I’m gonna get the negatives out of the way first.
The battle system starts out as unintuitive and kind of slow. Essential mechanics aren’t introduced until later on and the game does an insanely poor job of explaining it to you.
The tutorials throughout the game are misleading and frequent. They are annoying, boring and don’t help with anything of note.
Lots of characters in the main cast are either underdeveloped or lose a lot of “purpose” after a certain point. Dromach, Brighid, Roc and Pandoria are characters that come to mind. They have their own unique personalities and moments to shine (except for dromach), but are immediately overshadowed by other characters.
Then there’s the voice acting which honestly isn’t too shabby. It’s no where near as consistently good as XC1’s voice acting but it’s not too bad either. It suits the more lighthearted moments quite well, however Rex’s screams are kind of bad.
The story doesn’t kick in until around chapter 5. The first chapter is a good introduction (minus the tutorials), the second is pretty good, and the third is the best one yet but the plot established in the first chapter isn’t really going anywhere. And then the fourth chapter is absolutely horrendous and miserable to play through.
For a game as flawed as XC2 is I can’t help but love it. The battle system is insanely fun and nuanced once you get used to it. You’re never “overpowered” while playing through the story but you’re allowed to experiment and just go to town with the battle system. Environments are stellar, they have great ambience, music, visuals, they’re all distinct from each other and are just the perfect size. The majority of the main cast are great. Pyra/Mythra, Nia, Zeke are among my favourites but characters like Tora, Poppi, Morag and Vandham can still be appreciated. And Rex is very much a love him or hate him protagonist. The story towards the 5th chapter onwards is insane and entirely worth sitting through. The antagonists are compelling and memorable, and despite (spoilers) Amalthus being a very predictable villain, they acknowledge that by adding foreshadowing and a fantastic backstory to explain his motives. Malos and Jin are pretty enigmatic until the end of the game, Jin has an engaging backstory and connects to the other villains really well, but Malos’ motives are only truly understood by people who want to interpret and really pay attention to his dialogue, which I like.
Despite being heavily flawed, I really do love this game. It’s too overhated by people who only know it for being the “anime jrpg game with funny boob lady”. It’s just got so much going for it. If you dropped this game before chapter 5, or are skeptical about it’s “anime fanservice moments” (like I was at first) I urge you to pick it up and push through. It’ll be worth it.
The battle system starts out as unintuitive and kind of slow. Essential mechanics aren’t introduced until later on and the game does an insanely poor job of explaining it to you.
The tutorials throughout the game are misleading and frequent. They are annoying, boring and don’t help with anything of note.
Lots of characters in the main cast are either underdeveloped or lose a lot of “purpose” after a certain point. Dromach, Brighid, Roc and Pandoria are characters that come to mind. They have their own unique personalities and moments to shine (except for dromach), but are immediately overshadowed by other characters.
Then there’s the voice acting which honestly isn’t too shabby. It’s no where near as consistently good as XC1’s voice acting but it’s not too bad either. It suits the more lighthearted moments quite well, however Rex’s screams are kind of bad.
The story doesn’t kick in until around chapter 5. The first chapter is a good introduction (minus the tutorials), the second is pretty good, and the third is the best one yet but the plot established in the first chapter isn’t really going anywhere. And then the fourth chapter is absolutely horrendous and miserable to play through.
For a game as flawed as XC2 is I can’t help but love it. The battle system is insanely fun and nuanced once you get used to it. You’re never “overpowered” while playing through the story but you’re allowed to experiment and just go to town with the battle system. Environments are stellar, they have great ambience, music, visuals, they’re all distinct from each other and are just the perfect size. The majority of the main cast are great. Pyra/Mythra, Nia, Zeke are among my favourites but characters like Tora, Poppi, Morag and Vandham can still be appreciated. And Rex is very much a love him or hate him protagonist. The story towards the 5th chapter onwards is insane and entirely worth sitting through. The antagonists are compelling and memorable, and despite (spoilers) Amalthus being a very predictable villain, they acknowledge that by adding foreshadowing and a fantastic backstory to explain his motives. Malos and Jin are pretty enigmatic until the end of the game, Jin has an engaging backstory and connects to the other villains really well, but Malos’ motives are only truly understood by people who want to interpret and really pay attention to his dialogue, which I like.
Despite being heavily flawed, I really do love this game. It’s too overhated by people who only know it for being the “anime jrpg game with funny boob lady”. It’s just got so much going for it. If you dropped this game before chapter 5, or are skeptical about it’s “anime fanservice moments” (like I was at first) I urge you to pick it up and push through. It’ll be worth it.