocks was a bit meh in execution but the unique blades were all really well handled. It'd be like if in a pokemon each and every single pokemon had it's own side quest complete to explain it's backstory and personality. Very impressed they were able to do so much for so many different characters. The abilities were also pretty well set up in such a way that I could have a lot of fun theory crafting potential OP set ups. Difficulty, side quests, side content like diving, world design and lore, visuals, soundtrack and poppi were all 10/10 IMO. If only there was more to do post game to really challenge your OP blade set ups outside of the DLC arena.

---

Not a big fan of the xenoblade games really, the one on wii was the best one imo.

i haven't played any of them xenoblades... I heard they were good, but I have no idea what their deal is.

---

I got bored real quick with it. It just wasn't as fun as the first.

It was pretty great, though it's got its fair share of flaws. Not as good as the first, but that's a pretty high bar to set in my books. It's well worth playing.

---

I had lots of fun. Less than 1 and X, but still a bunch of fun...
---

Lokarin posted...

i haven't played any of them xenoblades... I heard they were good, but I have no idea what their deal is.

At the very least, play Xenoblade Chronicles 1, it's one of the best games of all time.
It's considered open world (in reality, it's linear/structured, but the world is so vast w/ so much optional stuff "off to the side" that it doesn't seem like it) and is incredible in scope and so fun to explore.
The story isn't anything new exactly, but is just really well told with tons of amazing plot twists w/ foreshadowing so none of them feel like bs pulled out of nowhere just for the sake of it. The characters are all interesting and may seem at first to fit into typical JRPG tropes but get character growth and shatter a fair number of those assumptions. And they have probably the best English voice acting I've ever heard in a game, which helps a lot, too.

The combat is probably the one area that rubs some the wrong way.... I don't play nor have interest in MMOs, but a lot of people compare it to MMOs. I really liked it, though. It's all in real time and all of the enemies are seen as you explore (no transition to a "battle screen" -- sometimes other creatures will wander into an existing fight and join in). Characters will auto attack on their own, but it doesn't do much damage so you can't just sit back and let the game play itself. Instead...each character has special abilities called arts. You can choose which ones to set to the character and level them up individually, allowing for different "builds" for each character (along with passive skills and other stuff that you pick and choose). Arts generally are available at the start of battle and once used have a cool down before they can be used again. Most have conditions where they're most effective (getting behind an enemy, using it after a status effect has been applied, etc...), so there's a lot of tactical considerations to make in real time. There's also an aggro system, and spamming arts in rapid succession will quickly draw it from enemies all on you and get you killed.

The music is also amazing...Really, everything is nearly perfect w/ XC1.

It's getting a Switch port on May 29, that's a good chance to jump in. Or get the older version on Wii, virtual console, or new 3DS.

streamofthesky posted...

At the very least, play Xenoblade Chronicles 1, it's one of the best games of all time.
It's considered open world (in reality, it's linear/structured, but the world is so vast w/ so much optional stuff "off to the side" that it doesn't seem like it) and is incredible in scope and so fun to explore.
The story isn't anything new exactly, but is just really well told with tons of amazing plot twists w/ foreshadowing so none of them feel like bs pulled out of nowhere just for the sake of it. The characters are all interesting and may seem at first to fit into typical JRPG tropes but get character growth and shatter a fair number of those assumptions. And they have probably the best English voice acting I've ever heard in a game, which helps a lot, too.

The combat is probably the one area that rubs some the wrong way.... I don't play nor have interest in MMOs, but a lot of people compare it to MMOs. I really liked it, though. It's all in real time and all of the enemies are seen as you explore (no transition to a "battle screen" -- sometimes other creatures will wander into an existing fight and join in). Characters will auto attack on their own, but it doesn't do much damage so you can't just sit back and let the game play itself. Instead...each character has special abilities called arts. You can choose which ones to set to the character and level them up individually, allowing for different "builds" for each character (along with passive skills and other stuff that you pick and choose). Arts generally are available at the start of battle and once used have a cool down before they can be used again. Most have conditions where they're most effective (getting behind an enemy, using it after a status effect has been applied, etc...), so there's a lot of tactical considerations to make in real time. There's also an aggro system, and spamming arts in rapid succession will quickly draw it from enemies all on you and get you killed.

