sunen
22 reviews liked by sunen
Despite being my favorite game of all time, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is not a perfect video game. I could spend a long time going over all the game’s glaring flaws and little things that could be improved. Or I could boot up the game and play it for 5 minutes and remember none of that actually matters.
First and foremost, Xenoblade 2 is an absolutely beautiful video game. Every location is absolutely stunning, sporting a distinct visual identity that’s always pleasing to look at. Gormott is a vast, sprawling plain with the endlessly cozy village of Torigoth tucked away in its corner. Uraya’s cool color palette across its vast swampland and beautiful Saffronia trees perfectly complements the comfort of Garfont Village and elegance of Fonsa Myma. Tantal’s harsh, snow-covered wasteland filled with ancient architecture builds a brutal backdrop for a desperate village struggling to survive. On top of that, Monolith took great care to make these places feel real. Every town is fully populated and every inch of wilderness teeming with wildlife.
It’s not just the locations that look good, either; every element of the game, from effects to menus, is perfectly stylized to fit the pseudo-sci-fi/fantasy world. Character design’s great too, with the game boasting a set of distinct cultures across the different titans in styles of dress and some absolute banger designs for the blades done by a variety of artists. Yes, I know it’s tempting to post a picture of Rex on Twitter with no context and say, “look at this idiot” or to post a picture of Pyra with no context and say, “dumb fanservice game”. But that’s ignoring the work that went into making a lot of creative, awesome-looking characters (and the fact you can easily get used to how Rex and Pyra look within an hour of playing the actual game).
Speaking of awesome, creative things, let’s talk about this game’s soundtrack. Every piece is an absolute banger and fits perfectly within its place in the game. The title screen immediately hooks players in, perfectly sets up the game’s sense of quiet contemplation, and later serves as a background piece in some of its most emotional moments. Each level theme perfectly captures the feel of the area it plays in, from the bustling trade hub of Argentum to the vast wonder of Gormott to the serene beauty of Uraya. The standard battle theme is on the same level as most games’ final boss themes, and every other one brilliantly accents its fight: the savagery of “Deathmatch with Torna”, the over-the-top showmanship of “Bringer of Chaos: Ultimate”, and “One who Gets in Our Way” seamlessly transitioning from the terror of getting spotted by Rotbart to the euphoria of felling a fearsome foe. Even the cutscene music is outstanding. “Counterattack” and “Over the Sinful Entreaty” are outstanding background tracks to some of the game’s coolest moments, “Past from Far Distance” is almost as haunting as the scenes it plays over, and songs like “Friendship”, “Walking with You”, and “Tomorrow with You” perfectly encapsulate the tenderness of Xenoblade 2’s best scenes. I can barely listen to the credits theme without tearing up.
On the topic of audio, the game’s English dub is often a point of contention. I get it, especially coming off of Xenoblade 1. Certain deliveries can feel a bit awkward, and you can get the sense that lines were recorded out of context. That said, I don’t think it’s bad, besides a couple things like Rex’s screams and Obrona’s voice. In fact, there are some great deliveries here, with characters like Zeke and Malos having especially entertaining voices behind them. I also love how the characters from different countries, as well as the blades, all have distinct accents. It’s a cool bit of texture that further develops the different cultures of Alrest, plus a lot of them just sound nice (I could listen to Morag and Nia talk all day).
All this style would mean nothing if the game didn’t have substance to back it up, and I am happy to report this game has substance in spades. Those beautiful locations are all fully realized semi-open worlds, with most of their landscapes being traversable. On top of the massive open spaces, every area is intricately designed with tons of memorable locales hidden away for players willing to explore. And these areas aren’t just big; they’re loaded with content. Every inch of every level has something interesting: a sidequest, a treasure trove, a landmark or secret area, a heart-to-heart, a unique monster, or even just a strong enemy. The size of the worlds is also perfectly tuned, making them big enough to feel impressive but small enough to be traversable. And the challenges each area introduces with side content, blade quests, and higher-level enemies means you can keep coming back to these places for the entire game. The towns are equally impressive, with a variety of buildings, shops, NPCs, hidden areas, and tons of dialogue serving up tons of content both from a story and gameplay standpoint.
Also, the Field Skills aren’t that bad. Sure, switching blades around to get the right skills in your party is annoying, but that’s it. It’s an annoyance, and nothing more. Nearly every skill check in the main story (and like, 80% of checks in side quests) can be cleared with guaranteed blades, and the process to unlock individual skills is very quick, requiring a few battles at most. Hell, the only time you need to pull blades for the main story is to clear the spider web in Chapter 7 (and even then, getting 1-2 common fire blades is trivial). It’s a minor bump in the road that doesn’t take away from the fantastic exploration. In fact, the focus on world design and exploration alone makes Xenoblade 2 an incredible video game.
But it’s not content to be incredible. It has to be the best there is, and “the best there is” is the best description I could possibly give for Xenoblade 2’s combat. Yes, it takes a while to get the full extent of it, but once you do, there’s nothing else like it. It takes the rhythm of a turn-based RPG and seamlessly transitions it into real time, making the player keep track of positioning, healing, enemy aggro, and Art usage. And on top of that, it introduces some truly phenomenal mechanics that elevate it above the other games in its series.
On paper, 2’s combat may look like a downgrade from the previous installments: you can’t Auto-Attack while moving, your Arts charge based on Auto-Attacks instead of cooldowns, and you only have 3 Arts per character. But look a little deeper and you’ll see how much it really adds. If you start moving and then stop, it resets the Auto-Attack timer, enabling the very useful and probably unintentional technique of “stutter-stepping”: continually move slightly to repeatedly perform your first Auto-Attack, speeding up combat even in the game’s early stages. Even beyond this, I enjoy the decision-making it presents: Do you stand still to deal more damage and charge your Arts or do you try to pick up items, grab HP Potions, and revive fallen party members? Speaking of Arts, the detail about only having 3 Arts is a straight-up lie. Each character can equip up to 3 Blades, which each have 3 Arts, 4 Specials, and their own unique abilities. This change in format gives the player plenty of freedom in deciding their loadouts, forces them to manage Blade cooldowns on top of other combat mechanics, and lets the game map arts and specials to the 4 main buttons, reducing the amount of necessary menuing in combat.
On the topic of Arts and Specials, I think it’s about time I explain the meat of the combat. As previously stated, using Auto-Attacks lets you use Arts, which lets you use Specials. Using Specials lets you perform Blade Combos, which can set up Orbs that let you perform better Chain Attacks. And if you break enough Orbs in a Chain Attack, you deal insane damage with a Full Burst. This also grants you additional EXP if you kill an enemy, which all but eliminates the need for grinding when used properly. Speaking of Blade Combos, each Blade Combo deals increased damage and damage over time, even at lower levels. Ergo, even if you don’t finish a Combo, you can still deal good damage to the enemy.
Xenoblade 1’s Break/Topple system is also reworked into Driver Combos. In 1, the best strategy for harder fights was to break enemies and then continually topple them until they could no longer move, which could feel a bit stale. In Xenoblade 2, Break and Topple have much more limited durations, but Toppled enemies can be Launched and Launched enemies can be Smashed. Launched enemies take more damage than Toppled enemies, and Smashing an enemy deals massive damage and spawns items. All stages of a Driver Combo also spawn HP Potions, increase the DOT and uptime of Blade Combos, and interrupt enemy Arts. This creates a much more dynamic system where you can constantly perform small actions to gain the advantage over the enemy, but there’s also a degree of risk when your Breaks don’t hit and you have to retry. Performing a Blade Combo while the enemy is inflicted with a Driver Combo also performs a Fusion Combo, dealing even more damage. On top of all that, Blades’ affinity increases over the course of a battle and grants you buffs when it maxes out.
This turns every combat encounter into a satisfying series of loops, where every attack builds into the next. At the start of a fight, you’re at your weakest, only using Auto-Attacks and a few Arts. But as the battles progress, your options open up. You start using Specials and Blade Combos to deal damage. You perform Driver Combos to gain advantages over the enemy and maybe even get a few items. And when your Party Gauge fills up and you’ve applied a few Orbs, you can unleash a Chain Attack and deal massive damage. There are few feelings in gaming as satisfying as performing a Full Burst.
And all throughout, the Cancel Attack system enhances the very experience of fighting. In a similar vein to Mario RPG’s timed hits, Cancel Attacks give you an advantage in combat if you press a button just as an attack connects. Auto-Attacks, Arts, Specials, and even Blade Switches flow seamlessly into each other for extensive chains of high damage and powerful effects. And the sound design just adds on to the satisfaction. Every attack feels crunchy. The feedback for cancelling makes the combos you pull off exponentially smoother. The cinematic angles for Blade Combo Finishers, Level 4 Specials, Fusion Combos, and Chain Attacks help them hit that much harder.
The combat does take a while to get into. You don’t unlock all the mechanics until the end of chapter 3 and it takes a bit longer than that to get all the really cool stuff. Needing to unlock Arts Chaining and 3 Blade slots especially can be a pain in the ass. The tutorials don’t help, either; they’re way too vague for a system this complex and it sucks you can’t re-view them. Also, the game never tells you how good the Art Recharge items are, which makes the early game a lot slower than it needs to be for most players. But if you’re willing to push through those early hours, to really sink your teeth into the battle system and unlock its full potential, there’s nothing else like it. (I recommend this video if you want a good tutorial).
The combat system is fantastic on its own, but it’s backed up by equally amazing character customization. Like I said before, each Driver in the party (with 1 exception) can equip up to 3 Blades at once. Each Blade increases the Driver’s stats, as well as having their own weapon class and element. Element determines what Blade Combos a Blade can perform as well as dealing more damage if an enemy is weak to it. Weapon classes and the Drivers they’re attached to determine which Arts a Blade can use, with 3 out of a potential 4 being usable at any time. The more a driver uses a specific weapon, the more they can upgrade the Arts for that weapon, granting stronger effects and lower recharge times. In addition, each Driver has an Affinity Chart: a skill tree you gain points for as you defeat enemies and complete quests. These grant some pretty useful passive skills, including the aforementioned Arts Chain. All these systems combined with 5 Drivers that can fill a 3-Driver party and the wide variety of Blades already offer a ton of options and a steady sense of progression throughout the game.
But then the Accessories and Pouch Items shoot the scope of customization through the roof. All drivers can equip up to 2 accessories (3 in New Game Plus). These grant passive bonuses ranging from stat increases, to damage increases, to more specific uses like reducing enemy break resistance or preventing enemies from blocking your attacks. One Driver can’t use multiple accessories with the same effect, but otherwise you can do pretty much anything. Each Accessory can completely change how you play the game, assisting in a variety of strategies and synergies. Pure attack, tanking, evasion, crit healing, and even soloing enemies are all possible thanks to this system. Pouch Items are really cool too, essentially being passive buffs you can give to your Drivers for a certain amount of time. Eventually, you can even equip 2 at a time, offering additional customization and power. Like I said before, the Art Recharge ones are the best, but other effects like Special Recharge and Increased Party Gauge can also be useful.
