Take A Look Behind The Scenes Of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's Character Design

I can't wait to finish this game so I can look at the hefty art book that came with it but I also love it so much I don't want it to end

Love the game, can't stand how the did the art for almost all the women. Especially Pyra.

Love the character designs in this game. Very expressive and fun to look at. Poppi and Pyra are my favorites on a design level.

@kyleforrester87 Not a fan of the DLC announcement, but it's hardly like this isn't a lengthy, complete experience on its own.

Still, $30 is a decent chunk of change. It had better be lengthy, given the price.

@Kalmaro I've gotten more used to it as I've played (especially since some of the scenes kind of mess with that aspect of the design), but I still would've preferred if the designs weren't so in your face about it. Some of them are fine and nice (Nia, Morag, Poppi, Electra...), but most feel unnecessarily revealing (Pyra, Mythra, Brighid, Perun...) or flat-out ridiculous (...Dahlia...).
It just gives the game this underlying tone of being some anime-crazed japanese guy's wet dream. Which is a shame considering how fun and compelling it can be.

Haven’t played XC2 yet, but I can say that Morag’s design is awesome.

I can't wait to get the game, it looks fantastic!

@Darkhound1999 Morag is pretty much the only lady that interests me because she's strong as a character and isn't flopping her 'assets' everywhere and then acting like she's shy while doing it. Mithra is a hot mess, and they keep zooming in on Pyra, it's just distracting from an otherwise good game and interesting story :/

In the long run I feel XC2 may be the most memorable game of the year for me. These characters go a long way towards that.

@Kalmaro I'm only at chapter 4 but I do know that Morag
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becomes a party member. I do like the little that I've seen of her though. And yeah, I thought Pyra's design was lewd enough in all the promotional material, but it's even worse than that when it's constantly thrust in your face. It's a shame, since I don't think her personality is awful, but it makes an okay character in my eyes into being kind of distateful. I like Mythra a bit more, but the outfit isn't that much better and she doesn't seem to have much of a character aside from being the tsundere character.

@Darkhound1999 Right? Personality wise, her character is fine and so far there's no one who's character I feel is so off they are unbelievable.

@Kalmaro It goes to show that the writers and the character designer(s) clearly had a very different idea of what they wanted the game to be. It makes me sad, especially when I see people avoid this game because of its character design (which I do understand to some extent) when most other aspects of the game are executed quite well! I don't mind the art style, but the designs are definitely too much. I do enjoy the characters and story, especially as a Xenoblade fan, but there is most certainly a problem when your character's appearance negatively impacts the development of said character, not to mention the story as a whole.

@Darkhound1999 I'm a firm believer of a character having clothes that fits thier personality. Something tells me that if Pyra dress like how she felt, she'd be wearing like, jeans and a hidden that she could hide under... And absolutely nothing that glows. She's self conscious about that :U

Nice, I was not big on character design back when showing trailers. But now on chapter 8 I can see how many cool ones there are.

They were just trying not to give anything away.

@Kalmaro I agree. I'm fine with characters having revealing clothing, large breasts or whatever else; but it needs to be in tune with their personality. Bayonetta is the best example of this, where sexy clothes suit their wearer. XC2 sadly feels like like an exercise in pandering and fetishes, instead of enhancing its designs through well-fitting clothing.

Side-note, I find it infuriating how they've constantly been outed as the Aegis' group, yet no one has thought to just have Pyra wear a scarf or something, instead of that super conspicuous hood. It's not like they have her portrait (for some reason), so why they don't they just hide the core crystal with something simple?

@Darkhound1999 even simpler, make her wear pants. She'd instantly become unrecognizable! Half of Alrest can't even tell what color an emerald looks like for some reason.

@Kalmaro Actually, how come no one so far has thought that Rex is the Aegis? If the only feature that they're aware of is the core crystal, doesn't Rex qualify, given that part of it is on his chest?

@Darkhound1999 He has decent clothing on.

@Kalmaro Fair enough.