The music is also amazing...Really, everything is nearly perfect w/ XC1.

It's getting a Switch port on May 29, that's a good chance to jump in. Or get the older version on Wii, virtual console, or new 3DS.

It's vast but not that much going on from what I remember. You can't go into many buildings/houses and stuff. Been a while since I playing XBC1.

Yeah. If you have a switch, I would definitely get the port. I actually am getting the port for sure. But if you have a Wii U, than I would definitely get X. It was super fun. But both are good. I mean, I liked all three. But 2 was probably the weakest of the three...
---

xjayguyx posted...

It's vast but not that much going on from what I remember. You can't go into many buildings/houses and stuff. Been a while since I playing XBC1.

Yeah, most buildings you can't go in. It's the outdoor areas that are vast.
Maybe not quite as large compared to more recent games, but when it came out a decade ago, the world was freaking huge!

I really don't like game worlds to be too massive anyway, though.

If that matters to you though, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles X is probably 2x or 3x the size of XC1's, and the exploration is even better overall. Of course, aside from exploration and combat, XCX falls short of XC1 in nearly every other way, especially plot...

streamofthesky posted...

The combat is probably the one area that rubs some the wrong way.... I don't play nor have interest in MMOs, but a lot of people compare it to MMOs.

The biggest issue I see a lot of people having with the combat is how long it takes to get rolling, which I can understand. By mid-game, you've got plenty of arts to juggle and synergise and whatnot, and that's really interesting (especially if you start playing around with different PC's), but the first couple hours of "autoattack while waiting 12 seconds for Backstab to come off cooldown" are a little rough. New arts do roll in pretty quickly, though, and cooldowns get improved as they level up, so I personally feel it gains the depth it needs quickly enough to stay engaging.

xjayguyx posted...

It's vast but not that much going on from what I remember. You can't go into many buildings/houses and stuff. Been a while since I playing XBC1.

I personally found the scenery to be enough going on to make exploration worthwhile. Side quests - as filler-tastic as most of them were - made me feel like exploration accomplished something gameplay-wise, then it was just enjoyable to explore because of how great everything looked. I also really liked that zones weren't uniform levels, so exploring sometimes meant I wandered into a cave full of stuff 50 levels higher than me. That was enough to qualify as "something going on," in my books.

---

adjl posted...

The biggest issue I see a lot of people having with the combat is how long it takes to get rolling, which I can understand. By mid-game, you've got plenty of arts to juggle and synergise and whatnot, and that's really interesting (especially if you start playing around with different PC's), but the first couple hours of "autoattack while waiting 12 seconds for Backstab to come off cooldown" are a little rough. New arts do roll in pretty quickly, though, and cooldowns get improved as they level up, so I personally feel it gains the depth it needs quickly enough to stay engaging.

I think you get like 3 arts initially, and enemies don't have much health early on, so I don't remember it being particularly dull.
And pretty early on you get Visions and Chain Attacks, which on top of the ever-expanding list of arts and upgrades, adds a ton of depth to the combat quickly.

streamofthesky posted...

I think you get like 3 arts initially, and enemies don't have much health early on, so I don't remember it being particularly dull.
And pretty early on you get Visions and Chain Attacks, which on top of the ever-expanding list of arts and upgrades, adds a ton of depth to the combat quickly.

It does, there's just enough autoattacking in the early game that I understand people being put off by it.

---

When I played the first one, it did take a while to get use to the combat. And honestly, I didnt even understand it that well until I played X. And then it made more sense.
---

I wish the cast from Golden Country was the cast of XB2, to be pretty honest.