On top of all of that, Blades have their own customization and progression systems. Core Chips grant steady increases to attack power while offering a choice between Block Rate, Critical Rate, and various secondary effects. Aux Cores grant additional effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, avoid attacks, and do tons of other things. Even more impressively, each Blade has its own Affinity Chart. As you fight and complete side quests with a Blade, you increase their trust with their Driver. In addition to increasing their damage, this unlocks the nodes in their Affinity Charts. Filling in those nodes is a bit more complicated: each one has specific actions tied to them, ranging from using Specials to defeating enemies to completing side quests. I love this; it encourages players to constantly use all the different mechanics and keeps progression from feeling stale, since you’re doing different things to get stronger rather than grinding. The nodes themselves offer a few different things: Red Nodes improve Blades’ Specials, Yellow Nodes improve Passive Skills, and Green Nodes unlock Field Skills.
This gives Blades a ton of utility in different strategies, which is only compounded by the Accessories, Core Chips, and Aux Cores. You could go for pure damage with heavy hitters like Mythra or Herald. You could use tank-class blades like Brighid to evade attacks. You could build entire strategies around blade-specific mechanics, like Dagas’ Kaiser Zone or Adenine’s boost to elemental weakness damage. And this is before you get into Tora and Poppi, who not only can perform Driver Combos by themselves, but have a unique progression system that lets you fully customize the abilities of all 3 Poppi forms. It’s truly incredible.
Now, there is one part of this system that often falls under scrutiny, and I do understand it: The Core Crystal Gacha System. Basically, a good chunk of the game’s Rare Blades are locked behind random drops from specific items. It can be annoying when you want a specific Rare Blade but can’t pull them, or when you do get that Blade on a different Driver than you wanted. That said, I think a lot of the criticism is overblown, and a good chunk of it probably stems from people’s gut reactions to the words “Gacha System”. First off, there are no microtransactions involved. All resources are earned by playing the game normally. In reality, the Core Crystal system barely differs from most RPG drop systems, and people never throw fits on Twitter about those. In fact, the game is actually really generous with Rare Blades: a lot of really good ones can be earned through either the main story or through side content. Plus, Common Blades are better than you might think, offering good stats, good Specials and some really useful Passives like Orb Master. That’s ignoring how generous the base chance is for getting Rare Blades and how easy Legendary Core Crystals are to farm later on. Is it a perfect system? No, it can be a hassle to get the last couple Rare Blades in the endgame, the game’s a bit too stingy with Overdrive Protocols, and there are probably better ways to encourage switching up your team on replay. But it’s not nearly as bad as it’s often made out to be. At worst, it’s a small blot on an astounding canvas.
There’s a lot more to do in Xenoblade 2 than just exploring the world and fighting things. Sure, those are your main means of interaction with the game, but there’s some pretty neat context surrounding them. Xenoblade 2’s sidequests are great, both from a gameplay and story perspective. They grant a variety of tasks, which mainly involve collecting items, fighting enemies, and exploring certain locations. While that might sound a bit repetitive, the way these basic elements are combined keeps the quests from getting boring. In addition, they all have pretty neat stories tied to them, some even extending through multiple sidequests. The quest chain involving the organizations in Mor Ardain is the obvious highlight, but I also love the Nopon History quest chain, the one where you build a school, the quest in Gormott involving the missing soldiers, and anything involving the Garfont Mercs, just to name a few. Even the smaller quests do a great job fleshing out the world and giving character to the various NPCs. You learn a lot about the different nations of Alrest just from seeing how these people interact in their day-to-day lives.
Blade Quests are another great addition. Every optional Rare Blade has their own dedicated side story, complete with fully voiced cutscenes. These help elevate the Blades from just being numbers on a sheet to being fully defined characters, with certain ones like Dagas having really good arcs throughout their quests. And of course, the Xenosaga fan in me will always appreciate KOS-MOS getting story relevance, even if it is self-contained.
Not only are these quests intrinsically engaging, but they offer great rewards. You get additional EXP, money, and SP (for Drivers’ Affinity Charts) for each one you complete. Blade Quests even grant additional abilities for the Rare Blades. This constant stream of rewards creates this really satisfying gameplay loop of completing quests, getting stronger, and taking on tougher quests. If you’re worried about becoming overleveled after doing all the side quests, don’t worry; all EXP gained from quests is completely optional. Don’t get me wrong, there are some stinkers among the quests. Ursula’s Blade Quest and the Nopon Doubloon quest are pretty annoying, and the compass isn’t too helpful for certain navigational challenges. But the batting average is pretty damn high, and the side quests are overall one of my favorite parts of the game.
If that wasn’t enough for you, Xenoblade 2 offers additional side content to keep you busy. Completing side quests and buying items in an area increases that area’s Development, which lowers prices and opens up new items in the stores. Buying all the items in a store even lets you buy the store, which grants a passive buff during overworld gameplay. This a lot to the game mechanically and thematically, since you’re helping people around the world through your actions and have much greater incentive to interact with the different shops. I also really like Salvaging as a way to integrate Rex’s passion into the gameplay and as a means of making money. (Seriously, you can get a ton of money with just a little salvaging. It’s insane.)
The last major mechanic I want to talk about is the Merc Group, which basically lets you send your idle blades on special missions. These are often used for Blade Quests, normal quests, and unlocking more of a store’s inventory. They also grant additional EXP, money, items, and help unlock skills for the blades. I love this feature. It adds to the sense of progression since you’ll probably have a Merc Mission running at all times, and also helps if you want to develop a Blade without using them in combat. It also makes all the blades feel useful, since you’ll often need specific field skills to start a Merc Mission or to have it complete faster. All this great content doesn’t even cover the additional difficulty modes, New Game Plus, or Challenge Mode, all of which add fantastic depth and replayability just by themselves. With all these different mechanics combined, Xenoblade 2 is a masterwork of game design.
But there’s far more to it than that. Many people say an RPG is only as good as its story, and this story is certainly as good as the RPG behind it. The story of finding hope in a dying world is done beautifully, and leads to quite possibly the best final act I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s exciting, well-paced, and isn’t afraid to go dark places, but still remains a heartwarming and optimistic tale throughout. I won’t go into detail here for the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free and not tripling its length. Instead, I’d like to dispel a popular myth surrounding this game.
Many people have claimed the story is “tropey anime garbage” and that it doesn’t match the serious tone Xenoblade 1 had. Yes, the story has silly moments, but they pretty much vanish halfway into Chapter 4, and they never interrupt the more serious parts. There are only 10, maybe 15 minutes of these scenes over the course of a 100+-hour game. If that’s enough for you to dismiss a game, then I’m sorry, but I think that’s incredibly shallow. Plus, this game can actually be really funny when it wants to. Throwaway lines like Pupunin’s “wife ran out on me”, Heart-to-Hearts like the cooking disaster in Argentum, and pretty much everything involving Zeke von Genbu just make me crack up. Not to mention, Xenoblade 1 has plenty of light-hearted moments: Colonel Vangarre, Riki’s introduction, half of Reyn’s dialogue. Hell, one of the most emotional scenes in the game was turned into a meme by the fandom, which got big enough for Nintendo of America to post about it on Twitter. I think at least a little comedy is fully acceptable.
This fantastic story is backed by an even better cast. Every member of the main party is memorable, well-written and has at least a few great moments throughout the story. Sure, Morag and Brighid are a little underused and Tora has some…questionable moments, but that doesn’t make the overall cast any less lovable. Each of them supports the game’s central themes in some way, on top of having some great interactions both in the main story and outside of it. The villains are just as good, easily being my favorite cast of antagonists in all of Xenoblade. All the major antagonists and even a few of the minor ones have interesting roles to play in the story, complex motivations that intertwine and often clash, and wonderfully interact with both the thematic material and the main characters. Again, I won’t go into spoiler territory, but there is one character I will talk about quite a bit.
Rex is a fantastic main character. Sure, he may look like a dorky kid with a stupid outfit and subpar voice acting, but give him a chance and you’ll know why this kid made himself the Aegis’ Driver. Even in a world brought to the brink of destruction, suffering from the mistakes of its people, he keeps smiling. He helps everyone he can, tries to understand even the worst of humanity, and fights for its best. It’s amazing how profoundly Rex impacts the people and places around him just by being the good person he is. Not just Pyra and Mythra, but the other party members, the villains, and all the people you meet along the way. As amazing a portrayal as Future Redeemed gave Rex, it could only do so thanks to Xenoblade 2’s rock-solid foundation. And all this came from a humble salvager with a big heart.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will always be a special game to me. It came into my life at an important time and helped my broaden my horizons for what games were capable of. But even considering that, I think it’s a masterwork of game design and storytelling, and my appreciation for it only grows with each passing day. I know it’s not for everyone, but please, give this game a chance if you haven’t already. Don’t dismiss it because a YouTube comedy video made it look bad. I’m sure you’ll find something to love.
First and foremost, Xenoblade 2 is an absolutely beautiful video game. Every location is absolutely stunning, sporting a distinct visual identity that’s always pleasing to look at. Gormott is a vast, sprawling plain with the endlessly cozy village of Torigoth tucked away in its corner. Uraya’s cool color palette across its vast swampland and beautiful Saffronia trees perfectly complements the comfort of Garfont Village and elegance of Fonsa Myma. Tantal’s harsh, snow-covered wasteland filled with ancient architecture builds a brutal backdrop for a desperate village struggling to survive. On top of that, Monolith took great care to make these places feel real. Every town is fully populated and every inch of wilderness teeming with wildlife.
It’s not just the locations that look good, either; every element of the game, from effects to menus, is perfectly stylized to fit the pseudo-sci-fi/fantasy world. Character design’s great too, with the game boasting a set of distinct cultures across the different titans in styles of dress and some absolute banger designs for the blades done by a variety of artists. Yes, I know it’s tempting to post a picture of Rex on Twitter with no context and say, “look at this idiot” or to post a picture of Pyra with no context and say, “dumb fanservice game”. But that’s ignoring the work that went into making a lot of creative, awesome-looking characters (and the fact you can easily get used to how Rex and Pyra look within an hour of playing the actual game).
