I originally beat this in 2018, when it first released. Of course, a lot has changed since then in both myself and where the Xenoblade series is going, so why not play it again.
Torna - The Golden Country is fun, albeit with a handful of issues that aren't really avoidable. It has to be acknowledged that Xenoblade (2) in its entirety is decisive, so how much these issues matter to someone else varies up the wazoo.
Part of this will also be based on my previous experience (at the time of writing this) with the base game, which was in 2017. Somethings I say will probably be repeated when I play it again later this year, as there's no avoiding this game's roots.
Gameplay is fun, and it does not waste time before the action really gets going. Chain Attacks and the last party member take a while before being properly introduced, but chaining Auto-Attacks, Arts, Vanguard Arts is all so good. When you reach the end of the game and have Arts loaded from battle start and remember that you can change Driver elements, things get hectic with Driver and Blade combos all over the place. I do have a gripe that I think they buff Break Resistance for enemies later, and while there is a Skill to get around that, grinding for SP is annoying. I also not got any real use for Talent Arts, but the AI sure loved brining Lora to half health!
For battle benefits, you only have to worry about WP, SP, Accessories, Pouch, Core Chips, and Aux Chips. That's not including the demands of a Blades' Affinity Chart, which is a grind in of itself. Most of these, Accessories, Pouch Items, and the Chips are something you can put on and not worry too much about. At most you may want to consider changing a Driver's element, which is something I only felt like doing once since they don't change any stats directly. The points for which character can be a game changer, however they come at the cost of high demands for really good Skills. For Weapons Points especially, I only leveled up what I felt was constantly useful and followed everything else, but I'm not entirely sure what I was upgrading. Sure, the game says that Recharge will go from 9 to 8, but that doesn't really say anything? I assume it's for how many Auto-Attacks it takes to have arts but still. Damage Ratio is also a stat that doesn't say a lot for me.
Blade Affinity Charts often ask for something that you can do just while regularly playing, using a specific Special, joining Chain Attacks, blocking attacks, killing Unique Monsters, that sort of thing. Damage nodes will sometimes ask you to kill a specific enemy in a specific area, which isn't the worst but the game never has you travel to every area. I sometimes found myself wandering around just to be in the correct area, which sometimes doesn't even have 3 of a specific type of enemy so I end up having to visit a Landmark from afar and running all the way back. Minoth's Greetz Antols one had me going up and down before realizing I had to drop down from the Landmark, where then the Area name doesn't appear so I feel like that one isn't fair. Shout out to Mythra's Power of Light where it asks you to jump 500 times, which doesn't make sense. It is the joke, as Mythra will go "The light in me is...strong...for some reason?" but still kind of a silly ask, especially if you don't have a Turbo button.
Blade Skills return from the base game, and they're only less intrusive. I did do more of Affinity Charts and crafting this time around, so I cannot recall if I was stumped at anything. But I also think the game asks less of you for actual progression. Still stings when you find a treasure trove only to be one level off from a skill, and that skill's next level is hidden behind a higher level of affinity. So asking for grinding, yay.
Speaking of grinding: side quests! It's a Xenoblade game, do them or die! At the very least, Torna actually road blocks you into doing side quests with the Community system. Community levels as you do side quests, and later just talk to certain NPCs, with having a maximum of 5 but you're required to reach levels 2 and 4 to progress with plot. The justification for both times is getting to know and learn the happenings of Auresco, but it's a clear and flimsy excuse to make you do something else. It is only a side game after all, gotta get those 19 hours. I had gripes with this earlier, but honestly considering what the game already asks of you for Blades and Drivers, I made an effort this time to try and one-up the game and doing side quests all over. It made for a much better experience, straight up skipping the first stopping point. The level 4 requirement hides some Community members AFTER its reached, but that's only a small annoyance really.
