This is literally the MBDTF of JRPGs. Grand in scale, very polished, showcasing new ideas and variations on the art form, but never deviating too much from the norm. Now that I have your attention...
SPECS / STATS:
I played this on a special performance build of Ryujinx and clocked in at around 62 hours on completion. Running at 1440p60fps along with a mod to remove the aliasing and motion blur, the game was graphically pretty great fidelity-wise apart from some textures flickering or hair lagging behind characters due to the modding. The credits rolled at twice the speed they should have, leaving the screen black as the music kept going, and I got softlocked one time when I had a vision in the first 10 hours, but other than that I don't remember any technical issues.
I started this playthrough a bit over a month ago in an attempt to finish before Elden Ring's release, but that didn't work out. I ended up playing way too much each day, up to 10 hours, and literally got to the final boss the morning of Elden Ring's release, practically forcing me to put it off for a week or two.
AS A REMASTER:
The new QoL changes are pretty awesome, sacrificing the Crazy Taxi style guide arrow for a functional path on the minimap that updates in realtime. I don't remember the original's menus too well, but in terms of menuing (which you can get sucked into for long periods of time) everything was pretty fluid here.
I mentioned before that the graphical fidelity here is great, but honestly in terms of art style it's still a toss-up between this and the original for me. This artstyle grew on me throughout the playthrough but something about the original is so nostalgic and warm, yet dark and gritty that fits the tone of some of the sections of this game a lot better imo. I will admit Melia looks like a muppet, though.
My BIGGEST ISSUE with this game was the controls on an Xbox Series X controller. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but scrolling through the arts with the D-Pad really, really started to mess with my thumb about 20-30 hours in, to the point where it felt numb. I ended up rebinding the controls and swapping ZR and ZL with the left and right arrow and found it much more comfortable. This also allows you to move around while selecting arts, just like on the original Wii Remote controls.
THE GAME ITSELF (Or, My Nitpicks):
There has been enough talk about this game already that I don't really know what I could add to the conversation besides silly analogies like the top paragraph. It was interesting to play this after Solatorobo, an action RPG on the DS, since they have a pretty similar structure (and it sounds like Xenoblade 2 does as well): an adventure story on a land above a sea of clouds, with an emphasis on a myriad of side quests, character dialogue, the cultures and unique environments of each village along the journey, and Evangelion inspirations that show themselves more as the story progresses. I suppose that can apply to many RPG's, though.
While I loved many things about the game, like exploring the world, meeting new characters, and watching them interact with each other, I thought that it was maybe a little bit overly long, and set unrealistic goals for itself. I was super engaged in the story until I hit the final 10 hours or so, where I couldn't help but lose some interest due to how much expository dialogue there was in the final sixth of this game. The music is super solid, until you realize about 5 hours into the game that you've heard half the soundtrack already. With a 1 hour soundtrack for a 60 hour game, it can feel like being forced to listen to a short playlist of your favorite songs over and over again until you can't stand them anymore, like how the characters making jokes in combat feels like genius writing until you have to hear the same conversation for the 80th time, or how the boss dialogue will be intimidating until they say it like 50 times in a row (that has to be a glitch, right?).
The combat itself is great and an engaging spin on classic JRPG combat, though I'm not educated enough to know how influential it has been on the genre (Does FFVII remake play like this?). It's pretty fun, and a chunk of my hours were probably spent experimenting and optimizing strategies with my team and their movesets, but I do wish there was a bit more to hold you over until the end of the game. I think I stopped unlocking arts around 15 hours from the end of the game.
CONCLUSION:
As negative as the points I bring up here are, this game at its core is phenomenal for the time it was made, and it is a miracle that all of the systems at play here work so well together and aren't too overwhelming. Once you upgrade your movement speed a bit, it's a blast to explore the super creative world and it's easy to get absorbed in the characters and their own unique stories. This game deserves the praise it gets, but it is not without faults, especially in the year it was remastered. However, depending on who you are, it can be extremely easy to look past these faults and find a new favorite JRPG.
