Thanks for Watching! I appreciate everyone making through to the end of the video before commenting :) Leave a comment if you agree or disagree! I'm just one person, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority of people who played it. But if you REALLY want me to see what you have to say, you're gonna have to follow me on Twitter and yell at me on there: twitter.com/CptAstro (I only get notifications from followers btw so I won't see if you don't follow me) Have a great week, everyone!!
@@PleasedontlookatmycontentIbegy "tHiS mIgHt Be CoNtRoVeRsIaL bUt I aCtUaLlY lIkE 2 mOrE tHaN 1" they say to a guy saying they dislike 2 and like 1, as they proceed to get blasted in the comments
I still play it. I just like to look at character portraits. Other wise it's just my time waster because fuck waiting around in a small room with nothing to do.
Expanding on what you said about starting Rex with a blade I'd have done a tutorial salvage mission and had Rex get a core crystal then. That way you can introduce players to the bare basics of combat, show how much stronger you get with a blade, and maybe give a fight vs like 5 of those crabs to show how much stronger you are with a blade. Then when Torna kills Rex they go "hey this was a half decent blade, let's use it, Akhos still has a spare slot" so you can fight that same blade and show how unstable the life of a blade is and how they can be killing their best friends in a week because they just don't remember.
@@CaptainAstronaut Right?! This game was like 2 drafts away from being just as good if not better than XB1. And to it's credit this does have a more fun post game to just screw around in but...it could have been more
Fuck, this idea is amazing. It could even be used well as characterization moment for Ahkos or some villai. They feel nothing about sacrificing that blade to save their own skin to escape or something along those lines, further showing that villain's depravity or callousness.
@@absol_lute_zero9083 mmmm that doesn't fit with any of the members of Torna we've seen so far except Malos. All of them were visibly upset when their blades got toasted.
@@CaptainAstronaut I actually disagree with you on this because you can pull blade every time you want. I actually pull out my favorite blades while on the bus idk what you say you forgot to eat lol but I think you put way too much time to pull waifus. Also there is no addiction at all when can easily set up 5 min to get 99 legendary cores without paying a single dime of money like other gacha games required you to grind ton of times and money for your favorite blades
I know I’m 2 years late here but, he probably did find a bunch of core crystals while salvaging. That being said, it’s established Rex really does not like war, and liked his life as a salvager for the most part. There’s really no reason that he would have resonated with a core crystal until he was given a chance with the Aegis to not only get a second chance at life, but to achieve his dream of getting to Elysium.
I didn’t know Tetsuya Nomura created some of the characters for this game. I also 100% agree that when his designs are the most normal looking, something went wrong.
I don't know why the Blades not looking "normal" is a problem. If we're gonna summon what are basically stands why would they all just be regular people with weapons. Plus saying all of the blades designs are bad is a honestly horrible take imo
I am by no means saying they are bad. I personally don’t like their designs, but they are not bad. My stance on nomura’s over the top designs looking tame in comparison to the other characters in this game is more of me finding it funny than disrespect. In that way, I admit “wrong” may not have been the correct word choice.
About level grinding, levels in Xenoblade 2 are honestly pretty meaningless. Being a few levels above the enemy makes them pretty much just as hard as if you're a few levels below. It's all the other systems in the game that provide massive damage multipliers that abilities that actually make the fights easier. To be clear about how meaningless levels are, the highest level superboss in the game at level 130 is also the easiest. The hardest, by comparison, is only level 100, and you wouldn't guess that he's so infuriating if you looked only at levels.
This is pretty much the case, though early on levels are a bit more important since you’re missing game mechanics and other ways to augment your stats.
One thing I'd point out about the cutscenes in Xenoblade 2: it's a bit jarring how many of them are not fully rendered. Basically, that means that an impressive majority of them simply do not have unique animations. In Xenoblade 1, a good chunk were fully animated, which made them feel alive, even during moments that were more personal than plot-important. In Xenoblade 2, the few fully animated cutscenes that exist are beautiful and great, but many of the ones that aren't feel out of place, or have a weird pseudo-mix of unique animations and default ones. It's off-putting, I didn't like that. It's also weird that despite having a surplus of cutscenes, there is a sizable amount of instances where characters (for the main story) interject with text bubbles, sometimes fully voiced, sometimes not. All of this hammers home the fact that, yes, this game was very obviously and unfortunately rushed.
by unique animations /full rendered do you mean the cutscenes are not fully animated (like when shit goes down)? cause if so I would say xc1 had worse ones where characters would slide and be still when talking. The running as well in xc1 look weird and DE makes it even more clear where the characters would run but it would seem slow. Xc2 had a better transition between the fully animated ones and ones that are not where xc1 its clear as day when they do transition because 1. the text boxes are different and 2. characters just stop moving.
You are reaching so hard to give XC1 points you're breaking your back. XC1s cutscenes aside from a handful are largely generic, and even the full animated cutscenes have little to no choreography in them. XC2s are miles better, yes there's stilted generic scenes here and there, but XC1 had them in spades as well.
The similarity between Torna and Tora is not present in Japanese, which is the script that the writers oversee. This similarity was the translators' doing (In the Japanese version, Torna is "Ira" instead, but since that was a real terrorist group in Ireland, when it was translated to the West it was changed. The reason for "Ira" is not because the writers wanted to draw parallels with the Terrorists, but because the titans in the Japanese versions are named after the 7 deadly sins in Latin, and "Ira" means "anger" in Latin, Uraya in the Japanese version is "Envidia" which means jealousy)
@@drakenstarcross1347 Aight the skell flight theme is a good song but can get annoying when it's all you hear (I wish it was just the regular area theme then switched to the flight theme at a certain altitude). Also black tar for me is one of those songs thats shit when you first listen, but then when you hear it a few times it's pretty good (kinda like the new Attack on Titan opening). Only truly bad song in the game imo is the NLA night theme, I kinda like the day one despite peoples opinions of it
Finally someone reflects my feelings of this game. After Xenoblade 1 and X this was like playing a totally different franchise. The character designs are like a who's who of deviant art creations.
@@skylandersfan6954 Aside the title and the basic idea of how combat flows are all that's similar between XC1 and XC2, the rest is barely similar in writing.
Imagine both azurda and Rex's "first blade" died in chapter 1, and both Pyra and Rex had different feelings of guilt for their death. Rex would feel guilty cuz of how reckless he was taking the job. Pyra would feel guilty cuz they died trying to protect her, so now she has to fill in the hole in Rex's life that their deaths left behind.
>shitting on kos-mos, a legacy character from xenosaga, in the same bucket as the new rare blades for what purpose? Like fine its fair to trash them at large but like...ah who am I kidding she was still waifu bait back on the ps2
For me my biggest issue was the exploration and gameplay. I agree with pretty much all your points, but most of your points didn’t affect me as much as it did for you. 1. I hate how disconnected each world is, running feels slow, and you can pretty much see the entire world if you stand somewhere good. It takes away the feeling of going into the unknown because at this point you understand that the titan has already been colonized. It is my biggest letdown from the previous xenoblades ESPECIALLY given that 1 and X are my favorites games of all time. 2. I dislike the gacha as well, and I prefer XC1’s and XCX’s combat compared to 2. 3. Sexualization. I don’t have to say much else, we all know what’s going on.
In the Japanese version she has dialog with a "bark" at the end of her sentences. From my understanding, she's also suppose to sound more innocent while she's talking in dog mode. The idea was probably to make her sound cute, but it really doesn't translate well to English and probably couldn't localize the dialog in a way to give equal meaning to English speakers and just had her making dog sounds instead.
@@mariojetsluigi11 Yeah no that's not how it works A rare blade's appearance is set with the influence of the first driver it bonds to after collecting enough data from its environment
@@mariojetsluigi11 yeah pretty much what Gavin said, it’s the reason Wulfric has a lot of animalistic tendencies and the fact that he can communicate with animals no matter which party member you bond him too
"What if Zelda had a stupid gacha game system that was integral to all the other systems?" They did that for the Minish Cap. And to a lesser extent, the Oracle games. It did indeed suck. Especially because it was that combined with "socialization bonuses", i.e. "What do you mean everyone doesn't live in Tokyo?" That's bananas.
Banana. Also I'm kind of in a weird position where I like this game overall but yet somehow agree with the majority of this video. How does that even work, fuck do I know I'm not a psychologist or maybe I'm more of a masochist than I thought. In general, I like the story of the game (but still dislike the pacing and random mood interruptions). Soundtrack is a masterpiece but I still prefer XCX's of the 3. Gameplay had its good moments as long as you didn't notice the post-game staring at you like some creepy trenchcoat drugged up hobo (god knows I want absolutely nothing to do with any min-maxing or completion in this game, it's the absolute worst). But the one part that really does me in in this video is really the ludonarrative dissonance because even in my favorite series of all time, Legend of Heroes, I see it creeping in more and more. In one of the latest games, Trails of Cold Steel 3, the game was littered full of those "win in battle, lose in cutscenes" moments that constantly infuriated me despite winning the fights so easily I barely took any damage because the game systems are so broken and abusable. And then it's made even worse when in cutscenes we get saved by other characters jumping in which for all intents and purposes we know full well can't handle the threat either. If you're gonna hype up 2 villains to be these god-like beings that can rip me apart with the snap of a finger maybe don't have Little Timmy who hasn't finished his training yet swoop in and "save the day". If I couldn't handle it, they sure couldn't either dammit!
I mentioned it in Part 1, but it's because this game is like Trail Mix. There's a lot of different components in this game, and while some for some people (like me), some of the components are Raisins and ruin the whole experience, other people don't mind the raisins so much and can enjoy the experience as a whole Also I've meaning to play the Trails of Cold Steel games, I've heard they're pretty good.
@@CaptainAstronaut it's definitely good despite what I said. But you'll get A LOT of cutscene and dialogue for sure. This series is all about that. And in case you didn't know, the series actually starts with Trails in the Sky, Cold Steel is the 3rd story arc in a continuous story. Ain't a bad thing to start with Cold Steel per say but the context will be missing from some references and is more modernised and easier for some people to get started on the series as opposed to Trails in the Sky which is much more dated slower paced due to being essentially a 40-60 hour prologue. Cold Steel 3 and beyond though expects the players to have played every single previous entry to understand everything that's going on.
It's like the animated clone wars series. The first 2 seasons suck and then the story gets good, and then theres that one part in season 5 that's like the worst part and then it ends with a really cool connection to the other thing that sets up really cool story moments in future media.
This was my first xeno game and there were some things I liked and some I didn't. The soundtrack was really stunning, lots of tracks I adored. Only thing I wasn't huge on was the gacha aspects the game had. The game itself I enjoyed and sank many hours into, idk I'm just not huge on gacha mechanics
The way I think of it is that you have to put up with all the shit moments like “Join Meeeee” or “AAAAAAAAAIYYAH” For treasuring moments like “INDEED!” or “Don’t get cocky... YOU LITTLE SHIT”
The combat in this game is kinda hard to grasp and the tutorials are so bad that everytime I go back to play it I take at least 30 minutes to remember the mechanics
@@Tvhurdghit4fhi6rr Kind off, I've yet to finish it but everytime I open the game I have to remember how to do a lot of the combos since I only started doing sidequest after I got the last party member
32:56 Ok I was laughing so hard with this part of the video because it's so true. The battle dialougue in this game is so chaotic. I don't mind hearing the same battle dialougue, like in Xenoblade 1, but I can barely keep it with any lines in Xenoblade 2. Imagine having the coolest boss theme music and the battle dialougue made the battle feel dumber. I'm fine with the gatcha system, I get it, rare blades are OP and normal blades are weak. But the main story is already pretty easy. People who choose to use normal blades can make the game feel harder, kinda like in Pokemon, some Pokemon are really strong and some are actually really bad. I actually enjoyed using the normal blades, but I do wish you can make them stronger. A big problem with normal blades is that I keep geeting elements or weapon types I don't want. At one point, I keep getting Fire element weapons, 2 of my team members have Fire type. Anyway, I really enjoy your crtique on the game. I love Xenoblade 2 but I know damm fucking well I cannot quite recommend this to anyone cuz how weird the anime is. banana
Thanks for watching! I totally agree that the battle music is awesome, but you can't hear it over the voices. I like it when battles feel a little bit chaotic, like an actual fight would, but in this game it was just too much I think the gacha game system could have worked better with a little more polish, but my general policy is gacha game = not good (I say, as I play Fire Emblem Heroes every day haha) I'm glad that there were people who liked the game though. It's an odd one for sure haha
I don't think intentionally making the game harder if you want really excuses the gacha system at all. Even ignoring the possibility of difficulty options, you could also purposely skip as many battles as possible if you wanted to be under-levelled and under-equipped in order to make the game harder.
I love this game to bits but I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Also, the reason Pyra was able to fight Malos on the ship is because blades just get weaker when they're away from their drivers, also the reason why you can send blades on missions. They kinda explain this in combat with the affinity link. Brighid is said to be nearly on par with the aegis which is why she could fight without Morag.
While I DO NOT agree with this video at all. You're at least doing it in a more "respectful" way. I would MUCH rather be forced to sit through your videos on why Xenoblade 2 apparently sucks(from your perspective) then anyone else's. ESPECIALLY anything to do with this game and the channel BeatEmUps(man makes a video on why he refuses to review it, then goes mocking the game in every other video to then finally give it a 2nd chance years later only to completely half-ass it by not even pretending to care.) Yeah, I'll watch the guy who ACTUALLY PUTS IN EFFORT please.
Idk if this is the guy that respects the game if he complains about literally the entire game and story. Like what’s the point of having a story in the game
@@ametrine7462 He somehow got 53 hours of gameplay but only made it to the titan battleship, like ??????? how tf does he do that. That's like 10 hours of gameplay+sidequests max
about the blade balance....I actually find that common blades, particularly the 4* ones, tend to be more useful than a large majority of the non-story-given rare blades, especially if we omit any of the blades locked behind the expansion pass
@@LordlyWeeb I can see what you mean, but at the same retrospectively I think I prefer this way, nothing that can't be rewritten around and also serves as a great intro to blades and their memories. Also to be fair, does Rex ever actually develop from the beginning of the game? He's still the same impulsive, reckless, immature character at the end of the game who only even follows Mythra's wishes at the end because his friends are there trying to convince him for like 10 minutes, and he didn't really have a choice anyway. Tbh I think the game would benefit from having a rewritten main character because I didn't care for Rex at all, he's just Sora if Sora never developed, was more annoying and had an even more rediculous design. I get that's probably just my own opinion and that the writers of the game are a lot better at it than I am, but that's how I see it.
@@obamaorb7426 He absolutely changes. He specifically learns to not be reckless. Every time he gets his ass kicked in the first half of the game someone teaches him a lesson on how to be a better driver, and by the 2nd half, he's taken it to heart and does better. The ending with him realizing he has to leave Pyra and Mythra to escape the world tree is another highlight of his growth in maturity.
@@LordlyWeeb Sure at the end he's a little better actually budging and realising he has to escape after some convincing, but that's the extent of it. For the entire game until the visions in Elysium he learns nothing about being a driver and is just given more power anyway. Prime example, he literally watched Vandam die for him and he just runs in, dooming himself and all of his friends there as well if Mythra didn't bail him out. When he loses to Jin in Tantal he locks himself away for days and then tries to go home before the rest of the crew calls him a dumbass and has to convince him to stay. Literally all he does to gain more power is watch his friend die and run to his own death (unlocking Mythra) and accepts the aegis for who she is (unlocking the 3rd sword). There isn't a moment in the game until Elysium that he actually reflects on his past mistakes and learns something from it
@@obamaorb7426 Mythra literally berates Rex for rushing in after Vandam dies. I don't see how you can say he doesn't learn when he goes from getting his ass kicked, even after he has Mythra, to not getting his ass kicked. He gets more power because the Aegis is the strongest blade, and he learns how to bring out that power after repeatedly getting his shit kicked in and getting better bit by bit. Jin, Vandam, Mythra, Nia, and I think even Malos all teach him throughout the game how to not be a shit driver.