I really love Pyra's design and think she looks super cool especially in cutscenes (always did like long scarves that look like that xD). Also liking how all the characters I met so far are filled with tons of personality. This game is amazing and I can't wait to get further into it.

I still think Rex's outfit(s) could stand to be streamlined a bit more, but I can overlook it because how much I like his character.

If asymmetry and incompleteness were what they were going for with Pyra, then giving her one earring, one glove, and/or one stocking would have worked just fine. Making her outfit as revealing as it is was just unnecessary. I enjoy my eye-candy as much as the next guy, but the hot-pants and her bust being so pronounced are just distracting and ultimately ruin her design for me.

Also not fond of the brim on Morag's hat, probably could have stood to be a bit shorter and not look like a cow-catcher, but that's a minor quibble in comparison to Rex and Pyra's fashion misfires.

And Jin and Malos's roles really should have been reversed; nothing about Malos' design makes him stand out and visually communicate/justify him having the significance that he does.

You can like the designs, or you can dislike the designs, but I think Monolithsoft is learning a very valuable lesson as sales numbers start coming out from North America and Europe: if you design female characters as fanservice first and characters second, your NA/EU sales will suffer. Sure, you can argue that it shouldn't matter because video games are an art form, or that it would be censorship to make certain characters look decent, but if the character design directly causes thousands of lost sales, then the designs were a mistake.

Pyra's design really grows on you after seeing how much worse Mythra's is.

@MetaRyan isn't it selling better than 1 and X?

@Kai_ That's really not saying much.

Btw, can i Turn Off All the voices during Battle ?
The voices from all characters are Pretty annoying during battles. Too chaty.

@MetaRyan
Olala...
Indeed.
The girls on Xenoblade looks like a Fanservice.
I don't like Sexy girls with big boobs actually,
but i really like if the Fanservice are Muscular Handsome guys with Six Packs and Nice haircut.

@MetaRyan learning what exactly? Been no.1 in the US for the past week.

@scoobdoo Battlefront 2 reportedly was the second best selling game of November, and yet sales were much lower than projected. Being the best selling game on the eShop doesn't automatically mean it sold as well as Nintendo was hoping.

@MetaRyan outselling Odyssey is a very big deal indeed.

@scoobdoo Imagine that, a new major Nintendo release outsells a game that's been out for a month and a half in the new release's first week

@MetaRyan unfortunately if the game did bomb in NA b/c fans disliked the character designs so much they didn't buy it, Monolith (and Nintendo) would just "learn" that Americans "don't like RPGs" or "don't like open world games". And decide the next XC game is Japan only.

Intellectually many might understand the real reasons, but socially they're not allowed to come to that conclusion, since that would result in a loss of face, and face is more important than money.

@kyleforrester87 tbf no one could call this an incomplete game I’m at 55 hours and only just got to chapter 6 it’s got way over a hundred hours of content so DLC is perfectly fine in this case as it’s absolutley ‘extra’ content

@MetaRyan when has Nintendo stated their sales expectations for Xenoblade? It’s a niche franchise and they know it and it’s selling better than the two previous entries in said franchise. Nintendo tends to look at how their games perform in relative terms so I’m sure they’d deem this a success

The character design for a large chunk of characters is horrendous (especially the female fan-service-y ones, but also some of the over-the-top rehashed anime cliches... ahem torna...). And the emoting at times feels so overblown that it destroys immersion. Both of these are a shame bc the base game is actually pretty good. I'm a little disappointed I gave them a shot. The game isn't living up to expectations bc of how frustrating those problems are. It's too late for this round, but if they continue this route I definitely won't be getting the next Xenoblade.

@MetaRyan So everyone in Japan should ignore their own desires and only make corporate friendly products. Forget creative freedom, right?

Or, people who don't like the game could just shut up about it and stop trying to make everything fit their stupid 'sensibilities'.

Is one of the best game ever played.

The game is awesome períod xD Just do ur best to handle the oversized chests and u’ll Be ok