@Ralizah (If you're avoiding trailers, I wouldn't read this BTW). Eh, the humor is what sort of ruins Xenoblade 2's story due to the tone not really being consistent. I remember one scene where the ruler of Mor Ardain was killed by a giant chibi maid mech, and I couldn't take the scene seriously at all. The humor there really just ruined it for me. I wouldn't mind the humor as long as it was more balanced out, and didn't screw over important scenes, since a story without any humor at all would kind of feel a bit grimdark.. but at least hopefully they'd balance it.
The smaller map thing doesn't look like it's happening either. From the gameplay they've shown off related to the combat, it looks like the world of Aionios is bigger than the world of Alrest or the Bionis/Mechonis. All the areas seem seamlessly connected, giving a vibe which feels similar to the world of Xenoblade X. Not to mention the giant colonies, which probably wouldn't work well if the world wasn't more open as a result.
The battles also have a gimmick with them, like 1 and 2, with it being tied to the ouroboros. I won't say much else in the case you're avoiding trailers.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@VoidofLight Hard disagree. I felt like the humor in 2 was fine. It created a wider emotional range for the game, and, IMO, allowed the emotional stuff to hit harder, since it's easier to grow attached to characters you laugh along with.
Which, notably, wasn't something I felt when I played the first game.
As I'm sure you remember, Niall wasn't actually taken out, and was quickly healed by Nia. Giga Rosa itself is a silly boss, but it doesn't take away from the point of the scene, which is building mystery around Nia's true identity.
And, anyway, there's a limit to how seriously you can take any scene featuring a Nopon, so the silliness of the boss fit like a glove in this instance.
I don't mind gimmicks. I've followed every piece of news about this game, so don't worry about spoiling me, btw. I don't like obnoxious gimmicks. The monado visions were obnoxious to me. They ruined the natural flow of battles.
XC2's combat was poorly explained in-game, but the actual system is terrific. Combat is much deeper than in the original.
@Ralizah I'll agree with you that the pacing of the humor in XC2 is fine. It's the often juvenile nature of it that was obnoxious. Like, anything involving Poppi's upgrades or Tora's family, a lot of the 'funny' Rex/Mythra interactions (like the bed one)... I just want the comedy in the game to actually be funny. Doesn't need to be laugh out loud, but not 'the implications are making me cringe'.
I will agree that I didn't have a problem with Giga Rosa / Bana, especially since that whole scene wasn't actually meant to be emotional. Plus, it's Bana, and I always have a soft spot for either Bana showing up.
6) Smaller maps. Xenoblade games have very little to do in their gargantuan environments, and they're structured like linear JRPGs, so I'd prefer the game not to pad itself out unnecessarily.
This is very obviously not happening. Part of the game's appeal has consistently been this type of JRPG except with large environments you can explore. Granted, its not as novel as when it was a Wii game, but its too much part of the series' identity to easily justify dropping.
Honestly, I think you just snuck in the BOTW Travel Medallion, you'd solve a lot of issues with the game (and in general rely less on backtracking unless it immediately leads to new, worthwhile content).
@link3710@Ralizah Eh.. I can't buy that the scene wasn't supposed to be emotional, and I really can't get past the boss that came before, even if it's not technically a full death scene. It's supposed to be a scene you're meant to take seriously, but I don't even think I can because of what occurs within said scene. It just feels like a massive meme that they decided to use in order to tease a massive plot twist, instead of a genuine moment like the stuff in Xenoblade 1. Really broke my immersion and took me out of the game.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@kkslider5552000 Well, it'd still have large, explorable environments, just ones that aren't quite as huge. But I get what you're saying, and don't really expect that to happen. It's a wishlist, not an expectationlist.
I'll settle for the environments themselves being a joy like Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That sense of being overwhelmed by the aesthetic is something else I never experienced with the original game. Gormott is for me the way Gaur Plain was a lot of other people, despite playing it before the second game.
I never liked the Titans in 2 that much. The Environments of some of them were great, but the world felt really disjointed and disconnected in comparison to how 1's world flowed. It didn't help that they relied heavily on the "Well, there's a ton of areas on this titan, but you can ever only go to the one specific area you're in!" that 1 used for some of it's world. The thing about 1's world though, is that they used that sparingly. Mostly for the shoulder of the Bionis, and the arms. It just kind of feels like the game suffered from having multiple titans that are far from one another because of the cloud sea, rather than having one or two massive ones that have tons of different locations on them.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@VoidofLight Again, hard disagree. I've always preferred the idea of people of Alrest settling on the backs of these gigantic creatures in order to survive. The possibility of them dying and being utilized as weapons of warfare in skirmishes for resources and land is also, IMO, inherently more dramatically interesting than: "Well, there were these two giants, and they both died, and all the people are one side and the scary robot people are on the other." Weirdly, the setup of XC2 is much more grounded and, as I pointed, allows for more storytelling possibilities.
Mira from XCX is also, IMO, a better story setting than the one in XC1.
Eh.. I don't see how setting has to do with scope of the setting. The titans in 2 have an interesting idea going for them, but the scope of said Titans just feels like small areas that are disconnected from the other parts of the world. For example, take Gormott. It's the first Titan you visit in 2, and while you're there, they make a big deal about there being more than one village in the area... yet you only ever see the one singular village, and never even see a spot where a secondary one could even be located. Not to mention how the "If you see it, you'll be visiting it later" thing from the first game isn't even present in 2. Most of the Titans in 2 are extremely far away from one another, and you can't see them while on other titans. All you can see is the world tree in the distance, and that's about it.
