The Best and Worst of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - (Despite its issues, it is a very good game)

[Jakenbakin]

It's one of my top 5 favorite games ever, and it has more issues than any game in my like top 20, so it's an interesting fucking game isn't it? Lol. I love and hate so much about it but the the things I love and the way I engage with them help me get past so much of the other shit.

Also I loved the VA, I know there's some awkward moments from main characters but ok the whole I really really love how they connected places to accents, and I loved how much fun you could hear some characters having with their roles (Zeke, Malos, if we can count Torna, then Addam.) So good.

 

[astro]

All of what you described is minmaxing tweaks in your party via the numerous subsystems, but none of those actually change how the game is played, which is my point.

The majority of my playthrough was with Nia, and it was disappointing how there is no real sense of positioning for a healer. You are essentially doing the same thing as the damage dealer most of the time. There are no characters in XB2 that play like Sharla, Riki, or Melia.

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The example of letting the topple/launch play out with extension gear for example, is different gameplay to what you mentioned.

Regardless of that, almost every single game can be boiled down to: attack, doidge, cast spell.. etc in terms of a repeated order as there is usually a very comfortable and set pattern you fall into in most games. It is the things that surround this that elevate that, imo, and where the depth is found.

It's one of my top 5 favorite games ever, and it has more issues than any game in my like top 20, so it's an interesting fucking game isn't it? Lol. I love and hate so much about it but the the things I love and the way I engage with them help me get past so much of the other shit.

Also I loved the VA, I know there's some awkward moments from main characters but ok the whole I really really love how they connected places to accents, and I loved how much fun you could hear some characters having with their roles (Zeke, Malos, if we can count Torna, then Addam.) So good.

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Yeh, for sure. It's a game that made me conflicted so often until I made peace with certain issues and discovered more that I liked, I fully understand its divisive reputation.

 

[threi]

The example of letting the topple/launch play out with extension gear for example, is different gameplay to what you mentioned.

Regardless of that, almost every single game can be boiled down to: attack, doidge, cast spell.. etc in terms of a repeated order as there is usually a very comfortable and set pattern you fall into in most games. It is the things that surround this that elevate that, imo, and where the depth is found.

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We will just have to agree to disagree then, because I really don't see it. And I dove really deep into XB2. Like taking your example of seal for example. That is just the end result of a blade combo, just choosing a different "route", is it not? That really isn't depth to me. Melia and Riki for example play fundamentally different from the "attack/dodge/cast art" loop.

 

[astro]

We will just have to agree to disagree then, because I really don't see it. And I dove really deep into XB2. Like taking your example of seal for example. That is just the end result of a blade combo, just choosing a different "route", is it not? That really isn't depth to me. Melia and Riki for example play fundamentally different from the "attack/dodge/cast art" loop.

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It is part of having to consider your build as not every combination, far from it, has a seal available.

Playing on a very challening difficulty means I often need to fine tune my build to suit an enemy after I've tried it a couple of times, and that adds the depth for me.

Melina and Riki do play very differently yes, and I can fully appreciate that for some people this kind of variety in the base gameplay is what they need, but I disagree that the game lacks depth.

Agree to disagree, but I get where you're coming from.

 

[Xtortion]

Quality of life was my main issue with the game. The menus in XB2 are fucking dire with the slow fade in when you press the menu button, and the general lack of responsiveness compared to something like Persona 5. Digging into the menus to adjust builds, check affinity challenges, etc. was always a chore for me with its submenus within submenus. Anyone know if this is being addressed in Xenoblade 3?

 

[Aleh]

The Xenoblade 2 world has to be the best ever in every category.
Intricately designed, both in open areas and dungeons/buildings/towns/caves. The setting is incredibly evocative with the cloud sea, the world tree and the animalistic titans. It checks all the boxes for me.
Then there's the best OST ever made, and an amazing story and lore, tons of content… ahhh. I could go on and on, just so much to love

 

[astro]

Quality of life was my main issue with the game. The menus in XB2 are fucking dire with the slow fade in when you press the menu button, and the general lack of responsiveness compared to something like Persona 5. Digging into the menus to adjust builds, check affinity challenges, etc. was always a chore for me with its submenus within submenus. Anyone know if this is being addressed in Xenoblade 3?

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I really hope so. It can feel quite janky at times. To the point they've actually added an error notification sound if you close the - menu and try to open the + menu too quickly to show you that your button press was read, but there is a big delay ebtween being able to access the two.

