Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I still refuse to say what I feel about this game as a whole until I get much later into it, but I can't ignore anymore that this is game is very obviously a mess. Enough of it is because it has cool ideas that it wants to do, even if it leads to weird issues. But some of it are just issues that the original Xenoblade didn't have, and fixing them would not lead to a worse game for anyone at all. Same with X, which is just baffling to me.

A lot of it is just user friendliness and presenting the various gameplay elements well. The tutorials in this game are kinda just garbage. I also didn't like when games thought you were too stupid to do anything it wanted you to do, but the opposite extreme is not any better. And parts of the combat are just so absurd, you have to present it in a way people can actually get. I've looked it up, and I still can't at all remember how those elemental orbs after a combo are supposed to be used in context of a driver combo or how to do good drive combos beyond doing them after an elemental combo. And I just don't like how they did the sidequest system in certain ways, and the map often takes too long to use in any way.

Now, if I finish the game and declare it a masterpiece by the end, I won't be shocked. I still think the game is great in a lot of ways thus far. But its also really messy, and is too inconvenient too often. Which is a real shame to me, because convenience is one of the reasons Xenoblade stood out at first.

I also like the story but at points its almost an ironic kind of enjoyment. Its such a specific type of anime style of storytelling, combined with a more uneven English dub, and some truly odd timing for lines and things that makes it...certainly interesting in ways that I'm pretty sure weren't intended.

@kkslider5552000 My opinion of this game changes quite dramatically. It's almost seasonal. One day I'll think this is a great game with good voice acting and combat and the next I'll hate the characters, combat and the atrocious dub. I think this game is the least good out of the three Xenoblade titles, but it doesn't make it a bad game. I'd rate them from best to least best as such; 1, X, 2.

I never really liked 2. Loads of people insist it's the better game, but the combat's waay more convoluted than the original's, and the story just has heavy tonal whiplash. There's some things 2 does get right though, like the side quests being a bit more interesting, and voiced heart to hearts. I absolutely adore the 10th chapter as well, and the voice acting, aside from Rex and probably Tora, is pretty alright.

The Torna expansion is probably my favorite aspect of 2, if not for the slightly better combat system and the gacha mechanics being stripped out entirely, in favor for a set amount of blades which feel like actual party members.

@VoidofLight Give Rasmus Hardiker some respect, he voiced the Luminary and Tricky Devil in Dragon Quest XI! ;p

I prefer Torna's combat to the main one, it's stripped down but is still wild fun. The random blades were quite boring, so they made grinding for Rare Blades a pain in the neck.

@TheJGG The gacha system was the bane of my existence when I got to a certain dungeon in one of the later chapters. It probably didn’t help that at the time I didn’t know the importance of side quests in xenoblade, and I only had the tutorials to go off of from 2. However, I remember finding loads of skips in the dungeon that aren’t really meant to be taken, until I reached a road block and had to grind to level up blade abilities.

@kkslider5552000 disclaimer: I am one of those that got in love with this game.
Completly agree with the tutorials as they suck and it is a crime that you cannot go back and check them again when on need. For instance I did not understand what "cancel arts" meant at first therefore I was not doing it correctly until I could not progress anymore tens of hours later and I had to check online what was I doing wrong.
Also the gatcha system was a mistake (at least they should added a rule that after 100 core crystals you would allways get a rare blade as after 250h I am still missing a few).

But now that I get the gameplay it is the best in a JRPG by a countrymile imo. The AI is not dumb as in the original and the battles become almost a dance. And I like the story and the characters altogether but another disclaimer although I do not watch many often I do like anime so some of the campy stuff does not bother me as much as others.

I feel like I'm one of the few people who actually enjoyed the gacha system. I'm also a collector, though, and like pulling "rare" things. Usually stuff like this is tied to microtransactions, so it was nice to be able to collect the cores through natural gameplay. I was always excited to use cores whenever I got them. I never felt restricted by the system either. I always had enough rare blades to go around, and by the time I finished New Game Plus I had collected every rare blade in the game.