Speaking of awesome, creative things, let’s talk about this game’s soundtrack. Every piece is an absolute banger and fits perfectly within its place in the game. The title screen immediately hooks players in, perfectly sets up the game’s sense of quiet contemplation, and later serves as a background piece in some of its most emotional moments. Each level theme perfectly captures the feel of the area it plays in, from the bustling trade hub of Argentum to the vast wonder of Gormott to the serene beauty of Uraya. The standard battle theme is on the same level as most games’ final boss themes, and every other one brilliantly accents its fight: the savagery of “Deathmatch with Torna”, the over-the-top showmanship of “Bringer of Chaos: Ultimate”, and “One who Gets in Our Way” seamlessly transitioning from the terror of getting spotted by Rotbart to the euphoria of felling a fearsome foe. Even the cutscene music is outstanding. “Counterattack” and “Over the Sinful Entreaty” are outstanding background tracks to some of the game’s coolest moments, “Past from Far Distance” is almost as haunting as the scenes it plays over, and songs like “Friendship”, “Walking with You”, and “Tomorrow with You” perfectly encapsulate the tenderness of Xenoblade 2’s best scenes. I can barely listen to the credits theme without tearing up.
On the topic of audio, the game’s English dub is often a point of contention. I get it, especially coming off of Xenoblade 1. Certain deliveries can feel a bit awkward, and you can get the sense that lines were recorded out of context. That said, I don’t think it’s bad, besides a couple things like Rex’s screams and Obrona’s voice. In fact, there are some great deliveries here, with characters like Zeke and Malos having especially entertaining voices behind them. I also love how the characters from different countries, as well as the blades, all have distinct accents. It’s a cool bit of texture that further develops the different cultures of Alrest, plus a lot of them just sound nice (I could listen to Morag and Nia talk all day).
All this style would mean nothing if the game didn’t have substance to back it up, and I am happy to report this game has substance in spades. Those beautiful locations are all fully realized semi-open worlds, with most of their landscapes being traversable. On top of the massive open spaces, every area is intricately designed with tons of memorable locales hidden away for players willing to explore. And these areas aren’t just big; they’re loaded with content. Every inch of every level has something interesting: a sidequest, a treasure trove, a landmark or secret area, a heart-to-heart, a unique monster, or even just a strong enemy. The size of the worlds is also perfectly tuned, making them big enough to feel impressive but small enough to be traversable. And the challenges each area introduces with side content, blade quests, and higher-level enemies means you can keep coming back to these places for the entire game. The towns are equally impressive, with a variety of buildings, shops, NPCs, hidden areas, and tons of dialogue serving up tons of content both from a story and gameplay standpoint.
Also, the Field Skills aren’t that bad. Sure, switching blades around to get the right skills in your party is annoying, but that’s it. It’s an annoyance, and nothing more. Nearly every skill check in the main story (and like, 80% of checks in side quests) can be cleared with guaranteed blades, and the process to unlock individual skills is very quick, requiring a few battles at most. Hell, the only time you need to pull blades for the main story is to clear the spider web in Chapter 7 (and even then, getting 1-2 common fire blades is trivial). It’s a minor bump in the road that doesn’t take away from the fantastic exploration. In fact, the focus on world design and exploration alone makes Xenoblade 2 an incredible video game.
But it’s not content to be incredible. It has to be the best there is, and “the best there is” is the best description I could possibly give for Xenoblade 2’s combat. Yes, it takes a while to get the full extent of it, but once you do, there’s nothing else like it. It takes the rhythm of a turn-based RPG and seamlessly transitions it into real time, making the player keep track of positioning, healing, enemy aggro, and Art usage. And on top of that, it introduces some truly phenomenal mechanics that elevate it above the other games in its series.
On paper, 2’s combat may look like a downgrade from the previous installments: you can’t Auto-Attack while moving, your Arts charge based on Auto-Attacks instead of cooldowns, and you only have 3 Arts per character. But look a little deeper and you’ll see how much it really adds. If you start moving and then stop, it resets the Auto-Attack timer, enabling the very useful and probably unintentional technique of “stutter-stepping”: continually move slightly to repeatedly perform your first Auto-Attack, speeding up combat even in the game’s early stages. Even beyond this, I enjoy the decision-making it presents: Do you stand still to deal more damage and charge your Arts or do you try to pick up items, grab HP Potions, and revive fallen party members? Speaking of Arts, the detail about only having 3 Arts is a straight-up lie. Each character can equip up to 3 Blades, which each have 3 Arts, 4 Specials, and their own unique abilities. This change in format gives the player plenty of freedom in deciding their loadouts, forces them to manage Blade cooldowns on top of other combat mechanics, and lets the game map arts and specials to the 4 main buttons, reducing the amount of necessary menuing in combat.
On the topic of Arts and Specials, I think it’s about time I explain the meat of the combat. As previously stated, using Auto-Attacks lets you use Arts, which lets you use Specials. Using Specials lets you perform Blade Combos, which can set up Orbs that let you perform better Chain Attacks. And if you break enough Orbs in a Chain Attack, you deal insane damage with a Full Burst. This also grants you additional EXP if you kill an enemy, which all but eliminates the need for grinding when used properly. Speaking of Blade Combos, each Blade Combo deals increased damage and damage over time, even at lower levels. Ergo, even if you don’t finish a Combo, you can still deal good damage to the enemy.
Xenoblade 1’s Break/Topple system is also reworked into Driver Combos. In 1, the best strategy for harder fights was to break enemies and then continually topple them until they could no longer move, which could feel a bit stale. In Xenoblade 2, Break and Topple have much more limited durations, but Toppled enemies can be Launched and Launched enemies can be Smashed. Launched enemies take more damage than Toppled enemies, and Smashing an enemy deals massive damage and spawns items. All stages of a Driver Combo also spawn HP Potions, increase the DOT and uptime of Blade Combos, and interrupt enemy Arts. This creates a much more dynamic system where you can constantly perform small actions to gain the advantage over the enemy, but there’s also a degree of risk when your Breaks don’t hit and you have to retry. Performing a Blade Combo while the enemy is inflicted with a Driver Combo also performs a Fusion Combo, dealing even more damage. On top of all that, Blades’ affinity increases over the course of a battle and grants you buffs when it maxes out.
This turns every combat encounter into a satisfying series of loops, where every attack builds into the next. At the start of a fight, you’re at your weakest, only using Auto-Attacks and a few Arts. But as the battles progress, your options open up. You start using Specials and Blade Combos to deal damage. You perform Driver Combos to gain advantages over the enemy and maybe even get a few items. And when your Party Gauge fills up and you’ve applied a few Orbs, you can unleash a Chain Attack and deal massive damage. There are few feelings in gaming as satisfying as performing a Full Burst.
And all throughout, the Cancel Attack system enhances the very experience of fighting. In a similar vein to Mario RPG’s timed hits, Cancel Attacks give you an advantage in combat if you press a button just as an attack connects. Auto-Attacks, Arts, Specials, and even Blade Switches flow seamlessly into each other for extensive chains of high damage and powerful effects. And the sound design just adds on to the satisfaction. Every attack feels crunchy. The feedback for cancelling makes the combos you pull off exponentially smoother. The cinematic angles for Blade Combo Finishers, Level 4 Specials, Fusion Combos, and Chain Attacks help them hit that much harder.
The combat does take a while to get into. You don’t unlock all the mechanics until the end of chapter 3 and it takes a bit longer than that to get all the really cool stuff. Needing to unlock Arts Chaining and 3 Blade slots especially can be a pain in the ass. The tutorials don’t help, either; they’re way too vague for a system this complex and it sucks you can’t re-view them. Also, the game never tells you how good the Art Recharge items are, which makes the early game a lot slower than it needs to be for most players. But if you’re willing to push through those early hours, to really sink your teeth into the battle system and unlock its full potential, there’s nothing else like it. (I recommend this video if you want a good tutorial).
The combat system is fantastic on its own, but it’s backed up by equally amazing character customization. Like I said before, each Driver in the party (with 1 exception) can equip up to 3 Blades at once. Each Blade increases the Driver’s stats, as well as having their own weapon class and element. Element determines what Blade Combos a Blade can perform as well as dealing more damage if an enemy is weak to it. Weapon classes and the Drivers they’re attached to determine which Arts a Blade can use, with 3 out of a potential 4 being usable at any time. The more a driver uses a specific weapon, the more they can upgrade the Arts for that weapon, granting stronger effects and lower recharge times. In addition, each Driver has an Affinity Chart: a skill tree you gain points for as you defeat enemies and complete quests. These grant some pretty useful passive skills, including the aforementioned Arts Chain. All these systems combined with 5 Drivers that can fill a 3-Driver party and the wide variety of Blades already offer a ton of options and a steady sense of progression throughout the game.
But then the Accessories and Pouch Items shoot the scope of customization through the roof. All drivers can equip up to 2 accessories (3 in New Game Plus). These grant passive bonuses ranging from stat increases, to damage increases, to more specific uses like reducing enemy break resistance or preventing enemies from blocking your attacks. One Driver can’t use multiple accessories with the same effect, but otherwise you can do pretty much anything. Each Accessory can completely change how you play the game, assisting in a variety of strategies and synergies. Pure attack, tanking, evasion, crit healing, and even soloing enemies are all possible thanks to this system. Pouch Items are really cool too, essentially being passive buffs you can give to your Drivers for a certain amount of time. Eventually, you can even equip 2 at a time, offering additional customization and power. Like I said before, the Art Recharge ones are the best, but other effects like Special Recharge and Increased Party Gauge can also be useful.
On top of all of that, Blades have their own customization and progression systems. Core Chips grant steady increases to attack power while offering a choice between Block Rate, Critical Rate, and various secondary effects. Aux Cores grant additional effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, avoid attacks, and do tons of other things. Even more impressively, each Blade has its own Affinity Chart. As you fight and complete side quests with a Blade, you increase their trust with their Driver. In addition to increasing their damage, this unlocks the nodes in their Affinity Charts. Filling in those nodes is a bit more complicated: each one has specific actions tied to them, ranging from using Specials to defeating enemies to completing side quests. I love this; it encourages players to constantly use all the different mechanics and keeps progression from feeling stale, since you’re doing different things to get stronger rather than grinding. The nodes themselves offer a few different things: Red Nodes improve Blades’ Specials, Yellow Nodes improve Passive Skills, and Green Nodes unlock Field Skills.
This gives Blades a ton of utility in different strategies, which is only compounded by the Accessories, Core Chips, and Aux Cores. You could go for pure damage with heavy hitters like Mythra or Herald. You could use tank-class blades like Brighid to evade attacks. You could build entire strategies around blade-specific mechanics, like Dagas’ Kaiser Zone or Adenine’s boost to elemental weakness damage. And this is before you get into Tora and Poppi, who not only can perform Driver Combos by themselves, but have a unique progression system that lets you fully customize the abilities of all 3 Poppi forms. It’s truly incredible.
