Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

As a counterpoint, I've heard zero mentions of anyone caring about the realistic portrayal of character's outfits for battle for any reason in anime stuff like this, unless they want to point out the disconnect with the women.

Which is fine to a degree, but no one actually cares if the outfits are the best for combat for something like this. That element does not matter for much of the people complaining about it. The previous games embraced that in fact, allowing for absurd outfits for everyone. The bizarre, unexplained inconsistency is the beginning and end of the actual problem.

I suppose you could say that few JRPGs are big on realism. You're generally looking at their Western counterparts if you want that, although they've also accumulated some unrealistic tropes of their own.

As such, I'd think it's mostly a case of meeting audience expectations and after several decades of jiggle physics, sexy armour, and fighting f**k toys, you probably could say that Pyra does indeed look the part of a JRPG heroine. That's really what the cultural critique is about.

So far as the earlier Xenoblade games go, the fan service is mostly of the opt-in variety. There's nothing to stop you from dressing Sharla or Elma in a bikini and pointing the camera at her boobs while you jiggle them about, if that's what you want to do, and let's not forget that boob-size slider in the character designer for X in the Japanese release. Xenoblade 2 just puts it more front and centre because of its default costumes and the way the cut scenes are presented.

Mind you, go back to some of the earlier Xeno games and there are some seriously WTF moments of fan service. Believe it or not, but Monolith are actually toning things down a bit when working with Nintendo.

I'm totally fine with a game having fanservice if it fits the character (Bayonetta), or the whole game is fanservice based (Dead or Alive). My biggest issue is when a game establishes characters as very modest (... Mythra), then sticks them in an incredibly revealing outfit. It doesn't make sense from a story perspective, and is incredibly jarring.

And yeah, since there's basically no male fanservice, that doesn't help, since that's the kind I like lol. But it's totally possible to have fanservice in a JRPG without breaking the story. Look at FFX, Octopath Traveler, XC1...

Of course, I think the amount of skin showing isnt the real problem with XC2 either anyways, it's more the immature dialogue. The 'sexy' dialogue is incredibly cringeworthy (the one eyed dialogue comes to mind) and occasionally disturbing (most of Tora's interactions with Poppi).

I loved Torna right up until the main quest line is walled off until you complete a ton of crappy side quests.

@link3710 Good point. Literally the only time I’ve ever seen male fan service in a JRPG is in Atelier Ryza with one male character’s $2.99 swimsuit outfit called “Muscle Volcano.” It is, admittedly, literally the ONLY reason I bought the game, as I wasn’t thinking clearly because there was a shirtless man and I never think clearly around them...
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But I was planning on doing a replay through of this game, and now I’m not as excited, because I did finally realize Tora made a maid sexbot in the form of a 10 year old girl and there is absolutely NO way to defend that. The games’ fan service has always been cringe and very unhealthy and I’d gotten used to it but that takes things to a WHOLE new level.

@Wargoose Tetsuya Takahashi is the main writer and director of the xeno franchise as a whole and he actually worked together with his wife on his earlier works, so yes he does have first hand experience with a relationship, which i think can be seen in Xenogears where the story characters and romance is really amazing imo. Granted, there have been a few other writers but he should have a big influence on the writing since he is also the director.

Yeah that's my only issue with it really. I don't care that much what the visual character designs are, as long as it fits in with the story and character backstories. With Mythra and Pyra is just seems a bit arbitrary.

I do wish Pyra wore pants, but it's difficult for me to get worked up about one character in a skimpy outfit. Especially when the game isn't filled with fanservice otherwise.

I understand the criticism, but the 'issue' is really blown out of proportion, IMO.

@scoobdoo

Considering how well-integrated the side-content is with the main story, it didn't really bother me, any more than when any game walls off one story branch until others are completed.

@horizonisland I'll defend it.

I don't recall the game insinuating Tora molests the robots at all. The joke begins and ends with Tora being a weirdo otaku with a secret maid fetish, which primarily revolves around them wearing maid garments and calling him "master." And the joke is largely abandoned after that one cutscene when you first meet Poppi.

Moreover, Poppi's physical stature becomes increasingly adult-like when she changes forms, so I don't know that it's meaningful to liken her to a small child.

I understand not liking that element of the game/Tora's character, but going full SVU with it is being a bit disingenuous.