@@CaptainAstronaut I can't eat trail mix because of the almonds. They're miniature peach pits that aren't even edible and they suck all the moisture out of my mouth
@27:00 LMAO I come from the future. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom HAS a gachapon mechanic. IDK how you predicted this, but I personally like it(?). It's not an essential part of the game but if you want parts to make vehicles just go to a gachapon machine and get parts. idk how to feel about that, but I'm realizing I like randomizers in games (as long as it doesn't constrict you too much and you can do something with the unwanted things).
Honestly it's not that big of a change. She still adds dog noises to her voice but she says cutesy maid shit which implies it's a pet-play mode rather than a dog park mode.
One thing i think you missed is how the system showing we're you have to go is awful how was I supposed to know that you had to walk around on a specific peice of ice when it gives no context clues to it I don't even think that walking on ice to break it was a feature established before the omega fetter quest
I'm trying to remember what I actually loved about the game Everything you said is how I felt but not as passionate, just as well I guess that is the game but now thinking about it really isn't too tier as I initially thought. I mean if I'm watching a 40 minute analyze 3 years later explaining the game, something must've gone wrong in the game development
"something must've gone wrong in the game development" But the fact that you care enough about the game to watch a 40 minute analysis (or for one to be made) means they clearly did something right. Also, time is not a good indicator of content.
I gifted my friend Xenoblade 2 several years back and he said he didn't like it and I always wondered why. It's very interesting to see things from a writer's perspective, really enlightening. It's a shame too this game had a lot of potential and hype, but ended up being really disappointing if you think about it for more than two seconds.
When I got my switch for smash ultimate my parents insisted that I buy another game since smash wasn't out yet. I was going to buy xenoblade 2 since I love the original. But it was sold out so I just didn't buy anything till smash come out. I watched a let's play after so I could at least see the story and characters. And I am happy it was sold out.
@@skylandersfan6954 the nuance of character writing being rex not growing, morag not being a character, zeke having an issue in a cutscene and forgets about it in the next, nia letting vandham die, tora not being a character the only good character in the game is Amalthuslmao
God I hated this game too. The argument that most drives me up the wall is the "it gets better 20 hours in" people use to defend XC2. I work a full-time 9-5 job. I read books. I watch movies, plays, television, and, yes, enjoy video games. If you're not going to respect my time, I'm not going to waste it on 70 hours of fetishy garbage when there are so many other great games (or other forms of media) out there I could be playing/watching instead. Y'know, games with good endings AND good beginnings. Fucking hell. Edit: The only thing I disagree with you on is the titans being smaller being portrayed as a negative thing. I actually liked that it felt more enclosed compared to the original XC. It creates a different atmosphere but not a worse one imo.
One of the biggest gripes I have for the designs has to be Percival simply for his name. I know this sounds petty but they could have named him after any well known samurai of the edo period instead of after one of the knights of the round table.
Dude I absolutely love this series. I remember thinking some of these stuff at the time back in 2017 and then seeing reviews gloss over them, then like hearing people who started with 2 but not playing the others pressing it to high hell it made me think I was just not getting it. Then back in 2020 after playing the remake I decided to play through all of it and still had those feelings so watching this and hearing your opinions really resonated with me thanks for making this series. I don’t like being negative and there are some good elements like the music but yeah the character design, plot and voice acting always made this hard to understand why a lot of people see it as the best in the series granted they may not of played the others. That anime example you used to describe its difference over the other games in the series was spot on like the second I heard that followed by people who also like that kind of anime I realised there is somewhat of a connection. Of course people can like what they want to it’s just really refreshing to hear from your viewpoint since a lot of it has been discourse in the community kind of like what happens with persona in a way with the similar narrative style but people preferring the setting and characters over others. Whilst I hate to play those kind of playground talks for some reason a lot of people discuss very passionately about that kind of stuff. It still wireds me out how some people will play a game if it has a gatcha system like to me that’s an derogatory term for gaming outside like the trophies in melee or the actually machines in shenmue if the core game is designed on that it’s somewhat flaws by nature. Sorry this comment was so long code:bananas thanks for this vid dude, awesome stuff.
It is known that this game was rushed and understaffed due to Monolith Soft having been tasked with helping out in the development of the overworld of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, which came out a few months before Xeno 2, and the polishing of Splatoon 2 at the same time. Only 40 staff members of Monolith actually worked in the game, while the rest were asigned to several other Nintendo projects. On the same note, several aspects of the game were outsourced to third party coders and designers, particularly regarding enemy grunts. It has been known for some time now that the personal ambition of Takahashi, director of Monolith, has been to be able to go all out with a project entirely of Monolith without having to dedicate parts of the staff to other games not from the studio. The lastest occurrence of this was Animal Crossing new Horizons, which Monolith helped develop. Additionally, only marginal effort was put on Future Connected so as to not hinder the development of the new main project of Monolith So, when you say that the story looks like a first draft, it probably is, Astronaut, you hit the nail in the head. Xenoblade 1, by comparisson, received much more dedication, but even back then, part of Monolith staff was diverted to help with the development of The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword. Here is the source: gamingbolt.com/xenoblade-chronicles-2-was-made-with-a-staff-of-only-40-developers-plus-outsourcers as.com/meristation/2019/03/29/noticias/1553860660_385313.html So let's hope Monolith gets the chance to flex their development power, full force, with their future projects
@@CaptainAstronaut especially since they’ve been working on this one for a long time which is what led to xenoblade x. It’s probably gonna be ambitious. It would be bananas
Okay here we go. -Yes having major battles with tutorials in the middle is very annoying. -If Rex was a driver from the start that would impact the narrative, he is supposed to be noob who becomes overly confident after getting the power of Aegis and that is what leads to many of his fuck ups later in the game. -Azurda has no value to the narrative besides revealing the location of Pneuma's blade later on, honestly would have mind if he died. -You are the first person that I heard who died to Brigid in Gormott. -There are actually 2 ways to obtain the information about Nia's execution, you can buy it from the informant or you can keep asking about it to everyone, the first time I beat the game I did not buy the info. -You really don't need to grind in this game, you have the bonus exp that you can use in inns and later you can use chain attack overkills to get a loads of exp from regular fights, finishing enemies with special combos and fusion combos also reward you more experience. -Oh there we go again with the "the game is full moment were you win the battle and loss the cutscene", the first example people use of this is the battle agaisnt Morag in Gormott, you do not "lose the cutscene" there, if anything what is show to the player is the party outsmarting her, defeating her with water tower and managing to escape. Agaisnt Vandham you end up losing the cutscene I give you that, but with Akhos that isn't the case again, all that Akhos manage to do is hurt Pyra before Vandham cancel Obronas power forcing Akhos to retreat, later agaisnt Jin in Tantal you never win the battle before the cutscene because like a lot of battles in XC, it will over as soon as his HP get below a certain point. I apologise for any typo I initially wrote this in a hurry using a cellphone set for another language.
I disagree with the "lose the cutscene" comment. When you do the battle, you expect that when the hp drops the 0 then that means you won. But it means nothing when the post battle scene shows the enemy still standing and the rest of your party is pretty in much down for the count. It doesn't matter if you were at full HP when the battle ended; now the turntables and you're the one struggling to stay in the fight while the opponent is at full HP in the cutscene. I think the point the video was trying to make was that if an enemy is downed in battle, that means you won the fight. The argument that the protagonist "won" by outsmarting the opponent shouldn't have to happen. You shouldn't have to be clinging on to dear life while your enemy clearly has the upper hand after you put in all the work during the fight to have that NOT happen. RL example, you're in a championship boxing match with a heavyweight and you trained for years to win. You deliver the final KO punch. The bell dings, and then the ref goes over to the unconscious opponent and declares them the winner. And in the process, the ref donkey punches you into a coma. Then the judges discuss how the opponent was winning and finally decided that you only "barely" and "technically" won while your opponent goes into the next round of the championship bracket. I'm currently playing the game and this is the story for all the fights I've been in so far and I can't remember the last time I was so infuriated by the post scene of one of those battles. The fact that it happened every time really rusted my hinges. There are only two outcomes in this story: you lose in the battle and then you have to do it again, or you win the battle and you still are shown that you were losing that fight.
@@ZigmundZag Ludonarrative dissonance is the issue you are referring to as Cap Astro brings up, however it does not apply here. I personally did not feel annoyed at the difference in cutscene and gameplay. You are basing it on a subjective criteria that you feel infuriated by it. Sometimes the cutscene and gameplay is the same/the fight stops at half health or it will have you "lose" I guess after beating a boss. Even Cap Astro brings this up but for some reason never thinks as to why it is. There is a certain reason for it then the devs just being doing it randomly. Ludonarrative dissonance is the discrepancy between the narrative of gameplay and story. However, that is a simple way of looking at it and it is obvious when someone just applies it without doing further research such as in the vid. It can be used purposely by the dev to foster a sort of feeling or purpose as argued in recent years. Lets look at a few examples of where the game either lets you beat the boss and the cutscene followed reflects this or they stop you halfway. First the cutscene where rex badly loses to Jin, and the Mythra & pneuma awakening scenes. The intent there is to show that the characters aren’t strong enough to win. Rex cannot win agaisnt Malos and Akhos or Malos and Jin and so the game stops the fights because you can't win. Which is why Mythra or Pneuma have to awaken for the party to win and the cutscenes that follow reflect this. Jin is too strong for Rex to win against and Rex has to lose as it is a pivotal part of his character arc. Ones that let you beat the boss like Amalthus are because you are strong enough to win. Rex at that point has Pneuma plus the whole party to back him up. Now a few examples of the discrepancies. One is the malos fight and another is the Morag & brighid fight. The reason you are allowed to defeat the bosses is to give the impression that these guys are tough cookies. Malos is an Aegis and Jin is the strongest blade in Torna. If a noobie driver like Rex was to defeat them so quickly it would not be good writing. Same With morag and brighid as they are introduced as the most powerful in the empire. To have you beat them right after that would be underwhelming. It is not that the characters can't win. As @Jose Dorda says, you eventually out wit morag & Brighid and escape. Same with the Malos fight at the beginning. As Malos says, you get the slip on them. The ahkos fight intention is a bit different though. You are able to drive them away but the point was not to make Akhos and obrona look like fodder as later on they have the ability to cut the ether flow. If you beat them in the cutscene and got to the cutscene where vandham dies, you would be like "why did they not use it out earlier" or might feel this is pulling something out of their asses. It helps give the impression that they left because they didn't want to deal with fighting the party at the moment rather than he had to leave because he was beat and later used something he could have done earlier to win. The intention of letting Akhos hurt Pyra was also to lead into the conversation between vandham and rex about power and war. Also it was a tutorial of the chain attack which is big damage move so having the battle cut short and not let you use it fully would make the tutorials even worse than they already are.
i dont know, banana. but joking aside, i really do agree with a lot about the game you spoke about, especially about the gacha system and audio. those dragged down the experience for me and it's honestly one of the reasons i cant go back to the base game, but give the dlc a shot. all the audio quips were an ear ache and i think with all the hours i put into the game for a single playthrough, i toned out the game, but even returning from the gameplay to cutscenes, i found out myself almost no longer invested in the story, like i was still drowning out the combat audio only to have to work to get myself to pay attention to the story again. as for the gacha system, yeah, there's no excuse for it. the low chance of success to get the rare blades killed it, and with the all the level grinding just to level up the field skills to access certain areas, it was just a mess. this makes me think of how it was much better in a game like Paper Mario, OG or TTYD, where you cant access specific areas because you havent unlocked or found the equipment to reach the intended area, but once you have the equipment, you can break the obstacle to have it no longer impede your progress and come back to it again if you needed to, or you found the alternate route so you could get there another way. with the field skills needing certain blades with specific skills AND having to be leveled to get anywhere, I was just about done trying to get to the end because of how tedious it was getting.
I agree with basically all of your points, I hate when games retcon what JUST NOW happened in the battle, and gacha (GAMBLING) systems, bosses being turned into jokes by tutorials, and a tiresome around of cutscenes. Thank you for these videos, I can sum up more easily now why I don't like games that are littered with this stuff. banana
As a person who bought XC2 a few years ago and only completed it earlier this year (and having the time of my life with XC3) I can say that my experience with XC2 is that of a mixed bag. I overall like the main characters, I say overall because if I went in depth with my impressions of them all I’d lose the point I’m trying to make. The STORY on the other hand I was able to sit through it with little difficulty but as I got closer and closer and ultimately saw the ending…. yeaaah I wish I had experienced something else entirely because by the end I had tapped out, hard. The gameplay, it grew on me I’m not gonna lie about that however I can only say it was after about chapter 5 that I took the gameplay at the same interest and value I do any other game I like to play. I had such an awkward time with the game I let it auto battle THE ENTIRE TIME UNTIL chapter 6 or 7. I’d like to warn everyone that even though I have 2 Torna I haven’t played it STILL because of what and how things happened in the closing chapters of XC2’s story. And this is me having played over 200 hours of 2’s base game. I’m still missing a good 5 blades (because I’m trying to get them all before the headache that’s going to be shooting for the NG+ blades), so I’ll cap things off by saying DAMN YOU the only “free” gacha game, which is one of the very many gacha games that also doesn’t give you the slightest hint of whether or not you have higher or lower chance of getting something good/worthwhile. If you have read this I am open to discussing and elaborating further. Thanks for reading.