I've got it down to muscle memory now, but this along wit hthe general unresponsive feel definitely makes the menus feel bad. I don't notice it after an extended session, but if I play something with snappy menus in-between it is very apparent.

 

[Gouf]

I haven't had a single issue with the VA so far, honestly. Some of the actual dialogue isn't the best, and some of the tropey shit is... well, shit, but the quality of actual VA perfomance is pretty good imo.

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I don't think most people have an issue with the voice actors themselves. It's just that the voice direction is pretty bad. I'm pretty sure Pyra's VA even said that she didn't have a chance to read the script or do multiple takes, so she didn't have a lot of context for a lot of the lines they were reading. It definitely showed in the final product, in my opinion.

In contrast, Shulk's VA said they went over the XC1 script in depth to see what would work best in it, and well, that also showed in the final product of that game.

 

[astro]

I don't think most people have an issue with the voice actors themselves. It's just that the voice direction is pretty bad. I'm pretty sure Pyra's VA even said that she didn't have a chance to read the script or do multiple takes, so she didn't have a lot of context for a lot of the lines they were reading. It definitely showed in the final product, in my opinion.

In contrast, Shulk's VA said they went over the XC1 script in depth to see what would work best in it, and well, that also showed in the final product of that game.

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Interesting.

It's not something I picked up on, but again it's been a while since I played Chapter 6 and earlier so I could have just forgotten. Is there a particular example you (or anyone) knows off that's a good example of this?

I'll be listening out for it now!

 

[correojon]

I have 3 VERY big issues with this game:

• Everything remotely related to sexual relationships seems to be written by a horny male virgin teenager. What's worse, the game does whatever it can to make sure that every female character gets put in embarrasing situations and not treated with respect.
• There is a main character that has a sex slave which turns out to have the mental age of a little girl, while another of the female main characters is also a child but that doesn't stop the innuendos from coming. It's straight pederasty and I'm amazed that the game hasn't been despised everywhere for this.
• The combat system is the textbook example of "complex but not deep" gameplay: You just need to repeat the same commands in a long chain with the same timing every time and don't need to give any thoughts to what the enemy is doing. You don't need to make any decissions or adapt your strategy mid-combat, just keep your combo going, create the orbs, break them and if you complete the sequence just start again and repeat it.

 

[astro]

I have 3 VERY big issues with this game:

• Everything remotely related to sexual relationships seems to be written by a horny male virgin teenager. What's worse, the game does whatever it can to make sure that every female character gets put in embarrasing situations and not treated with respect.
• There is a main character that has a sex slave which turns out to have the mental age of a little girl, while another of the female main characters is also a child but that doesn't stop the innuendos from coming. It's straight pederasty and I'm amazed that the game hasn't been despised everywhere for this.
• The combat system is the textbook example of "complex but not deep" gameplay: You just need to repeat the same commands in a long chain with the same timing every time and don't need to give any thoughts to what the enemy is doing. You don't need to make any decissions or adapt your strategy mid-combat, just keep your combo going, create the orbs, break them and if you complete the sequence just start again and repeat it.

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Been over the combat aspect which I very much disagree with, but the second point...

What is this referring to specifically? I don't recall it and it sounds awful. If it's a story part can you put in spoilers and say which chapter it is from please?

 

[Deleted member 3208]

Been over the combat aspect which I very much disagree with, but the second point...

What is this referring to specifically? I don't recall it and it sounds awful. If it's a story part can you put in spoilers and say which chapter it is from please?

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Suppose that poster is referring to Poppi. That being said, Tora is a horrible character. Dude could be a 4chan incel. The second female character, though, drawing blank.

Man, this game has a great story and characters (again, except Tora). The villains in particular were well written. You feel they actually care for each other. In many ways it is an improvement over Xenoblade 1, but those designs... those female blade designs. What the hell were they thinking? The artist and the director by approving that crap. Morag has one of the best designs, yet they managed to screw it up with the blades.

Spoiler

Even with Nia. At least using that Nia is completely stupid gameplay-wise.

Well, the gacha was also awful. And the field skills, while a good idea, wasn't well implemented. Mostly agree with everything in the OP, except the music. Xenoblade 2 excels in its soundtrack. And it is outrageous this wasn't mentioned at all.

 

[correojon]

Been over the combat aspect which I very much disagree with, but the second point...

