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Xenoblade Chronicles 2


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#16 The Satellite

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Posted 29 November 2017 - 02:24 AM

IT COMES OUT IN TWO DAYS I'M GONNA EXPLODE WITH ANTICIPATION

 

Idle thoughts: Wonder if it'll have missable sidequests like in the original or if it goes the X route and you can never miss sidequests. I prefer this, but I don't mind missable content because of plot progression. Guess that's only if the plot's done well though.



#17 Avaro

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Posted 30 November 2017 - 10:04 AM

I won't play it for quite some time, but its gonna be a blast. I loved xenoblade wii. And from what I've seen, 2 is looking pretty interesting.


Edited by Avataro, 30 November 2017 - 10:06 AM.


#18 The Satellite

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Posted 01 December 2017 - 02:34 PM

Just got home and already beat it, what a masterpiece.

 

Okay no, I literally just turned it on. I'm gonna have fun with this. But wait... it currently has the same score on Metacritic as Xenoblade X... oh no this game's gonna suck



#19 The Satellite

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Posted 02 December 2017 - 02:19 AM

Only played a couple hours so far, have some initial thoughts.

 

As expected, it's gorgeous so far. Environments are lush, colors are great, characters are expressive... Maybe sometimes too much so. A handful of cutscene animations are a bit jerky or over-the-top; at least one instance was downright animeish, with glowing eyes and a sweat drop. Ironically, it makes the "it looks too anime" criticism somewhat accurate in retrospect. I don't recall any scenes like this in Xenoblade or X, though I could just be forgetting. To be fair, this particular occurrence appears to be the exception rather than the norm.

 

Voice-acting ranges from good to bland, and often from the same character. This is most apparent with the main character Rex, whose normal speaking voice is pretty good, but his yells are pretty awful. Pyra usually sounds pretty fine, though some cutscene dialogue seems stilted. Honestly I think I blame the localization somewhat for this, adding unnatural pauses in the English dub that don't sound as awkward in the Japanese dialogue. 

 

The beginning... kinda leads you by the nose for a good bit, basically directing you in every direction you're supposed to go while it teaches you the very basic mechanics; the previous Xenoblade games did things a little more naturally than this. I still get tutorial pop-ups explaining some of the features and new mechanics, but I don't entirely mind them because it is a fairly complex system. Can't help but wonder if this is in response to people saying the other games were complex to understand... Though I'm pretty sure they had guides tucked away in one of the menus.

 

Music is fantastic. I've enjoyed all the battle themes and the major overworld theme I've come across so far.

 

History has taught me I'm too early in to be able to fully judge how good the game is. It could either escalate into something wonderful like Xenoblade, or plummet into tripe like X. Hoping for the former. The plot seems interesting so far, setting up a bit of the world's mythology and hinting at various factions. It could have an awesome payoff, a disappointing one, or... a standard one I suppose. We'll see how that goes.

 

Also, Majora's Mask HD confirmed.


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#20 Anthus

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Posted 07 December 2017 - 02:00 AM

I really wanted to get into this game, but seeing as how I didn't finish the other two, I probably wouldn't finish this one. I want to like this game, but, I don't like anime, I don't like traditional JRPGs really, I don't care about stories that much, I rarely get into games that take over 20 hours to beat, I don't like combat that isn't action based, and uh.. yeah, that's it. I'm not calling it bad just cause I don't like it but I don't see myself getting into this.

 

The enemy artwork, and world design looks really good, and I like the idea of the sea of clouds and the titans and all that, but the character design is just no (Why do games have to have women run around in underwear? Like all the time, no matter the weather), and I can only imagine the voice acting is hit or miss, as it is with these types of games. The story also sounds very uninteresting (from what I've seen and read), and like typical JRPG fodder. Waring nations, a rag tag group of unlikely heroes, a world threatening evil empire/ power, it all just seems so.. I'm sorry, but boring.

 

And all credibility I had is lost cause I have an animu avatar from a turn based JRPG.


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#21 The Satellite

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Posted 07 December 2017 - 02:10 AM

The voice-acting is what I'd call "inconsistent," but I touched on that above. Part of me wonders if the direction was lacking, and they weren't properly conveying to the actors how they should be feeling in certain scenes. For example, there's a cutscene where a thief swipes a valuable item off the party and escapes on a boat. They go request a sailor to borrow his boat and for the most part the actors sound appropriately desperate. But then the main character tacks on a "Pleeeeeeeease?" like a child begging for a toy instead of what I'm sure was the intended hurried "Please!" It sounds so out-of-place that they must have had some spotty direction.