@Ralizah It’s true that the joke dies down (mostly) after the cutscene. There are passing remarks about Tora’s father and grandfather having the same fetish which is weird and creepy but to be fair they are criticized by the characters in heart to hearts and it is clear that Tora and Poppi consider each other to be equals.

I still love this game, even if I do have more problems with it that I used to. I spent over 370 hours completing every rare blade’s affinity chart and completing literally every quest and defeating literally every unique monster. And I barely touched Challenge Mode! I love the locales like Uraya and Leftheria and I love the voiced cutscenes in the Blade side quests.

For example, I HATED Dahlia’s design but then playing her blade quest with that little girl made me fall in love with her personality. She’s kindhearted and a great role model and I found that to be touching.

I still think the fan service is a little much. Mythra is literally not wearing any pants, for instance. And did they really need to add jiggle physics? But the positives of the game shine through, even despite Tora

@horizonisland The blade quests are one of my favorite aspects of the game. I just wish they made it easier to get most of the rare blades in the first place. Nothing fun about grinding gacha mechanics.

Mythra's outfit doesn't bother me as much, since whatever she has on is more like a short skirt and less like a thong merged with hotpants.

Really, they should have patched in Mythra's Smash getup as an alternate look. It just looks better.

@Ralizah I love the blade quests so so much even if just a couple of them were overly tedious (Zenobia) or duds (Kassandra). Still, they were one of the best parts of the game and honestly they could add 20 more blades and I would be nothing but delighted to do 20 more blade quests.

Also, Mythra’s smash outfit looks 100% better and is much more believable. I’m really glad Monolith added an AUX core to use that look (and they made it powerful to boot)

@horizonisland Have you done Ursula yet. That's the grindiest of all blade quests by far.

@Matt_Barber Yes. It’s bad and extremely Grindy and disappointing with little payoff, however I got Ursula decently early so I just kept doing the Merc Missions while killing unique monsters and fully exploring the map, making sure things never got too repetitive. You kind of have to zone when doing the merc missions over and over again but I’m good at that so it probably wasn’t as bad of an experience for me as it was for other people.

My only issue with the blade quests were ever getting KOS-MOS which i wanted the most and never got till the end of the game. I haven't done a new game plus run though, yeah and Ursula took time...There was enough to do to keep me busy as well though, so it was similar to me that i never had to explicitly wait for Ursula. But its all tied to luck and that is annoying with blades like these, i found it quite fun to talk about with friends though since our playstyles differed a bit by getting different rare blades at the beginning

The best thing about Ursula's quest is that if you time it right you'll get to grind up all your other rare blades in the process by sending them on the merc missions. Fully leveled up, she's one of the best healers in the game, just not quite as good as one the game gives you for free and, once you get to the post-game dedicated healers are trash anyway.

I was lucky enough to draw KOS-MOS as my third rare blade, so had her through most of the main story. She's only really OP in the post-game once you've ground out her affinity chart and have access to all the good equipment though.

Dahlia was the one who took me forever to pull. Definitely the most WTF bit of fan-service in the game but I still liked how the localization rolled with it to give her a Dolly Parton persona.

Not sure if it’s just because it’s a new outfit or not but to me it does look a ton better.

@TheJGG

Hadn't heard the Smash arrangement until you mentioned it.

It's... I 'unno. It's lacking the passion and emotion from the original piece. It's Counterattack on mood stabilizers. Roundly inferior to the original version, I agree.

Although I usually feel that way about remixes. You can't just arbitrarily change the way a song sounds without messing with the mood it evokes, the pacing of it, and so on. Very rare is it that I find a remix that's not worse than the original piece it's based on.

@Ralizah As in my longer post; the percussion was so bland and had no impact on the song. The guy who arranged it must have had a really lame drum kit, if it was recorded. But if the drums were programmed, there's almost no excuse. We've seen some extremely good soundtracks recorded during COVID, including Bowser's Fury, and Tenet. The composer for Tenet, Ludwig Göransson, took advantage of the musicians' isolation to enhance the soundtrack, giving it a very disconnected feel. Just because one is stuck at home doesn't automatically mean the soundtrack sucks, or should.

The choice of music for this DLC was pretty awful overall. It could have been very good, though as you point out the remixes usually aren't as good as the original. I agree but this rule only applies in part to JRPG music. Anything that isn't will be easier to beat.