Compared to that, Xenoblade 1's world is fully connected. You can see older areas from the areas that you're in, and can see things like the fallen arm from an extremely early point in the game. Every map has a clear entry and exit point which leads into another one, despite the loading screens, and even despite not being able to see all of the colonies on Bionis, or all of the settlements, it doesn't just feel like there's just one civilization per titan, and that's all. @Ralizah
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@VoidofLight I never understood the appeal of "you can see that body part from over here!" Maybe ties into why I've never been particularly impressed with, say, the interconnectedness of the worlds in Souls games. From a storytelling and worldbuilding perspective, Titans just work vastly better for me. I also dug how, like on Gormott, you could actually see the head of the creature you're on swaying in the background. It's very cool, and really adds to the sense of scale for me.
The setup of multiple civilizations spread out across different titans just feels far less artificial than "humans on this dead giant, robots on that dead giant." (putting aside the late-game twists we learn, of course) XC2 felt like a much more fully fleshed out universe vs the arguably much lazier mythological set-up of the first game.
BTW, have we learned what the setting of XC3 actually is yet? I know the name, but since both previous games have rather exotic worlds, I'd be surprised if this doesn't follow that trend.
@Ralizah Aionios seems like it's a continent made up of parts of the Bionis and the titans from 2. Many different areas they've shown us so far seem to be Xenoblade 1 areas combined with the stuff from Xenoblade 2, set in a more open environment akin to Xenoblade X. You have the Sword of Mechonis and Uraya within the key boxart, but other than that you can notice smaller things like one area having pieces of Gormott.
Also, for me, I preferred the interconnectivity mainly because it makes the setting feel less like a video game and more real. 2's world kind of takes it out of me, since each Titan is a specific biome and climate, so it feels more like a video game level to me. The Tornan titan was probably the best one they've done in 2, since it keeps the same world building aspect, but also had interconnected areas which feel more natural like 1's.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@Vortexeo Oh yeah, I remember that scene, and how my friend was streaming it during a voice call. It was ironic that she said that, given the clothing she has. Someone wearing those types of clothes really doesn't have the room to speak on modesty.
(It's also ironic that Mythra doesn't like it when people stare at her, and yet chooses to wear an outfit that people would stare at.)
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@Ralizah I'd disagree with the Monado visions aspect of one of your comments on this page. I like how it took the story concept of visions and made it (not in your view but really in mine) work as a gameplay mechanic. In 2 Foresight just... happened. It became a random chance of evading an attack every now and then. Visions were an actual gameplay mechanic that could see a skill improvement. But they only seemed to turn up when your party was at low health though, and as a result happened when enemies could KO one of your party members.
I think it should have changed throughout the story, like when Shulk enter Mechonis, the visions become more instinctual. Or the Apocrypha. The Bionis Slash X mechanic was a strange one. It was a great spin on the vision system since it involved a game over potentially, but was badly executed with some random control devices. I don't know how they could have done it otherwise.
@VoidofLight I agree wholeheartedly. It could have something to do with the Titan-esque setting not being as fresh anymore but it was very different than 1 despite this. With 1, as you say, there's a huge sense of interconnectedness that 2 just lacks, plain and simple. I loved the part when you could see Colony 9 from Colony 6, or see the rousing Mechonis from Prison Island, or seeing the two frozen gods from the Fallen Arm. It establishes the sense of scale very well whereas in 2 each area or biome is a separate Titan, and therefore we don't get that.
In 2 I don't feel as though the "living on the backs of titans" aspect rang through as well as it did in 1. Hopefully 3 has the sense of scale. I agree with @Ralizah about the grounded aspect though. But again, the novelty is lost in 2.
@TommyTendo In a way the events of the game are already happening, the cycle of destruction and rebirth is always there in some way.
As for fanservice? It doesn't have to be story relevant but... hopefully it's not 100% pointless.
It makes complete sense that you can't see one Titan from another in 2. It makes sense in 1 (and IS cool, I'll admit) as they're right next to each other, however 2 features a half dozen titans spread out over an entire planet, that may actually be Earth, so unless one was closing in on another it'd make about as much sense to see Uraya from More Ardain as it would to see Europe from a beach in North America.
@RR529 Yep. It made the world feel wider to me, and made more sense conceptually.
XC1's setting is very mythological and artificial. Not really my style. XC2 felt 'real' enough that I could imagine a variety of stories being told in that setting. The same really isn't true of the first game, where the setting felt custom-made for the story it wanted to tell.
@TheJGG Foresight isn't fleshed out at all in XC2, that's true. The focus went to the surprisingly complex battle mechanics, like combining driver and blade combos, and how those factored into chain attacks. The mechanics are deeper and less intrusive than the monado visions.
Too bad you had to watch youtube videos to understand what the hell was going on in XC2's battle system.
I didn't mention it, for some reason, but better tutorializing is top of the list for me with this new game.
@RR529 Actually, they aren't spread out on the entire planet. It's moreso that they're walking in circles around a giant tree, which is one little area on a planet. They're at least a bit closer, so you should be able to see some of them. Especially the titans who are generally unmoving, like the trade guild.
@Ralizah 2 has been out since the launch of the switch, and I just learned what Art Cancelling is. The tutorials for 2 are insanely awful honestly. No clue why there's so much they didn't tell the player, since it really makes the game feel as if it's slower than it actually is, even if you grasp how the chain attacks and orb combos work.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@VoidofLight I know we spoke about this a few days ago but I finally saw the dead homs that you were talking about in the trailer (lmao took me long enough) 😅
Initially, I was trying to look at the other hand ( the one Lanz was standing in front of) because the position that the homs is in made it look like a claw or something at first glance so I didn't recognize it lol
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