So, xenoblade 2 was my first exposure to the series and my first impressions were that the combat in this game looks really boring, the voices do not fit the characters, why does the main character look so stupid and that the writing doesn't seem too good. I basically lost interest in both this game and the series in general
>show not tell its the introduction to the world, a narration that serves as an introduction to the main character as well. Also this is literally xeno 1. cutscene for characters literally explaining their goals like the viewers is dumb at the end of the game. >rex being revived The point of that scene is to introduce us to Pyra and establish a goal, not to say this is how drivers and blades work. Also this scene was made to make sense of alvis waking up shulk and thats from xeno 1. Its literally a direct parallel. You complained about rex being whiny in part 1 and getting revived when thats literally what happened with shulk, not rex. >tutorials in main fights while I don’t necessarily disagree with this, this stems from a greater problem of the tutorials being not so great. I don’t see also how the two malos ones are bad. the first one like you said is the introduction but the second one is introducing Pneuma. What did you want to happen? Not say anything to the player? >Rex being a driver This does not make sense as rex is a salvager and not a driver. He has no need for a blade. This undermines him resonating with pyra. Also you complained about show not tell but here you are saying they should tell the viewer. You already learn about blades and drivers later on its just unnecessary exposition. >blades fighting I don’t understand what the problem is. Rex is a noobie driver so of course he is not able to fight well yet. Why are you mad about being confused in the introduction lol. Its just her fighting, who said Blades cannot fight when Jin and Malos are literally fighting themselves. >Azurda staying dead What does Azurda staying dead accomplish? A character should not be dead for no reason. You listed the reason why he stays alive. Also rex is being childish which is the point of his character. This is to show him not acting responsible which gets solved later. Why would they already develop Rex when him growing up is a crux of his arc. Having an example of something he needs to improve on is good. Haze also already serves that role along with the cutscene with Brighid and Pyra. We already learn Pyra is special with her reviving rex and later them sharing cores. >areas They are smaller like you said because its individual titan but honestly better. XC1 had way too much dead space which made the areas honestly feel like a slog. XCX of course would be bigger as the game’s main draw is the exploration. Just because its big doesn’t mean its good. Also wdym the areas don’t look good. Why dafuq would a war ridden titan or a dystopian city be colorful or something. The aesthetic of the areas fit perfectly well for what they are. >level grinding I thought this game did a better job than XC1. Xc1 had it where you had to be a certain level which is dumb. XC2 though had bonus exp which Idk if you used or not. Grinding a few levels should not be an issue. Also, it might not be the level but more so you not understanding the combat. Man, not doing too well in the beginning, almost like you haven’t learned everything yet. >tora being like torna beginning writing mistake? im honestly surprised you are talking about writing. This is just a nitpick. Your fault for being confused not the game’s. >blade summoning the gacha system is not inherently bad. Just that you need field skills so you have to summon a few blades (so field skills fault which I also hate) but you don’t have to summon a rare blade to beat the game. You make it seem like it’s a big deal. Also common blades are mostly useless? you basically admitted that you don’t understand the gameplay. Some common blades are better than the rare blades lol. They even have a unique skill that is very good. You can even get boosters and use them for merc missions/field skills. Its suppose to be an optional thing so if you are complaining about this then i don’t know what to say. Obviously being optional does not excuse it but you are the one putting yourself through it. >Character design Also not to say the Saito didn't want to make girls pretty, he also had a clear reason. This is what he had to say about Pyra and mythra's design, "When designing Pyra, we wanted her to be a protective presence for Rex, so we envisioned her as a flame with a passionately burning core. But at the same time, we also designed her to evoke a certain sense of incompleteness as a way of reflecting the existence of Pyra’s other form: Mythra. That’s one reason the glowing areas on her body are not horizontally symmetrical, and why we partially removed the back of her outfit and cloak." I don't see how you dont think their designs don't fit the characters. Ursula has beary because she is shy and needs something to hide behind, adenine is a book nerd, and corsette with the fireworks to represent her excitement. I like the diversity of the designs as it gives a flare to each character. If anything Nomura's designs don't look normal in context as they are vastly different from other ones. You saying morag is good because of her being fully clothed isnt a point. >Oversexualization Problem I had with your part 1. Possibly the worst section. You’re a guy, why the heck are you deciding that it is over sexualization of women. I agree that some designs may be over the top but we should not be deciding if its objectifying women. Thats just adding to the problem. idk if you know but Dahlia (the ice bunny) was designed by a woman. So a woman decided that they wanted a female to be like that and yet here you are deciding for women how they should look. There are also other women who like the designs for characters like Pyra and Mythra. Stop trying to be woke or be on a high ground. >Anime Yea the first four chapters are mostly comedic because they wanted to go that direction. Why are you surprised. How about stop comparing the games and look at it for its own thing. You looking at ass shots and stuff is not the game’s fault, thats your fault. You don’t need to like anime to like xc2 unless you let that get in the way. The game after chapter 4 starts to take itself seriously and stops these tropes when necessary. they only use them when they want to be light-hearted. >Battle dialogue Just disable it lol. This is a non-issue. A common issue with your criticisms is it is nitpicking and something that is irrelevant to the whole game. >Ludonarrative Dissonance This is a very abused and incorrectly used term. It would be ludonarrative dissonance if there was no intent in doing anything and just had the cutscene and gameplay be different. Its obvious you just saw the two being different and applied this term. However, it is incorrectly used here. As you said the game does sometimes match the game play and story by maybe having the fight stop at half hp. the intent there is to show that the characters aren’t strong enough to win i.e. mythra and Pneuma having to awaken and Jin using his full power. with the battles where they let you beat the enemy, the intent is different. With morag and brighid, they are introduced as the most powerful in the empire. The intention behind you beating them is to show they are tough cookies not that the characters can’t win, hence they have rex get the better of them right after. This is the same with the Malos fight where you are able to escape from them. you know maybe there was a reason for them sometimes letting you beat a boss and not just saying.
Thanks. His first vid already fell flat because everything felt like a minor nitpick. His only good point there was "It's not bad voice acting, it's bad voice direction" then he lost me after he said something like "The British voice actors don't fit the anime hijinks happening on-screen"
I wouldn't really call cutscenes a component and more like a common negativity that a lot of JRPGs fall into. Announcing it is common to JRPGs may be true, but it still doesn't change the fact that they can hinder gameplay.
@@connorp3764 I agree actually. It is just that he makes it sound like a xc2 problem and since it is a common component in JRPGs, I usually deal with it.
Totally agree with this. I’m assuming he never talked to any XC2 speedrunners about their opinion of the game or any huge fans of the game other than his “friends that have garbage taste in anime” or whatever
@mrcristofer 2013 bro who cares. its just a game. i personally do like the game just have other games to play that i got recently. capt astro just has a shit take on the game tbh. like how he categorizes the game as anime which doesnt make sense because all of the other games have an anime like style
27:11 When Tears of the Kingdom's world is filled with literal Gacha machines and everyone's fine with it because it's a minor mechanic and the drop rate for everything is acceptable.
Very different context. It’s much easier and more reliable to get the parts you need to build what ever you want in TOTK. In Xeno 2, there’s nothing you can meaningfully do to increase the chances of getting rare blades
@@supercoolafroguyI mean if you want in XB2 theres a bunch of guarenteed Blades you can get like Praxis, Theory, Wulfric, Roc, Sheba, Herald, Kassandra, Vess, Aegaeon and Nia, you dont need rng to make a full team
Low Key just kinda want a new Xeno series we had Gears, the Saga trilogy, and now the Blade series I kinda just wanna move on and maybe go back to making mechs and the zohar more important to the plot/gameplay
@@jerryborjon I dunno if I'd say "fun" (example: today I really wanna play a gacha to have some fun instead of killing lynels), but it's not frustrating and shitty, at most theres 6 items in 1 thing and if you put 5 cores at once (which are easy to find) you get like 12 items back
@@Baltaczar - Yeah, that’s a more accurate way to put it. The system is also very reasonable, and doesn’t need to prevent players from save scumming to get a good result. It also doesn’t randomly get harder to get the last items you don’t have because of bad programming. You won’t need to grind for a ton of Zonai objects to retry the gacha system, just to not get the last few Zonai devices you don’t have yet.
@@skylandersfan6954You need to understand that XCX is the game for audults to play an have a fun Properly, an this game is like terrible anime bad adpted. even 3 is worse also, with still a different gameplay style that wasnt ba at all. but is worse. so yes. Xcx 1 an X are the real games. And you need acept this. an be chill and stay as kid playing your ki gacha game ok? thats it that him is speaking this video. You just need to acept this and go play you xc2
A very interesting review, to say the least. As for myself, i really liked Xenoblade 2, because i just ignored the raisin :D Honestly, i do see the points you're making, even if i disagree with some of them. You did bring new things to the table tho, i never actually thought about the ludo-narrative dissonance. Maybe it's because i played through the game back when i was a teenager, idk. At the time, i clearly was in the target audience. It's really weird to think about these games that have so many flaws, but that you played just at the right time and thus helped you fall in love with a series. I mean, i discovered Xeno 1 since then, and i now prefer it to X and 2, but i don't think i could ever replay 2 and mind all that much about its flaws, cause i'll just remember all the good times that i had with it. Same goes for games like Skyward Sword for instance. Nowadays i clearly see how all of the handholding and heavy "Zelda for dummies" hurts the game in terms of widening its target audience. But at the time, i was 11 y.o. ans i was exactly the game's target audience : a Zelda dummy. I loved the game the first time, replayed it numerous times until i didn't even care about Fi or the tutorials anymore. I just ignore them, and have a good time because i love the game and am very good at it as well. And i know it kinda sounds like describing nostalgia, but it's not just that that i'm thinking about. I don't straight up ignore the games' problems and flaws, they're just not as big deal breakers to me as they're to someone else. I can still do a playthrough of these games today and have a really good time doing so. I just try to aknowledge what kind of people are targeted by what kind of games.
If you prefer X1, you seriously need to grab a chart and list the characteristics/backstory Dickson has in XC1's main story and the characteristics/backstory Vandham has in XC2's main story. Trust me, it will really change your perspective on either stories and how you view Shulk and Rex as characters.
@@thekingofspeed8960 yeah that’s pretty much how it worked. Not that rex was annoying to me before or anything, but chapter 7 really made him feel more human to me
I subbed from the splatoon content, stayed for how entertaining you are lol also a part of me feels like that rex should've stayed dead, and instead have nia as the mc because jin/malos killing rex and killing everyone who came with them made her question stuff or smthn.
Ngl, I considered buying this game because I saw Mòrag's design in Smash and loved it to bits. Like, a cool-looking non-sexualised female character that seems to be some kind of military commander? Yes please. Then I looked at the rest of the characters and here I am playing Three Houses for the fourth time
So sad to see another "I don't like Xenoblade 2 video", at least it's funny 😅, for me at least, after playing X, Definitive edition and the Golden Torna, I still love Xenoblade 2, story, characters and gameplay more, only thing I dislike was the grinding rng to get the last few blade to 100 %
Loved this video, I eventually go through the slow combat when I finally figured out the elemental burst system (when I played the tutorials couldn't be referenced back so I went through most of the game wondering why I couldn't do big number damage lol) And also yeah, the scantily clad blades are the reason why I didn't want to play this in front of friends or family lol
Morag and brigid would have been severely better than what characters we got but atleast we got good music though we also got mediocre characters but its not a case of "AnImE sWoRdFiGhTeR ReEeEeEe!!!!!!!!!1!11" but its more of a case of relatively mediocre-low quality characters that only really appeal to weaboos and coomers. We can only dream.
banana. it's hilarious how much more positive my experience with xenoblade 2 has been considering i didn't play it, i just watched a 14 hour compilation of all the cutscenes.
My experience with Xenoblade 2 (with DLC from the start): - Oh boy this game is the sequel of one of the greatest games I've ever played 😍. - Mmmmmm ok I can't move and attack 😕. - (searches on the internet how to make the combat more bearable, inevitably spoiling some of the game) 😮💨. - Ok this is fine (not great) 😅 let's keep playing. - (Realizes about the blades gotcha system) mmmm :/ ok let's open all the cores (which blades are best for who tho 😵💫?) - Ok I guess I got some good blades, let's put them with their best driver ☺️ (looks on the internet for info again to match drivers and blades spoiling stuff AGAIN). - Realizes about the overdrive protocol 🥴. - Ok let's watch on the internet again how you can farm overdrive protocols (spoiling more shit) because SURELY such a basic need and mechanic will FOR SURE be not that hard to farm 🧐. - Realizes there are just 4 overdrive protocols in the entire FUCKING game (plus the DLC ones which shouldn't be sealed behind a pay wall to begin with) and the other ways to get protocols are AFTER the main story in NG+ with a huge grind wall 😤😤😤😤. - Goes to the switch main manu, deletes the game 🖕. What a fucking shitty game/experience, what a waste of money, now I'm just in fear and praying Xenoblade 3 doesn't resemble this crap at all 😠. NOTE: for the first Karen who comes and tells me "you didn't have to look on the internet and spoil stuff for yourself that is your fault" yeah you are right, but I wouldn't have the fucking NEED to do it if ONLY the game explained something about it whatsoever and didn't put punishing systems like the stupid "overdrive protocols" to begin with and didn't make me feel like any wrong step was irreversible 😠.
I can understand, but I also went on RUclips to find out stuff and there are videos made specifically for new players that don’t spoil anything. I don’t know what forums or sources you went to that spoiled so much stuff
@@gg_novastar8492 He's really not though, it all depends on how much the things he's listing bother you but them not being that bad for you doesn't mean they're not there
It’s a good game. This isn’t simply a case of somebody not liking the game. He genuinely is missing key parts of this game. Also a lot of his complaints are things Xenoblade 1 did too.
He was losing to the beginner boss brighid. The combat in 2 is MUCH better than 1 but he doesnt grasp that. He blames the game alot for his misunderstandings. I would say play it for urself to find if its for u.
Quest blades activate after a certain amount of battles won, even little baby enemies will do. I don't blame you for not knowing, though, because it's another unexplained gameplay mechanic among thousands of others.
About you losing to Brighid and grinding in XC1 and X; I didn’t lose to Her in my playthrough, but in XC Definitive Edition, I got sweep by Some Mekon in the fallen Arm in my way up (those mekon that use the acid/green liquid did a number on me) and no joke I had to grind in order to stand a chance because if 3+ mid/big size Mekon were in the skirmish, I was done for. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the enemies in the new area were lower level than those I had to beat in the Fallen Arm. Edit: About the gatcha, I still miss 1 blade, I seriously tried for 10 days (opening about 35 rare/legendary cores a day) and still nothing, at that point I gave up and went back to XC Definitive Edición
@@CodeLo7495 I mean when you say that “There is no need to grind in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or X”. I didn’t grind in Sword Valley and got my teeth kicked at the end of Fallen arm.
@@cesarelizondoramos3432 I am sorry I didn’t read your first comment and misunderstood. But yeah, you had to grind a lot in Xenoblade 1 especially in the ❤️.
Dunno if this matters anymore but just wanted to say that deactivated core crystals activate again after a certain amount of "battle initiations", not a number of hours. Still sucks to have to spam battle initiations but whatever
Flinch is a female character you can get as a Blade. Her look isn't sexual she looks like big bird had daughter. But that being said agree most of the female Blades have that issue it also doesn't help that most of the Blades are female. Your choices for Blades you can get are Sexy ladies, lolis, the rare male blade and bird people (Flinch and Roc). In new game+ which was a Free DLC patch you get even more blades which are the bad guys(Excluding Malos and Jin) along with T-elos. Then there is the DLC who are mostly characters from the other Xenoblade games with 3 new Blades.
I agree with almost everything, but cutting a fight off half way without warning to lead into a cutscene is not fun, especially in games like these where you generally save chain attacks for the last 10% or less hp. I would much rather deal with winning the fight and losing in the cutscene than continuously getting unsatisfying fade outs in fights. The only exception is when something actually happens that, yanno actually interrupts the fight. I particularly don't want to just have fights where because they need the player to lose, they only let you play half, and then they let the cutscene 'play' the other half of the fight but worse. Beh-Neh-NEH
I used to love this game but now I like it at most -too complex gameplay -confusing story -bad writing -awful/sexualized character designs. -“meh meh” -“don’t forget me”
You knocked it out of the park stating all the problems of this game. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’m playing Torna right now and with a few hours in I’m already liking it way better than XC2. Lora >>> Rex
@@tonyknighton4019 How are they not? Both optimists dedicating their lives to helping people because its the right thing to do and eventually growing to earn a title for their selflessness (in Lora's case, a Tornan Knight, in Rex's case the Master Driver). Its part of the reason why Jin and Rex's dynamic is so good, because Rex essentially represents the mindset Jin used to subscribe to that he's now turned against
While I don't share your opinions on the game being terrible (I think its the best in the series) you did make a lot of valid points that I share as criticisms (although to me these are little details, but I can see why others might feel like it really hurts the experience). I also appreciate the fact that you state its your opinion and act like it unlike other reviewers have done.
