Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

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Dead or Alive 5: Last Round (PS4) - Don't have too much time to play PS4 these days, so I finally bit for this since I casually enjoyed the past DOA games as something to quickly drop in & out of, so I've goofed around with it enough the past few weekends to have some thoughts on it.

This title looks totally serious.

Gameplay:

• It's a 3D fighter with a generally fast paced combat flow centering on a rock, paper, scissors mechanic (strikes beat grapples, grapples beat blocks, and blocks beat strikes) and combo juggling your opponent into oblivion (while it is possible to counter strikes at the right moment, which is useful in higher calibur play if you can get to grips with it, in general if someone gets locked into a combo prepare for around half of their total health to take a hit before really getting a chance to retaliate).
• Otherwise the stages are highly interactive and will either have electrified boundaries (or even floors!) or have the ability for combatants to be knocked off a ledge or through a wall (and even through a weak floor!) into a different area accuring damage during impacts on the way down (some stages have a set number of drops, while a few actually infinitely loop between 2 or 3 areas). Maybe not the best for competitive play (though I'm sure there are options to shut it off), but as someone who just plays for casual fun I never tire of the spectacle (one of my favorites is a stage that starts off on the top of a skyscraper with some steel beams on one of the corners, and the first time someone gets knocked into the corner the beams fall down, and the second time the fighter falls off into a traffic accident caused by the beams, bouncing off of an exploding semi). There are usually some other interactive elements as well, such as objects (like glaciers, tables, etc.) that are breakable, certain grapples will be different up against a wall, and getting into water will temporarily wet the combatants' clothes.
• In terms of content on offer it has a Story mode (a couple hours long campaign that puts you in the shoes of most characters, each usually has 3 fights, interspersed with cutscenes), Arcade (with 7 difficulty options, you'll face a set number of randomized foes), Survival (kind of an endless mode I suppose), and of course the standard Free Play & Training modes (including a mode where you can practice going through each character's combo pool). Most modes have Tag Team variants (which is pretty self explanatory) & online play. It even has a Spectator mode where you can view fights you've saved or watch endless CPU bouts with a (pretty barebones) photo mode so you can capture that special moment.
  
• It has a pretty full roster that features nearly every character that has appeared in the series thus far, newcomers Rig, Mila, Phase 4 (a Kasumi clone), Nyotengu, Honoka, & Marie Rose, further Ninja Garden crossover with Rachael & Momiji joining the fray, Virtua Fighter guests Akira, Jacky, Sarah, & Pai, and even King of Fighter's Mai Shiranui (although a pretty natural fit, she's one of only two DLC characters not part of the core game).
• Of course alt costumes have long been a core part of DOA's appeal, and the game doesn't short change on that front. Each character starts out with 2 costumes unlocked, and have anywhere from around 5 - 12 to unlock, with a couple usually being pallet swaps (the female fighters tend to have more costumes). They are unlocked in consecutive order each time you clear arcade mode with a fighter (as far as I can tell this can all be done so on the easiest difficulty, though I can't say definitively as I'm most definitely not going clear it a dozen times with each character). Outside of that it has an absolutely obscene amount of DLC costumes (some of the female fighters have dozens, & I mean costume counts that get into the 50's when combined with what they have in the base game). They are usually sold for $2-$3 a pop, or bundled together in $20-$30 groupings (the game itself at this point is $40, so even two bundles at this point will likely cost more than the game itself, and again it has over a dozen different bundles, so you do the math). Of course this is all purely cosmetic, so if you feel the need to buy absolutely everything rather than the occasional outfit for your favorite few characters maybe that's more on you (some people absolutely lambasted KT for the total cost of all the DLC). Full disclosure, I caved and bought a couple of bundles of crossover licensed costumes (including the Senran Kagura set), as the licenses are starting to run out and are being delisted from the store (the game came out in 2015, and a few sets were delisted earlier this year, while one of the sets I bought was delisted just a few days after the fact). The vast majority are original though (or from other KT owned franchises like Dynasty Warriors) so shouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. Another thing to note is that some of the DLC costumes get battle damage & break apart (they are noted by a red star on the selection screen).
• I should also mention about the DLC costumes is that when you buy the game you'll be prompted to download a few dozen free "costume catalogs" as well. You don't have to download them, but they contain the data for the DLC costumes so you'll need them installed to see them online (if your opponent is using one) or buy the DLC yourself. Also, I forgot to mention before that each character usually has 2 or 3 random DLC costumes unlocked from the getgo along with their default 2 base game costumes (I guess as a taste of what you'd get with the full set), so that's another reason to download these. I figured I should mention it though as I've seen some confusion online from those who've purchased DLC that isn't showing up (it's because they forgot to DL the corresponding catalog beforehand).

Visual/Audio:

• It was originally a PS360 title, so nothing cutting edge, but it looks really clean & performs really well on PS4. The fighter models themselves still look really appealing if I say so myself. Stages look crisp and range from futuristic labs/military instillations, colorful natural venues & tropical resorts, neon infused metropolises, dingy urban back lots & more.
  
