Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Catch-all

For those interested, Xenoblade 2 is going to hit $35 on Walmart's website in a few hours for the Black Friday sale. Lowest price I've seen advertised anywhere

With that in mind, I'm probably going to get it as one of my big gaming purchases to play next year, but I'd like some kind GWJer to enable me a bit. I've mostly avoided this thread to avoid major spoilers (although I've still picked up a few), so some of this may have been covered before.

General vibes is that Xenoblade 2 is good, and more Xenoblade for those who want more Xenoblade. I loved the first game for the story, music, characters, and setting, sense of exploration, and Xenoblade X for....well really just the exploration, but that part was top shelf stuff as far as I was concerned. How does Xenoblade 2 stack up? It looks like it could be a coming of age story of sorts, but I'm guessing/hoping that's not all the story does.

And I've seen the game dinged for the anime way it treats some of it's female characters. I can probably roll my eyes and move on, but I'm curious how prevalent it is.

I loved it because it was more of what made the first game great - the exploration, the music, characters, the voice acting, even! Yeah, I really didn't like they way they treated some of the female characters (Dahlia and Pyra/Mythra are two of the most egregious), but I got over it. The sexiest female character IMO is the one who was fully clothed in a practical AF military uniform.

I finished both Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 2 in the last year, and while I loved both of them, Xenoblade 2 is my favorite. The female characters definitely get some obnoxious costumes, but the story, music, setting, and exploration are top notch. They improved on many of the mechanics in the first game, and the combat system is significantly better. If you liked Xenoblade 1 at all, I wouldn't hesitate to get Xenoblade 2.

As far as your concerns about the story go: in much the same way that Xenoblade 1 is a story about revenge that goes to many unexpected places while still remaining, in some ways, a story of revenge, Xenoblade 2 is a bit of a coming of age story that goes to many unexpected places without losing that core. I don't think you need to be worried that it'll tread water too long in that coming-of-age territory.

Well, I'm successfully enabled. I'll grab it when the sale goes up, and probably get to it once I'm ready to dial back my time with the new Smash Bros.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

As far as your concerns about the story go: in much the same way that Xenoblade 1 is a story about revenge that goes to many unexpected places while still remaining, in some ways, a story of revenge, Xenoblade 2 is a bit of a coming of age story that goes to many unexpected places without losing that core. I don't think you need to be worried that it'll tread water too long in that coming-of-age territory.

I figured that would be the case, but I'm glad to get confirmation.

OK, I'm now playing it. I started up the game and cleared the first chapter last night, and started the second chapter and made it to the city before shutting it off.

I'll post my impressions so far:
-This game looks dense in that Xenoblade way where there are systems layered on top of systems, but that I don't need to wrap my head around everything yet. If this is an 80-100 hour game, I'll have plenty of time to get the stats or affinities I need, and some of it may not even be necessary to finish the main story.
-I like big jumps and being able to jump on almost anything, but I liked XCX's lack of fall damage better. Realism is overrated.
-Rex and the dragon's voice acting is tolerable; Pyra and Nia's acting is superb.
-Since the first big open area in all 3 games is a field, it makes for an easy comparison as to which is best. Gaur Plains still has the best music.
-I still love that the Xenoblade games mix up levels, even in starting areas. I'm at level 9, and the normal monsters range from about 5-10, with some lv 16 birds who will just swoop in and ruin your day while you're distracted with another battle, and a random lv 82 ape that will ignore you as long as you leave him alone. This is one of those things that I think more games should do to make the world feel more natural and lived in, but few ever seem to.
-If I have my anime conventions right, Jin may wind up being a wild card later in the game, despite his stabby intro.

And I've also been spoiled on some, but certainly not all, of the plot points from later in the game, by either the internet or marketing. I'll post some of that in spoilers, so those who have finished the game can giggle at how wrong or right I may be.

POTENTIAL MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

Spoiler:

-I heard Nia is a Blade. Not sure about the story implications other than that, although maybe there can be one driver with a Blade, and that Blade has a Blade, and that Blade has a Blade, and so on. Bladeception.
-I heard that Shulk shows up at the very end of the game, and can be a Blade, which would suggest this is in the same world as XC1. The intro talked about the Architect from long ago; I wonder if Shulk was the Architect?
-Although Mythra hasn't shown up yet, I understand that she was the previous Aegis, which is expounded up on the Torna DLC. As well as Malos' backstory. Not yet sure on the nature of Pyra and Mythra, and if they are technically separate beings, or how any of that works. The Torna DLC being set before this game also explains why everyone is having mysterious conversations about how Pyra, the dragon, Malos, and Jin know each other.
-Not actually sure what the being the Aegis means, fortunately. I'm guessing it's a destroy/renew the world sort of thing.