Now, there is one part of this system that often falls under scrutiny, and I do understand it: The Core Crystal Gacha System. Basically, a good chunk of the game’s Rare Blades are locked behind random drops from specific items. It can be annoying when you want a specific Rare Blade but can’t pull them, or when you do get that Blade on a different Driver than you wanted. That said, I think a lot of the criticism is overblown, and a good chunk of it probably stems from people’s gut reactions to the words “Gacha System”. First off, there are no microtransactions involved. All resources are earned by playing the game normally. In reality, the Core Crystal system barely differs from most RPG drop systems, and people never throw fits on Twitter about those. In fact, the game is actually really generous with Rare Blades: a lot of really good ones can be earned through either the main story or through side content. Plus, Common Blades are better than you might think, offering good stats, good Specials and some really useful Passives like Orb Master. That’s ignoring how generous the base chance is for getting Rare Blades and how easy Legendary Core Crystals are to farm later on. Is it a perfect system? No, it can be a hassle to get the last couple Rare Blades in the endgame, the game’s a bit too stingy with Overdrive Protocols, and there are probably better ways to encourage switching up your team on replay. But it’s not nearly as bad as it’s often made out to be. At worst, it’s a small blot on an astounding canvas.
There’s a lot more to do in Xenoblade 2 than just exploring the world and fighting things. Sure, those are your main means of interaction with the game, but there’s some pretty neat context surrounding them. Xenoblade 2’s sidequests are great, both from a gameplay and story perspective. They grant a variety of tasks, which mainly involve collecting items, fighting enemies, and exploring certain locations. While that might sound a bit repetitive, the way these basic elements are combined keeps the quests from getting boring. In addition, they all have pretty neat stories tied to them, some even extending through multiple sidequests. The quest chain involving the organizations in Mor Ardain is the obvious highlight, but I also love the Nopon History quest chain, the one where you build a school, the quest in Gormott involving the missing soldiers, and anything involving the Garfont Mercs, just to name a few. Even the smaller quests do a great job fleshing out the world and giving character to the various NPCs. You learn a lot about the different nations of Alrest just from seeing how these people interact in their day-to-day lives.
Blade Quests are another great addition. Every optional Rare Blade has their own dedicated side story, complete with fully voiced cutscenes. These help elevate the Blades from just being numbers on a sheet to being fully defined characters, with certain ones like Dagas having really good arcs throughout their quests. And of course, the Xenosaga fan in me will always appreciate KOS-MOS getting story relevance, even if it is self-contained.
Not only are these quests intrinsically engaging, but they offer great rewards. You get additional EXP, money, and SP (for Drivers’ Affinity Charts) for each one you complete. Blade Quests even grant additional abilities for the Rare Blades. This constant stream of rewards creates this really satisfying gameplay loop of completing quests, getting stronger, and taking on tougher quests. If you’re worried about becoming overleveled after doing all the side quests, don’t worry; all EXP gained from quests is completely optional. Don’t get me wrong, there are some stinkers among the quests. Ursula’s Blade Quest and the Nopon Doubloon quest are pretty annoying, and the compass isn’t too helpful for certain navigational challenges. But the batting average is pretty damn high, and the side quests are overall one of my favorite parts of the game.
If that wasn’t enough for you, Xenoblade 2 offers additional side content to keep you busy. Completing side quests and buying items in an area increases that area’s Development, which lowers prices and opens up new items in the stores. Buying all the items in a store even lets you buy the store, which grants a passive buff during overworld gameplay. This a lot to the game mechanically and thematically, since you’re helping people around the world through your actions and have much greater incentive to interact with the different shops. I also really like Salvaging as a way to integrate Rex’s passion into the gameplay and as a means of making money. (Seriously, you can get a ton of money with just a little salvaging. It’s insane.)
The last major mechanic I want to talk about is the Merc Group, which basically lets you send your idle blades on special missions. These are often used for Blade Quests, normal quests, and unlocking more of a store’s inventory. They also grant additional EXP, money, items, and help unlock skills for the blades. I love this feature. It adds to the sense of progression since you’ll probably have a Merc Mission running at all times, and also helps if you want to develop a Blade without using them in combat. It also makes all the blades feel useful, since you’ll often need specific field skills to start a Merc Mission or to have it complete faster. All this great content doesn’t even cover the additional difficulty modes, New Game Plus, or Challenge Mode, all of which add fantastic depth and replayability just by themselves. With all these different mechanics combined, Xenoblade 2 is a masterwork of game design.
But there’s far more to it than that. Many people say an RPG is only as good as its story, and this story is certainly as good as the RPG behind it. The story of finding hope in a dying world is done beautifully, and leads to quite possibly the best final act I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s exciting, well-paced, and isn’t afraid to go dark places, but still remains a heartwarming and optimistic tale throughout. I won’t go into detail here for the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free and not tripling its length. Instead, I’d like to dispel a popular myth surrounding this game.
Many people have claimed the story is “tropey anime garbage” and that it doesn’t match the serious tone Xenoblade 1 had. Yes, the story has silly moments, but they pretty much vanish halfway into Chapter 4, and they never interrupt the more serious parts. There are only 10, maybe 15 minutes of these scenes over the course of a 100+-hour game. If that’s enough for you to dismiss a game, then I’m sorry, but I think that’s incredibly shallow. Plus, this game can actually be really funny when it wants to. Throwaway lines like Pupunin’s “wife ran out on me”, Heart-to-Hearts like the cooking disaster in Argentum, and pretty much everything involving Zeke von Genbu just make me crack up. Not to mention, Xenoblade 1 has plenty of light-hearted moments: Colonel Vangarre, Riki’s introduction, half of Reyn’s dialogue. Hell, one of the most emotional scenes in the game was turned into a meme by the fandom, which got big enough for Nintendo of America to post about it on Twitter. I think at least a little comedy is fully acceptable.
This fantastic story is backed by an even better cast. Every member of the main party is memorable, well-written and has at least a few great moments throughout the story. Sure, Morag and Brighid are a little underused and Tora has some…questionable moments, but that doesn’t make the overall cast any less lovable. Each of them supports the game’s central themes in some way, on top of having some great interactions both in the main story and outside of it. The villains are just as good, easily being my favorite cast of antagonists in all of Xenoblade. All the major antagonists and even a few of the minor ones have interesting roles to play in the story, complex motivations that intertwine and often clash, and wonderfully interact with both the thematic material and the main characters. Again, I won’t go into spoiler territory, but there is one character I will talk about quite a bit.
Rex is a fantastic main character. Sure, he may look like a dorky kid with a stupid outfit and subpar voice acting, but give him a chance and you’ll know why this kid made himself the Aegis’ Driver. Even in a world brought to the brink of destruction, suffering from the mistakes of its people, he keeps smiling. He helps everyone he can, tries to understand even the worst of humanity, and fights for its best. It’s amazing how profoundly Rex impacts the people and places around him just by being the good person he is. Not just Pyra and Mythra, but the other party members, the villains, and all the people you meet along the way. As amazing a portrayal as Future Redeemed gave Rex, it could only do so thanks to Xenoblade 2’s rock-solid foundation. And all this came from a humble salvager with a big heart.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will always be a special game to me. It came into my life at an important time and helped my broaden my horizons for what games were capable of. But even considering that, I think it’s a masterwork of game design and storytelling, and my appreciation for it only grows with each passing day. I know it’s not for everyone, but please, give this game a chance if you haven’t already. Don’t dismiss it because a YouTube comedy video made it look bad. I’m sure you’ll find something to love.
Alright it got good after 100 hours
objectively the best xenoblade game, only narrowly not my fave entry but all 3 hit for me big time.
unfairly viewed as a waifubot sim, I think people need to fuck off with their adhd addled minds and just play it for it what it is which is peakblade
unfairly viewed as a waifubot sim, I think people need to fuck off with their adhd addled minds and just play it for it what it is which is peakblade
Tales of Arise
2021
This review contains spoilers
The patience required to finish this game was pretty unparalleled with any other game i've touched. I'm a jrpg fan and I can easily sink a hundred hours into a game with a great story and characters, unfortunately I felt like this game had neither. Perhaps i've been spoiled now with some fantastic rpgs but this game left such a bitter taste in my mouth that once I had finally finished it, it felt akin to being free from some heavy burden.
Why did you play it then? Why did you finish it?
LOL I don't even know, i've been quite hooked on jrpgs since the pandemic started and this won best rpg of the year at the game awards + i'd heard good things I guess. Sometimes you gotta take a risk and sometimes it pays off! Sometimes it does not. As for finishing it, I guess I just felt like I had some kind of obligation. I traded in a lot of games, got a ton of instore credit and so I decided to spend most of it on this. I've also had quite a habit of abandoning games too soon and was determined to get this one done no matter how tedious and mind numbing of an experience it felt.
Now with no offence to people that really enjoyed this game, i'm glad you got something out of it, truly, but to me playing this game felt akin to bumping into someone you used to know (and don't like) in the street. It's awkward, goes on for longer than it should and you want to just dismiss yourself but for some reason you can't. The entire experience from first locking eyes to finally getting away from it are an experience that you would rather just forget about.
Now, with that said, this game does have a few things going for it in my opinion! Visually it's a treat, one of the best looking and detailed anime games on the market - the presentation is stellar with its fluid, gorgeous menus & interface and the game runs and plays with buttery smoothness. Plus there are hints in this games' combat and narrative of something that has the potential to be pretty worthwhile, but unfortunately it all just left me feeling unfulfilled and like i'd wasted 50 hours of my life. Frankly if this game didn't look as good as it does, it would be a full star lower in my ranking I think.
Combat in tales of arise feels quite awkward to me - with so much going on onscreen it often just feels like chaos, with animations going off all over the place and a complete overload of voices, sound effects, blaring music, micromanaging items and skills - and on top of all that the characters love to have entire conversations that you can barely make out over the sheer NOISE of it all. So much of combat just felt like throwing out moves to see what works until you can rack up a finishing move all the while constantly diving out the way of incoming attacks that seem to come randomly from all directions. I actually felt like I got pretty good at it in time but it didn't change the fact that it's hard to even tell what's going on. Despite this, non-boss battles were going by in a flash on normal difficulty, sometimes within about 15 seconds you could rack up a finisher and just end the combat scenario there and then. This meant that all of tales of arise's different attack/party combos, mechanics, skill and item management, abilities from the skill tree and all manner of other things feel pointless. If you can just spam attack and dodge occasionally when needed you can easily finish a fight before you even have time to invest yourself in it, that's how I felt anyway.