  Didn't really get a good overall shot of a stage, so here's Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa doing a bit of self promotion while fighting Virtua Fighter's Akira.
• DOA has always been known for specific "details" of it's character models, and DOA5: Last Round goes all out on options in that regard. To get the elephant out of the room first, yes, there are 4 different options in regards to the series' staple jiggle physics. It's set to "Natural" by default (with minimal movement), however they can also be set to "DOA" (classic eggagerated physics), "LR" (I'm assuming exclusive to Last Round, gives the female fighters completely bonkers DOA Extreme levels of mobility), or you can even turn them off completely. "DOA" & "LR" modes even include bonus jiggle mapped to the DS4's gyro function. Outside of that, there are options to turn on sweat & dirty appearances if fights last awhile or a character gets knocked to the ground.
• I wouldn't say it has standout music, but what it has fits the theme of the game. Has kind of a rockish sound in the menus, and a soft ballad type number that plays during the story mode credits.

Story:

• Believe it or not the DOA series does have an overarching narrative, though historically it's hit the same beats as typical fighter fare, with the mysterious organization known as DOATEC trying to learn the secrets of the Mugen Tenshin ninja clan in an effort to create super soldiers, and naturally they throw regular martial arts tournaments as part of their plans. Historically the story outcome was determined by which character you cleared arcade mode with (with only a few being considered canon ends, I assume), however that changes here...
• You see, DOA5 is the first numbered entry in the series to feature a dedicated story mode with cutscenes and a set path (the first was Dimensions on 3DS, which cumulated the intended narratives of DOA 1 - 4 into one). At the end of DOA 4 Helena Douglas (the heiress of DOATEC's founder) destroyed the company from within (with the help of a certain ninja clan) after finding out the plans of the shadowy forces within, and here in 5, while building a newly reformed DOATEC she discovers the previous shadow forces have simply moved elsewhere continuing their work & she recruits the help of the Mugen Tenshin clan to shut them down once & for all (naturally throwing a martial arts tournament to cover her tracks in bringing them together). It's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done (though the end boss is a b**** as it can shapeshift into different characters at will, changing it's moveset).
  
  Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa is (a playable fighter) heavily involved in the story as an ally of the Mugen Tenshin fighters (Kasumi, Ayane, & Hayate), and in fact the entirety DOA series (including the volleyball games) is canon with the modern Ninja Gaiden trilogy.
• It should also be noted that DOA5 takes place after a 2 year time skip since 4, as a means of aging up Ayane, Kasumi and a few other female fighters to avoid criticism from western circles in regards to the sexualization angle (the two heroines were 16 & 17 previously, so now 18 & 19).

Conclusion:

• It's not some GotY juggernaut, or even a fighter I plan on playing seriously, but I find it to be very fun comfort food when I want to jump in & out of something.
  

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Tokyo Dark
Platform: PC
Completion: Two runs; totaling roughly 9 hours of playtime

Tokyo Dark started life as a Kickstarter project funded back in 2015 (and later released in late 2017), promising an adventure game/visual novel hybrid set in Japan that was a fusion of supernatural horror and police procedural. Players step into the shoes of Ayami Itō, a detective who is investigating the disappearance of her partner Tanaka Kazuki. This investigation quickly takes a supernatural turn as she discovers a mysterious mask with connections to an ancient cult, hears talk of a fantastical door nestled within the sewers of Tokyo that is connected to something called "the Dark," and is haunted by the specter of a frightening young woman from a previous case that took a tragic turn. The Kickstarter pitch promised a game with branching story paths, and where your choices matter.

Sounds good, right?

The presentation in Tokyo Dark is fairly basic. The game is presented on a 2D plane at all times (i.e. it's a sidescroller), and, like in most adventure games, the player clicks on points of interest around the map to have Ayami walk around. Ayami's character model and walk cycle look incredibly cheap, unfortunately. I also wasn't a fan of the art style in the character portraits that often paint the screen as well, which feel animesque, like what a Western artist would draw as an approximation of a Japanese art style. It's not a terrible looking game overall, though: the environments, as little as you end up seeing of them, look sufficiently detailed, and the game features a few, very short fully animated cutscenes that look way better than anything else in the game. It'll come as no surprise, then, that these sequences were farmed out to a small Japanese animation studio.

Tokyo Dark's investigations and choices come into play primarily through the SPIN system, which is an acronym for Sanity, Professionalism, Investigation, and Neurosis. Depending on what happens to Ayami throughout the game and what choices she makes, her stats in those four areas will shift. This should have made for some interesting trade-offs, and it's clear that this is what the developers were going for. As a basic example, when the player returns to Ayami's apartment throughout the game, they'll have the option of having her swallow some sort of medication (an anti-psychotic, I'm assuming), which will increase her sanity stat, but decrease her investigation stat, since it presumably makes her mind foggy. There are also applications of this system that are both inspired and expected. Unsurprisingly, if the player chooses to have Ayami behave violently and/or recklessly to speed through some of the game's scenarios and environmental puzzles, her sanity will drop. If Ayami drinks on the job in order to try and put a hostile bartender at ease, her professionalism will drop. The most interesting thing I discovered is that having her go back to talk to characters whose dialogue trees she's already exhausted within a given chapter will increase her neurosis.