 

(Tangentially-related, it's funny that twice now the story quests have called for me to travel to locations I've been to through conventional travel even though up until now I can just fast travel. Didn't actually try to see if I could so I wonder if that would've changed anything if I had. It feels more natural the second time it happened—the above scenario I mentioned—because it's an abrupt need.)

 

Anyway, it's kind of a shame because Xenoblade and X had superb voice-acting. Almost every voice in the original is perfect. In X, sure, the writers didn't give a shit, but the actors certainly did. I don't let it bug me too much though, because there are far worse dubs around. Plus, main character Nia has this amazing Welsh accent that makes up for everything... :whistle:



#22 Eppy

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Posted 08 December 2017 - 06:34 AM

Beginning of Chapter 3, I'm stuck.

 

Spoiler



#23 The Satellite

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Posted 08 December 2017 - 06:06 PM

I had difficulty finding my way around that way too. I eventually found it, but I forget how I got there... and I'm too lazy to put the game back in no thanks to Zelda's DLC dropping. Good going, Nintendo. :heh:



#24 Eppy

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Posted 09 December 2017 - 12:31 PM

yeah I managed to figure it out yesterday and accidentally play until late and...wow, today is going to suck at work, *yaaaaaawn*


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#25 Neppy

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Posted 11 December 2017 - 06:48 PM

Not going to make a huge post on this right now. I've been playing the game for roughly 32 hours according to the in-game timer, and just started Chapter 4 a little while ago. I've been having a great time with it, even though there are some small nitpicks here and there. The pushy tutorial stuff gets kind of old over time, but that's fine, as the game isn't the most basic thing in the world, and getting further into it, it doesn't seem to be going the direction of easier either. At least it kind of drip feeds information and tutorials at you instead of slamming it in your face one after another after another.

 

I've heard complaints about the voice acting, and my personal feelings, are that the voices are pretty great most of the time, but there are instances that they feel off for what may be happening at the time. I absolutely love the accents though, especially Nia. I don't know, I have always had a thing for accents that are not my own. :lol:

 

The world.... omg... the world just looks absolutely beautiful, as I was pretty much expecting with the previous two Xenoblade titles already showing us what Monolithsoft can do with a world, along with their help in Breath of the Wild. I catch myself just standing there viewing the landscape in all it's beauty.

 

The music is great, and very fitting for their environments. I'm so glad that ACE was back to work on this game, and I hope it gets to be a staple for future games in the series, as I loved the original games music, along with this one so far. XCX had some good tunes, but they didn't feel quite as fitting to the areas as this does. 

 

Please don't read the following spoiler unless you're past the end of Chapter 3

Spoiler

 

In the end, I'm having a great time playing this game, and I hope I can put as many hours into this as I did with XC3D on my 3DS, which was around 270 hours, and loved every single one of them. It's looking to be quite a long adventure, which makes me so happy. Guess I wrote more than just a little bit... :lol: Great game, love it!!!


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#26 Nicholas Steel

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Posted 11 December 2017 - 11:00 PM

In regards to the voice complaint, I've read that enemies now have short dialog quips they can say? They have a choice of like 3 things to say at any moment and if there are multiple enemies the voices can stack or at least occur super frequently back-to-back?



#27 The Satellite

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Posted 11 December 2017 - 11:10 PM

Far as I've experienced, that's only been an annoyance on the Ardainian soldier classes. Particularly the footsoldiers who commonly shout "THINK YOU CAN TAKE ME?!" and "DON'T FORGET ME!!" often. And when there's many of them at once... Honestly at this point it's a meme so unless it's a really drawn out battle or segment I just find it amusing.


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#28 Eppy

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Posted 15 December 2017 - 07:09 AM

I find them more funny than annoying at this point.



#29 The Satellite

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Posted 22 December 2017 - 01:41 AM

Alright. I've had the game beaten for almost a week and I've had time to let my thoughts sit. Ultimately I'm gonna say it's the second-best Xenoblade game, but with the best combat system of the three. Really this discussion, for me at least, is between 1 and 2, because both of these games do almost everything better than X does. The only thing X does better than either of them is sidequests. That out of the way, let's ignore that game entirely as I make comparisons throughout this.