Side quests themselves or sort of whatever. The stories they tell aren't anything I recall as anything noteworthy, but some endings were kind of whatever. There's one where Addam tells a kid "doesn't it matter that you succeed, not how" which is not advice I personally vibe with. There's one where Hugo comes across a spy and dresses him up under Addam's care for information later. Hugo then tells the spy's friend that he died honorably and it's just whatever. That one probably had more of a point of joking "Hugo is scary when he's angry" but the joke doesn't land there either. Another has a traveling entertainer obsessed with a woman who clearly wants to keep to herself, to the point where she sends him off to find an (almost) extinct flower and he almost dies. It ends with him crawling out of his makeshift grave and the girl decides to give him one date and Mythra treats it as a "take a chance" theme? And the guy is still obnoxious and annoying afterwards. Not to mention that the quest before it conveniently has all the women party members invested (some cutscenes the only ones talking) about love, and when Aegaeon shares an interest in crafting, all the other men (besides Jin) treat it like "that lucky devil" like what? Why is it like this? I won't use certain words but that especially has some weird vibes.
Collection Points are better, with at least telling you what you can expect and then if the spot has more rare items. I feel that they're still not the best, with quests and crafting asking for rare items and you have to walk all over to just find a rare point of the right type. An NPC comments that there's some logic to it, like finding flowers or fruits near grass but I can recall times where there's been a mineral point near grass by the time I actually find out what's there. The map doesn't convey what is at what point, which makes that icon kind of useless. I think there should be some mix of points, but who knows how well that would work out.
Camps and crafting is cool, but only reall surface level stuff. Crafting could be done a bit better, as item names don't always properly convey what you're making, like with food, and it would be nice to not have to bounce a couple menus just to see what someone's favorite pouch item is.
Menus also is a rough spot, not like they don't work but I feel like it could've been better? Holding the stick and Y makes your character automatically move, but you need to remember to not have the objective tab open if you have an active side quest, because that will take you directly to the side quest menu, and you'll have to press B three times. There's also no shortcut menu to the side quests otherwise, so you have to press the + button just to swap quests, but you can't always immediately do that because the game halts your ability to pause for a moment when you get back into gameplay. And while this isn't Torna's fault, I found myself confusing controls with Definitive Edition's, where the Skip Travel was on Y and not X. Skip Travel is also kind of annoying, like you can't skip to camps for whatever reason, and sometimes in Gormott there are skip points right next to camps, one of which being named after the camp but if you're slightly off the game thinks you're selecting the camp. The Toranan capitol doesn't have a camp so I find myself going all the way back just to stock up on crafted items.
So, about presentation. While there is (rather unproductive) discussion regarding Xenoblade 2's art style and "anime," that's not where I'm getting at. Calling something "anime" gets nothing done with how vague it is. Rather, what I'm bothered by, is Xenoblade 2 having too many art styles to where nothing really meshes together. I don't mind the art style of Lora, Hugo, Addam, etc. But it's when it's put alongside all the other styles where things look weird. One could say that it's fine for Blades, considering they are still meant to look different from Humans, so I don't harp on this much. But just human to human there's a lot already. Lora's style differs from the style of the Toranan King which differs from all the generic NPCs. They're all meant to be Human but they have as much differences between them as Blades do with each other. I've always been slightly bothered with Mythra and Malos having different styles despite their origins too. And all these model styles don't flow with the world, with very realistic wood and textures all arounnd, meanwhile Lora looks like she's just radiating. None of it goes together. Also Addam has a massive mouth.
Animation and camera work doesn't help things. For generic cutscenes, everyone feels overly animated? That and like these animations don't go for these models. Clothes clip and flop around like they're on jiggle physics, but no one feels natural. Some animations are reused in different contexts when it clearly doesn't work. There's an animation of Mythra looking down with her hands on her hips that's used for when she's angry but sometimes when she's just looking down. All the NPC ones also shre the same issue, and how Toranan NPCs go around just looks... wrong? With all their sleeves being so big it just doesn't look right with how they walk. Or that they all walk like that. Camera just goes back and forth between characters, and if it moves it's just something like a minor earthquake. It's possible that a lot of the work went into battle animations, which are generally cool (I don't get what's with Hugo's Level 3). But even the usually hyped Xenoblade action cutscenes are kind of whatever. They talk a lot about the team work between each member and Drivers with Blades, but it's not really done a lot in cutscenes. A lot of swords hitting swords, and you can see party members just standing in the back. It's kind of lame.
