nothing new under the sun but sometimes nothing is fresh either
i don’t mind a story cobbled together from decades of tired tropes; sometimes you want that kind of comfort food, and Xenoblade Chronicles presents what it has really well for the most part. The game is beautiful, the art and character designs just generally pleasant, the music slaps hard basically throughout, and despite the absurd size of the game, it hums along at a pleasant pace for mmmmmmmmost of it.
BUT there is a but and the but is big
I think partially because the game is SO big and partially because the tropes are SO cliche and partially because the play is SO shallow, the whole experience ends up feeling simultaneously exhausting and slight?
It doesn’t help that despite the game’s size there’s a lot of stuff in the story that still feels underdeveloped. Reyn and Riki basically have nothing going on. There are party member relationship events but VERY few of them, which makes sense given the number of combinations and size of the party, but less given the length of the game and size of the world. Lategame societies are underdeveloped despite being the most interesting wrinkle to the established lore.
Combat is similar. While there’s theoretically a lot going on, with stats to track, many equipment and ability types unique to every character, and just like too much shit on the screen, every combat encounter boils down to getting aggro off your dps and hitting the enemies from behind with whatever you’ve got cooking. Despite your myriad options and the genuine fun I had tinkering with move sets, none of that stuff really mattered most of the time in terms of how I was actually playing, and by the 2/3rd mark combat and sidequesting were tedious endeavors.
Most of this complaining comes from burnout though, I think. I expect to look back on the game fondly once the experience fades and I mostly recall cutscenes and wandering around maps over the majority of what I spent doing in them. It’s just hard right now for me to ignore how damningly faint that praise is.
i don’t mind a story cobbled together from decades of tired tropes; sometimes you want that kind of comfort food, and Xenoblade Chronicles presents what it has really well for the most part. The game is beautiful, the art and character designs just generally pleasant, the music slaps hard basically throughout, and despite the absurd size of the game, it hums along at a pleasant pace for mmmmmmmmost of it.
BUT there is a but and the but is big
I think partially because the game is SO big and partially because the tropes are SO cliche and partially because the play is SO shallow, the whole experience ends up feeling simultaneously exhausting and slight?
It doesn’t help that despite the game’s size there’s a lot of stuff in the story that still feels underdeveloped. Reyn and Riki basically have nothing going on. There are party member relationship events but VERY few of them, which makes sense given the number of combinations and size of the party, but less given the length of the game and size of the world. Lategame societies are underdeveloped despite being the most interesting wrinkle to the established lore.
Combat is similar. While there’s theoretically a lot going on, with stats to track, many equipment and ability types unique to every character, and just like too much shit on the screen, every combat encounter boils down to getting aggro off your dps and hitting the enemies from behind with whatever you’ve got cooking. Despite your myriad options and the genuine fun I had tinkering with move sets, none of that stuff really mattered most of the time in terms of how I was actually playing, and by the 2/3rd mark combat and sidequesting were tedious endeavors.
Most of this complaining comes from burnout though, I think. I expect to look back on the game fondly once the experience fades and I mostly recall cutscenes and wandering around maps over the majority of what I spent doing in them. It’s just hard right now for me to ignore how damningly faint that praise is.