I don't know if I can summarize my feelings on this game, maybe its just too soon after playing for that.

It's striking in its artistic nature and hold nothing back with its presentation, weaving together its visuals and music perfectly. I deeply value its surrealism and vagueness that lets you fill in its gaps with whatever you deem fit.

I enjoyed the puzzles of this game a lot, the right level of challenging but understandable. It made me want to pull out a notebook and write notes down (instead i took screenshots lol).

Really my only complaint about its gameplay is that it was annoying that you can only have one stack of ammo in your inventory, so if you're full up on ammo you can't collect extra ammo from exploration. And that you equip mods in the same slot as extra combat abilities. I'm sure it adds to the inventory management of deciding what you want to carry around with you--but I found that I never wanted to leave a safe room without my flashlight, as I never knew when i was going to need it to navigate an impossibly dark room. Meaning I couldn't just have any sub weapons equipped for combat. This also rendered the ingame screen shot taking ability useless to me because I didn't find the inventory space worth the feature, when it could come at the cost of my necessary flashlight or a thermite flare. Having a separate slot to equip those abilities would've been nice.

Now I have to balance starting the game again, obsessively thinking about it while I'm at work tomorrow, or letting the dust settle a bit before replaying again.

EDIT: i just learned apparently the camera and flashlight didn't take up and inventory slot.... I don't think the communicated that in the game because I treated it exactly the same.... guess that's on me LOL. I still wish it had a separate equip slot though.

To me this game has always been the quintessential "early access, survival, crafting" game that every other game was trying to copy. I think one of the reasons for this game success is its generally more accommodating than others of the genre. I personal put survival crafting games at the bottom of my interest lists, but knowing that I could turn off food and water needs along with the game having a campaign to help push me forwards was my motivation to try this one.

I'd seen plenty of youtube coverage of the game so i new the ins and out pretty well, but I still found it an enjoyable experience. I like ocean aesthetics so that was enough for me, even if the base building was a little clunky. The base building was at least forgiving so if you placed something wrong you could just refund your materials back.

This was a nice low energy game for me to play while hanging out with my friend in voice call and chat or for listening to youtube in the background. If you want to give a survival crafting game a shot, this is one of the betters to take a crack at.

I really wanted to like this game, and I really wanted to finish it too, but its been a month since I last picked it up and when I think about playing it fills me with such a sense of boredom I can't be bothered to pick it back up. And at that point... what's the point of continuing to play if I have to force myself to.

This is a game for people who really liked the direction Breath of the Wild took OR for people who really like building and physics games. Both of which are my least favorite type of game. While I got enjoyment out of BotW, I had many issues with the game but was willing to hand wave them for the bold new direction.

And to follow up a game that broke the mold with a game that painfully plays it safe.... well I was disappointed.

They don't fix any of the issues from the first game, such as the lack of actual dungeons and weapon progression or having an actually interesting plot and characters (and having GOOD voice acting for those characters. I changed the language I was using immediately because I hate how stilted Zelda and Rauru sound). They attempted to have more interesting bosses, but I was sorely disappointed with how repetitive the combat loop was in the colgera fight. I was excited with the first phase, even if it was quick, but then when phase two kicks in you realize you just have to repeat everything you did with no raised stakes or fan fair. Which is poignant for the experience I had playing Tears of the Kingdom.

For all the hype this game is just. BotW again. copy and pasted. When entering the tutorial area I was hit with the painful realization that this was just a reskin of the great plateau, down to having a cold section you solve the exact same way you did in the previous game. The game is never able to shake this sense that its just. BotW !!2!! it doesn't feel innovative, it feels like I'm playing a DLC expansion. They just reskinned all the mechanics from the first game in a different coat of paint. Shrines are back because BotW has shrines, and that game was successful so TotK has to have them too, but they're green. People liked climbing towers so here are some new ones that were invented for you to climb and get maps from (even though we've already mapped this world so why do we have to do it again).

I found this game to be too much of a rehash, without and identity enough of its own to warrant my time. I was excited about the underground section, but it was painfully barren and boring. And safe. You can just wander around in the dark since everything that a threat glows. I would just traverse easily between shrines with no challenge or engagement. It was dreadfully dull.

I'm sure people who enjoy more open and sandbox games have a field day with this title, I've seen many videos of creations people have made. But that's not the type of gamer I am, and I hate all the koroks that want me to build vehicles to carry them around the map. I will NOT do that it's just not fun.

The original Xenoblade Chronicles is my favorite game of all time. From the captivating story with incredible characters and development that grips you from the very start, to the amazing level design and world building, and the immersive and stunning environments bursting with color and personality, the game is a masterpiece.

Given all this, for me Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had massive shoes to fill, as a true sequel to any great piece of art must do. And for much of my playthrough, and in some respects even after the playthrough was over, it didn't quite do that for me. But now, after lots of revisiting the world of Alrest, whether through the ingame Event Theater, New Game+, or hundreds of YouTube theories and explanation videos, I think that finally, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has cemented itself in my mind as a worthy, albeit not outright successor to the original.

The fanservice in this game is, without a doubt, its worst part in my opinion, and does nothing but hinder the overall experience. Overused and overexaggerated anime tropes litter the first few chapters of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's story, to the point where they become annoying. In comparison to the rather serious, mature exposition of the original title, this is a very bad first impression that sticks with the player well into their journey, and ruins the pacing and seriousness of the grim narrative that the game tries to set up in the initial couple of cutscenes.

Get past that, though, and you're in for an up and down ride from one beautiful titan to another, with plot twist after plot twist, alongside one of the most unforgettable cast of characters I've ever seen in a video game. And even though I felt that the overall story in the original was better, I felt like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 did a better job of hooking me into the narrative and make me really care about its cast of characters, which led to a much more emotional payoff at the end of the story than in the original.

Tie that all up with an engaging combat system that improves upon the originals in every way and is surprisingly deep, yet uncomplicated - though the game may not lead you to believe this, due to its unfortunate failure to provide the player with decent, reviewable tutorials - and you have everything that made the original Xenoblade Chronicles great, packaged in with a far more replayable story, with loads of free NG+ DLC, and potentially the best bang-for-your-buck that I've ever seen in a paid DLC with the Torna expansion.

It took a while, but after many long months digesting the game after I finished my playthrough, I have finally come to terms with how I feel about Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and can rate it alongside the original as a 9.5-10/10 experience.