I absolutely adore this game but I have to agree with you on many of these points. I really hate most of the female character designs and many of the voice acting is very annoying
Never played this game and i dont like anime but I'm actually interested due to the "ardainian soldier" uniform (i like history and it resembles a german uniform from 1870 till 1917) and 3:24 i also like the uniform shes wearing it looks sick af might get
I have a bit of a trash taste in anime but I like to know when I'm getting into some trash anime and xenoblade 1 wasn't really a trash anime so finding out this one is was a bit of a surprise
Okay, but I feel that Xenoblade 2's areas seem smaller by design to help drive home the idea of diminishing living space in Alrest. Having massive open plains and a huge surface area would contradict this plot point. I think this is why the Titans in XC2 are more complex then the XC1 area's, often being made up of multiple tiers at varying altitudes and/or being filled with grottos and caves to explore. This means that despite the comparatively small areas, there's still just as much exploring to do in XC2 as there is the first game. Although the compass is admittedly rather poorly designed given the complexity of the areas, and it can make finding your way to your objective frustratingly difficult on a first playthrough. Compass aside though, I actually really enjoyed the explorative aspect of XC2. Pyra's 'dream of Elysium' is just data stored in her Core Crystal, a remnant of when she was still a part of the Trinity Processor and tasked with keeping watch over Elysium. Malos was also a part of the Trinity Processor and all three cores were designed to be able to communicate with each other. So it makes sense that Malos is able to send a projection of himself to Pyra's Elysium dream. Note that when people are in this illusionary Elysium, it's not actually them or their 'spirit', but just an amalgamation of the data that Pyra's core has on them. When Rex touched the Crystal on the Aegis sword his biological information, as well as his name, consciousness and aspirations evidently, was transferred to Pyra's Core Crystal as data. Pyra used this data to recreate his consciousness in 'Elysium' so she could ask her favor. Although, I guess the Addam scene in the Spirit Crucible is a little harder to explain. My best guess is that it has something to do with the crystal on Pnuema's sword, but I dunno. Implying that common Blades have no beneficial combat reasons for being in your party is blatantly false. Even in the early game you can pull common Blades that are have more useful combat skills than a lot of the Rare Blades have. Yes, the affinity charts for rare Blades almost always have more nodes on each of their skills, but if most of said skills are underwhelming even at their highest tier then that's meaningless. Common Blades might also have three aux core slots, which is something even most of the rare ones don't have. Not to mention that in the early game you'll likely have a lot of commons that can make contributions to driver combos that none of your current rare Blades can cover. For Example, Nia can launch with Knuckle Claws, so if she doesn't have a rare Blade with those weapons then it might be worth her while to use a common instead. Being able to perform higher levelled driver/fusion combos early on is immensely useful and is often well worth the trade-off. Not to mention that it's possible to pull common Blades later on in the game that have greater combat possibilities then even the top-tier rare blades. The whole Crown rating system is a lot less meaningful than most people think, what's really important is their stats and the type of skills in their affinity chart. I don't mind having tutorials at the beginning of important boss battles, though I will say that the first Malos fight was a bit much because it keeps interrupting the flow every five seconds, so I'll give you that one. But I didn't mind the Pneuma tutorial at the Cliffs of Morytha at all. The game is just explaining what she's able to do in this form and how to activate it, which is something I think a game should probably do when introducing a new combat mechanic As for unlosable battles, I don't think they are an issue in this game. I mean for starters there are only 2 of them, Mythra's introduction and Pneuma's. In both cases you've already passed a skill check by lowering the HP of one of your opponents to 50%, so it's not like your just getting a free win. Especially since those fights are often considered some of the hardest ones by new players. Besides which, losing in those battles would completely ruin the moment. These fights are supposed to be triumphant power trips to help drive home just how powerful the Aegis can be. They could've made the first fight after Pyra joins up unlosable, but they didn't because canonically she doesn't easily outclass most other Blades like Mythra does. Unlosable battles in this case help sell the narrative and are not a problem. Another thing the whole win in the game lose in the cutscene thing is completely overblown. It does happen, certainly, but not nearly as often as people make out. Like, let's see how many fights can actually fit into this category. The Morag fight doesn't because Rex ends up getting the better of her using the water tower. Morag even comments on how she feels slighted since Rex and Pyra had the opportunity to land a powerful blow to her, but they intentionally averted their aim. This is a victory, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose you technically lose against Vandham so that's one point. Akhos ends up getting driven out of Garfont after his fight, so that's another win. When you fight Mikhail and Patroka in the Abandoned factory you end up destroying their Blades and force them to flee. The fight with Jin in Temperantia can probably be another point to you, since he does end up killing Haze before leaving. After that, every single time you completely drain an enemies health you end up winning in the cutscene as well, some way or another. So it actually only happens twice in the game, three if you want to count the first fight against Malos. My point is while it does happen it really isn't so rampant as some people claim it is. P.S Saying that every rare Blade design is stupid is an pretty trash take if you ask me. But hey, you do you I guess.
Couple things I wanna say (probably won't do it all in one take tho so expect edits) The areas being small is not a big problem but rather what you do with them visually. A lot of the areas are visually uninteresting, which is something the video points out. Not much else to say on that The blades part. For me, it is not a matter of how blades can be useful no matter the rank but rather the fact this system is in the game in the first place. The gacha system in general is a fucked system that shouldn't be implemented into a game such as this. It drags the gameplay on and on, just feels like padding, and the game as a whole a would be better without it (and feel relatively the same). In terms of the blade designs, yeah no they are mostly garbage. There are a few good ones but for the most part are just unappealing and appeal way too much to... certain people Tutorials in boss battles, perfectly understandable when implemented correctly and completely missing the mark if not. The game does a good job at this once and the rest are pretty trash implementations, and it doesn't help that the tutorials in general are bad in scope of tutorials. In this game, they feel unnecessary or drawn (which is what the game is in general in all honesty). Finally, unlosable fights and win in game lose in cutscene. This is just stupid, especially in rpgs where every move matters, it falls under "so why even bother then if...". There should be a trigger point in the health bar that stops the battle plays out yhe cutscene, doing the entire healthbar is literally just padding and unnecessary. Unlosable fights should allow you to lose, "but the story", fuck the story. If you lose, you lose and restart the fight like most other games and if you win then it just helps drive the narrative further. There is no reason for either of these to exist except for padding.
@@geoshmeo1900 the areas actually have a lot going on with them visually that also gives you some lore about the place I’m not exactly sure what areas in particular you find uninteresting but I’ll use the examples this guy gives for his video Mor ardain (bland desert) There’s actually much more going on here than just a desert town, for starters just exploring around mor ardain you can find numerous factories and chemicals plants which for highlights how they’ve managed to survive in those harsh climates as well the technology they use and how much it messes with their titan since they are the only civilization we’ve seen at that point to mine all the way to their titan’s ether reserves there’s also areas of the titan that have become abandoned and are overrun with monsters one of those areas literally had to be locked off with a gate because of how dangerous it was and you can experience all of this Temperantia (bland battleground) Again there’s a lot going on in this space as well, it’s literally a place where the aegis war happened so of course you’re going to find a lot of the area ties back to this for starters there’s a giant crater that was most likely created by an aegis with creatures living inside , the titan weapon you fought Jin on is always there and can be viewed from almost anywhere on the map, there are tribal hideouts for several different monsters, there are several toxic pools and springs for monsters that thrive in that type of environment, you can find a garrison of Ardainian workers developing weapons and monitoring the area, you can find the site where they discovered upgraded the titan weapon you fought Jin as well as more of those weapons being worked on, there is an ardainian titan weapon that was sealed away most likely because it was too powerful and there are also monster that stand around and worship the weapon like some type of idol Spirit crucible elpys (bland cave) There more here than just your average cave, you can literally walk on the Titans bones early on in there, there’s an underground river with creatures inside of it, there’s a completely dark area where you can only see the glow of your blades, there is an area with spider web all over the place and has nothing but arachnids there, there’s the path to the vault which is just nicely built pathway but then there are also monsters swarming all around you, and the vault itself which is a little in ruin but mostly intact especially with Addams crest and the light shining down on it Land of Morytha (bland city) Morytha is a city.....under most circumstances this wouldn’t be eventful but in a world like that of xenoblade 2 the fact that there is just a regular modern city that’s just dead and under the cloud sea is very huge and important to the story, but apart from that just what’s inside is interesting on its own, you can see massive sky scrapers in the distance, huge creatures from the cloud sea as well as giant tornado, the area is crawling with guldo enemies which are humans that tried to replace their brain cells with core crystals in an attempt to obtain immortality after the world went to ruin, there are also leftover over machines walking around that came from the world tree, you can explore parts of the dead Tornan titan including its womb which was used facilitate blades becoming Titans, you can even see the roots of the world tree...speaking of which World tree (bland Amazon warehouse) It’s a space station that extends all the way into low orbit, as you’d expect it’s filled with all sorts of crazy machines and systems, there’s even a walking area outside that lets you see the rings of light that appear around the world tree as well various enemies flying around including the artificial blades made in Mor Ardain, there are also Indoline guards as well as Indoline titan weapons, you can see various important Titans in the game just looking in your direction after Amalthus controlled them, you could even see mikail fighting in his mech before it went down I’m sorry I typed a lot about Titans in particular but the fact that you said they are visually uninteresting when there are are so many things happening on them as you explore and lots of interesting locations on them it really bugged me The blade designs aren’t stupid or garbage.... YOU DON’T LIKE THEM I hope you are aware there is a difference between something being bad and you simply not liking it, a lot of the blades have really interesting concepts and designs such as nim’s chimeric features showing how close she is to nature, praxis and theory’s designs mirroring each other, Zenobia being physically based on Fujin to represent how powerful she is, Crossette having fireworks to represent her excitement, Dagas being partly made out of gold to show his alleged status, Sheba being in a bathtub as a reference to Bathsheba ..... if YOU don’t like them then just say you don’t but don’t say they are badly designed because of that and don’t insult the people that do like the designs by trying to insinuate they only like them because of their boobs or because they’re showing skin or because they have a fetish There is only one battle in the game that you can’t lose on and that’s when pneuma awakens every other fight in the game can be lost, I mean I can see why people would dislike but even then it’s not that big of a deal because your reason to keep going is to see what happens in the story I mean at that point what’s the point of even getting their health past a certain point because you’re going to lose any so why should you even try at all Also while the “gacha” aspect isn’t my favorite it also isn’t required to complete the game or get through most of the game you don’t need all the rare blades to get through the story or even the end game content, it’s really not that different from other rng items which are very common and regardless there are plenty of blades that aren’t RNG and they will be more than enough for the entire game but outside one or two specific things you aren’t even required to use to rng blade core system
This Xenoblade review series has made me the laugh the most out of the videos on your channel. Your jokes in these videos are really great, keep it up.
Playing the game and understanding it is a lot of fun and it's still very quotable. I played Xenoblade 2 and had quite a bit of fun. Now the Gacha system wasn't that bad since a good chunk of them aren't really needed to beat the game. For designs Morag, Zeke, Driver Nia they're all great and sound pretty good too. I can't really imagine them without their english dubs since I've spent way to much time getting used to their voices. A lot of the heart to hearts are fully voiced and some of them are great. We get to really hear the talent of the VAs since the main story clearly didn't do them justice. Now of course obviously the story was the weaket part of the game but the combat was fun once you know how to play the game and what has gotten me to love it for the most part although most of the areas did feel pretty bland. Now as for Torna the golden country it was great at least from what I remember, I wonder if you'll do a review on that too
i respect your Opinion but i find it kinda funny that Many Points you point out in this Video are actually the reasson why i love this game so much . I really love the Gatcha system because it makes every Playthrough kinda unique . And Building and planing for your perfekt team is really fun . Forthermore Corecristals give you a reasson to explore the world other then just XP . It just feals more rewording then Xenoblade 1 . I for my part predictet the big story Events from Xenoblade 1 and for me Xenoblade 1 is predictable as heck like Fioras comeback . But hey everyone has his own Opinion and i am totally fine with that . And dont get me wrong i love both games but i just think Xenoblade 2 is the better game . ( Sorry for my bad English )
I totally respect your opinion as well! I'm glad that some people were able to enjoy the game, and that it got more people into the series!! This game in particular just wasn't for me, and that's how it goes sometimes
There are more than a few points I agree with you in this video, however I think it's really good for Rex to be an absolute idiot. He is a kid from the country side, with little to no real common sense and knowledge, who just got handed DAMN EXCALIBUR, the key to open up a paradise or some shit, estability, saving a decaying world. Well shit, that is pretty damn dope! I am now the hero! Everything will go well! But shit hits the fan and by god he needs to mature quickly and he surely takes his time doing so, taking his own death(kinda), Azurda's death, and Daddy merc death until he finally begins getting it. The culmination of this for me are the points where he breaks down in chapter 7 and by the end. I am not gonma say it couldn't be done better or that he is a master character, but I really liled just the waking up to reality slap by slap unitl it's like OH SHIT. THIS IS REAL. NOT A FEVER DREAM admittedly, yes, he is dumb.
Thanks for Watching! I appreciate everyone making through to the end of the video before commenting :)
Leave a comment if you agree or disagree! I'm just one person, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority of people who played it.
But if you REALLY want me to see what you have to say, you're gonna have to follow me on Twitter and yell at me on there: twitter.com/CptAstro
(I only get notifications from followers btw so I won't see if you don't follow me)
Have a great week, everyone!!
mk
Idk, mangos
Ironically people who like xenoblade 2 think their in the minority
@@PleasedontlookatmycontentIbegy "tHiS mIgHt Be CoNtRoVeRsIaL bUt I aCtUaLlY lIkE 2 mOrE tHaN 1"
they say to a guy saying they dislike 2 and like 1, as they proceed to get blasted in the comments
idk banana
"Fire Emblem: Heroes, a game I play every day but do not like."
yeah sounds like gacha players in a nutshell
The bad ones
A lot of this video I disagreed with, but this line was spot on
I dropped Heroes entirely some years back. Each time I look back, I do not regret my choice.
I still play it.
I just like to look at character portraits.
Other wise it's just my time waster because fuck waiting around in a small room with nothing to do.
@@LordlyWeeb So all of them
Expanding on what you said about starting Rex with a blade I'd have done a tutorial salvage mission and had Rex get a core crystal then. That way you can introduce players to the bare basics of combat, show how much stronger you get with a blade, and maybe give a fight vs like 5 of those crabs to show how much stronger you are with a blade. Then when Torna kills Rex they go "hey this was a half decent blade, let's use it, Akhos still has a spare slot" so you can fight that same blade and show how unstable the life of a blade is and how they can be killing their best friends in a week because they just don't remember.
Oooh I really like this idea too!
@@CaptainAstronaut Right?! This game was like 2 drafts away from being just as good if not better than XB1. And to it's credit this does have a more fun post game to just screw around in but...it could have been more
Fuck, this idea is amazing. It could even be used well as characterization moment for Ahkos or some villai. They feel nothing about sacrificing that blade to save their own skin to escape or something along those lines, further showing that villain's depravity or callousness.
@@absol_lute_zero9083 mmmm that doesn't fit with any of the members of Torna we've seen so far except Malos. All of them were visibly upset when their blades got toasted.
@@wJermell0 But they act like they forgot about them anyways.
Whether people love, hate or are neutral to XC2, Morag being dope is the common denominator
I would absolutely play a spinoff where you just play as Morag doing Special Inquisitor stuff
@@CaptainAstronaut Literally everyone would like that
Actually some people think Morag is kind of flat because her growth kinda ended as soon as Niall relieved her of her SI duties.
@@elbert0p1kachu Even though her character is pretty underdeveloped, she's still the coolest part of the cast.
If we ever got a Morag spinoff let me take off the god dang hat.