Unfortunately, the implementation of the system is flawed. For a few reasons. While the game attempts to explain what the stats do, it's not always clear what they govern. A higher level of neurosis seems to make her sanity drop faster, but it's hardly like the game is long enough to make this a fleshed-out mechanic. In fact, it's questionable how much of an effect almost any of these stats have: aside from some slightly different dialogue, it seems like the game progresses along the same general path regardless. There's at least one explicit check for the sanity stat that'll lead to an early bad ending, but otherwise, the system seems needless, and feels like it was designed to add an illusion of depth to the gameplay that's not actually there. As far as I can tell, the SPIN system broadly doesn't matter thanks to the structure of the game, which is less investigatory and more just a matter of completing a series of events and conversations in the same linear order every time.

Which leads into another criticism I have of the game. It's designed to feature choices and multiple endings, but, much like the implementation of the SPIN system, these elements don't feel fully explored. The structure of the narrative is unyielding, which makes the vast majority of choices the player makes throughout the game mostly pointless. Like in a Telltale game, almost nothing the player does actually matters in terms of how things actually play out at the end of the game. There are some radically different endings, but the majority of these endings are obtained by choices made within the last half hour of play time.

The game annoyingly doesn't allow the player to save in multiple slots, or in different parts of the game on the first run, so if the player wants to see how other endings will play out, they'll need to replay the entire game again. There's a feature in most visual novels with multiple endings that allows the player to skip past previously seen dialogue on their quest for new content and different endings, but this feature seems sort of... broken in Tokyo Dark. A skip function exists for some dialogue, but most of it forces the player to re-read it, even though it seems generally identical to how it was in the first playthrough.

Thankfully, the "broken memories" mode that's unlocked in New Game Plus allows the player to save in up to four different slots at one time, which helps tremendously with both obtaining multiple endings and steam achievement hunting in the PC version. And while most of the game is identical in NG+, there are actually some differences in dialogue in specific sections that call attention to the fact that the player, and, by extension, Ayami, is experiencing these events again, and ties this into the broader plot. It's a small thing, but I definitely appreciate that sort of attention to detail.

I'm a bit mixed on the game's plot and writing. The story itself unfolds in the manner of a Lovecraft-inspired yarn, with a weary and traumatized investigator risking their life and sanity poking into dark corners of the universe because they're too invested in the mystery to ever look back. The game's many endings reflect this uncompromising horror quality: even the "best" ones are extremely bittersweet, and the game doesn't seem to mind exploring the bleak implications of its mythology. Unfortunately, the plot itself feels a bit undercooked, and the game sometimes feels like it's doing the bare minimum to progress from point A to point B.

This lack of depth in the writing, and the lack of any meaningful application of the fore-mentioned SPIN system, means that, as a game, this feels rather incomplete, like the rough draft for an extremely interesting game that was never fully developed. Throw in the bad character model for Ayami and the generally lacking 2D environments, and the only conclusion I can reasonably come to is that this game should have been developed as a pure visual novel from the get-go. Especially if the time spent developing gameplay systems and environments had instead been re-invested into the game by fleshing out the writing somewhat.

Worse for the game are its frequent detours into goofy narrative territory that massively undermines any sense of atmosphere the game manages to build for itself. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm a big believer in the power of dark humor to keep bleak subject matter from becoming too depressing or overwhelming, but the humor here is just cringe-inducing. Like, I don't need a major chunk of this short horror game to be spent talking to catgirl-themed waitresses who talk in obnoxious puns. I don't need constant splash screens of Ayami joyously eating pancakes, or women snuggling cats, or... you get the picture. One sometimes gets the sense that the game would rather show off cute anime girls doing cute anime girl things than commit to maintaining a creepy atmosphere. Tonally, the game is all over the place as a result. It's like if Silent Hill 2's dog ending was integrated into the main story and kept popping up to undermine the sense of slow burning dread.

While I'm dogging on the game, I should also mention the strange visual glitch that frequently cropped up in my playthroughs of the game. For some reason, Ayami's character portrait will drift into the center of the screen and block text. At first, I thought this might be a stylistic choice to reflect Ayami's fracturing sanity or something, like the weird and ingenious sanity effects that affected the UI in GameCube survival horror classic Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but it seemed to crop up kind of randomly and, when I looked into it, it does indeed seem to be something unintentional. Not a game-breaking issue, but I thought it deserved to be mentioned, since it doesn't seem to have been addressed via patches at all.

The aesthetic and design limitations of Tokyo Dark are unfortunate, because there is actually a lot to like here. The soundtrack is moody and evocative. While the animation itself is cheap-looking, there's an attempt at a grungy urban aesthetic that I liked. Most crucially, the core story is actually really interesting, and I did become rather invested in the characters: the protagonist and antagonist of Tokyo Dark are both deeply flawed, but also distinctly human, and their mutual spiral into violence, despair, and insanity as the supernatural mystery at the core of the narrative consumes their lives was engaging enough to keep me invested enough to play through the game twice, despite its narrative shortcomings.

Tokyo Dark's potent mixture of urban noir and supernatural horror mostly holds together on the strength of an interesting core narrative and decent sound design. Unfortunately, it's undermined by cheap character animations, amateurish character portraits, a recurring and very annoying visual glitch, tonal imbalance, very linear game design that bucks against its own focus on replayability and multiple endings, lack of QoL features, and an RPG-like stat system that seems thoroughly undercooked. It won't be remembered as one of the great indie games, but I definitely think this title shows some promise from developer Cherrymochi, who will hopefully more fully realize their ambitions in future titles. Tokyo Dark gets a [strong]4.5/10[/strong

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Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch)

The enhanced Switch remaster/remake of the now iconic Wii era JRPG. Although I've played XC2 (and it's Torna expansion), this was my first time with the original adventure. This release also includes the all new Future Connected adventure, but for the purpose of this review I'm going to focus on the core game.

