"Now it's Reyn time!"
"Watch out! Mad hairball on the loose!"
"I'm powering up!"
"The adults are talking here pops!"
"Let's not lose our heads, though."
"Good thing I'm here? No? Anyone?"
"Cheers!"
"Shulk? You saw another one didn't you?"
"Man, wha' a buncha jokas!"
"Who else wants some?"
"Haha! In your face!"
"This one I belong!"
"It just goes to show, brawn is better than brains."
"Got it, Shulk."
"Ok, let's start a chain attack to finish him!"
"I know, I know!"
"Yeah! Reyn time!"
"Ain't over yet"
"Get outta 'ere!"
"Yeaah, I'm turnin' up the heat!"
"SUCK ON THIS!"
"Give it some Oomph!"
Reyn: "Now we're getting started!"
Riki: "But Riki already started..."
Reyn: "Sharla, with you around I fight three times as hard!"
Sharla: "Reyn, what am I going to do with you!"
"Are we insane?!"
"Are you nuts?!"
"Ugh... Let's split!"
"Go for this one!"
"Uh? Do what you think is best!"

This is certainly a video game.
Xenoblade 2 is easily the most polarizing video game I have ever played. I would say I love it and would put it high among my all time favorites, but it is such a flawed experience with so many frustrations. It tries so hard to be the best game of all time, and at moments I feel like it really should've been, but it falls short in so many ways that leave me disappointed.
First off I'll just say that the music is absolutely perfect and this is possibly the single greatest soundtrack in gaming history. It does not matter how much you hate this game, you can not deny that this soundtrack is phenomenal. The composers from the first game (minus Shimomura) return to create some absolute classics, and Yasunori Mitsuda was given a much larger role to create some of the games tracks. The soundtrack feels like it's from an alternate universe in which Xenoblade 2 actually ended up being perfect and widely regarded as the greatest game of all time, because it's the only part of the game I have literally 0 issues with.
Presentation wise Xenoblade 2 can be gorgeous and dreadful. The world is phenomenal and the environment art is definitely some of Monolith's best work, rivaling even that of Xenoblade X. So many little details are put in these worlds to create visual story telling and the towns are all full of life and energy thanks to the unique NPCs. The game does have some technical issues, but personally I've always been able to look past them. The biggest issue for me is the inconsistency of the art style. Look, I don't have a problem with the character designs, not even with some of the more controversial ones like Pyra and Rex, but the biggest issue I have is that so many of the characters just don't fit together. I understand they had to outsource some of the characters to different artists to have a lot of blades for the game, but some of the blades just do not transition well to 3D at all and some of them just do not feel like they should be in this game, and not really in a good, unique way. Some of the NPCs also look pretty bad in comparison to the main characters, there's one in the ship of the beginning of the game that particularly comes to mind. Overall the game does look really good, but just like basically everything else in this game, there are flaws.
Gameplay wise the game is really fun... kinda
I have put 200 hours into this game, and it is the second most played game on my switch behind Smash, it even surpassed the first game which is literally my favorite of all time. And yet, I hesitate to say that this combat system is amazing. The biggest issue is that the combat system is not as fun while playing the main story. Many mechanics that make the game a lot more fun are locked out or hidden from the player in favor of unhelpful pouch items and useless skills. I feel like if arts recharge, arts cancelling, and like a few more blades were available from the beginning, with actually good tutorials, this game's combat would not be nearly as divisive. However, once you reach a certain point of the game, the combat system becomes incredibly fun. I have a blast fighting the super bosses and unique monsters after beating the game once I figured out the combat system by watching guides. I don't really like doing that normally, but I truly think it helped me enjoy the game so much more. The gacha system is interesting because it's a really overblown problem. I hate gacha mechanics in games and I hate them here too, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as people make it out to be. You only need them for rare blades and just going through the main campaign most aren't as good as the story blades you'll get. The bigger issues for me gameplay wise are the numerous amount of frustrations from a quality of life perspective. The navigation compass in the game is completely broken, the merc missions have to be repeated manually which is really annoying with a certain blade quests, blade affinity charts take forever to fill out, trust takes forever to build up, some quests barely help you find out where to go. All of these things are minor on their own, but they all add up to create an overall less pleasant experience. I do want to clarify again that I still really enjoyed the gameplay of this game and have put over 200 hours in it now (excluding Torna and all other DLC content) but it's still deeply flawed and I really hope that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will be much more refined.
Oh boy... now for the story...
It's absolutely incredible!...
And not at the same time
Many people have pointed this out but the beginning of the game does truly fall short of greatness. The game's story truly gets good once you have your full party of characters, but before then it just feels very slow with a lot of exposition and few impactful moments. The nopon have been completely butchered in this game, I absolutely loved them in 1 and especially loved Riki, but in this game they're much worse. Tora in particular is just insufferable and while I get that they were trying to do something with him, he's just really weird and goes in a completely different direction from what the nopon were like in Xenoblade 1. However, once you reach a certain point of the game (about 3/4 of the way through) this game starts to reveal all of the things it's been building up the past 50 hours and creates some incredible story telling moments. I rarely cry in games, but two scenes involving a certain character near the end of the game made me shed a tear, which almost nothing else in the series has made me do. And the big plot twist at the end of the game is absolutely phenomenal and the way it parallels other parts of the larger story is handled really well, actually improving those other parts. These are the moments I look back on fondly, the ones that make me love it so much and call it one of the greatest. These moments rival and even surpass the incredible heights of the first game, and I think that's something that can't be understated.
I love this game, I truly do, but at the end of the day it's still a flawed experience. It has the highest highs of the series and the absolute lowest lows, and so I can completely understand both sides of the spectrum. I would say I lean more towards the side of loving this game than the one that absolutely hates it, but I don't blame anyone for not really liking this game all that much, it's one where you can't really appreciate the product as a whole, but rather only the highs of it, which requires going through a lot of the lows to get to. Overall I would recommend this game, to fans of Xenoblade 1 and even those just looking for a solid JRPG, but just go in knowing that it's going to take a while to reach the true greatness of this game.
Can not wait for Xenoblade 3 though, hopefully they can fully realize their vision and actually create a perfect video game that can completely surpass the first game.