Great story, worldbuilding and characters. Those 3 things are the strongest points of the Xenoblade series and the second part in the Xenoblade series delivers in spades.

The combat system was alright. It's very limited in the beginning, but you can rack up nice combos in the late game, once you built up a good selection of blades and party members. Still, even then fights often felt longer than necessary.

The UI/UX design is the worst in any high-budget title I ever played. It is frequent that you don't know what you're supposed to do or where you are supposed to go, especially when it comes to sidequests. This was already a problem in Xenoblade Chronicles 1, so I'm a bit disappointed that they haven't improved on this in the second part.

The thing that impressed me the most was how much attention was given to each blade, especially when you consider that most players will only ever see a very limited selection of blade. Each rare blade is fully voice acted, has their own quest line, skillset, character design and animations. The full package really. It's impressive and let's you get attached to the blades you regularly use.