Gameplay:

• In terms of structure it's actually pretty standard fare for a JRPG, as you'll traipse across towns, field areas, & dungeons on your way to your next story destination, tackling optional quests along the way (I will say I found this preferable to XC2, which I don't remember having bespoke dungeons, just many open areas, followed by a series of more linear areas near the back end. While this game does have a series of more linear zones in the back half as well, I think in general it does a good job of mixing up it's open & more focused areas). Where it stands out is in the expansive scope of it's environments, which is so impressive I could honestly believe this was built ground up for Switch if I wasn't aware of it's Wii origins (it's not open world, but many of it's areas are large enough to invoke that feeling of wondering if you can get to that distant location in the distance). I can honestly see why it would have been viewed as a revelation of sorts on Wii.
• The world comes to life with monsters that have different "triggers" when it comes to attacking your party (if they have an eye logo above them they'll attack on sight, a vibration logo means they'll attack if you're moving quickly, a nuclear looking symbol means they'll attack if you use an ether based ability around them, and no symbol means they'll only attack when you make the first move), and you'll come to terms with avoiding powerful enemies levelled in the 70's & 80's that can prowl around even early areas, which helps to establish the world as a living environment with apex predators (while there is lore mentioned in the occasional side quest that mentions some groups of monsters being enemies with others, monsters don't actually react to each other in practice however). Enemies also have color coded icons above them that let you guage their strength relative to yours from afar (Red is too strong, Yellow tough but doable, Brown equal, Blue weaker, & No Icon no threat), and if they have no color coded icon they won't attack you even if you set off their trigger. Of course you can always target an enemy to get it's exact level as well.
• Exploration is very encouraged and you'll earn experience for arriving at new locations & landmarks (the latter of which act as warp points once you reach them), and you don't lose anything when you die (you're just sent back to the last landmark you passed, though you keep all experience, money, etc.), so you don't need to fret over getting bodied by a powerful enemy around the bend when you want to explore. It really cultivates a sort of relaxing vibe, and while the size of some areas may seem intimidating at first, if you keep up on side quests they generally send off to every nook & cranny over time. One other thing I'll briefly mention is that there are blue dots scattered over the landscape that are material harvest points (each area has it's own set of materials to collect, and while there is some randomness to what spawns where in an area, some materials will have a higher chance to spawn at night, during bad weather, etc. It's largely up to luck of the draw though, and a few materials are very rare to spawn regardless. This is definitely inferior to the system in XC2, where specifically marked harvest points will only spawn bugs, flowers, etc). You'll often need these materials for sidequests, and you can also fill out a "Collectipedia", which earns you rewards for filling out an area's material list.
• As for the side quests themselves they don't tend to be anything fancy, usually just stuff like Kill "X" number of this enemy or collect this number of items, though the basic gameplay loop was fun enough that I found doing them preferable to grinding, plus there were a few interesting ones from a lore perspective (though I thought the whole Giants' Treasure questline ended up being pretty anticlimactic). While it is true that doing all you can will over level you for the early areas, quest opportunities generally shrivel up into the second half & I felt things kind of evened out (not counting the endgame quests that pop up right at the end. Those are tough, however doing them will let you plow through the final boss). I'll also mention that whenever you have a quest selected as your main one there'll be a blue "!" marking exactly where you need to go, so there's no running around guessing where you need to go, which is especially helpful whenever you need to collect materials that spawn randomly (you can just open up the map and see exactly where the materials you need have spawned). Environmental designs aren't as intricate as those in XC2, so I never had the issue I had in that game where I'd seemingly go to the right location for a quest only for it to be at a different elevation. It definitely made things a bit easier.
• One issue I had with quests though is the whole affinity chart. You see, by talking to named NPCs & completing quests you're reputation in that area of the game world will increase, and when it increases more quests will open up, however that's not all there is to it. You see there is an affinity chart that displays how every named NPC is connected to those around them, and sometimes you need to talk to one NPC in order for some other NPC to give you a quest, and it's not often apparent that you need to do this, so if you want to attempt to do all the quests you can, you'll spend a lot of time talking to random NPCs to see if the affinity chart will update. This is slightly compounded by the fact that certain NPCs will only be active at certain times (though you can freely change the in-game clock to your heart's desire, and after you talk to an NPC once you can check their active times in the affinity chart), and of course certain quests are missable due to story progression (these quests are marked with a clock icon, so at least you know to prioritize those).
• Early on in the game you'll run across a settlement that has been destroyed and you'll be given the optional game long task of rebuilding it by gathering materials (and paying lots of money). While the character in charge of the rebuilding program will give you hints where you need to find certain items, the game is never quite as open as it is when it comes to pointing you in the right direction with normal quests, but I found it worthwhile to tackle though as I liked seeing the city being rebuilt, plus doing so grants you access to even more side quests, shops, & more.
  
