Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Can't help but feel this game is going to be a disappointing when considering XC1's story. "Boy meets girl" and looking at Rex compared to Pyra..... I don't even.

I play Xeno for the free exploration, for its unique worlds, its fresh stories, and for its music.
It helps that the graphics are among the best of their generation too and that the gameplay is modern, and the battles are fast-paced and rather deep.

I hoped that the collectibles (the blue dots and crystals) would now be more like the materials in BotW, but that doesn't seem to be the case in Xeno2. I also don't like the character art style as much as in Xeno1 and XenoX, because for me they look like... hmmm.. Tales of Symphonia characters maybe. Not a biggie for me though, a few hours in I'm sure I will change my mind and get accustomed. The game is going to be great. I think it will be better at Xeno1 at least, if not better than XenoX.

@Snaplocket It's your every-day bog-standard Anime style. Artistically better how? Yes, XC1 and 2 look aged, but they had their own look about them, instead of looking so generic, it couldn't get any worse.

XC1 had a great story. It led you astray the whole time, only then to break the story itself with a cool twist. When I hear "Boy meets girl" I can only imagine it'll be that cliche anime story that gets all the kiddies in.

@SKTTR Better than Xeno1? With that plot for a story? Do allow me to laugh myself into a C position.

@Snaplocket I enjoyed both of them, but the twist is what made XC1 as great in my eyes. I don't believe that "Boy meets girl" as a premise, with the change of art style to get a "broader demographic" will amount to very interesting story in XC2. I feel they're going too juvenile in trying to get more people on-board with the game.

That said, I'd gladly be proven wrong, but Rex in contrast to Pyra rubbed me the wrong way. That and his English voice... blurgh...

@UmniKnight The first Xenoblade's story wasn't that great to begin with; the first half of it moved too slowly and after the "twist" (which most people saw coming and was just really well executed in that one scene), the game goes the way of info dumps and astronomically raising the stakes.

I don't see 2's story being bad. Unremarkable, yeah, but really so was the original's.

@CrazedCavalier I quite liked the original XC1, and would daresay it's one of the better stories out there. Given, I wasn't as old back then as I am now, and not as good at predicting stories. Hell, any story that can break expectations, or allows the protagonist to see things like a betrayal and twist them in their own advantage gets my vote.

But I can't see XC2 amounting to much. That trailer showed the tragic bits with Pyra falling down, separating from Rex, having him fight without her for a while, and she's obviously going to end up captured or corrupted and he has to save her, same old stuff we've seen all so many times before.

@UmniKnight XC1 didn't do anything really new, either; when it came out, most of the hype was around the gameplay with story opinions being more "eh". It wasn't until around we started getting Xenoblade X info (and Chuggaaconroy's LP of the first game) that people suddenly started acting like the story was the best thing ever.

@CrazedCavalier I always thought the story was pretty damn good, and wasn't all that impressed by the gameplay instead. Guess I got the message backwards

Don't get me wrong, I played the heck out of both.
I love the design of both Xeno worlds, I liked all the characters more or less (but definately more than in most RPGs), and was surprised by the crazy twists in both.

It's just personal taste that I like the survival and exploration on a foreign planet to build up a new colony more interesting due to its realism, than adventuring on the bodies of frozen-in-time giants to fight godlike entities to become God.

Anyway, I see the appeal of Xeno2's floating titan worlds and the humongous tree. It will be a lot more like Xeno1 than Xeno2, with bits of Secret of Mana and Skies of Arcadia.

I wish Xeno games could somehow incorporate co-op though. There's so much more fun to be had when you roleplay together, as seen in Secret of Mana, Phantasy Star Online, Diablo, and the many mmorpgs.

I hope Xeno2 brings the online introduced in XenoX forward somehow.