---

I still need to play golden torna. I own it but my sister has my switch during quarantine. I will say, xenoblade 2 takes longer than it should to open up the combat. Theres a whole system with linking arts to get cool finishers that have bonus effects but enemies don't have enough health for you to actually use it until you're like 15 hours in. Once it picks up though, it really picks up.

---

YoukaiSlayer posted...

I still need to play golden torna. I own it but my sister has my switch during quarantine. I will say, xenoblade 2 takes longer than it should to open up the combat. Theres a whole system with linking arts to get cool finishers that have bonus effects but enemies don't have enough health for you to actually use it until you're like 15 hours in. Once it picks up though, it really picks up.

Yeah. That kind of sucked. When getting to a new place, I could probably get it at the very end of some of the stronger enemies. But once you can actually fight the really strong enemies and use it, it feels awesome to do it. Especially to them multiple times. Like with the special enemies and stuff...
---

It was pretty great, but skill checks sucked. Especially in the last few chapters they got obnoxiously bad with skill checks. Completely broke the pace of the game.

LinkPizza posted...

Yeah. That kind of sucked. When getting to a new place, I could probably get it at the very end of some of the stronger enemies. But once you can actually fight the really strong enemies and use it, it feels awesome to do it. Especially to them multiple times. Like with the special enemies and stuff...

If you have the DLC (which you do, if you have Torna), you can set individual parameters for difficulty. I ended up putting most of them on the slightly easier side but cranked up the health so I could actually keep enemies around long enough to do Driver combos and Full Bursts.
Although, it's fun for a while but eventually every combat feels the same regardless of what enemy it is. Giving the really powerful enemies huge power spikes below half health...just further encourages you to do the same 'ol stack up orbs, then do Full Burst thing, too.
Also perhaps even worse...it makes all the characters and blades feel kinda same-y and generic. No matter who or what it is, you're just trying to layer on each color then smash them w/ the opposite color. Rinse. Repeat.

Fun but heavily flawed. The OST is pretty awesome for the most part.

---

Not as good as XC1, and hard to compared to XCX, but still a great game. I feel like all the characters and overall story were a step back, but I liked how it all relates at the end. The combat was WAY more satisfying I thought, the Burst Combos and the stagger-topple-launch-slam aspect was fun. The revolving door of Blades to tinker with and power up also because a lot of fun and made combat fresh. Plus, I loved having the announcing be like "OUTSTANDING!" and whatnot. Once the combat started clicking, it really carried the game.

One thing that makes me want to imprison the design team to hell is whoever thought it would be a good idea to let all the characters, blades, SFX, music, and announcer speak over each other at once. You'll have like 10 characters/blades all saying shit at once, with all the other sounds, and it sounds like a god damn debug test. Compare that to XC1, where they actually talk to each other during combat.

I did like the world and the story, and like the dynamic between Rex and Pyra. Prefer the more "mature" cast of AC1, and felt the story was more pressing and interesting.

---

streamofthesky posted...

If you have the DLC (which you do, if you have Torna), you can set individual parameters for difficulty. I ended up putting most of them on the slightly easier side but cranked up the health so I could actually keep enemies around long enough to do Driver combos and Full Bursts.
Although, it's fun for a while but eventually every combat feels the same regardless of what enemy it is. Giving the really powerful enemies huge power spikes below half health...just further encourages you to do the same 'ol stack up orbs, then do Full Burst thing, too.
Also perhaps even worse...it makes all the characters and blades feel kinda same-y and generic. No matter who or what it is, you're just trying to layer on each color then smash them w/ the opposite color. Rinse. Repeat.

I felt like I was reacting to combat with default difficulty. Of course, it probably depends on which roles you play. I played lucius I think most of the game, the light DLC katana tank blade and it has a lot of i-frames so you really need to plan out when to leave certain attacks up to dodge and when to deal damage to keep aggro. If you play DPS you probably just spam out the same combo every fight. Also is a ton of fun if you get elma so you can overdrive instead of full burst. Full burst is a bit of a pace killer but overdrive is the exact opposite and ramps up the pace when you really get going.

---