Thank you for these posts. Dice, I'm with you on the third game -- and I say this as a man, so I can only imagine how much shittier it feels as a woman. As previews and reviews popped up, I was very apprehensive about the XC2 (sorry, guess I was one of those "incessantly bitching" people mentioned above). But after putting hundreds of hours into the first two games and adoring them, I thought it best to see for myself, so I finally tried it some months after release and just couldn't do it, try and try as I might; deleted my save about 25 hours in. Would have burned the digital file if I could have. You sum it up exactly: I love just about everything else about Xenoblade. The music, the environments, the exploration, the systems upon systems upon systems. But XC2's problems with women are just relentless and they do not let up. It's not acceptable, and it's not something I can overlook. If a third game looks to be remotely headed in that direction, I'm out; here's hoping Nintendo's western branches can convey the message that this type of shit is not okay. They seem to be making social progress elsewhere, and this was such an embarrassing step back.
The Japanese gaming industry in general needs to be better. Even Nintendo can't move passed the "save the princess" trope, which isn't even remotely compelling in this day and age. Or let us play as women in mainline Mario or Zelda games for that matter.
Thank you for this, too. As a former passionate Xenoblade fan, this has become exhausting. I see so many folks on the internet looking for game recommendations -- particularly as the Switch seems to have brought in lots of lapsed or new players -- and immediately the XC2 fan base swoops in to shill XC2, no questions asked, no disclaimers. "Yeah, just pop on over from Mario Odyssey, the first game you beat since Mario 64, and roll with Xenoblade Fucking 2." I almost feel like it's my responsibility to come in and say, "hey, just so you know, there's a whole lot of stuff in XC2 that you might not be cool with." I see such a problem with the Xenoblade community in this way; I understand I'm generalizing, but there does seem to be a very noticeable trend of fans who choose to defend, defend, defend, push, push, push, taking it personally instead of just accepting that you can love a thing and admit its flaws, you can love a thing and analyze it -- or at the very least admit the presence of something that people prove time and time again is an issue, even if it's not an issue for you.
Which brings me to this...
People should be able to speak objectively about what is great and not so great about the games they play. If not for honest, consecutive criticism, how is anything supposed to improve?
I had a blast with both XBC2 and BOTW last year, but have criticisms against both. Of course, much less against BOTW, but that's besides the point.
Less "system wars" and more honest dialogue is the way to go.
Following up on what Dmax says, Xenoblade fans need to do better. Honestly, so many members of this community sitting here telling women that there aren't issues with women in the game, or that "they're just as bad" in the first game, or that "people love anime tiddy, that's why it sold better than the rest of the series, people demanded tiddy," or using the tired-assed "prude" or "you must not like sex" or "but violence!" arguments, is insulting at this point. It's so relentless and exhausting coming up against this predictable checklist of brickwall arguments that it's starting to come off as more than a little disingenuous. Threads like this are plentiful evidence that people have problems with XC2. Evidence is everywhere you turn in hundreds or thousands of corners of the gaming community. I know it's not fun to hear people talk a whole lot about how we think something you love sucks, but how exhausted you guys are about us should be evidence enough that these problems are real; we can't stop talking about them because they affected us so greatly. Nobody's out here trying to antagonize. But when you respond to these obviously real problems with rhetoric like "these aren't problems" or "these problems are actually great," no one can move forward.
Agreed. These are legitimate issues worth discussing, and it's very disappointing to see these topics dismissed in that way. Hopefully if we keep bringing it up when this happens and show it is unacceptable, things will change, eventually.
Sorry to derail your thread, OP. But my god, I swear I have only wished the Thanos snap for two games in my 30-year lifetime: Xenoblade 2 and Metroid: Other M. That's how disappointed I am.
I get what you're saying, but I think you're being a bit overly dramatic on this point. XBC2 isn't a game with so many faults it shouldn't exist. It still definitely has it's merits, it's just unfortunate it didn't do a much better job on presenting itself in a more progressive way.
Considering it is now the best selling game on the franchise, I hope Monolithsoft comes to the conclusion the increased sales were because of the things they did right with the game rather than the regressive approach they took on others.