Then there's the boss fights and oh boy they're something. Because of how janky the ai feels in this game, they get hit and knocked down constantly. Particularly in the early game, it doesn't matter how well you play with your own player character, your supporting characters feel completely moronic. Even with different battle strategies assigned, I noticed little to no difference in how my fellow party members acted in combat, often standing right in the line of fire and dying. As a result boss fights just felt like dipping in and out of the pause menu to revive them over and over again. Did I mention that using items in this game and switching party members is also really slow and clunky? Yeah, as is targeting the enemy or weak point you actually want to focus. The whole thing feels like a complete nightmare. All that complete with the overwhelming noise of this game crafts something that I would describe as feeling like having hot coffee thrown in my face for 15 minutes straight during boss fights. Sometimes I would put it on 'story' difficulty just to be done with them. To make matters worse, the boss characters SUCK, they are uninteresting caricatures who may as well be saying 'i'm an evil dictator and/or a hideous monster, now kill me!'. The whole time I felt like I was doing something wrong, like am I just this bad at the game? A quick google search showed other people having similar experiences and I felt like I had to really finetune my team, craft the optimal equipment for every fight and grind just to keep them from dying over and over again. I want to enjoy the combat and actually participate in the fight but that's hard when half the time I feel like i'm sifting through my inventory for every healing item I can find. Oh and healing items are really expensive and money is surprisingly scarce, so have fun with that!
The overworld stuff in arise is okay at best. Running around these big, gorgeous environments / areas is nice to an extent. Sure they're marvellous visually, but they're also flat, pretty empty, generally uninteresting and moving around them feels pretty boring. Plus you need to move through them a lot because fast travel and figuring out the map in this game is certainly quite obtuse, plus sections of the game purposefully cut off fast travel entirely so you spend a total of many hours just trudging through familiar territory for no real reason. Still, it's not the worst part of the game and once you figure out the rather confusing map format, travelling around does get easier.
Now onto my biggest woe in this game - the story and characters. Both of these things in Tales of Arise are praised to no end and I do not get it! Compared to say, persona or final fantasy, the narrative and characters just feel like a mess of ideas. The characters are over-designed and yet, somehow, still painfully one dimensional in my opinion and the story comes off like some bad sci fi drama show that doesn't know when to end and takes itself way too seriously. Tales of Arise is absolutely filled with these 'skits', some optional, some not. They're basically short, comic-book like framed scenarios that play out in the game to serve the story and the characters. Only thing is, they honestly do little to serve either? So many of them feel utterly pointless and repetitive to me, going over the same stuff i've literally just seen happen in game or repeating the same lines i've already heard a thousand times about shionne's thorns or alphen's mask or rinwell's owl - I do not care! I just don't care! Please say something new and interesting. When I compare this to, say, the social links/confidants in persona 3-5 the difference is so noticeable. In persona i'm always interested in what's going on and what they have to say but in tales of arise I just want them to stop talking. It's a shame because I want to like it! I like it when games try to actually deepen the story and the characters but in arise it falls completely flat.
Now the game's actual story. It's a mess. What starts off as a pretty harmless, albeit cliche narrative about warring worlds and taking back the main character's home planet devolves into something so mind numbingly stupid that I was racing through dialogue and cutscenes thinking 'what am I even looking at, this makes no sense'. There's so many pointless twists and turns and threads of plotlines that simply aren't necessary. The last 10 hours in particular are so egregious with painful sections of inane dialogue and more macguffins than a star wars film that I so desperately wanted it to be over. The helganquil and the great spirit and the renas alma and all this other completely pointless story rubbish don't need to exist! They bloat out the game, pad out the story and ultimately do not matter even remotely once the final cutscene plays. It feels like the writers just had a field day coming up with things they wanted to include and just stuffed them into the last 10 hours with little to no consideration on how it will all tie together to create something actually impactful! Therefore when the final cutscene played and it was supposed to be all emotional, I felt nothing. Which is such a shame! Because I do think that if you really trimmed this whole experience down it could be better! Not good, but better at least. I mean I like to think that. It's bad, I hate it. I'm sorry people that like this game, I just think the story fucking SUCKS the end hahaha.
Anyway yeah those are my thoughts, sorry there was a lot of ranting but after I put as many hours as I did into the game (with what felt like pure obligation), not to mention having to grind quite a lot, I just needed this for some kind of catharsis and closure. This game made me lose too many braincells, rest in peace my fallen brothers and sisters. But hey i'll give this game credit where it's due for its awesome visuals! That's enough to redeem it right? Right? Ha. Ha...
Why did you play it then? Why did you finish it?
LOL I don't even know, i've been quite hooked on jrpgs since the pandemic started and this won best rpg of the year at the game awards + i'd heard good things I guess. Sometimes you gotta take a risk and sometimes it pays off! Sometimes it does not. As for finishing it, I guess I just felt like I had some kind of obligation. I traded in a lot of games, got a ton of instore credit and so I decided to spend most of it on this. I've also had quite a habit of abandoning games too soon and was determined to get this one done no matter how tedious and mind numbing of an experience it felt.
Now with no offence to people that really enjoyed this game, i'm glad you got something out of it, truly, but to me playing this game felt akin to bumping into someone you used to know (and don't like) in the street. It's awkward, goes on for longer than it should and you want to just dismiss yourself but for some reason you can't. The entire experience from first locking eyes to finally getting away from it are an experience that you would rather just forget about.
Now, with that said, this game does have a few things going for it in my opinion! Visually it's a treat, one of the best looking and detailed anime games on the market - the presentation is stellar with its fluid, gorgeous menus & interface and the game runs and plays with buttery smoothness. Plus there are hints in this games' combat and narrative of something that has the potential to be pretty worthwhile, but unfortunately it all just left me feeling unfulfilled and like i'd wasted 50 hours of my life. Frankly if this game didn't look as good as it does, it would be a full star lower in my ranking I think.
Combat in tales of arise feels quite awkward to me - with so much going on onscreen it often just feels like chaos, with animations going off all over the place and a complete overload of voices, sound effects, blaring music, micromanaging items and skills - and on top of all that the characters love to have entire conversations that you can barely make out over the sheer NOISE of it all. So much of combat just felt like throwing out moves to see what works until you can rack up a finishing move all the while constantly diving out the way of incoming attacks that seem to come randomly from all directions. I actually felt like I got pretty good at it in time but it didn't change the fact that it's hard to even tell what's going on. Despite this, non-boss battles were going by in a flash on normal difficulty, sometimes within about 15 seconds you could rack up a finisher and just end the combat scenario there and then. This meant that all of tales of arise's different attack/party combos, mechanics, skill and item management, abilities from the skill tree and all manner of other things feel pointless. If you can just spam attack and dodge occasionally when needed you can easily finish a fight before you even have time to invest yourself in it, that's how I felt anyway.
Then there's the boss fights and oh boy they're something. Because of how janky the ai feels in this game, they get hit and knocked down constantly. Particularly in the early game, it doesn't matter how well you play with your own player character, your supporting characters feel completely moronic. Even with different battle strategies assigned, I noticed little to no difference in how my fellow party members acted in combat, often standing right in the line of fire and dying. As a result boss fights just felt like dipping in and out of the pause menu to revive them over and over again. Did I mention that using items in this game and switching party members is also really slow and clunky? Yeah, as is targeting the enemy or weak point you actually want to focus. The whole thing feels like a complete nightmare. All that complete with the overwhelming noise of this game crafts something that I would describe as feeling like having hot coffee thrown in my face for 15 minutes straight during boss fights. Sometimes I would put it on 'story' difficulty just to be done with them. To make matters worse, the boss characters SUCK, they are uninteresting caricatures who may as well be saying 'i'm an evil dictator and/or a hideous monster, now kill me!'. The whole time I felt like I was doing something wrong, like am I just this bad at the game? A quick google search showed other people having similar experiences and I felt like I had to really finetune my team, craft the optimal equipment for every fight and grind just to keep them from dying over and over again. I want to enjoy the combat and actually participate in the fight but that's hard when half the time I feel like i'm sifting through my inventory for every healing item I can find. Oh and healing items are really expensive and money is surprisingly scarce, so have fun with that!
The overworld stuff in arise is okay at best. Running around these big, gorgeous environments / areas is nice to an extent. Sure they're marvellous visually, but they're also flat, pretty empty, generally uninteresting and moving around them feels pretty boring. Plus you need to move through them a lot because fast travel and figuring out the map in this game is certainly quite obtuse, plus sections of the game purposefully cut off fast travel entirely so you spend a total of many hours just trudging through familiar territory for no real reason. Still, it's not the worst part of the game and once you figure out the rather confusing map format, travelling around does get easier.
Now onto my biggest woe in this game - the story and characters. Both of these things in Tales of Arise are praised to no end and I do not get it! Compared to say, persona or final fantasy, the narrative and characters just feel like a mess of ideas. The characters are over-designed and yet, somehow, still painfully one dimensional in my opinion and the story comes off like some bad sci fi drama show that doesn't know when to end and takes itself way too seriously. Tales of Arise is absolutely filled with these 'skits', some optional, some not. They're basically short, comic-book like framed scenarios that play out in the game to serve the story and the characters. Only thing is, they honestly do little to serve either? So many of them feel utterly pointless and repetitive to me, going over the same stuff i've literally just seen happen in game or repeating the same lines i've already heard a thousand times about shionne's thorns or alphen's mask or rinwell's owl - I do not care! I just don't care! Please say something new and interesting. When I compare this to, say, the social links/confidants in persona 3-5 the difference is so noticeable. In persona i'm always interested in what's going on and what they have to say but in tales of arise I just want them to stop talking. It's a shame because I want to like it! I like it when games try to actually deepen the story and the characters but in arise it falls completely flat.
Now the game's actual story. It's a mess. What starts off as a pretty harmless, albeit cliche narrative about warring worlds and taking back the main character's home planet devolves into something so mind numbingly stupid that I was racing through dialogue and cutscenes thinking 'what am I even looking at, this makes no sense'. There's so many pointless twists and turns and threads of plotlines that simply aren't necessary. The last 10 hours in particular are so egregious with painful sections of inane dialogue and more macguffins than a star wars film that I so desperately wanted it to be over. The helganquil and the great spirit and the renas alma and all this other completely pointless story rubbish don't need to exist! They bloat out the game, pad out the story and ultimately do not matter even remotely once the final cutscene plays. It feels like the writers just had a field day coming up with things they wanted to include and just stuffed them into the last 10 hours with little to no consideration on how it will all tie together to create something actually impactful! Therefore when the final cutscene played and it was supposed to be all emotional, I felt nothing. Which is such a shame! Because I do think that if you really trimmed this whole experience down it could be better! Not good, but better at least. I mean I like to think that. It's bad, I hate it. I'm sorry people that like this game, I just think the story fucking SUCKS the end hahaha.