The game is really bad technically speaking. I played most of this on Portable mode, but Docked gameplay isn't any better. Everything looks so crusty, with aliasing all over the place and an awful dithering effect around characters. Things just slightly further from the camera get the worst treatment, to where the Torna titans sometimes looks like pixel art. Haze's scarf thing has a clear line where when the part not actually part of her model immedietely enters crunchy mode. And the framerate sure does not exist by endgame. Tornan Titan Interior or Malos phase 2 just shit the bed and its nigh unavoidable. They're getting better but this is a poor state to release a game in. On the Nintendo Switch. Exclusively.
I've also ran into a handful of absurd bugs. Back in 2018 I ended up having an Artifice Art run at half speed because I timed it coincidently with the game zooming in on a Fusion Combo, which was at least funny. This time around I ran into a flat out soft lock. After beating a Unique Monster, I was hit with Blowback, music gone, and no access to the menu. As mentioned before, you don't have immediate access to the main menu and this includes after the battle. I can only assume this flag never got reached. I figured maybe the gravestone would return functions but then my game just froze. The game just feels like its on a dying breath here.
Storywise, it's whatever. It's trying to tie up scenes previewed in the main game but around that is a bunch of things not greatly executed or elaborated on. I like most of these characters so I'd like to see more of them but the scope of this DLC is cut short before that. There's also the usual fantasy politics and church that I don't care or understand what their aims are for even. There's also Gort who is just. Who is this man. I don't care for him. Just get rid of him. It is meant to touch on Blades, both how they function and their narrative purpose but I feel like it doesnt do enough. While I understand this is meant to be an insight into the main game's past, it's also been presented as something you could play first and I wish it just stood on its own legs. While the original soundtrack is nice with its original battle music, plenty of pianos, and rearrangements of tracks from the main game, it reuses a good part of the original ost. It's not the worst, it fits fine, but still kind of feels weak.
But I still had fun, for all its awful jank. I sure do hope some problems aren't repeated, or worse, even more are added! (Clueless)
Torna - The Golden Country is fun, albeit with a handful of issues that aren't really avoidable. It has to be acknowledged that Xenoblade (2) in its entirety is decisive, so how much these issues matter to someone else varies up the wazoo.
Part of this will also be based on my previous experience (at the time of writing this) with the base game, which was in 2017. Somethings I say will probably be repeated when I play it again later this year, as there's no avoiding this game's roots.
Gameplay is fun, and it does not waste time before the action really gets going. Chain Attacks and the last party member take a while before being properly introduced, but chaining Auto-Attacks, Arts, Vanguard Arts is all so good. When you reach the end of the game and have Arts loaded from battle start and remember that you can change Driver elements, things get hectic with Driver and Blade combos all over the place. I do have a gripe that I think they buff Break Resistance for enemies later, and while there is a Skill to get around that, grinding for SP is annoying. I also not got any real use for Talent Arts, but the AI sure loved brining Lora to half health!
For battle benefits, you only have to worry about WP, SP, Accessories, Pouch, Core Chips, and Aux Chips. That's not including the demands of a Blades' Affinity Chart, which is a grind in of itself. Most of these, Accessories, Pouch Items, and the Chips are something you can put on and not worry too much about. At most you may want to consider changing a Driver's element, which is something I only felt like doing once since they don't change any stats directly. The points for which character can be a game changer, however they come at the cost of high demands for really good Skills. For Weapons Points especially, I only leveled up what I felt was constantly useful and followed everything else, but I'm not entirely sure what I was upgrading. Sure, the game says that Recharge will go from 9 to 8, but that doesn't really say anything? I assume it's for how many Auto-Attacks it takes to have arts but still. Damage Ratio is also a stat that doesn't say a lot for me.