  Sorry if this drags... on.
• When it comes to the game's combat (it's about time I got to this, lol!) it has a real time system where your character performs basic attacks automatically, though there are a series of special abilities (known as arts) displayed at the bottom of the screen, and it's the player's job to activate them at the right moment (you can't spam them as they have cool down gagues that must refill before you can use one again). For example Shulk has an art called "Back Slash" which, as you can imagine, deals extra damage when you're positioned behind the enemy you're targeting. There is a gauge with three bars that fills up as you fight, and when fully filled it allows you to pull off a powerful chain attack (the action stops, and you're free to chain together a series of arts, one from each of your party members, into a powerful combo), based on your party's affinity (more on this later) you may get extra chances to string even more arts into the combo. Doing so is a gamble however, as expending one bar of the guage is the only way to revive a fallen ally (there are no usable items like potions & such as there are in other JRPGs).
  Certainly seems to be a lot to take in.
• As briefly mentioned before there are no usable items in the game. This means that in order to heal yourself (or perform other buffs) in battle you'll have to make sure you have a character in your party with healing arts. Shulk has one that restores a small amount of HP to one character, but you'll largely be relying on Sharla once she joins the party a few hours in. I'll admit I was worried at first about leaving the health of my party largely up to an AI character (you can control characters other than Shulk in battle, but for reasons I'll get to in a bit, it's not something you'll likely choose to do often), but in practice it never presented any problems.
• A key aspect of the game's combat that's unique are Shulk's visions of the future. Part of the game's narrative is that lead character Shulk can see the future, and this is worked into the battle system in a neat way. Whenever an enemy is going to hit a party member with a special attack that'll really wreck them (usually resulting in death, but not always), the action will be interrupted with a monotone colored vision playing out the attack. Once you're back in control you'll have a few seconds to keep the scenerio from coming true. While you can warn a fellow party member by walking up to them & pressing "B", letting you choose one of their arts to activate & potentially nerf the impact of the attack, your strongest course of action is to use one of Shulk's special Monado arts. The Monado being the game's sword of legend so to speak, Shulk has access to a special selection of powerful arts that can turn the tide of battle in these scenarios. If effective a Monado art will be highlighted with a "!", and if you select it in time the enemy attack will effectively be neutralized alltogether.
• Another wrinkle to the combat are Mechon enemies. Robotic foes from Mechonis (more on this when it comes to the story) that are invulnerable to all attacks except those from Shulk's Monado. While other party members gain effectiveness against them as the story goes on, early on Shulk is really the only one that can harm them (one Monado art temporarily makes everyone effective against them, but activating it means you may not have another Monado art charged in time to stop a big attack if one is coming, so it's a bit of a gamble). Otherwise everyone can damage them if they are toppled or dazed. This is a mechanic that can be used against all enemies, but is particularly useful against Mechon early on (probably as a way to seamlessly train you to use it). Certain arts will have a chance to "Break" an enemy (arts with a pink icon can do so), which causes a gauge to appear above the enemy. They will then be "Toppled" if hit with a green colored art before the guage depletes, this causes the guage to be refilled and they can then be "Dazed" if hit with a yellow colored art before it depletes. An enemy will be immobilized with one of the latter two effects inflicted, and will take more damage as well (Mechon foes can be damaged by everyone as well while one is active). On top of this there are a couple early bosses that can only be damaged while "Toppled" or "Dazed" too. Also, your own party members can fall victim to "Topple" & "Daze", though similar to warning them about a future attack, if you are unaffected you can walk up to an affected ally and press "B" to get them back into the fight early (similarly, you can do the same thing to an ally suffering certain stat reducing status ailments, returning them to normal).
• Being a JRPG there are many ways to strengthen your characters. Of course they can level up by gaining enough EXP (earned by beating enemies, discovering new locations/landmarks, rewarded after completing some side quests, and unlocking in-game achievements), and by equipping new weapons & armor (bought in shops, dropped by enemies, awarded for completing side quests). Equipment also has Gem slots (0-3 slots on weapons & 0-1 slot on armor pieces), which act a lot like Materia from FFVII Remake. New arts ARE NOT tied to Gems like magic is to Materia in FFVII, however they offer all kinds of various buffs (or debuffs to attacked enemies) for battle & exploration. Gems can be earned as side quest rewards or crafted from ether crystals (dropped by enemies or harvested from ether deposits in the environment). Also, it's important to note that the strength of your arts DOES NOT increase upon character level up like base attack/stats (rather you have to level up each art independently by spending from a pool of accured Art Points, which you also earn from defeating enemies. This is especially important for Shulk's Monado arts, as vision or not, you're not going to be able stop an upcoming onslaught if you don't keep these properly upgraded as you move forward). Of course with so many systems in play there's bound to be one or two you won't bother with, and for me it was the Skill Trees. Each character has three different Skill Tree paths (plus 2 extra ones earned after certain side quests, resulting for a total of 5 each), each containing 5 skills, and when you have a path selected you slowly unlock it's skills (which tend to be passive buffs) as you aquire SP (which earned alongside EXP & AP). You can also spend Affinity Coins (earned upon levelling up) to give the effects of an unlocked skill to another party member as well. This is something I rarely bothered with, mostly leaving everyone on their default Skill path & it never resulted in any noticeable trouble for me.
• Outside of the Skill Trees I also never really bothered with Party Affinity. Party members gain affinity with each other by fighting alongside each other in combat (you can also have them give gifts to each other to build affinity), and if your party has a high affinity it earns you extra moves to add to chain attack combos (there's probably some other benefits as well). I really only ever used the same 3 characters, so their affinity was high with each other, but I never bothered to build affinity with anyone else outside of a certain side quest that required two female party members to have high affinity. This means I never got to see many of the Heart-To-Hearts (these are certain locations in the game world where two of your characters will have a personal chat, revealing more about themselves), which earn characters big affinity gains, but they usually have to have a pretty high affinity with each other to access them in the first place, kinda defeating the purpose, IMO.
• Oh, there's also these little dimensional tear things you'll run across that'll take you to a psuedo dimension where you can take on timed challenges to earn rewards. I think there are different challenges for different characters, but I honestly never once bothered with it.
• Another thing I never bothered with are the different difficulty modes. I played "Standard/Normal/Whatever it's called", however I know there's a "Casual" mode that at least weakens enemies, but probably has other effects too (being a Nintendo game, if you die 2 or 3 times in relatively quick succession it'll ask if you want to switch to the easier mode, which I ignored). At the other end of the spectrum is the "Expert" mode, in which EXP earned from exploration isn't automatically applied (it goes into a pool you can pull from at a later time if you feel like you need it), and you can actively de-level yourself if you think you over leveled & want a challenge (whether this mode actually makes enemies harder than normal I don't know).
• In comparison to XC2, it seems like there's a bit of a step back with every step forward, but I think I actually slightly prefer XC:DE in terms of gameplay. While the moment to moment combat here has a good flow to it (and the vision mechanic is cool) I think I prefer the much more rhythmic flow of XC2's battle system, plus the second game has more intuitive material harvesting & I LOVED getting new rare Blades to add to my party. However XC2 also added one to many excessive systems, such as the Gacha mechanic to acquire new Blades (which was a grind), and the dreadful Field Skill system (you needed Blades in your party with certain adventuring skills to access certain areas, which hindered exploration & interfered with story progression occasionally), and I think XC:DE is better off without all that. At the end of the day I guess those two issues I had with XC2 were a bigger nuisance than the niggles I had with XC:DE.
  That was a lot to take in, but let's move on shall we?