 

The original Xenoblade has a better UI I think, and especially map. The map function in this game is incredibly clunky, and it gets difficult to locate sidequest markers sometimes because they can be covered up by other map icons... and nearly every single one of them are blue, making things worse. There's no zoom function I can tell unless you count clicking the left stick to make the map full screen while moving, but that's less helpful than it sounds. There's also nothing like the collectopedia in the previous games to help keep track of items and enemies and their locations. Also, better hope you wrote things down or have a good memory because once a tutorial's gone, you can't go back and read it. Very bizarre choices.

 

I also miss armor customization. You don't get any customization in your outfit at all, but you can equip items that increase your health or another stat. Come to think of it though... I don't think there was even a defense stat, unless it was tied to Strength or something. There's defense booster cores you could equip to Blades, but that's about it. None of this is really a problem, just an observation, and armor customization is just a desire.

 

Story is good. It does well at world-building, setting up a mysterious history that gets unveiled, and characters with solid arcs. It has nothing on the original's plot and characters admittedly, and parts of it felt... incomplete or not as cohesive as they could be. But overall, I enjoyed it. Have some complaints, but ultimately thought it was good. Rex, the protagonist, is incredibly bland and uninteresting however, which is a shame. Fortunately, the supporting characters pick up the slack, though they're not nearly as fleshed out as the party from the original. Well apart from Sharla, who had very little presence. Or Reyn, who was just a memelord that we loved but otherwise was little more than "Shulk's best friend." Or Riki, who was just sort of there. Okay fine but the rest of the party, Shulk included, are amazing characters so it tips things in the original's favor still.

 

Music is phenomenal, as to be expected of the team who did most of the original's soundtrack, plus legendary Yasunori Mitsuda who's worked on Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Xenogears, the first Xenosaga, and even the first Mario Party. Admittedly, I'm not sure who's composed what, but there are tons of great tracks in here that I still whistle much of the time. It is much, much-needed therapy after what I had to endure from Xenoblade X.

 

To be fair, sometimes this game shares X's issue of having cutscene music partially drown out dialogue, but this time there are individual volume sliders that can help with that. Me, I just read the subtitles; such occurrences are uncommon.

 

Sidequests are better than the original game's. There are still a few fetch quests or "defeat this monster" quest but they at least try to give more context for them, instead of seemingly filling a quota for these quests in each area like the original game did. Some still led to surprises or new turns, ended up deeper than you expected, or are just downright absurd; particular mention goes to the ten-year-old girl who hired a merc to kill another ten-year-old girl for claiming the last spot in a prestigious choir. However, they also introduced "Merc Missions" that work like a system in the Assassin's Creed games, where you can send your backup blades on background missions to gain some gold, EXP, and skill points to fill out their skill trees. These are fine, until one of the best healer Blades requires you to send her on so many of these that it probably adds up to around 24 hours total just to unlock the final tier of her skill tree... Yeah, I'm bitter, but this was an objectively terrible design decision.

 

There's some jarring pop-in while fast traveling, admittedly. If you fast travel to another area, you'll almost always finding yourself standing in a polygonal, textureless area and gain control before all of it completely loads in. They're fast loading times, so I'd willingly endure a couple more seconds just to make sure I'm fully loaded in. Ultimately minor, but does mess with my immersion a bit. I know there were similar issues in X but I don't believe they were as prevalent as this. I'm not able to recall if the original had any similar loading issues.

 

For the last bit, it's very heavy endgame plot spoilers, so click at your own risk.

 

Spoiler

 

But yeah. Overall, great game, I enjoy it highly. Have some complaints, but was more than worth my time.


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#30 The Satellite

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Posted 23 December 2017 - 01:19 AM

A patch is out.



There's some jarring pop-in while fast traveling, admittedly. If you fast travel to another area, you'll almost always finding yourself standing in a polygonal, textureless area and gain control before all of it completely loads in. They're fast loading times, so I'd willingly endure a couple more seconds just to make sure I'm fully loaded in. Ultimately minor, but does mess with my immersion a bit.


Oh hey:
 

Made adjustments to improve the stability of performing certain actions.

Due to these adjustments, time required for Skip Travel and loading event cut scenes has become longer in some instances and shorter in others.




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