I don't have a gacha problem, not at all, what are you talking about
If Car Quest was a Gacha Game w/ waifus, you'd be too busy and forget to eat
You just heavily enjoy pulling every five seconds. No addiction at all.
@@CaptainAstronaut I actually disagree with you on this because you can pull blade every time you want. I actually pull out my favorite blades while on the bus idk what you say you forgot to eat lol but I think you put way too much time to pull waifus. Also there is no addiction at all when can easily set up 5 min to get 99 legendary cores without paying a single dime of money like other gacha games required you to grind ton of times and money for your favorite blades
People make seggz videos it’s gross
Dont let this guy find out about casinos
Rex not finding a single blade crystal BEFORE the game starts while diving like he does the whole game makes no sense.
and I believe you can actually get core crystals from salvaging. Maybe he just never tried due to the risk though.
@@nepnep615 He apparently didn't know about the risk until we first see it fail in game
I know I’m 2 years late here but, he probably did find a bunch of core crystals while salvaging. That being said, it’s established Rex really does not like war, and liked his life as a salvager for the most part. There’s really no reason that he would have resonated with a core crystal until he was given a chance with the Aegis to not only get a second chance at life, but to achieve his dream of getting to Elysium.
The one thing that is apparent is the game has got more holes then Swiss 🧀. I ain’t gonna miss this game
"I think that enemy got *THE POINT"*
"I think that enemy Saw my hat"
“King Dragon sends his regards.”
"I like your attitude!"
"You'll never save Prince Horace"
I didn’t know Tetsuya Nomura created some of the characters for this game. I also 100% agree that when his designs are the most normal looking, something went wrong.
I don't know why the Blades not looking "normal" is a problem.
If we're gonna summon what are basically stands why would they all just be regular people with weapons. Plus saying all of the blades designs are bad is a honestly horrible take imo
@@kingneo6736 This. Like I agree there are some bad ones in there but I feel there are a lot more good than bad.
I am by no means saying they are bad. I personally don’t like their designs, but they are not bad. My stance on nomura’s over the top designs looking tame in comparison to the other characters in this game is more of me finding it funny than disrespect.
In that way, I admit “wrong” may not have been the correct word choice.
@@kingneo6736 Um no. It is actually valid to say most of the blades have shitty designs
@@cypher838 This. Like 90% of the blades have AWFUL designs.
About level grinding, levels in Xenoblade 2 are honestly pretty meaningless. Being a few levels above the enemy makes them pretty much just as hard as if you're a few levels below. It's all the other systems in the game that provide massive damage multipliers that abilities that actually make the fights easier. To be clear about how meaningless levels are, the highest level superboss in the game at level 130 is also the easiest. The hardest, by comparison, is only level 100, and you wouldn't guess that he's so infuriating if you looked only at levels.
This is pretty much the case, though early on levels are a bit more important since you’re missing game mechanics and other ways to augment your stats.
*Uses True Hazy Moon*
If you do side quests or finish with fusion combos or chain attacks you don't even need to grind lol
hence most of my trouble with the game's difficulty, They don't teach you the other junk
I cannot believe that you called a stupid gacha system in Tears of the Kingdom, 2 years before release
Dude the whiplash of him saying “what if tears of the kingdom had a gacha system” was crazy
One thing I'd point out about the cutscenes in Xenoblade 2: it's a bit jarring how many of them are not fully rendered. Basically, that means that an impressive majority of them simply do not have unique animations. In Xenoblade 1, a good chunk were fully animated, which made them feel alive, even during moments that were more personal than plot-important. In Xenoblade 2, the few fully animated cutscenes that exist are beautiful and great, but many of the ones that aren't feel out of place, or have a weird pseudo-mix of unique animations and default ones. It's off-putting, I didn't like that.
It's also weird that despite having a surplus of cutscenes, there is a sizable amount of instances where characters (for the main story) interject with text bubbles, sometimes fully voiced, sometimes not. All of this hammers home the fact that, yes, this game was very obviously and unfortunately rushed.
If there were simply more bananas in this game, I might have liked it more..
by unique animations /full rendered do you mean the cutscenes are not fully animated (like when shit goes down)? cause if so I would say xc1 had worse ones where characters would slide and be still when talking. The running as well in xc1 look weird and DE makes it even more clear where the characters would run but it would seem slow. Xc2 had a better transition between the fully animated ones and ones that are not where xc1 its clear as day when they do transition because 1. the text boxes are different and 2. characters just stop moving.
if the game rushed it would be like cyberbug2077
You are reaching so hard to give XC1 points you're breaking your back. XC1s cutscenes aside from a handful are largely generic, and even the full animated cutscenes have little to no choreography in them. XC2s are miles better, yes there's stilted generic scenes here and there, but XC1 had them in spades as well.
@@ianp5367 Ian
The similarity between Torna and Tora is not present in Japanese, which is the script that the writers oversee. This similarity was the translators' doing
(In the Japanese version, Torna is "Ira" instead, but since that was a real terrorist group in Ireland, when it was translated to the West it was changed. The reason for "Ira" is not because the writers wanted to draw parallels with the Terrorists, but because the titans in the Japanese versions are named after the 7 deadly sins in Latin, and "Ira" means "anger" in Latin, Uraya in the Japanese version is "Envidia" which means jealousy)
Wait, really? Huh...
Neat, anger and jealousy are also ira and envidia in spanish
@@lucasdellamaggiore wow is almost like spanish is a language derived from latin…
@@carlosdominguez9360 No need to be a smartass
This is a great video and I agree with every point you made. Xenoblade 2 truly is a masterpiece. You are nitpicking and biased. I win bye bye.
I like this comment more than the entirety of the video
I feel like this is arguments in general lmao
I dont understand if your joking or not- but you made a dunkey reference so its probably a joke
Sorry dude, Xenoblade 2 sucks lmao.
@@fruitxyikes260 "I dont understand if you're joking or not"
Yes
Even if people dislike this game, at least there's two things that we can all agree on:
1. The soundtrack is god-tier
2. Zeke is great
The zekeator will always be god-tier
Even if people dislike this game I think we can agree on:
The game is still great. :D
@@ametrine7462 I like this idea
I dislike it and I agree with those two points
@@ametrine7462 That doesn't make sense lol.
"I think Xenoblade 2 has the best overall soundtrack of all three Xenoblade games"
Me, a Xenoblade X enjoyer: HERESY
Xenoblade X enjoyers unite
WE'RE STUCK ON A DIFFERENT PLANET
that song that plays when your flying on the mechs AND "stuck on a different planet want to talk.
@@drakenstarcross1347
Aight the skell flight theme is a good song but can get annoying when it's all you hear (I wish it was just the regular area theme then switched to the flight theme at a certain altitude).
Also black tar for me is one of those songs thats shit when you first listen, but then when you hear it a few times it's pretty good (kinda like the new Attack on Titan opening).
Only truly bad song in the game imo is the NLA night theme, I kinda like the day one despite peoples opinions of it
@@obamaorb7426 nice to hear someone else opinions about it! I personally just adore the "over the rainbows" shell flight theme
Finally someone reflects my feelings of this game. After Xenoblade 1 and X this was like playing a totally different franchise. The character designs are like a who's who of deviant art creations.
The story and characters wre written in a very similar way to 1 though? And the gameplay is similar too
@@skylandersfan6954 Aside the title and the basic idea of how combat flows are all that's similar between XC1 and XC2, the rest is barely similar in writing.
@@LocalAnonOnTheInternet Elaborate then
IKR??? Like WTF???
Imagine both azurda and Rex's "first blade" died in chapter 1, and both Pyra and Rex had different feelings of guilt for their death.
Rex would feel guilty cuz of how reckless he was taking the job.
Pyra would feel guilty cuz they died trying to protect her, so now she has to fill in the hole in Rex's life that their deaths left behind.
26:42 HOLY SHIT HE KNEW
Xd
>shitting on kos-mos, a legacy character from xenosaga, in the same bucket as the new rare blades
for what purpose? Like fine its fair to trash them at large but like...ah who am I kidding she was still waifu bait back on the ps2
ya but she is a better character then majority of the xeno 1 cast lol
I knew she looked familiar but I still wouldn't have been surprised
@@nomight273 nah. Xenoblade 1's cast was Hella great.
@@nomight273 I think you meant to say worse than most of the rest of the cast.
@@nomight273 Who isn't?
For me my biggest issue was the exploration and gameplay. I agree with pretty much all your points, but most of your points didn’t affect me as much as it did for you.
1. I hate how disconnected each world is, running feels slow, and you can pretty much see the entire world if you stand somewhere good. It takes away the feeling of going into the unknown because at this point you understand that the titan has already been colonized. It is my biggest letdown from the previous xenoblades ESPECIALLY given that 1 and X are my favorites games of all time.
2. I dislike the gacha as well, and I prefer XC1’s and XCX’s combat compared to 2.
3. Sexualization. I don’t have to say much else, we all know what’s going on.
"Don't look up what they originally said"
*opens Google*
Oh god how bad was it
I couldn’t find it personally (prolly says something like ara ara)
@@aegisScale Kinda like awakening Poppi
@@harlekingnapmaster3986 oh no . . .
In the Japanese version she has dialog with a "bark" at the end of her sentences. From my understanding, she's also suppose to sound more innocent while she's talking in dog mode.
The idea was probably to make her sound cute, but it really doesn't translate well to English and probably couldn't localize the dialog in a way to give equal meaning to English speakers and just had her making dog sounds instead.
I’m just waiting for the
“JOIN MEEEEE”
Moment
37:07
Oh my god
How did they know
I'm certain this guy's got an actual Monado giving them visions
Plot twist- monolith soft turned to him for advice on making xenoblade 3
It's not even as visionnary as at 26:39
The female characters design are part of the plot duh!
But they actually have intent which is the funny part.
Salaad your sarcasm lmao
The fact that they say blades are the physical representation of the driver yet someone like morag can pull dahlia
@@mariojetsluigi11 Yeah no that's not how it works
A rare blade's appearance is set with the influence of the first driver it bonds to after collecting enough data from its environment
@@mariojetsluigi11 yeah pretty much what Gavin said, it’s the reason Wulfric has a lot of animalistic tendencies and the fact that he can communicate with animals no matter which party member you bond him too
"What if Zelda had a stupid gacha game system that was integral to all the other systems?" They did that for the Minish Cap. And to a lesser extent, the Oracle games. It did indeed suck. Especially because it was that combined with "socialization bonuses", i.e. "What do you mean everyone doesn't live in Tokyo?" That's bananas.
Banana.
Also I'm kind of in a weird position where I like this game overall but yet somehow agree with the majority of this video. How does that even work, fuck do I know I'm not a psychologist or maybe I'm more of a masochist than I thought.
In general, I like the story of the game (but still dislike the pacing and random mood interruptions). Soundtrack is a masterpiece but I still prefer XCX's of the 3. Gameplay had its good moments as long as you didn't notice the post-game staring at you like some creepy trenchcoat drugged up hobo (god knows I want absolutely nothing to do with any min-maxing or completion in this game, it's the absolute worst).
But the one part that really does me in in this video is really the ludonarrative dissonance because even in my favorite series of all time, Legend of Heroes, I see it creeping in more and more. In one of the latest games, Trails of Cold Steel 3, the game was littered full of those "win in battle, lose in cutscenes" moments that constantly infuriated me despite winning the fights so easily I barely took any damage because the game systems are so broken and abusable. And then it's made even worse when in cutscenes we get saved by other characters jumping in which for all intents and purposes we know full well can't handle the threat either. If you're gonna hype up 2 villains to be these god-like beings that can rip me apart with the snap of a finger maybe don't have Little Timmy who hasn't finished his training yet swoop in and "save the day". If I couldn't handle it, they sure couldn't either dammit!
I mentioned it in Part 1, but it's because this game is like Trail Mix. There's a lot of different components in this game, and while some for some people (like me), some of the components are Raisins and ruin the whole experience, other people don't mind the raisins so much and can enjoy the experience as a whole
Also I've meaning to play the Trails of Cold Steel games, I've heard they're pretty good.
@@CaptainAstronaut it's definitely good despite what I said. But you'll get A LOT of cutscene and dialogue for sure. This series is all about that.
And in case you didn't know, the series actually starts with Trails in the Sky, Cold Steel is the 3rd story arc in a continuous story. Ain't a bad thing to start with Cold Steel per say but the context will be missing from some references and is more modernised and easier for some people to get started on the series as opposed to Trails in the Sky which is much more dated slower paced due to being essentially a 40-60 hour prologue. Cold Steel 3 and beyond though expects the players to have played every single previous entry to understand everything that's going on.
It's like the animated clone wars series. The first 2 seasons suck and then the story gets good, and then theres that one part in season 5 that's like the worst part and then it ends with a really cool connection to the other thing that sets up really cool story moments in future media.
Very funny he made an oroboros joke when that’s the entire premise of XC3 from what we can tell so far loll
I love this game and I love these videos. Entertaining constructive criticism all around.
idk bananas
This was my first xeno game and there were some things I liked and some I didn't. The soundtrack was really stunning, lots of tracks I adored. Only thing I wasn't huge on was the gacha aspects the game had. The game itself I enjoyed and sank many hours into, idk I'm just not huge on gacha mechanics
Considering I’m a kingdom hearts fan, the “bad” voice acting doesn’t phase me. It adds to the experience lol
The way I think of it is that you have to put up with all the shit moments like “Join Meeeee” or “AAAAAAAAAIYYAH”
For treasuring moments like “INDEED!” or “Don’t get cocky... YOU LITTLE SHIT”
@@thekingofspeed8960 who said indeed lol
@@jerm-gv9rv Malos chapter 7. Probably one of my favorite lines from the game lmao
Whether or not we like the English dub, I think we can all agree that Thomas the tank engine 80% carried the whole English dub experience
@@elbert0p1kachu
ruclips.net/video/T5S4r2p9x34/видео.html
The combat in this game is kinda hard to grasp and the tutorials are so bad that everytime I go back to play it I take at least 30 minutes to remember the mechanics
The combat mechanics that you actually need to know are pretty simple, I got by for ages only paying attention to the basics
@@Tvhurdghit4fhi6rr Kind off, I've yet to finish it but everytime I open the game I have to remember how to do a lot of the combos since I only started doing sidequest after I got the last party member
@@keldeo05 I can understand that it's quite complicated but I dont have trouble remembering, maybe I just play it too much
32:56 Ok I was laughing so hard with this part of the video because it's so true. The battle dialougue in this game is so chaotic. I don't mind hearing the same battle dialougue, like in Xenoblade 1, but I can barely keep it with any lines in Xenoblade 2. Imagine having the coolest boss theme music and the battle dialougue made the battle feel dumber.
I'm fine with the gatcha system, I get it, rare blades are OP and normal blades are weak. But the main story is already pretty easy. People who choose to use normal blades can make the game feel harder, kinda like in Pokemon, some Pokemon are really strong and some are actually really bad. I actually enjoyed using the normal blades, but I do wish you can make them stronger. A big problem with normal blades is that I keep geeting elements or weapon types I don't want. At one point, I keep getting Fire element weapons, 2 of my team members have Fire type.
Anyway, I really enjoy your crtique on the game. I love Xenoblade 2 but I know damm fucking well I cannot quite recommend this to anyone cuz how weird the anime is. banana
Thanks for watching! I totally agree that the battle music is awesome, but you can't hear it over the voices. I like it when battles feel a little bit chaotic, like an actual fight would, but in this game it was just too much
I think the gacha game system could have worked better with a little more polish, but my general policy is gacha game = not good (I say, as I play Fire Emblem Heroes every day haha)
I'm glad that there were people who liked the game though. It's an odd one for sure haha
I don't think intentionally making the game harder if you want really excuses the gacha system at all. Even ignoring the possibility of difficulty options, you could also purposely skip as many battles as possible if you wanted to be under-levelled and under-equipped in order to make the game harder.