Story/Characters:

• When the world was young two titans (the organic lifeform Bionis & the mechanical Mechonis) did battle in a vast ocean. While it's said that Bionis won the day, the battle was exhaustive and both titans have long since been immobile. Bionic life (including Homs, fantasy speak for Humans) were born from the flesh of Bionis, and have lived on it's body relatively peacefully until one day they came under attack from the Mechon, robotic lifeforms from Mechonis. Powerless against their assailants, the number of Homs has diminished, and only a few of their colonies remain...
• There was hope however, as the Homs found themselves in possession of the Monado. Said to be the sword used by the Bionis itself, one warrior was strong enough to weild it's power and singlehandedly drove off the Mechon, seemingly winning the war. This was a year before the start of the game's events proper, where we join up with Shulk, a young scientist in Colony 9 who is studying the fabled sword. After the Mechon suddenly show up and shatter the fragile peace of the colony, lead by a new kind of Mechon immune to the Monado (during the events of which it's discovered that Shulk can weild the Monado & see visions of the future with it in hand), Shulk & his friend Reyn go off on a quest to reach Fort Galahad (the Mechon stronghold from the last war) to seek out revenge. Of course being a JRPG there are many detours & narrative twists along the way, providing for a grand adventure.
  
  Let's do this.
• While it does have it's more lighthearted moments, it definitely strikes a generally more serious tone than XC2, which wasn't afraid to go out of it's way for a laugh at times. While I think I actually preferred XC2 in this regard, the story on offer here is still really gripping, and I can understand why fans who started with the Wii original may have not jived with the second game's tone.
• It has a pretty solid cast of characters, and while it's not as prevalent a theme as it is in something like XC2 or FFX, I think the romance elements worked into the narrative were done really well. After nearly 120 hours of play time it was kinda sad to let go.
• I really liked the lore they worked into the game world like the Giant's ruins, and other vestages of civilization that show life was once more prevalent on Bionis. I also really like that some groups of monsters seem to have some level of intelligence (like the Turkin/Chillken & Ignas) as they fight with basic weaponry & make small camps or reside in the ruins of abandoned civilizations. This was similar to how they were presented in XC2 as well, and I'd be really be interested if they expanded on it in a future title, like having them have cultures at least on par with the Nopon (cuddly little round bird creatures that have appeared in every Xenoblade game, and one usually ends up in your party), just in a hostile role.
• On a side note, while it's pretty clear at points that it's connection to XC2 was probably only fully realized during the second game's production (who knows how much of that was actually pre-planned), by the end I was pretty satisfied with how well it does connect (how much they changed for this remake to retroactively make it fit better, other than a slight alteration to one character's design, I do not know as I've never played the Wii version).

Graphics/Audio:

• As mentioned before the sense of scale in the game can be absolutely awe inspiring & hard to believe it started life as a Wii game. Cleaned up in the XC2 engine, aside from a rough edge here & there it could totally pass for a ground up Switch title. It has a wide variety of biomes in a unique enough world where even the standard grassland & jungle areas feel anything but generic, and many areas, particularly on Bionis, take the Avatar approach of making everything glow in the night (of particular beauty are Satorl Marsh at night & Eryth Sea during a meteor shower). There is an additional sense of scale as in many places you can see were other parts of the titan you're currently on are in relation to you (and the other titan as well), which is a really cool piece of world building. My only little bit of disappointment in this regard is unfortunately many of the Mechonis locations. Granted, they still have an awe inspiring sense of scale & some really cool set-pieces in spots, but whereas the Bionis' locales (even it's sci-fi ones) feel like a living, breathing part of a coherent world, many of Mechonis' locales kind of blend together in a kind of series of brownish rust gold, generic militaristic sci-fi hallways & lifts. Still cool in general though.
  