What is this referring to specifically? I don't recall it and it sounds awful. If it's a story part can you put in spoilers and say which chapter it is from please?

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The furry has a sex robot with the body, mind and behaviour of a child. The game repeatedly makes jokes where it's made obvious that the furry is fucking it and is embarrased that the other main characters will find out.
I don't remember the actual scenes with the cat girl, I only played the game on release, dropped it I think around chapter 12 and haven't touched it since. I just remember cringing at some of the situations involving her.

 

[ryushe]

Beat it last night, after being worried about everyone bitching about it. Pretty much every complaint was comically overblown, there's some stupid stuff in this game but I was able to pretty well work around it or ignore it (I could see hating it intensely if I was trying to 100% it but that's been miserable in every xenoblade), glad I did because the core of it was pretty rad. Excited to start Torna today!

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Agreed.

Though, the gatcha stuff was/is dumb. Took me over 100 hours to finally get Kos-mos.

 

[astro]

Thanks for the responses. I don't remember any of this, I'll have to google specific scenes later.

 

[Dineren]

I liked the voice acting for the most part, but I definitely felt the action scenes in general were a downgrade from the first game (in terms of vo). The obvious example is when Rex first becomes a driver. I've never seen someone not laugh at Rex's screams and combat grunts and the way characters reacted to each other felt off imo. I don't know if it was just direction or them being rushed, but it got better later on and I thought Torna was generally great.

I don't recall anything remotely implying a sexual relationship between Poppi and Tora. Though the relationship does have issues and Tora can definitely be a creep at times.

 

[falcondoc]

Absolute absurd to say that Poppi is a 'sex slave'. I mean truly idiotic.

 

[Dremorak]

I think I was pretty invested from the start, but like most people I was ALL in after Chapter 3.
I didn't like Rex that much until I hit chapter 5, and then he grew on me.
By the end of it I think I rank it pretty close to Xenoblade 1, but things like gacha and cringey designs drag it down a bit.

XB3 is shaping up to be the best of both worlds (lol) and I'm super pumped. It could very well end up being the best game in the series which is nuts because XB1 is my favourite game of all time

 

[correojon]

Absolute absurd to say that Poppi is a 'sex slave'. I mean truly idiotic.

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- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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How can you defend this. Really.

 

[astro]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

How can you defend this. Really.

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I don't see that evidence he was "fucking it", personally. It also seems that he's only just made her sentient according to the reaction in his video, not that it excuses his creepinesss at all.

Is there more to it? You said repeatedly.

 

[.exe]

I was thinking about the combat in this the other day, and how the game would be pretty trivialized in many ways if only you had full control over your teammates' abilities. That's kind of stupid, right? I don't think the combat design can be called good if it hinges on your teammates being somewhat incompetent.

 

[astro]

I was thinking about the combat in this the other day, and how the game would be pretty much trivial if only you had full control over your teammates' abilities. That's kind of stupid, right? I don't think the combat design can be called good if it hinges on your teammates being awful.

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You can fine tune it so you can get them to consistantly activate the moves you need them to when you want them to already. Making it trival really depends on the level of difficulty you set the game to and what chalegnes you're taking on.

 

[ohhthegore]

Sex slave eh? Little bit of a leap

 

[KezayJS1]

The furry has a sex robot with the body, mind and behaviour of a child. The game repeatedly makes jokes where it's made obvious that the furry is fucking it and is embarrased that the other main characters will find out.

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The only part of this that is true is that the "furry" has a robot. Specifically a robot, not a sex robot. At no point in the game is there any implication that the "furry" in question is having sex with it. It's more worry over the embarrassment that the "furry" would be found out engaging in stereotypical cute-seeking otaku behavior (dress robot in cutesy outfits, their views on cute women)

For sure, make an argument about how this character acts untowardly with their cutesie/maid-girl fetish and problematic ideas on cute girls; but the idea that the robot with the childlike demeanor is treated like a sex slave is diving into some terrible territory that is not actually reflected in the game. The reason the game doesn't get wholly despised for it as you questioned earlier is because "it" doesn't exist. This in a game that actually does approach the fact (albeit lightly) that blades can be and have been misused for the purposes that you're asserting of this character.

 

[threi]

Yeah "sex slave" is a bit of the reach. I would say its more "stupid anime otaku pandering bullshit that undermines a genuinely good character"

 

[Atom]

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

How can you defend this. Really.

