Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

@Benjoo Base XC2? Depends on your tolerance for sharp dips in resolution. Not universally, but a few areas look quite rough in handheld mode.

It's still a fantastic game, though.

Playing Torna this Christmas. I’m really starting to get into it again. I never played the Torna expansion, and I’ve been craving a nice meaty game I can sink my teeth into. So it’s been back and forth between Torna and Starlink. Kinda want to start playing Metroid Prime again though...

Monolith be delivering more high quality art.

Can't get enough of it!!!

I like her expression, very cute!

Just finished Torna.

Best ending to a video game I’ve ever played, at least in recent memory that I can recall.

If the main game ended on a happier note, Torna was tragedy through and through (which, no surprise there, we all knew the events that took place 500 years prior, at least vaguely)

I enjoyed it more than the main game, but not that much more... until the final ending at the last boss. That just launched this game into the stratosphere.

It definitely satiates that craving the base game left me in terms of closure. Just immaculate.

@JaxonH And now I've beaten it too. Wow... Just wow!

The QoL-changes made to the game, made it a much more enjoyable experience than the main game for me, even though I love XC2. But Torna did a lot of things so much better, especially with the much more dynamic battle system and the ditching of the Core Crystal management, that I now hold it in higher regard than the main game.

I agree with you that the final battle was great! And it was kinda sad ending the game knowing what would happen to the characters, which then would lead to the events in XC2. Some of the characters, especially Lora and Jin, really grew on me.

Still not better than XC1, but pretty damn close! Can't wait to see what Monolith Soft creates next!

@Quarth
Nicely done. That was a killer ending though, eh?!!

Gosh dang I wish more games had the gall to do an ending like that. Too often “happily ever after” trumps brilliance. And that ending... that was brilliant.

The removal of the gatchya system definitely helped elevate Torna above the main game. It was a neat system but... overall I enjoyed the version without it more (Torna).

@JaxonH Yeah, even though you could count this as just an extra chapter to the base game, which ends on a happier note, to me Torna feels like a unique game standing on its own two feet. So the bleakness of the situation the characters are standing before, combined with what you know beforehand by having played the main game, makes the ending of Torna very impactful. You really feel for the characters and i think the motivation of some of them, like Jin, makes more sense after playing both XC2 and Torna. The expansion fleshes out the story and the characters and makes the stakes feel more important. It's like Torna is that last piece of the puzzle needed to truly understand and enjoy the world and events of XC2. You don't need to play it to get the story, but it really improves it.

With the gatchya system, I guess you mean the randomness of opening Core Crystals, hoping to find Rare Blades? I think that was the worst game mechanic of XC2 as there didn't seem to be any logic to it and I'm glad they ditched it in Torna.

Overall, I also feel they did a better job with the tone and pacing in Torna. The dialogues and voice acting didn't seem as rushed. Truly an expansion done right!

Tbh I still liked the combat of Torna but it's by far my least favorite combat system out of all of the other games, even lower than 1's combat which was my previous least favorite. Reason being they took out a big reason why 2's combat was good: the more deliberate orb stacking, building your party with the right elements for the right orb trees, and matching up with Chain Attacks are gone with the wind. Instead you can just do whatever, have a bunch of orbs, then just blast them way easier than anything else. Elemental Awakening doesn't do enough to counteract that.

It's still good and bringing back some of the good elements of 1's combat like Talent Arts help, but it's still my least favorite Xeno game since the gameplay wasn't all that fulfilling to me compared to X or 2 (but still great), despite the pretty damn good story. Unfair it may be, it's still a standalone expansion. Still fantastic though, and above a lot of other JRPG systems anyway so I can't complain too much. For a DLC expansion you can't get better than this.

Hey guys, I'm playing torna the golden country right now and I've read some stuff online saying you should do side quests but it's not saying which ones are necessary and which aren't. I've never played a xenoblade game so this entire series and genre is new to me. In torna Is it required to do all side quests? Sorry for being late to the thread and game!

@NintendoByNature You gain community from doing side quests and the game blocks you from progressing at 2 points in the game if you don't have a high enough community level. So it's not much a case of specific side quests being necessary but rather complete the ones you find, talk to people and your community level should be enough to progress.

@Grumblevolcano thanks i appreciate it. Sounds like might as well do the 6 ones i have unfinished. For the most parts I've been skipping them. Thankfully I didn't skip too many.

Finally got back to Torna and hit the first side-quest wall this morning in the capital city.

I can't get over how GOOD this is. It looks even better docked than the base game. Handheld mode can get pretty soft at its most hectic moments, but most of the time it looks... acceptable undocked, which is more than I can say for the base game in many large areas. The side-quests are a lot more succinct and fun to complete here, seeing as how you don't have blade skill limits blocking you from completing most of them into many hours in the future. The environments are, again, genuinely stunning. The music is even better. The battle system, while not quite as deep and customizable, addresses almost every issue I've ever had with the combat in these games, with streamlined and intuitive mechanics and faster battles. And, wow, it might not be as much of an epic as the base game, but this is pretty much a full-fledged JRPG in its own right.

And, I haven't seen anyone address this, but you can toggle whether normal enemies aggro or not while you're exploring. That's SUCH a good addition. I would have loved to have had that in XCX and the base game and avoided all of those genuinely tedious sequences where a monster tens of levels higher than you notices you and knocks you out while it's a mile away.

And, while the fanservice in the base game didn't bother me, that's not even an issue here. I can't really imagine anyone feeling uncomfortable while playing this.

I genuinely love the campfire chats and how everyone contributes their own little skill to your quest.

I have not a single negative thing to say about this. I guess blocking progress based on how many sidequests you've completed might not sit well with some people? Whatever. This is one of the best games on the Switch.

@Ralizah Toggle aggro is in the base game too, though like BotW it was a case of needing to own the expansion pass to receive the extra game options.

@Grumblevolcano I own the pass and don't see the option when I load up the base game. Is it located somewhere other than the options menu?

@Ralizah Did you redeem all the expansion pass items? It's part of the distribution that gave the challenge mode. Gift from Zuo has Nopon Summons (that's the challenge battle mode) and Extra Game Options (contains toggles for auto-battle, special button challenges and enemy aggression in Game Options).

@Grumblevolcano Ah. That explains it. I'll be redeeming the extras whenever I get around to my 100% Japanese language replay of the game.

I've been rewatching the cutscenes, because I stopped playing mid Ch.8 (The Switch has so much to play that this happens often)

I think I have a good grasp of what went wrong with the voice acting. Yes, the voice cast is not the most experienced (https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/Xenoblade-Chronicles-2/), but I think the game has a bigger problem with voice direction.

Every line of dialogue in this game sounds like it was recorded separately without context, which I have a hunch is exactly what happened. Given that we know the game was somewhat rushed, and had a simultaneous release, it's possible that the localization team didn't have all the dialogue available at once, and so actors couldn't get a coherent idea of the story they were trying to tell.

Finally started playing this. Given that XC1 is one of my favourite games ever, I made this a priority.

So far fairly good. The characters are interesting and the story has me hooked already. But there are a lot of minor things that really bug me so far. The lip syncing is non existent. Seriously, don't zoom in on a characters face if you haven't done any lip syncing. It just looks terrible.

Secondly, this is one of the stupidest visual design choices ever. How on earth is this helping me find my way around? It's just headache inducing. Is there a way to turn this off? Just get rid of that text entirely?

@Dezzy I feel like in context of the actual game, you'll be able to point out which NPC has which store. Then again, I play every single Xenoblade game with the camera completely pulled back and an overhead view.