Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Same here. Once I watch the footage for a while and remember how good these guys are at designing interesting worlds, I want to play it.
I'm very glad this is clearly the sequel to the first game though. Mira was great but I need some cool towns to explore, and need a bit more story. This seems like it'll deliver.
We've seen 2 big towns already and that's just been in 2 areas. When you think that the original had about 5 towns, this game is definitely looking to be on par with that, if not exceeding it.

It's funny to realise it but Monolithsoft made 3 Xenoblade games in the time Squenix took making FF15.

@Dezzy Thanks for the summary Dez that was a massive help. Damn, it looks beautiful.

I actually prefer the anime art style. It looks a lot better than the style they used on the first game. Then again that was probably the Wii's graphics.

Pretty sure it was the Wii's graphics, not the art style. Check out the HD 3D model of Shulk in Smash Bros. for Wii U. Or imagine the Shulk amiibo next to a Rex amiibo. Then (at least I) painfully realise how much better the characters look in XC1.

But hey, the character art is the only downside so far. It cannot detract any of my motivation to play this game day one. For me character art is not a deciding factor when a series like this has proven 2 times already that it's absolutely worthwhile, and maybe it's a Wind Waker situation and the character art is better than I think.

Well there's advantages and disadvantages of having so many games coming out. The big disadvantage is that some fantastic games will get overlooked because of other fantastic games releasing near them.

@SKTTR No, I also hated Riki. And Reyn. God, I hate Reyn.

The rest of the cast is... there, I guess.

Also disappointed that collectible items in the open world are still boring blue spheres.

It didn't seem to run so smooth though. I guess it's an old build.

So, guys. What is your impression about Xenoblade 2 so far ?
I have never played before but kinda quite interested.
I think it needs some improvements from what I saw from the latest demo gameplay....

@Anti-Matter

Xenoblade is another one of those deep JRPGs that can be daunting due to it's size and battle mechanics. I know I spent the first 20 hours of the first game not really sure how to use the unite chain attacks which were vital to beat certain bosses. My nephew gave up with the second game because he couldn't understand how he was manoeuvring his character and clicking attack, but wasn't really controlling when the character was attacking and wasn't able to dodge. However if you can get past this, you will experience a story with a lot of twists and turns, some fantastic designed characters and perhaps the most breathtaking landscapes in a video game.

I like how they've streamlined the interface for this one, and understand why they've simplified the art style so they can keep it to budget and a deadline. Of course without getting into the story I wouldn't like to judge it yet- but the truth is visually and scope wise it has a long way to go to live up to the original and X.

Can you change costume in this game?

@MrGawain

Chain attacks were linkable based on your affinity between characters, their tension level, and whether you pressed the B button when prompted.

And movement isn't about being able to dodge. It's about either being able to run away or to position yourself around the enemies side and back for the attacks that require that. Dodging is determined statistically in these games.

@Tsurii yeah I know about the first two games, but I understand that none of that has yet been shown about this one? I just want to be able to put clothes on the little sword-girl who is wearing next to nothing.

I don't mind the more anime-inspired aesthetic, but the visual design overall seems like a massive step down from XCX.

Also not a fan of the janky framerate in recent footage. It looked as bad as unpatched Korok Forest in spots, so hopefully they minimize this problem before the game releases.

Really do like the simplified UI, though. Also hope they simplified game systems in other respects.

It's not really on my "must buy" list right now, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Btw, is there any small enemies with very Low HP on previous Xenoblade series so I can defeat them quickly and easily ?
Because I saw a lot of enemies with Gigantic size and take long times to beat them on Xenoblade 2. Gosh... if I want to drilling my teams, it will take forever to beat 1 gigantic enemy and suddenly 1 another enemy interrupt my team.

@Ralizah Did I just read janky frame-rate? Agreed on the fixing part before release, and if not, I'd rather they wait till it is fixed. Nothing worse than frame-drops during one's battle, or less so, game overall.

I don't know why you're intentionally being wrong, you should try NOT being blatantly wrong.

I at least get why people are annoyed at Xenoblade 2's art style though. It's simply for me that even if it is a bit more generic, they're just better. It doesn't matter because they're just better in-game models. I do question though if they couldn't have properly updated based off of Xenoblade 1's character models and improved that, but if Xenoblade X was their attempt at that, I completely understand getting far away from that.

@Anti-Matter

Of course. Most of the enemies in the starting areas have low HP.

@Dezzy

Yup, I know that after playing for 180 hours in 2 games, but it certainly took some time to get used to- and it turned my nephew off of the game.

@Snaplocket

I didn't say it was a 'great story', I said they had a lot of twists and turns (especially the 2nd one). It was corny in places but it kept me interested enough to want to know what would happen next (and was far better than most recent FF games). I would disagree about the characters, especially some of the villains like Metal Face. Admittedly the art style of the 2nd one wasn't too kind on characters faces, but I still found their personalities and little quips bearable for an 80+ hour game.

@MrGawain

I thought the story for Xenoblade X was incredibly good. I don't see why it didn't get more applause for that.
Maybe it's because it didn't actually focus on the story as much as the first one did, so people's memories of the game were much more derived from just the open-world exploration.

The art style is growing on me. I actually like anime art styles- Tales games do it well. Ni No Kuni does it well. And honestly this game looks better than either one of those. I think people in the west are just accustomed to a more realistic approach (like XCX had). And admittedly I did like that art style but, I like this too. Not so much at first but... the more I see, the more I like how it looks.

@Dezzy
Ya, the story in Xenoblade Chronicles X was fantastic. All I ever heard was "story wasn't good" or "story was subpar" or whatever... and I never could wrap my head around that. The story was absolutely intense, and made me want to play each chapter to see what happened next. I would put the story in that game in the 95 to 98 percentile of video game stories. It was up there with Final Fantasy games, for sure. Maybe people were just comparing it to the first game- I don't know- but compared to all videogames it had one of the best stories of a game I've ever played. Very original too. That twist at the end... wow