Normal blades AREN'T weak tho
@@georgelongcoal1117 when this game gets a remaster in 2027 Kiki will be a rare blade(and they will fix the ing dub,and hopefully Rex)
@@gabrielevaccaro2453 But I like the boyooo
And yes, kiki rare blade.
I love this game to bits but I have to agree with a lot of what you said. Also, the reason Pyra was able to fight Malos on the ship is because blades just get weaker when they're away from their drivers, also the reason why you can send blades on missions. They kinda explain this in combat with the affinity link. Brighid is said to be nearly on par with the aegis which is why she could fight without Morag.
While I DO NOT agree with this video at all. You're at least doing it in a more "respectful" way. I would MUCH rather be forced to sit through your videos on why Xenoblade 2 apparently sucks(from your perspective) then anyone else's. ESPECIALLY anything to do with this game and the channel BeatEmUps(man makes a video on why he refuses to review it, then goes mocking the game in every other video to then finally give it a 2nd chance years later only to completely half-ass it by not even pretending to care.) Yeah, I'll watch the guy who ACTUALLY PUTS IN EFFORT please.
I skipped to one part of BeatEmUps’s “review” and he complained that he was dying even though he wasn’t going for the health potions lmao.
Idk if this is the guy that respects the game if he complains about literally the entire game and story. Like what’s the point of having a story in the game
And also the graphs in this video is so irrelevant. Doesn’t have a scale to them at this point. Even in the “anime” graph that he pulls
@@ametrine7462 He somehow got 53 hours of gameplay but only made it to the titan battleship, like ??????? how tf does he do that. That's like 10 hours of gameplay+sidequests max
Alex Christie mans must’ve left his switch on lmao. 53 hours was when I got to Morytha I think lmao.
about the blade balance....I actually find that common blades, particularly the 4* ones, tend to be more useful than a large majority of the non-story-given rare blades, especially if we omit any of the blades locked behind the expansion pass
I actually really like your idea for a rewrite of the start starting Rex off as a driver and him losing his original blade to Torna
That defeats Rex's entire character. He's supposed to not know how to be a driver and how all of that works. He's supposed to be a fish out of water.
@@LordlyWeeb
I can see what you mean, but at the same retrospectively I think I prefer this way, nothing that can't be rewritten around and also serves as a great intro to blades and their memories. Also to be fair, does Rex ever actually develop from the beginning of the game? He's still the same impulsive, reckless, immature character at the end of the game who only even follows Mythra's wishes at the end because his friends are there trying to convince him for like 10 minutes, and he didn't really have a choice anyway. Tbh I think the game would benefit from having a rewritten main character because I didn't care for Rex at all, he's just Sora if Sora never developed, was more annoying and had an even more rediculous design.
I get that's probably just my own opinion and that the writers of the game are a lot better at it than I am, but that's how I see it.
@@obamaorb7426 He absolutely changes. He specifically learns to not be reckless. Every time he gets his ass kicked in the first half of the game someone teaches him a lesson on how to be a better driver, and by the 2nd half, he's taken it to heart and does better. The ending with him realizing he has to leave Pyra and Mythra to escape the world tree is another highlight of his growth in maturity.
@@LordlyWeeb
Sure at the end he's a little better actually budging and realising he has to escape after some convincing, but that's the extent of it. For the entire game until the visions in Elysium he learns nothing about being a driver and is just given more power anyway. Prime example, he literally watched Vandam die for him and he just runs in, dooming himself and all of his friends there as well if Mythra didn't bail him out. When he loses to Jin in Tantal he locks himself away for days and then tries to go home before the rest of the crew calls him a dumbass and has to convince him to stay. Literally all he does to gain more power is watch his friend die and run to his own death (unlocking Mythra) and accepts the aegis for who she is (unlocking the 3rd sword). There isn't a moment in the game until Elysium that he actually reflects on his past mistakes and learns something from it
@@obamaorb7426 Mythra literally berates Rex for rushing in after Vandam dies. I don't see how you can say he doesn't learn when he goes from getting his ass kicked, even after he has Mythra, to not getting his ass kicked. He gets more power because the Aegis is the strongest blade, and he learns how to bring out that power after repeatedly getting his shit kicked in and getting better bit by bit. Jin, Vandam, Mythra, Nia, and I think even Malos all teach him throughout the game how to not be a shit driver.
The gacha joke for Botw 2 is actually a thing. I am dying
27:00 Can we talk about how this video actually predicted the gacha machines in tears of the kingdom?
What do you have against raisins? Is it the sun or the grapes? Because those're all the ingredients
I can't stand the taste, and I've been catfished by too many oatmeal raisin cookies thinking they were chocolate chip
Rasians are a little bit chewie, they don't have that crunchy taste to it.
@@CaptainAstronaut I can't eat trail mix because of the almonds. They're miniature peach pits that aren't even edible and they suck all the moisture out of my mouth
@@crystallemming6027 At least almonds don't make you trip balls when you eat them...never Crack a peach pit open. It's not worth it...
Noted... have you tried this?
@27:00 LMAO I come from the future. Zelda Tears of the Kingdom HAS a gachapon mechanic. IDK how you predicted this, but I personally like it(?). It's not an essential part of the game but if you want parts to make vehicles just go to a gachapon machine and get parts. idk how to feel about that, but I'm realizing I like randomizers in games (as long as it doesn't constrict you too much and you can do something with the unwanted things).
Afraid to ask, but what was poppi originally saying in Japanese when she barked?
Honestly it's not that big of a change. She still adds dog noises to her voice but she says cutesy maid shit which implies it's a pet-play mode rather than a dog park mode.
A liberal translation would be "HeOwO Masterpon. Woof you like 2 gOwO to the bark with me, UwU?"
Oh, so the changes were actively better then. Ok.
@@xcelentei ugh why did I click on the replies.
@@curesaul5749 I... I'm sorry you have to see what I wrote :(
One thing i think you missed is how the system showing we're you have to go is awful how was I supposed to know that you had to walk around on a specific peice of ice when it gives no context clues to it I don't even think that walking on ice to break it was a feature established before the omega fetter quest
Oh my god lol I remember being stuck on this part for so long 😂
I'm trying to remember what I actually loved about the game
Everything you said is how I felt but not as passionate, just as well I guess that is the game but now thinking about it really isn't too tier as I initially thought.
I mean if I'm watching a 40 minute analyze 3 years later explaining the game, something must've gone wrong in the game development
"something must've gone wrong in the game development"
But the fact that you care enough about the game to watch a 40 minute analysis (or for one to be made) means they clearly did something right. Also, time is not a good indicator of content.
@@lunamaster123 the game sucks bro
@@lunamaster123 ???
@@lunamaster123 - What a cope comment
I gifted my friend Xenoblade 2 several years back and he said he didn't like it and I always wondered why. It's very interesting to see things from a writer's perspective, really enlightening. It's a shame too this game had a lot of potential and hype, but ended up being really disappointing if you think about it for more than two seconds.
When I got my switch for smash ultimate my parents insisted that I buy another game since smash wasn't out yet. I was going to buy xenoblade 2 since I love the original. But it was sold out so I just didn't buy anything till smash come out. I watched a let's play after so I could at least see the story and characters. And I am happy it was sold out.
Nah, Xenoblade 2 gets better the more you think about it. Its worse at a surface level when you don't understand the nuances of the character writing
@@skylandersfan6954 I don't disagree, but if the surface level presentation isn't good and they never get to the good stuff then that's a problem no?
@@nitropenguinz Well, I never said the surface level presentation was bad, just said it was better when you look into it which goes for XB1 as well
@@skylandersfan6954 the nuance of character writing being rex not growing, morag not being a character, zeke having an issue in a cutscene and forgets about it in the next, nia letting vandham die, tora not being a character
the only good character in the game is Amalthuslmao
God I hated this game too.
The argument that most drives me up the wall is the "it gets better 20 hours in" people use to defend XC2. I work a full-time 9-5 job. I read books. I watch movies, plays, television, and, yes, enjoy video games. If you're not going to respect my time, I'm not going to waste it on 70 hours of fetishy garbage when there are so many other great games (or other forms of media) out there I could be playing/watching instead. Y'know, games with good endings AND good beginnings. Fucking hell.
Edit: The only thing I disagree with you on is the titans being smaller being portrayed as a negative thing. I actually liked that it felt more enclosed compared to the original XC. It creates a different atmosphere but not a worse one imo.
It get's good a couple hours in, really.
@mrcristofer 2013 Sure. Me liking a pretty well liked game is "being in denial", alright.
One of the biggest gripes I have for the designs has to be Percival simply for his name.
I know this sounds petty but they could have named him after any well known samurai of the edo period instead of after one of the knights of the round table.
Dude I absolutely love this series. I remember thinking some of these stuff at the time back in 2017 and then seeing reviews gloss over them, then like hearing people who started with 2 but not playing the others pressing it to high hell it made me think I was just not getting it. Then back in 2020 after playing the remake I decided to play through all of it and still had those feelings so watching this and hearing your opinions really resonated with me thanks for making this series. I don’t like being negative and there are some good elements like the music but yeah the character design, plot and voice acting always made this hard to understand why a lot of people see it as the best in the series granted they may not of played the others. That anime example you used to describe its difference over the other games in the series was spot on like the second I heard that followed by people who also like that kind of anime I realised there is somewhat of a connection. Of course people can like what they want to it’s just really refreshing to hear from your viewpoint since a lot of it has been discourse in the community kind of like what happens with persona in a way with the similar narrative style but people preferring the setting and characters over others. Whilst I hate to play those kind of playground talks for some reason a lot of people discuss very passionately about that kind of stuff. It still wireds me out how some people will play a game if it has a gatcha system like to me that’s an derogatory term for gaming outside like the trophies in melee or the actually machines in shenmue if the core game is designed on that it’s somewhat flaws by nature. Sorry this comment was so long code:bananas thanks for this vid dude, awesome stuff.
This man predicted zonai devices, wild
It is known that this game was rushed and understaffed due to Monolith Soft having been tasked with helping out in the development of the overworld of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, which came out a few months before Xeno 2, and the polishing of Splatoon 2 at the same time. Only 40 staff members of Monolith actually worked in the game, while the rest were asigned to several other Nintendo projects. On the same note, several aspects of the game were outsourced to third party coders and designers, particularly regarding enemy grunts. It has been known for some time now that the personal ambition of Takahashi, director of Monolith, has been to be able to go all out with a project entirely of Monolith without having to dedicate parts of the staff to other games not from the studio. The lastest occurrence of this was Animal Crossing new Horizons, which Monolith helped develop. Additionally, only marginal effort was put on Future Connected so as to not hinder the development of the new main project of Monolith
So, when you say that the story looks like a first draft, it probably is, Astronaut, you hit the nail in the head. Xenoblade 1, by comparisson, received much more dedication, but even back then, part of Monolith staff was diverted to help with the development of The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword.
Here is the source: gamingbolt.com/xenoblade-chronicles-2-was-made-with-a-staff-of-only-40-developers-plus-outsourcers
as.com/meristation/2019/03/29/noticias/1553860660_385313.html
So let's hope Monolith gets the chance to flex their development power, full force, with their future projects
Yeah I bet that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (or whatever game comes for Monolith Soft) is going to be incredible
@@CaptainAstronaut especially since they’ve been working on this one for a long time which is what led to xenoblade x. It’s probably gonna be ambitious. It would be bananas
Okay here we go.
-Yes having major battles with tutorials in the middle is very annoying.
-If Rex was a driver from the start that would impact the narrative, he is supposed to be noob who becomes overly confident after getting the power of Aegis and that is what leads to many of his fuck ups later in the game.
-Azurda has no value to the narrative besides revealing the location of Pneuma's blade later on, honestly would have mind if he died.
-You are the first person that I heard who died to Brigid in Gormott.
-There are actually 2 ways to obtain the information about Nia's execution, you can buy it from the informant or you can keep asking about it to everyone, the first time I beat the game I did not buy the info.
-You really don't need to grind in this game, you have the bonus exp that you can use in inns and later you can use chain attack overkills to get a loads of exp from regular fights, finishing enemies with special combos and fusion combos also reward you more experience.
-Oh there we go again with the "the game is full moment were you win the battle and loss the cutscene", the first example people use of this is the battle agaisnt Morag in Gormott, you do not "lose the cutscene" there, if anything what is show to the player is the party outsmarting her, defeating her with water tower and managing to escape. Agaisnt Vandham you end up losing the cutscene I give you that, but with Akhos that isn't the case again, all that Akhos manage to do is hurt Pyra before Vandham cancel Obronas power forcing Akhos to retreat, later agaisnt Jin in Tantal you never win the battle before the cutscene because like a lot of battles in XC, it will over as soon as his HP get below a certain point.
I apologise for any typo I initially wrote this in a hurry using a cellphone set for another language.
I disagree with the "lose the cutscene" comment. When you do the battle, you expect that when the hp drops the 0 then that means you won. But it means nothing when the post battle scene shows the enemy still standing and the rest of your party is pretty in much down for the count. It doesn't matter if you were at full HP when the battle ended; now the turntables and you're the one struggling to stay in the fight while the opponent is at full HP in the cutscene.
I think the point the video was trying to make was that if an enemy is downed in battle, that means you won the fight. The argument that the protagonist "won" by outsmarting the opponent shouldn't have to happen. You shouldn't have to be clinging on to dear life while your enemy clearly has the upper hand after you put in all the work during the fight to have that NOT happen.
RL example, you're in a championship boxing match with a heavyweight and you trained for years to win. You deliver the final KO punch. The bell dings, and then the ref goes over to the unconscious opponent and declares them the winner. And in the process, the ref donkey punches you into a coma. Then the judges discuss how the opponent was winning and finally decided that you only "barely" and "technically" won while your opponent goes into the next round of the championship bracket.
I'm currently playing the game and this is the story for all the fights I've been in so far and I can't remember the last time I was so infuriated by the post scene of one of those battles. The fact that it happened every time really rusted my hinges. There are only two outcomes in this story: you lose in the battle and then you have to do it again, or you win the battle and you still are shown that you were losing that fight.
@@ZigmundZag Ludonarrative dissonance is the issue you are referring to as Cap Astro brings up, however it does not apply here. I personally did not feel annoyed at the difference in cutscene and gameplay. You are basing it on a subjective criteria that you feel infuriated by it. Sometimes the cutscene and gameplay is the same/the fight stops at half health or it will have you "lose" I guess after beating a boss. Even Cap Astro brings this up but for some reason never thinks as to why it is. There is a certain reason for it then the devs just being doing it randomly.
Ludonarrative dissonance is the discrepancy between the narrative of gameplay and story. However, that is a simple way of looking at it and it is obvious when someone just applies it without doing further research such as in the vid. It can be used purposely by the dev to foster a sort of feeling or purpose as argued in recent years.
Lets look at a few examples of where the game either lets you beat the boss and the cutscene followed reflects this or they stop you halfway. First the cutscene where rex badly loses to Jin, and the Mythra & pneuma awakening scenes. The intent there is to show that the characters aren’t strong enough to win. Rex cannot win agaisnt Malos and Akhos or Malos and Jin and so the game stops the fights because you can't win. Which is why Mythra or Pneuma have to awaken for the party to win and the cutscenes that follow reflect this. Jin is too strong for Rex to win against and Rex has to lose as it is a pivotal part of his character arc. Ones that let you beat the boss like Amalthus are because you are strong enough to win. Rex at that point has Pneuma plus the whole party to back him up.