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I don't think there is anything that straight up is like "Tora fucks the robot". I think its implied that he wanted to build her into some sort of maybe otaku fetish robot which is when Rex and Pyra first meet up with him --- his closet is filled with stuff like various uniforms and stuff for Poppi and he has her set to a servile personality preset. Poppy iirc isn't really functional before that first encounter either. Idk if I'd call that a 'sex slave', because sex slavery and human trafficking and coercion are actual specific loaded things and this is before opening the can of worms around how the concept of slavery applies to robots and androids to begin with.

This is not to say that it isn't a super problematic relationship with a lot of ethical questions around consent, emotional maturity, depictions of women and children and the like that really just didn't need to be in the game. They could have just left it as him wanting to build a robot and called it a day. It's made worse by how her upgrades make her look more mature, so there's some implication about her original form in there too. And tora is undoubtedly a gross foul character, just that the sex slave bit seems like perhaps a bit of a reach.

It would be like saying the designs of some of the rare blades are straight up child porn -- like no, they're not. They're extremely problematic depictions of characters coded as children or adolescent, that absolutely deserve criticism and risk normalizing certain unacceptable attitudes and stances, but there's no need to mislabel things as it just dilutes the argument and turns any kind of discussion into disagreeing over definitions while most people probably agree that the content is problematic and bad to begin with and are fine discussing the nuances thereof.

 

[chainlinkspiral]

Yeah, it's a great game, warts and all.

 

[Doggg]

I liked Jin's arc.

 

[fixing ranger]

The more I "learned" the combat system the less I actually liked it. Just nonstop subsystems, and subsystems for your subsystems, meanwhile the actual combat loop is dry as hell. Wide as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle.

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I agree with that!

The combat is incredibly convoluted but once you figure it out, it becomes clear that it is not very deep. However, to understand it feels great, so I enjoyed the combat in the second part of the game; but once I started to do some endgame content I quickly realized I would just do exactly the same loop over and over again and quit.

I think the meta is to stack all 3 characters with DPS blades, slap healing through crits and evade big attacks via level 4 special attack/chain attack.

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Overall, I enjoyed the game. Combat and exploration are great with some caveats, characters aside from sexualization are alright, story is hilariously bad. After playing XC1 and XC2 I decided I'll never bother with the plot in the series and skip it, but combat/world will carry it for me.

 

[Gotchaforce]

Was hype for 1, imported and soft modded to play it. Other than the impressive scale and soundtrack I bounced off of it harder than I could have expected. I'm playing 2 right now on easy and even then there's just so much BS in it. It reminds me of Tales games in that most characters and story beats drive me nuts, just a lot of unlikeable aspects. I'm hoping 3 is an improvement, sounds like Torna was. I had a Target offer on 3 so went ahead.

 

[Alooful]

Was hype for 1, imported and soft modded to play it. Other than the impressive scale and soundtrack I bounced off of it harder than I could have expected. I'm playing 2 right now on easy and even then there's just so much BS in it. It reminds me of Tales games in that most characters and story beats drive me nuts, just a lot of unlikeable aspects. I'm hoping 3 is an improvement, sounds like Torna was. I had a Target offer on 3 so went ahead.

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Personally I think the story beats and dialogue of Torna drive me more nuts than even the worst of XC2.

On a positive note, I think everyone thinks XC3 looks like it has the potential to be the "best" in the series. They're fresh off the lessons they learned from XC2 and remaking XC1, and this game has a healthy dev cycle, unlike XC2, which was kinda rushed out

 

[WackoWambo]

the tutorials 30 hours in make this a no from me tbh

 

[Eros]

putting gacha into a series that didn't have it is an all time worst decision for me personally. the game has way too many systems. some of the story beats and sidequests are fucking embarrassing (ex: blushy crushy, accidentally sleeping next to the girl and waking up trope). character designs, pyra especially, are just...jesus christ. im pretty sure there's a scene with the camera under pyra's massve tits and it's just like...why are we doing this. i know rex is a diver so his outfit makes sense but it still looks stupid as hell. i blame my lack of enjoyment of the game for this, since i didn't care enough to maximize the combat, but i hated the combat. regular enemies felt like sponges and the movement speed was glacial. not only did i hate the gacha aspect, but i didn't even care about the cool blades that i got because all they do on the battlefield is stand there and give you spirit bomb energy. they don't do anything.

aside from the music, this game is a disaster for me. i pray that 3 in most ways is an opposite game.