Anyway yeah those are my thoughts, sorry there was a lot of ranting but after I put as many hours as I did into the game (with what felt like pure obligation), not to mention having to grind quite a lot, I just needed this for some kind of catharsis and closure. This game made me lose too many braincells, rest in peace my fallen brothers and sisters. But hey i'll give this game credit where it's due for its awesome visuals! That's enough to redeem it right? Right? Ha. Ha...
This review contains spoilers
Hope...is everlasting.
Where to even begin to review an expansion this deep and absorbing, I don't want to spend all day gushing about how much I loved this, describing every captivating scene at length, but I certainly could and I still will to some extent! Fundamentally, shadowbringers is an essential experience with probably the greatest final fantasy story i've ever seen. Simultaneously it is inherently tied to the overarching story built up since the game's troublesome launch and it is standalone, signalling a new beginning for the hero of the story and their allies.
Narratively this takes a big risk in my opinion, from the ending of stormblood the main setting of FFXIV is in a state of chaos and uncertainty, there are multiple angles this story could have taken that would have made sense and yet it chooses to shoot off in a wildly unexpected direction, reinventing itself in an unprecedented fashion in the process as the story's hero is thrust into an entirely new and alien world to combat threats new and old. Having to essentially begin again after everything you have achieved is a big statement and one I was very excited to see play out. The vibe of this new setting and this new direction are ushered in with an outstanding soundtrack, beautiful new locations that take full advantage of the increased potential of the next console generation and new content that is some of the best to date.
Shadowbringers marks a leap in the quality of the game's writing and adds new layers of depth to many of the existing mysteries and lore of the game's universe, deepening their meaning and my own understanding in the process. The motivations of the game's primary antagonists is established gradually through the actions of this expansions' primary villain, one of the greatest i've seen in the medium to date - Emet Selch. Emet perpetuates everything that I think works best about this expansion, since he subverts our expectations and plays on my sense of curiosity as well as the sense of treading alien ground. What makes Emet so fascinating to me isn't just that he is somehow irresistably charming and likeable despite his clearly unforgivable actions, its that he chooses to believe in the player character and follows along for the ride with no interference until the end. At this point the hero is so absurdly powerful and Emet recognises this, choosing to put his faith in him that they could somehow work together and faith in the sundered as a result; wanting to explore this possibility he serves much of the story as an onlooker and at times, even lends a helping hand. He single handedly expands the possibilities of what it means to be a villain in this universe and the ancient knowledge he dispenses (and even physically forms in the case of amaurot) reinvents the perceived truths of this game's history and future, greatly intensifying their meaning and our own motivations in the process, reaching new heights previously unexplored in any other point in the story.
Beyond this, there are mysteries, histories and motivations to be explored at many, many other angles, from the heroic sacrifices and lasting impact of the warriors of darkness and minfilia, old adversaries and allies respectively, to the garnering of new allies from many different walks of life, each coming with their own deep and interesting cultures, values and beliefs. The setting of norvrandt is large enough to have several new, exciting and unique areas to explore, but it is also contained, functioning as the last bastion of a world that has faced unimaginable calamity. With the introduction of new faces such as the Crystal Exarch and Ryne (Minfilia) to those returning such as Ardbert and to our returning allies who have remained in the first for far longer than was ever expected, almost every character tied to this expansion's main story show development and intrigue on a newfound scale. The emotional highs reached for here far exceed anything I had grown accustomed to thus far and I was completely absorbed and moved by each of my allies and my rivals' stories. The one that won my heart most of all was the Exarch. Any suspicion I had of him early on due to his enigmatic appearance was quickly removed once it was established that my allies were brought here by mistake due to a fumbled summoning spell on his part, which also served to humanise him and make him that much likeable to me. I wanted desperately to know why he had done so and was expecting vague and inconsequential retorts but instead, to my surprise, he largely wears his heart on his sleeve and is willing to answer pretty much all of your questions if there is time, which also served to strengthen my fondness for him. This fondness gradually grew to a real love for this character, the sheer enormity of his burden and his utter, unabated belief in me captured my heart and made me want to help him in turn. All beats with this character worked for me and seeing him get his happy ending is one of the most victorious moments in the entire story. Nobody deserves it like he does.
Two of my other favourites get plenty of screentime and no shortage of development in this story - the twins, Alphinaud and Alisaie. As is their nature, they approach the crisis in Norvrandt from two entirely different directions, with Alphinaud taking a more passive, diplomatic and political approach in Kholusia while Alisaie fights on the frontlines and helps those affected by the monstrous sin eaters on the ground in Amh Araeng. Both come with their own challenges which we lend our assistance with, both branching storylines serving our understanding of both the terrifying physical threats the people face and the political turmoil and manipulation under the surface - which is feeding lies and egocentrism within the ranks of Eulmore, a belief of superiority which eventually festers into all out war (Vauthry is another great villain with a fantastic VA, he's basically a massive manchild with illusions of paradise who throws constant tantrums and regularly made me laugh). The twin's different approaches bring about lasting change and an overwhelmingly positive impact to the people and the land of the first, strengthening their resolves and fostering the unity between the two when they both play to their strengths. Similarly moving stories such as those of Thancred and Ryne's relationship and father/daughter like bond which grows with time, the heartbreaking, moving and captivating story of Ardbert's final task and the inspiring resolve of the people of the Crystarium all come with their own messages of hope, community and the perseverance to build a better future that you may never see.
Even the minor/side characters have many chances to shine in this expansion such as the ever lovable and joyful eulmore couple of Chai-Nuzz and Dulia-Chai, who strive to be better and do better for their neighbours, Lyna, the devoted defender and guard captain of the Crystarium and Feo Ul, an affectionate and protective pixie whom we befriend (and are often scolded by). Each of them bring a different flavour and are unequivocally endearing to me in their own ways.
As for the actual content, shadowbringers significantly improves on the game's dungeons, trials and raids with its increased challenge, awesome visual setpieces, great trust interactions, outstanding music and interesting and unique boss mechanics that go beyond just 'dodge or mitigate the attack'. The new trust options allowing you to take who you want into a dungeon is a brilliant idea basically turning dungeons into a little jrpg excursion and the little pieces of characterisation sprinkled into the flavour of the dialogue and your allies' animated reactions to things such as the 'bridge' moment in Dohn Mheg are so great. The story serves the drama which serves the content, the soundtrack serves everything in unison and it all comes together to make for an incredible experience all round, it just ties together beautifully and I only wish it was able to accomodate slightly better graphics but I understand the undertaking that must be for an MMO of this scale and ambition. The bonus content such as the Nier raids, Eden raids and weapon trials each deserve their own appreciation too, some of the best side content that i've seen in the whole game wraps up this top quality expansion. The payoff here made everything leading up to it wholely worth it and though there are parts of this story that do trail off into some busywork and somewhat inconsequential meandering, its far limited compared to what I was used to and at the best of times, it even helps to break up the pacing in a way I actually welcome! This is a must play for any final fantasy fan, its just such a gigantic task to be able to reach and appreciate it, but I am so glad that I did.
Where to even begin to review an expansion this deep and absorbing, I don't want to spend all day gushing about how much I loved this, describing every captivating scene at length, but I certainly could and I still will to some extent! Fundamentally, shadowbringers is an essential experience with probably the greatest final fantasy story i've ever seen. Simultaneously it is inherently tied to the overarching story built up since the game's troublesome launch and it is standalone, signalling a new beginning for the hero of the story and their allies.
Narratively this takes a big risk in my opinion, from the ending of stormblood the main setting of FFXIV is in a state of chaos and uncertainty, there are multiple angles this story could have taken that would have made sense and yet it chooses to shoot off in a wildly unexpected direction, reinventing itself in an unprecedented fashion in the process as the story's hero is thrust into an entirely new and alien world to combat threats new and old. Having to essentially begin again after everything you have achieved is a big statement and one I was very excited to see play out. The vibe of this new setting and this new direction are ushered in with an outstanding soundtrack, beautiful new locations that take full advantage of the increased potential of the next console generation and new content that is some of the best to date.
Shadowbringers marks a leap in the quality of the game's writing and adds new layers of depth to many of the existing mysteries and lore of the game's universe, deepening their meaning and my own understanding in the process. The motivations of the game's primary antagonists is established gradually through the actions of this expansions' primary villain, one of the greatest i've seen in the medium to date - Emet Selch. Emet perpetuates everything that I think works best about this expansion, since he subverts our expectations and plays on my sense of curiosity as well as the sense of treading alien ground. What makes Emet so fascinating to me isn't just that he is somehow irresistably charming and likeable despite his clearly unforgivable actions, its that he chooses to believe in the player character and follows along for the ride with no interference until the end. At this point the hero is so absurdly powerful and Emet recognises this, choosing to put his faith in him that they could somehow work together and faith in the sundered as a result; wanting to explore this possibility he serves much of the story as an onlooker and at times, even lends a helping hand. He single handedly expands the possibilities of what it means to be a villain in this universe and the ancient knowledge he dispenses (and even physically forms in the case of amaurot) reinvents the perceived truths of this game's history and future, greatly intensifying their meaning and our own motivations in the process, reaching new heights previously unexplored in any other point in the story.
Beyond this, there are mysteries, histories and motivations to be explored at many, many other angles, from the heroic sacrifices and lasting impact of the warriors of darkness and minfilia, old adversaries and allies respectively, to the garnering of new allies from many different walks of life, each coming with their own deep and interesting cultures, values and beliefs. The setting of norvrandt is large enough to have several new, exciting and unique areas to explore, but it is also contained, functioning as the last bastion of a world that has faced unimaginable calamity. With the introduction of new faces such as the Crystal Exarch and Ryne (Minfilia) to those returning such as Ardbert and to our returning allies who have remained in the first for far longer than was ever expected, almost every character tied to this expansion's main story show development and intrigue on a newfound scale. The emotional highs reached for here far exceed anything I had grown accustomed to thus far and I was completely absorbed and moved by each of my allies and my rivals' stories. The one that won my heart most of all was the Exarch. Any suspicion I had of him early on due to his enigmatic appearance was quickly removed once it was established that my allies were brought here by mistake due to a fumbled summoning spell on his part, which also served to humanise him and make him that much likeable to me. I wanted desperately to know why he had done so and was expecting vague and inconsequential retorts but instead, to my surprise, he largely wears his heart on his sleeve and is willing to answer pretty much all of your questions if there is time, which also served to strengthen my fondness for him. This fondness gradually grew to a real love for this character, the sheer enormity of his burden and his utter, unabated belief in me captured my heart and made me want to help him in turn. All beats with this character worked for me and seeing him get his happy ending is one of the most victorious moments in the entire story. Nobody deserves it like he does.