Blade Affinity Charts often ask for something that you can do just while regularly playing, using a specific Special, joining Chain Attacks, blocking attacks, killing Unique Monsters, that sort of thing. Damage nodes will sometimes ask you to kill a specific enemy in a specific area, which isn't the worst but the game never has you travel to every area. I sometimes found myself wandering around just to be in the correct area, which sometimes doesn't even have 3 of a specific type of enemy so I end up having to visit a Landmark from afar and running all the way back. Minoth's Greetz Antols one had me going up and down before realizing I had to drop down from the Landmark, where then the Area name doesn't appear so I feel like that one isn't fair. Shout out to Mythra's Power of Light where it asks you to jump 500 times, which doesn't make sense. It is the joke, as Mythra will go "The light in me is...strong...for some reason?" but still kind of a silly ask, especially if you don't have a Turbo button.
Blade Skills return from the base game, and they're only less intrusive. I did do more of Affinity Charts and crafting this time around, so I cannot recall if I was stumped at anything. But I also think the game asks less of you for actual progression. Still stings when you find a treasure trove only to be one level off from a skill, and that skill's next level is hidden behind a higher level of affinity. So asking for grinding, yay.
Speaking of grinding: side quests! It's a Xenoblade game, do them or die! At the very least, Torna actually road blocks you into doing side quests with the Community system. Community levels as you do side quests, and later just talk to certain NPCs, with having a maximum of 5 but you're required to reach levels 2 and 4 to progress with plot. The justification for both times is getting to know and learn the happenings of Auresco, but it's a clear and flimsy excuse to make you do something else. It is only a side game after all, gotta get those 19 hours. I had gripes with this earlier, but honestly considering what the game already asks of you for Blades and Drivers, I made an effort this time to try and one-up the game and doing side quests all over. It made for a much better experience, straight up skipping the first stopping point. The level 4 requirement hides some Community members AFTER its reached, but that's only a small annoyance really.
Side quests themselves or sort of whatever. The stories they tell aren't anything I recall as anything noteworthy, but some endings were kind of whatever. There's one where Addam tells a kid "doesn't it matter that you succeed, not how" which is not advice I personally vibe with. There's one where Hugo comes across a spy and dresses him up under Addam's care for information later. Hugo then tells the spy's friend that he died honorably and it's just whatever. That one probably had more of a point of joking "Hugo is scary when he's angry" but the joke doesn't land there either. Another has a traveling entertainer obsessed with a woman who clearly wants to keep to herself, to the point where she sends him off to find an (almost) extinct flower and he almost dies. It ends with him crawling out of his makeshift grave and the girl decides to give him one date and Mythra treats it as a "take a chance" theme? And the guy is still obnoxious and annoying afterwards. Not to mention that the quest before it conveniently has all the women party members invested (some cutscenes the only ones talking) about love, and when Aegaeon shares an interest in crafting, all the other men (besides Jin) treat it like "that lucky devil" like what? Why is it like this? I won't use certain words but that especially has some weird vibes.
Collection Points are better, with at least telling you what you can expect and then if the spot has more rare items. I feel that they're still not the best, with quests and crafting asking for rare items and you have to walk all over to just find a rare point of the right type. An NPC comments that there's some logic to it, like finding flowers or fruits near grass but I can recall times where there's been a mineral point near grass by the time I actually find out what's there. The map doesn't convey what is at what point, which makes that icon kind of useless. I think there should be some mix of points, but who knows how well that would work out.
Camps and crafting is cool, but only reall surface level stuff. Crafting could be done a bit better, as item names don't always properly convey what you're making, like with food, and it would be nice to not have to bounce a couple menus just to see what someone's favorite pouch item is.
Menus also is a rough spot, not like they don't work but I feel like it could've been better? Holding the stick and Y makes your character automatically move, but you need to remember to not have the objective tab open if you have an active side quest, because that will take you directly to the side quest menu, and you'll have to press B three times. There's also no shortcut menu to the side quests otherwise, so you have to press the + button just to swap quests, but you can't always immediately do that because the game halts your ability to pause for a moment when you get back into gameplay. And while this isn't Torna's fault, I found myself confusing controls with Definitive Edition's, where the Skip Travel was on Y and not X. Skip Travel is also kind of annoying, like you can't skip to camps for whatever reason, and sometimes in Gormott there are skip points right next to camps, one of which being named after the camp but if you're slightly off the game thinks you're selecting the camp. The Toranan capitol doesn't have a camp so I find myself going all the way back just to stock up on crafted items.