Now a few examples of the discrepancies. One is the malos fight and another is the Morag & brighid fight. The reason you are allowed to defeat the bosses is to give the impression that these guys are tough cookies. Malos is an Aegis and Jin is the strongest blade in Torna. If a noobie driver like Rex was to defeat them so quickly it would not be good writing. Same With morag and brighid as they are introduced as the most powerful in the empire. To have you beat them right after that would be underwhelming. It is not that the characters can't win. As @Jose Dorda says, you eventually out wit morag & Brighid and escape. Same with the Malos fight at the beginning. As Malos says, you get the slip on them.
The ahkos fight intention is a bit different though. You are able to drive them away but the point was not to make Akhos and obrona look like fodder as later on they have the ability to cut the ether flow. If you beat them in the cutscene and got to the cutscene where vandham dies, you would be like "why did they not use it out earlier" or might feel this is pulling something out of their asses. It helps give the impression that they left because they didn't want to deal with fighting the party at the moment rather than he had to leave because he was beat and later used something he could have done earlier to win. The intention of letting Akhos hurt Pyra was also to lead into the conversation between vandham and rex about power and war. Also it was a tutorial of the chain attack which is big damage move so having the battle cut short and not let you use it fully would make the tutorials even worse than they already are.
Azurda is still important as well. Revealing the blade location while being the oldest in the team. He's sort of a mentor figure so its fine.
@mrcristofer 2013 it’s not objective and not a shitty justification. Also that’s not an actual retort.
@mrcristofer 2013 what evidence or argumentation does it even present? all you said is it is objective and shitty nothing else lol.
i dont know, banana. but joking aside, i really do agree with a lot about the game you spoke about, especially about the gacha system and audio. those dragged down the experience for me and it's honestly one of the reasons i cant go back to the base game, but give the dlc a shot. all the audio quips were an ear ache and i think with all the hours i put into the game for a single playthrough, i toned out the game, but even returning from the gameplay to cutscenes, i found out myself almost no longer invested in the story, like i was still drowning out the combat audio only to have to work to get myself to pay attention to the story again. as for the gacha system, yeah, there's no excuse for it. the low chance of success to get the rare blades killed it, and with the all the level grinding just to level up the field skills to access certain areas, it was just a mess. this makes me think of how it was much better in a game like Paper Mario, OG or TTYD, where you cant access specific areas because you havent unlocked or found the equipment to reach the intended area, but once you have the equipment, you can break the obstacle to have it no longer impede your progress and come back to it again if you needed to, or you found the alternate route so you could get there another way. with the field skills needing certain blades with specific skills AND having to be leveled to get anywhere, I was just about done trying to get to the end because of how tedious it was getting.
Yes I finally beat the boss
game: well yes but actually no
me: WTF!? all that grinding.
I agree with basically all of your points, I hate when games retcon what JUST NOW happened in the battle, and gacha (GAMBLING) systems, bosses being turned into jokes by tutorials, and a tiresome around of cutscenes. Thank you for these videos, I can sum up more easily now why I don't like games that are littered with this stuff.
banana
As a person who bought XC2 a few years ago and only completed it earlier this year (and having the time of my life with XC3) I can say that my experience with XC2 is that of a mixed bag.
I overall like the main characters, I say overall because if I went in depth with my impressions of them all I’d lose the point I’m trying to make. The STORY on the other hand I was able to sit through it with little difficulty but as I got closer and closer and ultimately saw the ending…. yeaaah I wish I had experienced something else entirely because by the end I had tapped out, hard.
The gameplay, it grew on me I’m not gonna lie about that however I can only say it was after about chapter 5 that I took the gameplay at the same interest and value I do any other game I like to play. I had such an awkward time with the game I let it auto battle THE ENTIRE TIME UNTIL chapter 6 or 7.
I’d like to warn everyone that even though I have 2 Torna I haven’t played it STILL because of what and how things happened in the closing chapters of XC2’s story. And this is me having played over 200 hours of 2’s base game. I’m still missing a good 5 blades (because I’m trying to get them all before the headache that’s going to be shooting for the NG+ blades), so I’ll cap things off by saying DAMN YOU the only “free” gacha game, which is one of the very many gacha games that also doesn’t give you the slightest hint of whether or not you have higher or lower chance of getting something good/worthwhile.
If you have read this I am open to discussing and elaborating further. Thanks for reading.
I like how the subtitles are a completely different video.
I don't know why I struggle so much with uploading the correct subtitles but here we are lol
So, xenoblade 2 was my first exposure to the series and my first impressions were that the combat in this game looks really boring, the voices do not fit the characters, why does the main character look so stupid and that the writing doesn't seem too good. I basically lost interest in both this game and the series in general
I trust me coming after xc1 xxx and liked xc3 this feels like a mistake of a xc2 game.
How do the voices not fit the characters?
>show not tell
its the introduction to the world, a narration that serves as an introduction to the main character as well. Also this is literally xeno 1. cutscene for characters literally explaining their goals like the viewers is dumb at the end of the game.
>rex being revived
The point of that scene is to introduce us to Pyra and establish a goal, not to say this is how drivers and blades work. Also this scene was made to make sense of alvis waking up shulk and thats from xeno 1. Its literally a direct parallel. You complained about rex being whiny in part 1 and getting revived when thats literally what happened with shulk, not rex.
>tutorials in main fights
while I don’t necessarily disagree with this, this stems from a greater problem of the tutorials being not so great. I don’t see also how the two malos ones are bad. the first one like you said is the introduction but the second one is introducing Pneuma. What did you want to happen? Not say anything to the player?
>Rex being a driver
This does not make sense as rex is a salvager and not a driver. He has no need for a blade. This undermines him resonating with pyra. Also you complained about show not tell but here you are saying they should tell the viewer. You already learn about blades and drivers later on its just unnecessary exposition.
>blades fighting
I don’t understand what the problem is. Rex is a noobie driver so of course he is not able to fight well yet. Why are you mad about being confused in the introduction lol. Its just her fighting, who said Blades cannot fight when Jin and Malos are literally fighting themselves.
>Azurda staying dead
What does Azurda staying dead accomplish? A character should not be dead for no reason. You listed the reason why he stays alive. Also rex is being childish which is the point of his character. This is to show him not acting responsible which gets solved later. Why would they already develop Rex when him growing up is a crux of his arc. Having an example of something he needs to improve on is good. Haze also already serves that role along with the cutscene with Brighid and Pyra. We already learn Pyra is special with her reviving rex and later them sharing cores.
>areas
They are smaller like you said because its individual titan but honestly better. XC1 had way too much dead space which made the areas honestly feel like a slog. XCX of course would be bigger as the game’s main draw is the exploration. Just because its big doesn’t mean its good. Also wdym the areas don’t look good. Why dafuq would a war ridden titan or a dystopian city be colorful or something. The aesthetic of the areas fit perfectly well for what they are.
>level grinding
I thought this game did a better job than XC1. Xc1 had it where you had to be a certain level which is dumb. XC2 though had bonus exp which Idk if you used or not. Grinding a few levels should not be an issue. Also, it might not be the level but more so you not understanding the combat. Man, not doing too well in the beginning, almost like you haven’t learned everything yet.
>tora being like torna
beginning writing mistake? im honestly surprised you are talking about writing. This is just a nitpick. Your fault for being confused not the game’s.
>blade summoning
the gacha system is not inherently bad. Just that you need field skills so you have to summon a few blades (so field skills fault which I also hate) but you don’t have to summon a rare blade to beat the game. You make it seem like it’s a big deal. Also common blades are mostly useless? you basically admitted that you don’t understand the gameplay. Some common blades are better than the rare blades lol. They even have a unique skill that is very good. You can even get boosters and use them for merc missions/field skills. Its suppose to be an optional thing so if you are complaining about this then i don’t know what to say. Obviously being optional does not excuse it but you are the one putting yourself through it.
>Character design
Also not to say the Saito didn't want to make girls pretty, he also had a clear reason. This is what he had to say about Pyra and mythra's design, "When designing Pyra, we wanted her to be a protective presence for Rex, so we envisioned her as a flame with a passionately burning core. But at the same time, we also designed her to evoke a certain sense of incompleteness as a way of reflecting the existence of Pyra’s other form: Mythra. That’s one reason the glowing areas on her body are not horizontally symmetrical, and why we partially removed the back of her outfit and cloak." I don't see how you dont think their designs don't fit the characters. Ursula has beary because she is shy and needs something to hide behind, adenine is a book nerd, and corsette with the fireworks to represent her excitement. I like the diversity of the designs as it gives a flare to each character. If anything Nomura's designs don't look normal in context as they are vastly different from other ones. You saying morag is good because of her being fully clothed isnt a point.
>Oversexualization
Problem I had with your part 1. Possibly the worst section. You’re a guy, why the heck are you deciding that it is over sexualization of women. I agree that some designs may be over the top but we should not be deciding if its objectifying women. Thats just adding to the problem. idk if you know but Dahlia (the ice bunny) was designed by a woman. So a woman decided that they wanted a female to be like that and yet here you are deciding for women how they should look. There are also other women who like the designs for characters like Pyra and Mythra. Stop trying to be woke or be on a high ground.
>Anime
Yea the first four chapters are mostly comedic because they wanted to go that direction. Why are you surprised. How about stop comparing the games and look at it for its own thing. You looking at ass shots and stuff is not the game’s fault, thats your fault. You don’t need to like anime to like xc2 unless you let that get in the way. The game after chapter 4 starts to take itself seriously and stops these tropes when necessary. they only use them when they want to be light-hearted.
>Battle dialogue
Just disable it lol. This is a non-issue. A common issue with your criticisms is it is nitpicking and something that is irrelevant to the whole game.
>Ludonarrative Dissonance
This is a very abused and incorrectly used term. It would be ludonarrative dissonance if there was no intent in doing anything and just had the cutscene and gameplay be different. Its obvious you just saw the two being different and applied this term. However, it is incorrectly used here. As you said the game does sometimes match the game play and story by maybe having the fight stop at half hp. the intent there is to show that the characters aren’t strong enough to win i.e. mythra and Pneuma having to awaken and Jin using his full power. with the battles where they let you beat the enemy, the intent is different. With morag and brighid, they are introduced as the most powerful in the empire. The intention behind you beating them is to show they are tough cookies not that the characters can’t win, hence they have rex get the better of them right after. This is the same with the Malos fight where you are able to escape from them. you know maybe there was a reason for them sometimes letting you beat a boss and not just saying.
Thanks. His first vid already fell flat because everything felt like a minor nitpick. His only good point there was "It's not bad voice acting, it's bad voice direction" then he lost me after he said something like "The British voice actors don't fit the anime hijinks happening on-screen"
I wouldn't really call cutscenes a component and more like a common negativity that a lot of JRPGs fall into. Announcing it is common to JRPGs may be true, but it still doesn't change the fact that they can hinder gameplay.
@@connorp3764 I agree actually. It is just that he makes it sound like a xc2 problem and since it is a common component in JRPGs, I usually deal with it.
@@baked7423 okey dokey, gotcha.
Would love a mature podcast/discussion vid about Xc2 with you & either of the big xc2 youtubers Chuggaaconroy/Enel
that would be cool
Totally agree with this. I’m assuming he never talked to any XC2 speedrunners about their opinion of the game or any huge fans of the game other than his “friends that have garbage taste in anime” or whatever
Enel did a livestream with a couple of notable Xenoblade content creators and the stream consisted of them constantly laughing at the video.
@mrcristofer 2013 okay. i only know enel and he seems chill.
@mrcristofer 2013 bro who cares. its just a game. i personally do like the game just have other games to play that i got recently. capt astro just has a shit take on the game tbh. like how he categorizes the game as anime which doesnt make sense because all of the other games have an anime like style
27:11 When Tears of the Kingdom's world is filled with literal Gacha machines and everyone's fine with it because it's a minor mechanic and the drop rate for everything is acceptable.
Very different context. It’s much easier and more reliable to get the parts you need to build what ever you want in TOTK. In Xeno 2, there’s nothing you can meaningfully do to increase the chances of getting rare blades
@@supercoolafroguyI mean if you want in XB2 theres a bunch of guarenteed Blades you can get like Praxis, Theory, Wulfric, Roc, Sheba, Herald, Kassandra, Vess, Aegaeon and Nia, you dont need rng to make a full team
Low Key just kinda want a new Xeno series
we had Gears, the Saga trilogy, and now the Blade series
I kinda just wanna move on and maybe go back to making mechs and the zohar more important to the plot/gameplay
I think it’s hilarious that TotK actually DOES have a gacha system
Yeah, but it’s fun in that game
@@jerryborjon I dunno if I'd say "fun" (example: today I really wanna play a gacha to have some fun instead of killing lynels), but it's not frustrating and shitty, at most theres 6 items in 1 thing and if you put 5 cores at once (which are easy to find) you get like 12 items back
@@Baltaczar - Yeah, that’s a more accurate way to put it. The system is also very reasonable, and doesn’t need to prevent players from save scumming to get a good result. It also doesn’t randomly get harder to get the last items you don’t have because of bad programming. You won’t need to grind for a ton of Zonai objects to retry the gacha system, just to not get the last few Zonai devices you don’t have yet.
Watching XC2 fans trying to defend the game in the comments of videos where it's criticised is one of my favourite hobbies, thanks for this goldmine
Criticism such as?
@@skylandersfan6954You need to understand that XCX is the game for audults to play an have a fun Properly, an this game is like terrible anime bad adpted. even 3 is worse also, with still a different gameplay style that wasnt ba at all. but is worse. so yes. Xcx 1 an X are the real games. And you need acept this. an be chill and stay as kid playing your ki gacha game ok? thats it that him is speaking this video. You just need to acept this and go play you xc2
@@ditulliodj I didnt even mention X
A very interesting review, to say the least. As for myself, i really liked Xenoblade 2, because i just ignored the raisin :D
Honestly, i do see the points you're making, even if i disagree with some of them.
You did bring new things to the table tho, i never actually thought about the ludo-narrative dissonance. Maybe it's because i played through the game back when i was a teenager, idk. At the time, i clearly was in the target audience.
It's really weird to think about these games that have so many flaws, but that you played just at the right time and thus helped you fall in love with a series. I mean, i discovered Xeno 1 since then, and i now prefer it to X and 2, but i don't think i could ever replay 2 and mind all that much about its flaws, cause i'll just remember all the good times that i had with it.
Same goes for games like Skyward Sword for instance. Nowadays i clearly see how all of the handholding and heavy "Zelda for dummies" hurts the game in terms of widening its target audience. But at the time, i was 11 y.o. ans i was exactly the game's target audience : a Zelda dummy.
I loved the game the first time, replayed it numerous times until i didn't even care about Fi or the tutorials anymore. I just ignore them, and have a good time because i love the game and am very good at it as well.
And i know it kinda sounds like describing nostalgia, but it's not just that that i'm thinking about. I don't straight up ignore the games' problems and flaws, they're just not as big deal breakers to me as they're to someone else. I can still do a playthrough of these games today and have a really good time doing so. I just try to aknowledge what kind of people are targeted by what kind of games.
If you prefer X1, you seriously need to grab a chart and list the characteristics/backstory Dickson has in XC1's main story and the characteristics/backstory Vandham has in XC2's main story. Trust me, it will really change your perspective on either stories and how you view Shulk and Rex as characters.
@@justice8718 Been a while since I played XC2 but I’m pretty sure Rex was trash until Chapter 7.