I know I'm in the minority when it comes to this though, and I can understand the frustration from people who don't enjoy the gacha aspect.

I'm not a fan of gacha systems but most of the reasons I despise them don't really apply to XC2. You don't need real money to play, it doesn't gate off any of the main story behind a rare pull and - once the patch dropped that allows you to skip the animation - it doesn't suck up a huge amount of time either.

My advice for a first play through is just take the blades you're given and work with them. It'll make your run a bit different from everyone else's, and there are none so weak they can't be made to work with a good equipment setup.

Once you've done that, it shouldn't take long to pull the rest in an NG+. Just farm legendary crystals - repeatedly smashing the leveled up Relentless Arduran should do the trick - and repeat until done. It should take more like 3 hours than 250, although there's plenty else in the post-game to spend that amount of time on.

For me, I had parts of the main story locked behind not having specific blades with the abilities I needed, but that's probably because the way I was playing the game wasn't exactly the intended way, due to the tutorials being very poorly made.

@VoidofLight Yes, there are a few parts of the game that might feel like that, but there are no field skill checks for the main story that cannot be passed with a combination of story and common blades. Pulling certain rare blades might make them a little easier to get through but leveling up the skills of your story blades is going to be a better bet than grinding for, say, KOS-MOS.

As ever, the game isn't terribly good at explaining this though.

This is exactly why I've stopped playing at about 20ish hours in. I encountered a skill check at this abandoned-looking factory place where I need some skill to get through the door (or window? I forget, it's been a few months), and I was like...well... this isn't fun.

I am a big JRPG player, but definitely not a Xenoblade fan, and the systems of the game were tough for me to figure out from the start. I ended up enjoying things about 10 hours in, though, and was really rolling with it until I encountered this skill check. I spent hours kind of scouring every inch of the area around the place, and it's just left me frustrated and I've kind of left the game alone for a few months now.

I'm sure if I got passed it I would start enjoying it again, but it was definitely a hard stop for a player like me who was already grappling with some of the systems in this beast of a game.

@rallydefault If you haven't played the original or X, I'd give those two a try since they're vastly different gameplay wise, and much more simple in terms of the mechanics you have to learn. The story of the original game, at least in my opinion, is leagues better than 2's story as well.

@rallydefault You're certainly not the only one who found the Abandoned Factory hard going. It's one of the tougher parts of the game with its mazey layout, lots of easily aggroed high level enemies that you've no chance against, and all the backtracking required.

There aren't too many field skill checks though, and none of them require a lot of leveling of the Story blades. There are some locked doors that require you to find actual keys though, so maybe it was one of those?

Ah well, if you're ever tempted to give the game another try, I'm sure someone on here could talk you though it. I know this will sound like a total cliche, but the game really does take a turn for the better once you're through that part of it.

@rallydefault I'm assuming you're talking about breaking the ventilation fan, and to do that you can just use Wulfric. You get his core crystal at some point earlier in the story, it's a special crystal that guarantees you summon him. He's the intended Blade to use there. I don't think there's anywhere in the story that requires a certain rare gacha blade.

Ok, I'm gonna check this out right now!

...

It worked! Thank you SO much! I never would have thought to do that in a million years. I've just been rolling around with the Blades I was getting in the story and not really awakening any others.

Ok, I'm off to play this game again for the first time in like 3 months lol

Good luck!

For what it's worth, Wulfric is a guaranteed story blade who you'll always pick up in the middle of chapter three. You just have to wait a while before activating the Beastly core crystal after picking it up.

There are several other named crystals (i.e. not common, rare or legendary) and they'll always give you a particular rare blade. In particular, if you find the Ebullient or Divine core crystals they'll give you an excellent healer and tank respectively that are two of the best blades in the game. You'll need the DLC though.

@Matt_Barber
Thanks! Currently bumbling around in the abandoned factory lol

I really like the abandoned factory theme, I think it's pretty underrated

@Vortexeo It heavily reminds me of mechonis field and i love it, just didn't fit the cliffs so much i think

@Solaine Oh yeah I agree! I'm curious as to why they used that theme twice lol.