Two of my other favourites get plenty of screentime and no shortage of development in this story - the twins, Alphinaud and Alisaie. As is their nature, they approach the crisis in Norvrandt from two entirely different directions, with Alphinaud taking a more passive, diplomatic and political approach in Kholusia while Alisaie fights on the frontlines and helps those affected by the monstrous sin eaters on the ground in Amh Araeng. Both come with their own challenges which we lend our assistance with, both branching storylines serving our understanding of both the terrifying physical threats the people face and the political turmoil and manipulation under the surface - which is feeding lies and egocentrism within the ranks of Eulmore, a belief of superiority which eventually festers into all out war (Vauthry is another great villain with a fantastic VA, he's basically a massive manchild with illusions of paradise who throws constant tantrums and regularly made me laugh). The twin's different approaches bring about lasting change and an overwhelmingly positive impact to the people and the land of the first, strengthening their resolves and fostering the unity between the two when they both play to their strengths. Similarly moving stories such as those of Thancred and Ryne's relationship and father/daughter like bond which grows with time, the heartbreaking, moving and captivating story of Ardbert's final task and the inspiring resolve of the people of the Crystarium all come with their own messages of hope, community and the perseverance to build a better future that you may never see.
Even the minor/side characters have many chances to shine in this expansion such as the ever lovable and joyful eulmore couple of Chai-Nuzz and Dulia-Chai, who strive to be better and do better for their neighbours, Lyna, the devoted defender and guard captain of the Crystarium and Feo Ul, an affectionate and protective pixie whom we befriend (and are often scolded by). Each of them bring a different flavour and are unequivocally endearing to me in their own ways.
As for the actual content, shadowbringers significantly improves on the game's dungeons, trials and raids with its increased challenge, awesome visual setpieces, great trust interactions, outstanding music and interesting and unique boss mechanics that go beyond just 'dodge or mitigate the attack'. The new trust options allowing you to take who you want into a dungeon is a brilliant idea basically turning dungeons into a little jrpg excursion and the little pieces of characterisation sprinkled into the flavour of the dialogue and your allies' animated reactions to things such as the 'bridge' moment in Dohn Mheg are so great. The story serves the drama which serves the content, the soundtrack serves everything in unison and it all comes together to make for an incredible experience all round, it just ties together beautifully and I only wish it was able to accomodate slightly better graphics but I understand the undertaking that must be for an MMO of this scale and ambition. The bonus content such as the Nier raids, Eden raids and weapon trials each deserve their own appreciation too, some of the best side content that i've seen in the whole game wraps up this top quality expansion. The payoff here made everything leading up to it wholely worth it and though there are parts of this story that do trail off into some busywork and somewhat inconsequential meandering, its far limited compared to what I was used to and at the best of times, it even helps to break up the pacing in a way I actually welcome! This is a must play for any final fantasy fan, its just such a gigantic task to be able to reach and appreciate it, but I am so glad that I did.
Stellar Blade
2024
I had a great time playing this game, exploring the world, and finding secrets / hidden items. The soundtrack is 1000% my sort of deal, it's incredible. However there are a lot of weak links that keep it from being truly amazing.
#1, the characters are incredibly weak. Eve is the most nothing protagonist I've seen in a while. Yeah she has cool animations when she kills some of the bosses, but other than that she's totally sauceless. I like the customization of her hair, outfits, however, it erases the strong identity a character like 2B or Bayonetta has. They are the most likely candidates for comparison, and Eve has N O T H I N G going for her personality to even put her on the same level as either of them. (And I also think 2B is boring, A2 & Kaine are way cooler chars in that series, but like, Eve is far more boring than all that). Adam, Lily, the support cast are just sort of there, and only really exist to hit you with a "twist" that you can see coming within the first hours of gameplay.
#2, the story, is just fine. There are some really good beats here, but it's so insanely derivative of Nier, that it made me just like, ok, I just want to go play Nier again now... it's fine to be inspired by your faves, but look at Alan Wake 2. Takes crazy inspo from Twin Peaks, but isn't, just Twin Peaks reskinned. It has its own identity and commentary etc on top of what influenced it. Stellar Blade, adds nierly nothing.
#3: the great desert. I took extreme issue w this area of the game. It's the second new bigger more open area in the game and they're both fucking deserts. That's weak. Not only that, but comparing to FF7 Rebirth's vast, sprawling areas & incredible topography, this is just a huge, waste of space & time desert that is largely flat, with just a few more explorable areas separated by minutes of running. It's poorly done. After the beginning of the game guides you through linear, tightly, smartly designed areas that have tons of small offshoot paths to explore, getting dumped into 2 large worthless wastelands back to back grinds the game's speed to a halt. which leads me to #4.
#4: pacing / endings. This is a really big misstep imo. There is a point of no return in the game that is about 60% through it, and in order to get the real ending you basically have to do the majority of all side content. This completely t-bones the pacing of the game, bc you are forced to spend an excess of time here wrapping up anything you want to take care of. In fact, my first run's playtime was DOUBLED at this segment. The game itself isn't really all that crazy long, but there is so much fluff in here, it's kind of a detriment, as you will not be progressing the story for a long while if you go for completionist stuff in this segment. The split at this junction gates you off from a lot of quests, and other things, and the balancing is bad. Once you're done w this you can go get one of the 3 endings. Now, there is only one save file. So if you want to plat the game, or maybe you just care about seeing all the diff ends, you can either: A: desync your PS5 from auto uploading save data, so that you can get 2 endings on 1 run, (you will, I guess, NEED to do 2 playthroughs regardless) B: defeat the final boss without dying--this will prevent you from being sent back and forced into an autosave so you can pick up at the final camp. So then you're forced to replay the game to get the other thing you missed.
#5 minor gameplay: the platforming can be extremely wonky, and there are some other minor complaints, like the lack of a map in many, but not all areas, and then the fact you don't have access to your robot doing anything until 25% through the game. The game is just trying to slowly dole out some mechanics here, but for me I found it kind of lame for the first 1/4 of the game--just too big a chunk of main progress imo for it to work. Fishing also kinda sucks unfortunately, I got more used to it, but. eh.
Nier gets away with this repetition of multiple endings because you gain different gameplay mechanics and different perspectives into the storyline. In Stellar Blade, this is not the case. It is truly just. The same game. But now you can unlock some outfit alt color variants which is fun.
I loved the soundtrack, the gameplay really gel'd with me; I didn't expect sluggish souls like 1v1's, but it really grew on me. Parrying was satisfying to me. I liked the design of the smaller, tighter levels. The graphics, textures, etc are great. The gameplay is probably better / smoother than Nier for sure. Overall I really liked it, and my personal experience is prob more like an 8/10 because I found it generally, extremely fun, but I can't in good conscious rate it higher bc it's not on THAT level, it doesn't succeed on every front.
#1, the characters are incredibly weak. Eve is the most nothing protagonist I've seen in a while. Yeah she has cool animations when she kills some of the bosses, but other than that she's totally sauceless. I like the customization of her hair, outfits, however, it erases the strong identity a character like 2B or Bayonetta has. They are the most likely candidates for comparison, and Eve has N O T H I N G going for her personality to even put her on the same level as either of them. (And I also think 2B is boring, A2 & Kaine are way cooler chars in that series, but like, Eve is far more boring than all that). Adam, Lily, the support cast are just sort of there, and only really exist to hit you with a "twist" that you can see coming within the first hours of gameplay.
#2, the story, is just fine. There are some really good beats here, but it's so insanely derivative of Nier, that it made me just like, ok, I just want to go play Nier again now... it's fine to be inspired by your faves, but look at Alan Wake 2. Takes crazy inspo from Twin Peaks, but isn't, just Twin Peaks reskinned. It has its own identity and commentary etc on top of what influenced it. Stellar Blade, adds nierly nothing.
#3: the great desert. I took extreme issue w this area of the game. It's the second new bigger more open area in the game and they're both fucking deserts. That's weak. Not only that, but comparing to FF7 Rebirth's vast, sprawling areas & incredible topography, this is just a huge, waste of space & time desert that is largely flat, with just a few more explorable areas separated by minutes of running. It's poorly done. After the beginning of the game guides you through linear, tightly, smartly designed areas that have tons of small offshoot paths to explore, getting dumped into 2 large worthless wastelands back to back grinds the game's speed to a halt. which leads me to #4.
#4: pacing / endings. This is a really big misstep imo. There is a point of no return in the game that is about 60% through it, and in order to get the real ending you basically have to do the majority of all side content. This completely t-bones the pacing of the game, bc you are forced to spend an excess of time here wrapping up anything you want to take care of. In fact, my first run's playtime was DOUBLED at this segment. The game itself isn't really all that crazy long, but there is so much fluff in here, it's kind of a detriment, as you will not be progressing the story for a long while if you go for completionist stuff in this segment. The split at this junction gates you off from a lot of quests, and other things, and the balancing is bad. Once you're done w this you can go get one of the 3 endings. Now, there is only one save file. So if you want to plat the game, or maybe you just care about seeing all the diff ends, you can either: A: desync your PS5 from auto uploading save data, so that you can get 2 endings on 1 run, (you will, I guess, NEED to do 2 playthroughs regardless) B: defeat the final boss without dying--this will prevent you from being sent back and forced into an autosave so you can pick up at the final camp. So then you're forced to replay the game to get the other thing you missed.
#5 minor gameplay: the platforming can be extremely wonky, and there are some other minor complaints, like the lack of a map in many, but not all areas, and then the fact you don't have access to your robot doing anything until 25% through the game. The game is just trying to slowly dole out some mechanics here, but for me I found it kind of lame for the first 1/4 of the game--just too big a chunk of main progress imo for it to work. Fishing also kinda sucks unfortunately, I got more used to it, but. eh.
Nier gets away with this repetition of multiple endings because you gain different gameplay mechanics and different perspectives into the storyline. In Stellar Blade, this is not the case. It is truly just. The same game. But now you can unlock some outfit alt color variants which is fun.
I loved the soundtrack, the gameplay really gel'd with me; I didn't expect sluggish souls like 1v1's, but it really grew on me. Parrying was satisfying to me. I liked the design of the smaller, tighter levels. The graphics, textures, etc are great. The gameplay is probably better / smoother than Nier for sure. Overall I really liked it, and my personal experience is prob more like an 8/10 because I found it generally, extremely fun, but I can't in good conscious rate it higher bc it's not on THAT level, it doesn't succeed on every front.
Do you ever stumble in one of those games that, despite not being perfect, it manages to cover certain specific things in such a smashingly perfect way that you can't help but give it the highest score ? Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is that game.