I will not spoil anything, Sundown, but I will say this!

The XC1/XC2 connections - they are there, and, though I played the heck out of Chronicles 1, I had to look them up. I'll look forward to discussing more.

There are lots of characters added through the DLC content, which is sooooooo good, and I hope you've got it.

Nia is my favorite character in the game.

Sundown wrote:

POTENTIAL MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

*giggle*

Man after 270 hours and stepping away for a while, I'm not sure I'm ever going back. I loved the game while I played it, but the idea of dropping so much more time into it again just makes me want to run away. I never even finished NG+. I think I made it to chapter 4 or 5.

Zoso1701 wrote:

I will not spoil anything, Sundown, but I will say this!

The XC1/XC2 connections - they are there, and, though I played the heck out of Chronicles 1, I had to look them up. I'll look forward to discussing more.

There are lots of characters added through the DLC content, which is sooooooo good, and I hope you've got it.

Nia is my favorite character in the game.

Ok, good to know. And I'm not a lore hound for anything besides maybe the Legend of Heroes games, so there's a good chance I won't catch them. Not too worried about missing anything, then, since I'll probably go digging for all the stuff I missed once I beat it.

I don't have the expansion, since I was only really aware of the Torna ~ The Golden Country, and figured I would grab it sometime after I beat the main game. A quick glance at the internet makes it look like the Expansion pass includes the Torna story and a bunch of random DLC items. When you say the DLC content is good, are you specifically just referring to Torna, or is other stuff in the Expansion Pack worthwhile?

It’s worthwhile for the extra overdrive cores (which let you reassign blades whenever and are VERY rare in game) alone.

Shulk and Fiora (and ELMA) are in the DLC as blades too and welp I guess I need to try to access them now. I’ve only played Torna, haven’t done anything with the item DLC!

Well, I'll probably grab it then in the next couple of days. It looked like they dribble out the DLC items at specific story points, so it's not like I'll just be overpowered at the start.

I did pick up the DLC, and fortunately the game didn't rain too many broken items on me; well, I have 20 legendary blades to pull spin the wheel on, but I'm holding off on those so far.

I also made it to the beginning of chapter 3, and I feel like I have more of an idea how the combo system works now. Before, I had two problems: 1) Battles didn't last long enough to get to level 3, and 2) I didn't have a wind blade on me, so I couldn't do the third level chain to get a seal to happen. I still don't have a good wind blade, but with the bosses at the end of Ch.2, I feel like I had enough to work with to get a better grip on the systems.

Spoiler:

I thought the fight against Morag was going to be one of those unwinnable fights the way they set it up, but it turned out to be fairly simple. I haven't seen a fight yet like the first Metal Face fight in XC1, where I remember you had to learn how to topple or die trying.

And Xenoblade is big enough that I still have plenty of time to learn everything.

Fired up the game for the first time in forever. Still haven't finished it so wanted to get back on the train.

Decided to speed things up a bit by customizing the gameplay settings and on a lark I went and basically everything to easy and auto play and......I think I like it this way. After 60 hours I've tired out of the combat system because I feel like every battle is basically the same thing over and over again. With autobattle taking care of everything I can sit back and relax. It's a nice change.

Wow I didn't know there was an auto battle option, interesting...

I didn't, either. That's great!

I loved the combat in this game right up through the very end, but I'm a huge proponent of auto combat options in basically everything.

Yeah, you still control everything outside of battle, but man it's crazy how much more efficient the game is at playing itself than I am. And I find myself to be very efficient, honestly, but the game is always perfecting placement (side/back) and switching out Blades perfectly. I can't do it quite that well. No wasted movements, basically.

The really cool thing is I can watch more of the action instead of merely watching the different icons fill.

OK, I'm partway into Ch.3 now, and just learned where the Blade Crystals come from. By this point, I feel like I have a decent grasp on the combos, although since I can only carry two blades still, I can't carry around stacks elementals around to work off each other. Instead, I've come to a mostly happy compromise where everyone has either a fire or earth blade with them (and Rex has one of each), since they combo well together, and the AI seems pretty good at using their arts enough to fill their own meters so I can trigger the level 3 combo just using the AI, if I'm a little lucky and time things right.

I have a question for those who have finished. From earlier lurking in this thread, I think I saw that some field skills were necessary to advance in the story. With as little spoilers as possible, is that correct, and what skills will I need to for later? I have enough cores from the DLC that I can probably just spin the roulette wheel enough times to get them, and can have them leveled up enough by whenever those gates come.

The game makes sure you'll have the field skills you need. The catch is you'll have to level them up to make them high enough to use in the later parts of the game. To level up field skills you'll send them on Merc missions, which you'll unlock next chapter (I think).