So, about presentation. While there is (rather unproductive) discussion regarding Xenoblade 2's art style and "anime," that's not where I'm getting at. Calling something "anime" gets nothing done with how vague it is. Rather, what I'm bothered by, is Xenoblade 2 having too many art styles to where nothing really meshes together. I don't mind the art style of Lora, Hugo, Addam, etc. But it's when it's put alongside all the other styles where things look weird. One could say that it's fine for Blades, considering they are still meant to look different from Humans, so I don't harp on this much. But just human to human there's a lot already. Lora's style differs from the style of the Toranan King which differs from all the generic NPCs. They're all meant to be Human but they have as much differences between them as Blades do with each other. I've always been slightly bothered with Mythra and Malos having different styles despite their origins too. And all these model styles don't flow with the world, with very realistic wood and textures all arounnd, meanwhile Lora looks like she's just radiating. None of it goes together. Also Addam has a massive mouth.
Animation and camera work doesn't help things. For generic cutscenes, everyone feels overly animated? That and like these animations don't go for these models. Clothes clip and flop around like they're on jiggle physics, but no one feels natural. Some animations are reused in different contexts when it clearly doesn't work. There's an animation of Mythra looking down with her hands on her hips that's used for when she's angry but sometimes when she's just looking down. All the NPC ones also shre the same issue, and how Toranan NPCs go around just looks... wrong? With all their sleeves being so big it just doesn't look right with how they walk. Or that they all walk like that. Camera just goes back and forth between characters, and if it moves it's just something like a minor earthquake. It's possible that a lot of the work went into battle animations, which are generally cool (I don't get what's with Hugo's Level 3). But even the usually hyped Xenoblade action cutscenes are kind of whatever. They talk a lot about the team work between each member and Drivers with Blades, but it's not really done a lot in cutscenes. A lot of swords hitting swords, and you can see party members just standing in the back. It's kind of lame.
The game is really bad technically speaking. I played most of this on Portable mode, but Docked gameplay isn't any better. Everything looks so crusty, with aliasing all over the place and an awful dithering effect around characters. Things just slightly further from the camera get the worst treatment, to where the Torna titans sometimes looks like pixel art. Haze's scarf thing has a clear line where when the part not actually part of her model immedietely enters crunchy mode. And the framerate sure does not exist by endgame. Tornan Titan Interior or Malos phase 2 just shit the bed and its nigh unavoidable. They're getting better but this is a poor state to release a game in. On the Nintendo Switch. Exclusively.
I've also ran into a handful of absurd bugs. Back in 2018 I ended up having an Artifice Art run at half speed because I timed it coincidently with the game zooming in on a Fusion Combo, which was at least funny. This time around I ran into a flat out soft lock. After beating a Unique Monster, I was hit with Blowback, music gone, and no access to the menu. As mentioned before, you don't have immediate access to the main menu and this includes after the battle. I can only assume this flag never got reached. I figured maybe the gravestone would return functions but then my game just froze. The game just feels like its on a dying breath here.
Storywise, it's whatever. It's trying to tie up scenes previewed in the main game but around that is a bunch of things not greatly executed or elaborated on. I like most of these characters so I'd like to see more of them but the scope of this DLC is cut short before that. There's also the usual fantasy politics and church that I don't care or understand what their aims are for even. There's also Gort who is just. Who is this man. I don't care for him. Just get rid of him. It is meant to touch on Blades, both how they function and their narrative purpose but I feel like it doesnt do enough. While I understand this is meant to be an insight into the main game's past, it's also been presented as something you could play first and I wish it just stood on its own legs. While the original soundtrack is nice with its original battle music, plenty of pianos, and rearrangements of tracks from the main game, it reuses a good part of the original ost. It's not the worst, it fits fine, but still kind of feels weak.
But I still had fun, for all its awful jank. I sure do hope some problems aren't repeated, or worse, even more are added! (Clueless)