It has debated to hell and back how this game is definitely less balanced than its predecessor, especially due to its slow start and the not-exactly-ideal tutorials which omit some key info and also feel more tedious than they could've been if streamlined better. Yet, despite this, Xenoblade 2 managed to slip into my heart, right next to the first game.
The graphics, of course, make full display of the artistic creativity of Monolith Soft, which is able to put very unique spins on what could feel like familiar views in any other JRPGs, where the classic green plains are placed on the back of an enormous quadrupedal titan, while a complex set of caves, a massive lake and a medieval town are all stored inside the stomach of a huge whale-like beast.
The character-design has been another source of debate, but I've never found it bad, if anything I welcome a JRPG protagonist that seems to be coming out of the 90's in terms of weird, yet uniquely striking fashion. I prefer it to normal-looking clothes at the very least. The rest of the cast pretty much follow suit, going for an unapologetic vibe that fits the previous works of the main character designer, while also featuring some guest artists for some of the non-story Blades, including Tetsuya Nomura at his best on designing the main villains of the game.
As with the first game, the title shines in its main story cutscenes where the animators display an amazing craft in how they handle expressions and movements. I've been a huge fan of their direction ever since the first game.
The gameplay is where those previously mentioned problems start to pop up. Xenoblade 2 isn't a bad game, it's legit great once you understand its mechanics, but it's one of those games that will give to you as much as you're willing to give it back in return. its battle system based on elemental combos requires constant attention and a familiarity of the roles and abilities of the different blades, which can be unlocked through the story, side quests or through an in-game gacha system (one that thankfully doesn't involve real money).
Each blade is also crucial for exploring the world as, depending by their skills, they'll be able to unlock shortcuts or secret passages, some of which will be mandatory for some of the side quests. It's a very intriguing system, but unlocking the different abilities and tiers will take time and the game might sometime block the player's progress because of this, forcing them to grind away at the requirements to unlock the abilities needed to progress.
It all feels a bit too tedious for most people, while others might find themselves just vibing with the game and exploring around, clearing side quests and finding all the side-story content that the different blades will unlock through their own requirements.
For people that will be willing to put in some time, Xenoblade 2 will have lots of rewards of course, but it's undeniable that it won't be worth everyone's time, especially as the game sometimes does lack a bit of guidance as mentioned before.
The other side of contempt regards the game's story, which takes quite a bit to get going. It's not bad by any means, but the first part of the game is clearly a huge, careful setup that, much like its gameplay, will reward people who will be patient enough to wait for the game's plot to be ripe enough and show its real flavor, which, to be honest, has moved me to tears, as the characters shown their motivations and stories. Unluckily it's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling anything and one might have to make their own essay about just the plot of the game, as it's rich with interconnected themes about one's purpose, life, death and the dramatic nature of a Blade's life. It's a hell of a ride once it gets going, I assure you.
All of this is topped by an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It shouldn't be a surprise given the track record of the series, but this second title manages to repeat the success of the first game, by having several bangers in its song selections, both in battle themes and location themes, as well as its emotional tunes.
The lows of Xenoblade 2 are quite low due to an excessively tedious gameplay loop that might scare most at first and a plot that has a slow start, but the highs are also among the highest I've ever experienced in the genre. it's worth all of it in my opinion and it's one of those special games that, despite having quite a few crucial gripes, manages to hit me right in the heart and has been worth the whole experience.
It has debated to hell and back how this game is definitely less balanced than its predecessor, especially due to its slow start and the not-exactly-ideal tutorials which omit some key info and also feel more tedious than they could've been if streamlined better. Yet, despite this, Xenoblade 2 managed to slip into my heart, right next to the first game.
The graphics, of course, make full display of the artistic creativity of Monolith Soft, which is able to put very unique spins on what could feel like familiar views in any other JRPGs, where the classic green plains are placed on the back of an enormous quadrupedal titan, while a complex set of caves, a massive lake and a medieval town are all stored inside the stomach of a huge whale-like beast.
The character-design has been another source of debate, but I've never found it bad, if anything I welcome a JRPG protagonist that seems to be coming out of the 90's in terms of weird, yet uniquely striking fashion. I prefer it to normal-looking clothes at the very least. The rest of the cast pretty much follow suit, going for an unapologetic vibe that fits the previous works of the main character designer, while also featuring some guest artists for some of the non-story Blades, including Tetsuya Nomura at his best on designing the main villains of the game.
As with the first game, the title shines in its main story cutscenes where the animators display an amazing craft in how they handle expressions and movements. I've been a huge fan of their direction ever since the first game.
The gameplay is where those previously mentioned problems start to pop up. Xenoblade 2 isn't a bad game, it's legit great once you understand its mechanics, but it's one of those games that will give to you as much as you're willing to give it back in return. its battle system based on elemental combos requires constant attention and a familiarity of the roles and abilities of the different blades, which can be unlocked through the story, side quests or through an in-game gacha system (one that thankfully doesn't involve real money).
Each blade is also crucial for exploring the world as, depending by their skills, they'll be able to unlock shortcuts or secret passages, some of which will be mandatory for some of the side quests. It's a very intriguing system, but unlocking the different abilities and tiers will take time and the game might sometime block the player's progress because of this, forcing them to grind away at the requirements to unlock the abilities needed to progress.
It all feels a bit too tedious for most people, while others might find themselves just vibing with the game and exploring around, clearing side quests and finding all the side-story content that the different blades will unlock through their own requirements.
For people that will be willing to put in some time, Xenoblade 2 will have lots of rewards of course, but it's undeniable that it won't be worth everyone's time, especially as the game sometimes does lack a bit of guidance as mentioned before.
The other side of contempt regards the game's story, which takes quite a bit to get going. It's not bad by any means, but the first part of the game is clearly a huge, careful setup that, much like its gameplay, will reward people who will be patient enough to wait for the game's plot to be ripe enough and show its real flavor, which, to be honest, has moved me to tears, as the characters shown their motivations and stories. Unluckily it's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling anything and one might have to make their own essay about just the plot of the game, as it's rich with interconnected themes about one's purpose, life, death and the dramatic nature of a Blade's life. It's a hell of a ride once it gets going, I assure you.
All of this is topped by an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It shouldn't be a surprise given the track record of the series, but this second title manages to repeat the success of the first game, by having several bangers in its song selections, both in battle themes and location themes, as well as its emotional tunes.
The lows of Xenoblade 2 are quite low due to an excessively tedious gameplay loop that might scare most at first and a plot that has a slow start, but the highs are also among the highest I've ever experienced in the genre. it's worth all of it in my opinion and it's one of those special games that, despite having quite a few crucial gripes, manages to hit me right in the heart and has been worth the whole experience.
Final Fantasy XVI
2023
My fav movie I wish they could turn it into a game
Tales of Berseria
2016
Man where do i even start
An incredibly riveting tale of revenge, an elaborated interplay of "Do the means justify the ends" and vice versa, what does it truly mean to be alive/living and steering our lives in our own way through our own wills that ultimately decide our fates. All ideas explored and fleshed out extremely well.
Man Tales of berseria has one of my favourite casts in gaming, each character within the group is extremely likeable and interesting to see on screen interacting with others. And their own individual side quests strengthened the bond you as a player share with them, i love them so much. Each living by their own creeds/set of codes that mean so much to them. I had so much fun with them throughout my time with the game.
The gameplay is pretty damn fun and innovative if you know what you're doing for the most part. Had stretches where i would fight hoards and hoards of enemies cause the battle system was that damn fun to me.
Not to mention the ost is immaculate, True will one of the goat Osts in gaming for me ngl.
The game does have some small grievances for me but they are negligible in the grand scheme of things and were not enough to impede my enjoyment of the game.
Not to ramble anymore but yea i love this game with all my soul, certainly worth the time i put into it.
An incredibly riveting tale of revenge, an elaborated interplay of "Do the means justify the ends" and vice versa, what does it truly mean to be alive/living and steering our lives in our own way through our own wills that ultimately decide our fates. All ideas explored and fleshed out extremely well.
Man Tales of berseria has one of my favourite casts in gaming, each character within the group is extremely likeable and interesting to see on screen interacting with others. And their own individual side quests strengthened the bond you as a player share with them, i love them so much. Each living by their own creeds/set of codes that mean so much to them. I had so much fun with them throughout my time with the game.
The gameplay is pretty damn fun and innovative if you know what you're doing for the most part. Had stretches where i would fight hoards and hoards of enemies cause the battle system was that damn fun to me.
Not to mention the ost is immaculate, True will one of the goat Osts in gaming for me ngl.
The game does have some small grievances for me but they are negligible in the grand scheme of things and were not enough to impede my enjoyment of the game.
Not to ramble anymore but yea i love this game with all my soul, certainly worth the time i put into it.
Final Fantasy XV
2016
My first entry into the final fantasy series!
For the most part id like to think that my experience was more positive than negative. The game looks drop dead gorgeous, its pure eye candy and adds to the atmosphere. As well as having a great soundtrack, great voice acting and beautiful cinematic scenes to add to that. Was pretty cool having an open world setting and exploring it all with your friends type of thing. There was actually a decent bit of stuff you could get up to, it was fun goofing off with the cast for what it was worth.
But alas, this game is rather flawed. They kinda didnt have a clear idea of what direction they wanted to take with the story plus the slow pacing of it all. A lot of moments, which i thought were cool, would have been SOOO MUCH better if they gave time to properly develop the cast man. The gameplay was fun at first but then the novelty wore off as i was just holding one button to do all the attacking for me which threw me off after a while tbh. Plus some chapters were pretty uneventful and could DRAG like chapter 13.
For all the good, i do acknowledge its flaws but i cant help but like the charm the game has. Final fantasy 15 had the potential to be something great but just didnt live up to it. But from what i got from it im content with it tbh
For the most part id like to think that my experience was more positive than negative. The game looks drop dead gorgeous, its pure eye candy and adds to the atmosphere. As well as having a great soundtrack, great voice acting and beautiful cinematic scenes to add to that. Was pretty cool having an open world setting and exploring it all with your friends type of thing. There was actually a decent bit of stuff you could get up to, it was fun goofing off with the cast for what it was worth.
But alas, this game is rather flawed. They kinda didnt have a clear idea of what direction they wanted to take with the story plus the slow pacing of it all. A lot of moments, which i thought were cool, would have been SOOO MUCH better if they gave time to properly develop the cast man. The gameplay was fun at first but then the novelty wore off as i was just holding one button to do all the attacking for me which threw me off after a while tbh. Plus some chapters were pretty uneventful and could DRAG like chapter 13.
For all the good, i do acknowledge its flaws but i cant help but like the charm the game has. Final fantasy 15 had the potential to be something great but just didnt live up to it. But from what i got from it im content with it tbh
