Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Beat the game last night. Dang, what an incredible game, about 230 hours logged after all was said and done. Can't wait for the story DLC.

@KryptoKrunch Well while you're waiting you can enjoy the New Game Plus mode

So I've started a second, fresh file from my original 300 hour, 100%ed file and yeah, I'm still loving this game. I feel like actually creating a beginner's guide that goes more in-depth than what I normally see on the Internet, though I need to keep playing a bit more to get my thoughts down.

I just had to look into this Forum Topic and say that this game is great.
They did a great job solving a lot of problems JRPGs usually have.

The update fixing the common blade issue is coming tomorrow.

Took me 239 hours, 42 minutes and 26 seconds to beat the game.
I got 32/38 Special Blades and S-Ranked 31 of them. Unfortunately I couldn't get any more special blades. The one I didn't S-Rank is Poppy QTπ cause she's supergrindy and needed about 300 more fights.
Ursula and Vess were horrible. xD So glad they're maxed.

Found and beat all Missions. Unlocked everything that was shown on the maps.
Have all Titans at 5 stars.

Excited to play New Game+ as it unlocks much more content.
For now it's easily in my Switch Top 3 game with Mario Odyssey and Zelda BotW.
Who said Skyrim was better than Xeno2?

So, yeah, I think I'm just going to ignore the sidequests going forward. I have, like, four sidequests now where I can't progress at all because they randomly block my progress until I obtain these weirdly high blade skill levels. It's so frustrating to spend an hour almost completing a sidequest, only to have this stop me dead in my tracks at the last second.

For me the most common block was merc missions requiring very specific loadouts. So like if you needed 4 earth element blades and 3 animal blades, you couldn't do the mission unless you had an animal blade which was earth type. This is the big reason the NG+ glitch bothered me and I'm glad I didn't start yet, though hopefully Challenge Mode allows NG+ to be a challenge.

@subpopz Unfortunately, blades being assigned to different people gets in the way of me skill-scumming my way through most of the sidequests. I'm going to maybe see what I can do about developing the skills of my blades further, but it's such an annoying system.

This game's story, presentation, dialogue, etc. are UTTERLY engrossing, though. Like, I just started Chapter 6, and I've spent probably an hour running back and forth across one location to activate long-ish cutscenes. This would annoy me in any other game, but I just find myself being drawn into the narrative here. Especially with the intriguing, almost Blade Runner-ish turn the story seems to be taking regarding the lonely nature of Blades and Jin's apparent rebellion against humanity.

If I liked the gameplay more, this would be a top ten JRPG for sure.

Well, I discovered I can just look online and see the skill requirements for a side-quest. That combined with some proactive questing to raise the skills of certain key blades has made this whole process a lot less aggravating. I've already cleared out a couple of side quests I've had queued up for dozens of hours now.

So each of the rare blades gets their own unique story quest, right? The sheer volume of stuff to do in this game suddenly struck me. It's staggering.

@Ralizah Yup, each Rare Blade has their Blade Quest. It's pretty great how much stuff there is.

Tantal has to be one of the most beautiful environments I've ever encountered in a video game. Also, this game's sheer sense of scale is really on display here with its enormous, looming towers, mountains, and the sheer amount of space between stuff.

Even given my previous complaints, I enjoy this game more and more every time I pick it up.

@Tsurii I liked Valak Mountain, but Tantal is better. In general, Xenoblade 2 fixes almost everything I hated about the original and improves on the few things I did like (aside from the main character's voice acting: as I've probably said before, Rex's yelling is the most pitiful thing I've ever heard in my life).

I don't think I've seen any storms yet. Are they random? I absolutely LOVE nice atmosphere effects in games.

@Ralizah @Tsurii Weather changes when you skip travel from one Titan to another, but not when you skip travel from one location on a titan to another location on the same titan. Some titans have exclusive weather conditions that generally don't change much outside of aesthetics (falling petals in Uraya for example), but the one in Tantal will definitely catch you off guard. I absolutely love Tantal's day theme though. Possibly my favourite location theme in the game, alongside Torigoth's day theme.

@Ralizah Glad your enjoying it. It's not without a few frustrating quirks but it gets so much right.

@subpopz I did use generally for a reason. Though I did not actually know about that unique monster. I just included petals as an example of a titan exclusive weather condition.

@kyleforrester87 Yeah, I'm REALLY digging this game. Just finished Ch. 6. I guess if there's a time to focus on strengthening my other rare blades, it's now.

I fully expect this will by my favorite JRPG on the system until SMT V releases (and hopefully blows me away).

@Ralizah I struggled finding an appropriate stopping point after like Chapter 4-5 as it always feels like something big is round the corner. As you say, if you can find room to do a bit of grinding and side questing in chapter 6 you should!

I think this game is good so far. Not great as the first one (which I played on 3DS), but still good. That said, I'm not too far into the game, chapter 4, so it might get better.

What annoys me about the game is the sound design and the sometimes not fitting choice of music (even though the music on its own is really awesome). Sometimes they play like a really fast paced hard rock number during dialouges which either doesn't fit the mood of the scene or is so loud you can barely here what they are saying and have to rely on the subtitles. And in some parts the characters expressions doesn't blend that well with the tone of the dialouge, and sometimes the dialouge is really bad.

The map is kinda confusing. Sometimes it can be hard to tell where to go, even if you follow the compass.

But in the grand scheme of things, these are minor complaints. The world design is gorgeous (especially inside that titan), the graphics are for the most part beautiful, the characters are likeable (if somewhat flat and not considering the typical JRPG stereotypes and sexism), the music is, as previously mentioned, really great, the battle system is complex, but fun, the controls are easy to grasp, the story is engaging (while not as much as the first game so far).

Hoping to get some more time to play it. Got stuck at some barrels, Poppi isn't levelled up enough to be able to examine them yet.

Somewhere in Ch. 7 now. Nia just revealed her blade form, and I'm supposed to head off somewhere to find Pyra. Regarding the sword, did... the game just do the Kung-Fu Panda thing? Where the sword doesn't really matter, because it's what is in your heart that counts?

Then again, maybe Jin won't be a problem after all. If Rex is as quick and merciless against Jin as he was against Nia when he brutally friendzoned her almost immediately after her confession, then he might just seize the upper hand.

The song that plays during the reveal is great. I think they played it earlier in the game, too.

In general, Xenoblade 2's OST is one of the best I've heard in years.