Don't sweat it, you'll have so many Blades and common blades you'll likely have no issue unlocking story bits. It's the random troves around the world that you'll likely be frustrated yoh don't have the ONE blade with the ONE skill that opens something.

Easy enough. Thanks!

Well, I cleared Ch.3, and played until I regained control in Ch.4. I'll post some scattershot thoughts.

Spoiler:

-Hoo boy.
-I'll start from the top. I liked Vandham, but I was trying to figure out where he fit into all of this and what his motivation to stay would be. I was also wondering what the trigger would be to get Roc's second line of affinities unlocked, and figured it was story based. I guess both questions got answered.
-I almost forgot after all the reveals at the end of the chapter, but a comic relief guy showed up and then left midway through the chapter. I'm guessing we're not done with him.
-I can't help compare this game to the other two Xenoblade games, and I feel like I see a lot of similarities, especially to the first game. I mentioned comparing the opening plains areas in each game earlier. When walking though the belly of the Titan, and all the florescent orange and pink trees showed up and lined the path, I think I was supposed to be blown away (and it was really cool), but I was also thinking that this was their new version of Satorl Marsh at night. And for the climactic battle and reveals in the coliseum, it reminded me of the big reveals on top of Prison Island, complete with (what I think was) the main theme playing over part of the action, just like the first game. This also kinda makes me wonder what this game's Left Arm moment will be, and also that the game probably won't be done when they reach Elysium.
-The music during the fights with Ahkos and Malos was real good. I'm looking forward to getting the soundtrack once I beat this thing.
-Ahkos needs a good punch to the face.
-I love the smash cut to chapter title at the end of each chapter. They're putting that to good use.
-Way too many people were around 500 years ago, even if there are reasons for it.
-Before I thought Jin was a wildcard. I'm less sure of that at this point, but they really haven't revealed anything about him other than anime sword skills. I'm guessing he'll be an interesting character eventually; masked people tend to be iconic.
-Also, since Malos is an Aegis (was actually surprised by this) and had a blade, that means Pyra/Mithra can too. My hope of having a Blade that can control another Blade that control yet another Blade is still a possibility.
-But in general, I'm glad the story is now officially going.

It's interesting how 500 years ago, those characters were there, but not quite.

Spoiler:

Brighid, being a blade, was there, but the only reason she has any cognition of that time is because Past Brighid wrote about it in her diary.

Remember that normal humans don't live for that long. If someone's been around for 500 years, there's a good freaking reason.

What I'm still trying to figure out is: (spoilers regarding Pyra for Torna: The Golden Country)

Spoiler:

Why does Pyra/Mythra have her memories? I thought the prequel would answer that, but I must have missed it if it did.

Re: Pyra

Spoiler:

I assume it's because she was in stasis and so didn't revert to her core when Addam died. When she revived, she shared her core with Rex, so she was never without a Driver.

Gotta find time to respond to this.......... OH Maaaaaaan I want to start New Game Plussssssss

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Re: Pyra

Spoiler:

I assume it's because she was in stasis and so didn't revert to her core when Addam died. When she revived, she shared her core with Rex, so she was never without a Driver.

But how did that even happen?

Spoiler:

Why didn't she revert while she was in stasis?

Spoiler:

She was in stasis! Frozen in time!

A couple other random things I thought of.

Spoiler:

-This game has a thing for setting up a strong enemy near the end of a chapter, then we whup them in the combat, but then the cutscene after makes it look like we were getting worked over (and the enemy looked like we hadn't touched them). The Inquisitor and Vandham fights come to mind. I'm fine with the occasional unwinnable fight for story reasons, but if we're supposed to look much weaker than the enemy, I wish it was better reflected in the mechanics.

-Before the Prya > Mithra transformation, there was a quick flash of the face of a robot/mech, and I was all ready for Pyra to be an android. They did it again later. And then they just showed a full blow mech flying behind Mithra in a flashback for a second.
1) That has to pay off at some point, and it had better be awesome.
2) What is it with the Xenoblade games and Mechs? Or is it in all the Xeno games? (never played Gears or Saga)

2) What is it with the Xenoblade games and Mechs? Or is it in all the Xeno games? (never played Gears or Saga)

Pretty sure it's all the games. Kos-Mos is from Saga, isn't she?

I think the designer just really likes mechs. Which is fine, because mechs are awesome.

Mechs because Takahashi has been trying to make Evangelion as a game since forever.

Good enough for me.

The original Xenogears had you trading off on foot / in mech a lot. Not 50/50, but still a good amount of mech time. Sadly, I never thought the mechs were as fun in combat. Their combos were just meh compared to the fun you had with human fighters and no restraint on fuel.