In other words, it has issues, but, uh, uh, I love it, though... I love it, though... huh, you know?
SPECS / STATS:
I played this on a special performance build of Ryujinx and clocked in at around 62 hours on completion. Running at 1440p60fps along with a mod to remove the aliasing and motion blur, the game was graphically pretty great fidelity-wise apart from some textures flickering or hair lagging behind characters due to the modding. The credits rolled at twice the speed they should have, leaving the screen black as the music kept going, and I got softlocked one time when I had a vision in the first 10 hours, but other than that I don't remember any technical issues.
I started this playthrough a bit over a month ago in an attempt to finish before Elden Ring's release, but that didn't work out. I ended up playing way too much each day, up to 10 hours, and literally got to the final boss the morning of Elden Ring's release, practically forcing me to put it off for a week or two.
AS A REMASTER:
The new QoL changes are pretty awesome, sacrificing the Crazy Taxi style guide arrow for a functional path on the minimap that updates in realtime. I don't remember the original's menus too well, but in terms of menuing (which you can get sucked into for long periods of time) everything was pretty fluid here.
I mentioned before that the graphical fidelity here is great, but honestly in terms of art style it's still a toss-up between this and the original for me. This artstyle grew on me throughout the playthrough but something about the original is so nostalgic and warm, yet dark and gritty that fits the tone of some of the sections of this game a lot better imo. I will admit Melia looks like a muppet, though.
My BIGGEST ISSUE with this game was the controls on an Xbox Series X controller. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but scrolling through the arts with the D-Pad really, really started to mess with my thumb about 20-30 hours in, to the point where it felt numb. I ended up rebinding the controls and swapping ZR and ZL with the left and right arrow and found it much more comfortable. This also allows you to move around while selecting arts, just like on the original Wii Remote controls.
THE GAME ITSELF (Or, My Nitpicks):
There has been enough talk about this game already that I don't really know what I could add to the conversation besides silly analogies like the top paragraph. It was interesting to play this after Solatorobo, an action RPG on the DS, since they have a pretty similar structure (and it sounds like Xenoblade 2 does as well): an adventure story on a land above a sea of clouds, with an emphasis on a myriad of side quests, character dialogue, the cultures and unique environments of each village along the journey, and Evangelion inspirations that show themselves more as the story progresses. I suppose that can apply to many RPG's, though.
While I loved many things about the game, like exploring the world, meeting new characters, and watching them interact with each other, I thought that it was maybe a little bit overly long, and set unrealistic goals for itself. I was super engaged in the story until I hit the final 10 hours or so, where I couldn't help but lose some interest due to how much expository dialogue there was in the final sixth of this game. The music is super solid, until you realize about 5 hours into the game that you've heard half the soundtrack already. With a 1 hour soundtrack for a 60 hour game, it can feel like being forced to listen to a short playlist of your favorite songs over and over again until you can't stand them anymore, like how the characters making jokes in combat feels like genius writing until you have to hear the same conversation for the 80th time, or how the boss dialogue will be intimidating until they say it like 50 times in a row (that has to be a glitch, right?).
The combat itself is great and an engaging spin on classic JRPG combat, though I'm not educated enough to know how influential it has been on the genre (Does FFVII remake play like this?). It's pretty fun, and a chunk of my hours were probably spent experimenting and optimizing strategies with my team and their movesets, but I do wish there was a bit more to hold you over until the end of the game. I think I stopped unlocking arts around 15 hours from the end of the game.
CONCLUSION:
As negative as the points I bring up here are, this game at its core is phenomenal for the time it was made, and it is a miracle that all of the systems at play here work so well together and aren't too overwhelming. Once you upgrade your movement speed a bit, it's a blast to explore the super creative world and it's easy to get absorbed in the characters and their own unique stories. This game deserves the praise it gets, but it is not without faults, especially in the year it was remastered. However, depending on who you are, it can be extremely easy to look past these faults and find a new favorite JRPG.
In other words, it has issues, but, uh, uh, I love it, though... I love it, though... huh, you know?