  
  
  
  
  Shots from various Bionis locales.
• In a neat touch every different piece of armor changes your characters' appearance where it's worn (there is armor for your head, torso, arms, legs, & feet), and new to this version is the ability to set your appearance to a different set of armor compared what you're actually wearing for stat purposes (as long as you actually have the corresponding armor), so if you want the benefits of wearing the best armor in the game but want to see Shulk running around in his undies you can do that (if you payed close attention to my environment shots you can see I briefly did that with Sharla 😏).
• The British voice work is absolutely wonderful & helps to set the fantasy tone (coming from an American yokel in the Midwest).
• Great soundtrack too. I'm not one to usually notice music in games, and won't be tracking down individual pieces for my review, but it has a wide variety of tracks for various purposes & can be suitably sombre, upbeat, ready for action, relaxing & much more when it needs to be.

Conclusion:

• I'm not quite sure it's my favorite Switch title, but at nearly 120 hours of playtime it's certainly the one I've spent the most time with (and that's not counting the Future Connected bonus story, which I'll be reviewing on it's own!). Whatever the case, if your one of those people who've played BotW, Odyssey, and a few other Switch titles, complain that it doesn't have enough "big" exclusives and haven't yet played the Xenoblade titles (this or XC2), so so now.
  
  Hold on guys, I think we're finally done!

Expand

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected (Switch).

An all new adventure bundled with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. While you can jump straight into it, for narrative reasons it's recommended you play through the main game first (I'll try writing this as spoiler free as possible).

Gameplay:

• Like XC2's Torna expansion, Future Connected is a shorter adventure (I'd guess 10 - 15 hours, which is even shorter than Torna's 30 - 40 runtime) that features a completely new area, plus a returning area from the main game. The new area in question is the Bionis' Shoulder, which was a nearly complete area developed for the original game but cut due to thematic redundancy with a few of the game's earlier locales such as Colony 9 & Bionis' Leg (in short, it's a grasslands area). Gussie it up a bit and you've got yourself a brand new area for a story expansion. For spoiler purposes I won't reveal the returning location, though I will say it's one of the game's smaller locales, and you really don't spend a whole lot of time with it here.
• Returning party members include Shulk & Melia, and they're joined by two new Nopon characters in Nene & Kino (two children of Riki, the main game's Nopon party member). Basic combat is the same as the main game, with Nene & Kino even taking the abilities/roles of Reyn (tank) & Sharla (healer) respectively (sorry Melia, I'm putting you on the side lines again, lol). Fitting that it takes place shortly after the events of the main game, you don't start out at level 1, but instead level 60 (with all your arts already at level 4 or 5). Of course the area's enemies are levelled accordingly.
• There are 4 big changes to combat.
  1. There is no more future vision mechanic in place to counter killer blows, with nothing to replace it. This means you really don't have a need for most of the special Monado arts, though I did find a use for a couple. I never particularly found this to be a problem however, so enemy special attacks must have been relatively nerfed to sort of balance it out.
  2. Across your journey you'll run across a group of Nopon adventurers known as "Ponspectors" who'll join up with your party. There are 12 in total and mention this here as they ever presently follow your party of 3 while out adventuring & in combat (like active Blades do in XC2). During battle they'll randomly heal or buff party members & attack & debuff enemies (4 carry blue flags and have restorative effects, 4 more have red flags and attack enemies, and 4 others have yellow flags & debuff enemies). This is all AI controlled & involves no input from the player.
     
     I hope you're not tired of Nopon.
  3. The Chain Attack mechanic has been removed (where you expend your whole talent gauge to chain an art from each party member into a combo). It is replaced with a mechanic where you instead call upon all Ponspectors to strike in unison. Performed under the same conditions as a Chain Attack, you'll have the option to have them heal all party members & provide a litany of buffs, do massive damage to an enemy, or automatically Daze & debuff the enemy. The effectiveness of the strike depends on the total number of Ponspectors you've joined with as well as a little 3 prompt QTE (I think it's the same one used when performing certain arts in XC2). You'll occasionally get an "Extra Chance", which lets you immediately choose another strike (though you can't pick the one you've already used again).
  4. Another new aspect is the presence of "Fog Beasts". These are regular monsters who have fallen under the influence of the "Fog King" (the big bad of the expansion who is brought up in the first hour, so not really a spoiler). They have a black aura around them & when engaged send out a shockwave that attracts the attention of all nearby monsters (& levels them up). They sound annoying, but in practice I never had any particular issue with them (all other enemies return to their regular level if the Fog Beast is killed beforehand).
     