@SKTTR But all of that is built on the juvenile premise of "Boy meets girl" Or should I say "Generic-Kid-Protagonist boy Nr.982 meets Adult-looking-save-for-face girl"

I doubt this is really the case, because I know that girl can transform into the Xenoblade, and for that you're being hunted by a military empire. I don't know how many games started off like this but for me it's new. Most of the game, I assume, will be finding ways around the empire, visiting all of the floating titans and befriend party members from different species, including a Nopon. And so the adventure continues from one titan to another, until they finally reach the tree of life. That might not be the end of the game though, but that's what I expect and nothing more, I leave the rest open to surprise me.

@Snaplocket

When I think of annoying, boring, and clichéd RPG characters I think of the depressing, amnesiac, and shizophrenic ones introduced in Tales of Symphonia 2: Dawn of the New World. If the characters from the first ToS (Gamecube) weren't in the Wii sequel to bring a positive vibe to this game later on, and if the gameplay wasn't so solid, I would have never finished it.

The cast of Xeno is a scientist that turns into God, the mindless longtime friend bloke that turned instantly into a meme, an abducted robotized girl, an old-school swordwarrior with a messed up arm, a hot gunwielding healer, a moving ball of wool that also turned into a meme that everyone loved except you, and a silent girl princess leader of the biggest empire of both worlds. I don't mind playing as those characters. The story and world was long and strong enough for the player to experience all history and culture of the characters, and they played different as well. Same for XenoX!

More footage, new area:

Either christmas or early 2018 is looking still likely.

Shaping up gorgeously

I like how the controls are matched up to resemble the Joycons.
The bigger texts, logical UI design, and visualised battles are neat steps to make this game more appealing to everyone.

Seeing this new amazing looking area and hearing that new music just reassured me this game is going to be epic!

It sadly doesn't seem to be generating much hype though. It was alreadya fairly niche series and I think the more anime style has maybe pushed it even more niche.

There really aren't many anime-styled JRPGs that sell well in the west.

Ok so thought I'd summarise this footage for people who don't have an hour to spare.

It's looking incredibly good imo. Really liking everything I've seen so far. Anime cheesiness aside.

So this area is set inside one of the bigger titans. It'll probably be an excuse for having a permanent night-time area. Really cool use of colour and lighting though:

So there's a wilderness area at the bottom with enemies and dungeon-like challenges. Then at the end of the area, there's a big town up a cliff, that can reached by walking up the cliffs or taking this long bridge from the bottom:

The airships you use to get around are anchored next to the town. They explain that all of the airships are titans as well. So the smaller titans are being used by people as transport, whereas the bigger ones have been used to building towns on:

Then the town at the top of the cliff looks like a kind sterotypical medieval european fantasy town. Looks pretty cool. Has the same kind of style and feeling as Alexandria in FF9:

This town was clearly pretty big. Looked similar kind of size as the towns in XC1. Which is good news:

Then there's a big cathedral type thing at the top of the town. Very advanced architecture so it looks like there will be fairly advanced technology and civilisation in this world:

Then at the top of the massive stairway you could see in the 2nd picture:

And this is from the same position, looking back across the entire area. Just like with the town, these areas look to be fairly similar sizes as those in the original XC:

Feel free to use these pics on the frontpage if you want NLife.

Weird to think I'll be playing another Xeno game so soon after X, I wasn't expecting another until 2019 at least!

I wouldn't be surprised if it gets delayed til Q1 2018 but with everything we've seen and how well polished it already looks, I definitely think it's near completion.

I wonder if piloting the airships will be manual or if you'll just move around by selecting destinations off a checklist. This game could end up being the original XC mixed with Skies of Arcadia.

Also, a large medieval fantasy town inside a giant creature? These games are essentially fantasy porn.

Dude... this new gameplay has me hyped!!!

All those memories of exploring Mira are rushing back to me... all those memories of losing myself in an epic JRPG with a beautiful world and crazy story are bubbling up to the surface.

This game looks so good. And there's just nothing else like it. There's no other game out there, that I know of, that gives the kind of experience you get from a Xenoblade...

What a year for Switch