     There's something not quite right with these guys.
• Adventuring is largely the same as it is in the main game (you gain EXP from discovering new locations & landmarks, the latter act as warp points, harvest points are random blue dots everywhere, etc), though there are a few nagging issues. First off, given that they've had to cram an entire adventure into this one location, it's entirely possible to take a few steps off the beaten path (particularly early on) and wind up in a space with enemies too strong for you (& I don't mean the occasional random super strong enemy you're supposed to tip toe around you'll get in the main game, just a space with enemies generally too strong for you early on). Secondly, the landscape can be quite "layered" in spots, and yet the map is depicted as one "floor". This means you'll probably run into the issue where you'll go to a quest marker only to look around and see it's on a plane above or below you (a problem with XC2 occasionally, but not one I had with XC:DE proper). Granted, these are small problems in the grand scheme of things (death is just as un-punishing as ever, and you'll know the entire area by the back of your hand before too long), but they are there.
• Otherwise the game is streamlined in many aspects.
  1. The Skill Tree & all Affinity related systems (including all the charts) have been completely wiped. The "Heart-To-Heart" conversations scattered around the map (previously locked off by affinity requirements) have been replaced with "Quiet Moments". These are fully voice acted interactions between party members that are only ever locked off by story progression. Honestly this is a big load off your back as you don't have to worry about some obscure affinity requirement locking off a side quest or some such.
  2. While they can drop better weapons, enemies no longer drop armor (and the armor you obtain from quests is largely cosmetic). Better armor is exclusively obtained by buying it from one of the two shops in the game.
  3. There is no more Gem crafting system. An upgrade to your Ether Deposit mining gear near the start of the game means you harvest ready to go equipment Gems from Ether Deposits instead of crystals (enemies no longer drop crystals either). At some point you can do a side quest that improves the quality of Gems you mine as well (you start out mining level II & III Gems, and get level IV Gems afterwards) You still get a few Gems from side quests or treasure chests too, though.
• 3 - 4 NPC side quests usually open up after every other story event, and while (almost) none of them reward EXP, they all reward large amounts of money (which is important, since you can only buy better armor as previously stated). Each Ponspector also requires you to complete a side quest before they join you, and while (almost) none of them reward money, they all reward large amounts of EXP. You run across the first Ponspector as part of a scripted event, and after that he'll give you the locations of a few others. Ideally after you get more to join they'll reveal the location of a couple others, so on so forth, but it's important to note they all load in after you meet the first one, so it's entirely possible to get them out of order (I got a few this way), though be aware one may give you a quest you're not ready for if you're not "supposed" to meet them yet. Unlike the main game none of the quests get locked off due to story progression, and unless I somehow completely missed it during my entire playthrough of the main game, another new aspect is that it'll tell you what level they recommend you be at to take them on.
  
  Ready for duty!

Story/Characters:

• A year after the main game ends, Shulk & Melia are taking a trip to [insert returning location here] to see how things are going, when a big laser fires upon their ship & they crash land on the Bionis' Shoulder. Joined up by Nene & Kino (children of the previous game's Riki) who had stowed away on board, they soon meet up with refugees from [insert returning location here] who were driven out by a foe they've dubbed the "Fog King", an etheral being who seems immune to all physical & ether (magic) attacks, which phase through it. To make matters worse is that racial tension has caused the military class to leave the civilian camp unguarded, meaning Shulk & Co. have their work cut out for them.
• Despite the serious nature of the narrative, the game is a lot like XC2 in that it seemingly always balances out the more sombre moments with something a bit more light hearted, and that's largely where Nene & Kino join in. Yes, they're Nopon with all the speach & personality quirks that come with that, but they're also actual children, so the whole schtick comes off as much more genuine from them & they never fail to bring a smile. Despite the short run time of Future Connected, I probably care more about them than some party members from the main game.
  
  A surprisingly heartfelt duo.
• By and large this is Melia's story though (kinda ironic considering I sidelined her, lol), as she was the party member with the most baggage left over at the end of the main game, and it provides a nice conclusion for her (and some expanded roles for characters around her narrative).
• However, a lot (read: practically all) of the phenomena surrounding the sudden appearance of the Fog King is left unanswered, and I can't help but think that in that regard, this is as much prologue for where they want to take the series next as it is epilogue for where it's been. Unfortunately, unless some eagle eyed fan has noticed something that flew over me, there was nothing here that seemed to tie things back into XC2 (which I assumed there might be). Whatever the case, while the main game had a satisfying end & I shouldn't be itching for more after playing this cart for nearly 140 hours, that's exactly where Future Connected left me, wanting more.

Graphics/Audio:

• While you'll largely be spending your time in one location, I think they did a pretty good job of bringing the Bionis' Shoulder to life, and there's just enough diversity to keep it feeling fresh (though in terms of native monsters, it kinda feels like they jammed a bit of everything in there, feeling a bit more of an ecological mishmash than the locations in the main game).
  
  
  
  
• While you can't carry over any equipment from the main game (for practical gameplay purposes), you can still use the appearance of armor you collected in the main game for cosmetic reasons (once you clear it you can set the appearance of Shulk's weapon too).
• When you first load into an area (after warping or some such) or when things get really, really busy, I noticed the occasional dropped frame, which I imagine had to do with your little Ponspector army flailing their little flags about everywhere. It's not something that bothered me, but I figured I should mention it for transparency.

Conclusion:

• It's brief enough that it's probably not worth buying XC:DE just for this, but if you've never played the original game (or are looking to re-experience it) this is definitely a nice bonus that sweetens the deal.
  
  A dessert worth digging into.