@@thekingofspeed8960 yeah that’s pretty much how it worked. Not that rex was annoying to me before or anything, but chapter 7 really made him feel more human to me
Just subbed bro love how real your channel is and how much you don’t care what people think cuz i feel the same way xenoblade 1 will always be better
This guy GOES IN on this game. i love it
16:43
Hmm, at least you can change that in the menu putting more volume to the voices or less to the music
I subbed from the splatoon content, stayed for how entertaining you are lol
also a part of me feels like that rex should've stayed dead, and instead have nia as the mc because jin/malos killing rex and killing everyone who came with them made her question stuff or smthn.
That would miss the point of Xenoblade 2's message
Still waiting for the next episode 3 years later 😭
He may have forgotten but the viewers don't
I am glad we are in agreement on being forced to beat a boss only to lose in the cutscenes after it
Banana
Ngl, I considered buying this game because I saw Mòrag's design in Smash and loved it to bits. Like, a cool-looking non-sexualised female character that seems to be some kind of military commander? Yes please. Then I looked at the rest of the characters and here I am playing Three Houses for the fourth time
So sad to see another "I don't like Xenoblade 2 video", at least it's funny 😅, for me at least, after playing X, Definitive edition and the Golden Torna, I still love Xenoblade 2, story, characters and gameplay more, only thing I dislike was the grinding rng to get the last few blade to 100 %
Loved this video, I eventually go through the slow combat when I finally figured out the elemental burst system (when I played the tutorials couldn't be referenced back so I went through most of the game wondering why I couldn't do big number damage lol)
And also yeah, the scantily clad blades are the reason why I didn't want to play this in front of friends or family lol
Ngl, your massive hateboner towards this game really makes me want Rex in Smash even more
Imagine the reaction lol
Only reason I’d want him in is for more XC2 music because XC2 music got fucked in Smash lol
Well this aged well :P
@@equinoxeagle8912 right?
Morag and brigid would have been severely better than what characters we got but atleast we got good music though we also got mediocre characters but its not a case of "AnImE sWoRdFiGhTeR ReEeEeEe!!!!!!!!!1!11" but its more of a case of relatively mediocre-low quality characters that only really appeal to weaboos and coomers.
We can only dream.
I love this game happy to see people still taking about it 😁
banana.
it's hilarious how much more positive my experience with xenoblade 2 has been considering i didn't play it, i just watched a 14 hour compilation of all the cutscenes.
persona fans be like
I watched Chuggaaconroy's Let's Play and ended up hating practically everyone that wasn't Mórag, Poppi or Zeke lmao
My experience with Xenoblade 2 (with DLC from the start):
- Oh boy this game is the sequel of one of the greatest games I've ever played 😍.
- Mmmmmm ok I can't move and attack 😕.
- (searches on the internet how to make the combat more bearable, inevitably spoiling some of the game) 😮💨.
- Ok this is fine (not great) 😅 let's keep playing.
- (Realizes about the blades gotcha system) mmmm :/ ok let's open all the cores (which blades are best for who tho 😵💫?)
- Ok I guess I got some good blades, let's put them with their best driver ☺️ (looks on the internet for info again to match drivers and blades spoiling stuff AGAIN).
- Realizes about the overdrive protocol 🥴.
- Ok let's watch on the internet again how you can farm overdrive protocols (spoiling more shit) because SURELY such a basic need and mechanic will FOR SURE be not that hard to farm 🧐.
- Realizes there are just 4 overdrive protocols in the entire FUCKING game (plus the DLC ones which shouldn't be sealed behind a pay wall to begin with) and the other ways to get protocols are AFTER the main story in NG+ with a huge grind wall 😤😤😤😤.
- Goes to the switch main manu, deletes the game 🖕.
What a fucking shitty game/experience, what a waste of money, now I'm just in fear and praying Xenoblade 3 doesn't resemble this crap at all 😠.
NOTE: for the first Karen who comes and tells me "you didn't have to look on the internet and spoil stuff for yourself that is your fault" yeah you are right, but I wouldn't have the fucking NEED to do it if ONLY the game explained something about it whatsoever and didn't put punishing systems like the stupid "overdrive protocols" to begin with and didn't make me feel like any wrong step was irreversible 😠.
I can understand, but I also went on RUclips to find out stuff and there are videos made specifically for new players that don’t spoil anything. I don’t know what forums or sources you went to that spoiled so much stuff
You can just go to Chugga or Enel's channels
IDK banana! I love Xenoblade 2 and I love these videos. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Torna- The Golden Country!
He is gonna complain 30 minutes about the community system
I don’t know anything about this game sooo.... *intense whistling*
It’s not as bad as he says it is. He’s REALLY blowing things out of proportion
@@gg_novastar8492 He's really not though, it all depends on how much the things he's listing bother you but them not being that bad for you doesn't mean they're not there
@@laraa739 He kinda is tho, but the thing that really bothers me is that he's blames the game for things hes doing wrong in most parts
It’s a good game. This isn’t simply a case of somebody not liking the game. He genuinely is missing key parts of this game. Also a lot of his complaints are things Xenoblade 1 did too.
He was losing to the beginner boss brighid. The combat in 2 is MUCH better than 1 but he doesnt grasp that. He blames the game alot for his misunderstandings. I would say play it for urself to find if its for u.
Quest blades activate after a certain amount of battles won, even little baby enemies will do. I don't blame you for not knowing, though, because it's another unexplained gameplay mechanic among thousands of others.
About you losing to Brighid and grinding in XC1 and X; I didn’t lose to Her in my playthrough, but in XC Definitive Edition, I got sweep by Some Mekon in the fallen Arm in my way up (those mekon that use the acid/green liquid did a number on me) and no joke I had to grind in order to stand a chance because if 3+ mid/big size Mekon were in the skirmish, I was done for.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that the enemies in the new area were lower level than those I had to beat in the Fallen Arm.
Edit: About the gatcha, I still miss 1 blade, I seriously tried for 10 days (opening about 35 rare/legendary cores a day) and still nothing, at that point I gave up and went back to XC Definitive Edición
Brighid is only in 2, not 1 or X.
@@CodeLo7495 I mean when you say that “There is no need to grind in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or X”. I didn’t grind in Sword Valley and got my teeth kicked at the end of Fallen arm.
@@cesarelizondoramos3432 I am sorry I didn’t read your first comment and misunderstood. But yeah, you had to grind a lot in Xenoblade 1 especially in the ❤️.
I could be wrong but I think the one you were losing to has a really bad topple spike that probably the reason.
Did you try farming relentless Arduran with driver combos because you should be able to get to get the maximum amount of cores each fight
Dunno if this matters anymore but just wanted to say that deactivated core crystals activate again after a certain amount of "battle initiations", not a number of hours. Still sucks to have to spam battle initiations but whatever
God this series is so cathartic, cant wait for the final part
Banana
Flinch is a female character you can get as a Blade.
Her look isn't sexual she looks like big bird had daughter.
But that being said agree most of the female Blades have that issue it also doesn't help that most of the Blades are female.
Your choices for Blades you can get are Sexy ladies, lolis, the rare male blade and bird people (Flinch and Roc).
In new game+ which was a Free DLC patch you get even more blades which are the bad guys(Excluding Malos and Jin) along with T-elos.
Then there is the DLC who are mostly characters from the other Xenoblade games with 3 new Blades.
I agree with almost everything, but cutting a fight off half way without warning to lead into a cutscene is not fun, especially in games like these where you generally save chain attacks for the last 10% or less hp. I would much rather deal with winning the fight and losing in the cutscene than continuously getting unsatisfying fade outs in fights. The only exception is when something actually happens that, yanno actually interrupts the fight. I particularly don't want to just have fights where because they need the player to lose, they only let you play half, and then they let the cutscene 'play' the other half of the fight but worse. Beh-Neh-NEH
I used to love this game but now I like it at most
-too complex gameplay
-confusing story
-bad writing
-awful/sexualized character designs.
-“meh meh”
-“don’t forget me”
Y'know, this is over 3 months old now. I'm going banana(s), if the final part(s) ain't coming out sometime
If you remember the video when Astro talked about burning sword 3 years ago you deserve a veteran's badge
Yeah I was even lazy while editing and just copy-pasted parts of that video in this one haha
You knocked it out of the park stating all the problems of this game. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’m playing Torna right now and with a few hours in I’m already liking it way better than XC2. Lora >>> Rex
Lora and Rex are incredibly similar characters
@@skylandersfan6954 Like heck they're not
@@tonyknighton4019 How are they not? Both optimists dedicating their lives to helping people because its the right thing to do and eventually growing to earn a title for their selflessness (in Lora's case, a Tornan Knight, in Rex's case the Master Driver). Its part of the reason why Jin and Rex's dynamic is so good, because Rex essentially represents the mindset Jin used to subscribe to that he's now turned against
This video predicted tears of the kingdom getting a gacha mechanic lol
While I don't share your opinions on the game being terrible (I think its the best in the series) you did make a lot of valid points that I share as criticisms (although to me these are little details, but I can see why others might feel like it really hurts the experience). I also appreciate the fact that you state its your opinion and act like it unlike other reviewers have done.
I absolutely adore this game but I have to agree with you on many of these points. I really hate most of the female character designs and many of the voice acting is very annoying
Never played this game and i dont like anime
but I'm actually interested due to the "ardainian soldier" uniform (i like history and it resembles a german uniform from 1870 till 1917) and 3:24 i also like the uniform shes wearing it looks sick af
might get
I have a bit of a trash taste in anime but I like to know when I'm getting into some trash anime and xenoblade 1 wasn't really a trash anime so finding out this one is was a bit of a surprise
Okay, but I feel that Xenoblade 2's areas seem smaller by design to help drive home the idea of diminishing living space in Alrest. Having massive open plains and a huge surface area would contradict this plot point. I think this is why the Titans in XC2 are more complex then the XC1 area's, often being made up of multiple tiers at varying altitudes and/or being filled with grottos and caves to explore. This means that despite the comparatively small areas, there's still just as much exploring to do in XC2 as there is the first game. Although the compass is admittedly rather poorly designed given the complexity of the areas, and it can make finding your way to your objective frustratingly difficult on a first playthrough. Compass aside though, I actually really enjoyed the explorative aspect of XC2.
Pyra's 'dream of Elysium' is just data stored in her Core Crystal, a remnant of when she was still a part of the Trinity Processor and tasked with keeping watch over Elysium. Malos was also a part of the Trinity Processor and all three cores were designed to be able to communicate with each other. So it makes sense that Malos is able to send a projection of himself to Pyra's Elysium dream. Note that when people are in this illusionary Elysium, it's not actually them or their 'spirit', but just an amalgamation of the data that Pyra's core has on them. When Rex touched the Crystal on the Aegis sword his biological information, as well as his name, consciousness and aspirations evidently, was transferred to Pyra's Core Crystal as data. Pyra used this data to recreate his consciousness in 'Elysium' so she could ask her favor. Although, I guess the Addam scene in the Spirit Crucible is a little harder to explain. My best guess is that it has something to do with the crystal on Pnuema's sword, but I dunno.
Implying that common Blades have no beneficial combat reasons for being in your party is blatantly false. Even in the early game you can pull common Blades that are have more useful combat skills than a lot of the Rare Blades have. Yes, the affinity charts for rare Blades almost always have more nodes on each of their skills, but if most of said skills are underwhelming even at their highest tier then that's meaningless. Common Blades might also have three aux core slots, which is something even most of the rare ones don't have. Not to mention that in the early game you'll likely have a lot of commons that can make contributions to driver combos that none of your current rare Blades can cover. For Example, Nia can launch with Knuckle Claws, so if she doesn't have a rare Blade with those weapons then it might be worth her while to use a common instead. Being able to perform higher levelled driver/fusion combos early on is immensely useful and is often well worth the trade-off. Not to mention that it's possible to pull common Blades later on in the game that have greater combat possibilities then even the top-tier rare blades. The whole Crown rating system is a lot less meaningful than most people think, what's really important is their stats and the type of skills in their affinity chart.
I don't mind having tutorials at the beginning of important boss battles, though I will say that the first Malos fight was a bit much because it keeps interrupting the flow every five seconds, so I'll give you that one. But I didn't mind the Pneuma tutorial at the Cliffs of Morytha at all. The game is just explaining what she's able to do in this form and how to activate it, which is something I think a game should probably do when introducing a new combat mechanic As for unlosable battles, I don't think they are an issue in this game. I mean for starters there are only 2 of them, Mythra's introduction and Pneuma's. In both cases you've already passed a skill check by lowering the HP of one of your opponents to 50%, so it's not like your just getting a free win. Especially since those fights are often considered some of the hardest ones by new players. Besides which, losing in those battles would completely ruin the moment. These fights are supposed to be triumphant power trips to help drive home just how powerful the Aegis can be. They could've made the first fight after Pyra joins up unlosable, but they didn't because canonically she doesn't easily outclass most other Blades like Mythra does. Unlosable battles in this case help sell the narrative and are not a problem.
Another thing the whole win in the game lose in the cutscene thing is completely overblown. It does happen, certainly, but not nearly as often as people make out. Like, let's see how many fights can actually fit into this category. The Morag fight doesn't because Rex ends up getting the better of her using the water tower. Morag even comments on how she feels slighted since Rex and Pyra had the opportunity to land a powerful blow to her, but they intentionally averted their aim. This is a victory, as far as I'm concerned. I suppose you technically lose against Vandham so that's one point. Akhos ends up getting driven out of Garfont after his fight, so that's another win. When you fight Mikhail and Patroka in the Abandoned factory you end up destroying their Blades and force them to flee. The fight with Jin in Temperantia can probably be another point to you, since he does end up killing Haze before leaving. After that, every single time you completely drain an enemies health you end up winning in the cutscene as well, some way or another. So it actually only happens twice in the game, three if you want to count the first fight against Malos. My point is while it does happen it really isn't so rampant as some people claim it is.
P.S Saying that every rare Blade design is stupid is an pretty trash take if you ask me. But hey, you do you I guess.
Couple things I wanna say (probably won't do it all in one take tho so expect edits)
The areas being small is not a big problem but rather what you do with them visually. A lot of the areas are visually uninteresting, which is something the video points out. Not much else to say on that
The blades part. For me, it is not a matter of how blades can be useful no matter the rank but rather the fact this system is in the game in the first place. The gacha system in general is a fucked system that shouldn't be implemented into a game such as this. It drags the gameplay on and on, just feels like padding, and the game as a whole a would be better without it (and feel relatively the same). In terms of the blade designs, yeah no they are mostly garbage. There are a few good ones but for the most part are just unappealing and appeal way too much to... certain people
Tutorials in boss battles, perfectly understandable when implemented correctly and completely missing the mark if not. The game does a good job at this once and the rest are pretty trash implementations, and it doesn't help that the tutorials in general are bad in scope of tutorials. In this game, they feel unnecessary or drawn (which is what the game is in general in all honesty).
Finally, unlosable fights and win in game lose in cutscene. This is just stupid, especially in rpgs where every move matters, it falls under "so why even bother then if...". There should be a trigger point in the health bar that stops the battle plays out yhe cutscene, doing the entire healthbar is literally just padding and unnecessary. Unlosable fights should allow you to lose, "but the story", fuck the story. If you lose, you lose and restart the fight like most other games and if you win then it just helps drive the narrative further. There is no reason for either of these to exist except for padding.
@@geoshmeo1900 the areas actually have a lot going on with them visually that also gives you some lore about the place I’m not exactly sure what areas in particular you find uninteresting but I’ll use the examples this guy gives for his video
Mor ardain (bland desert)
There’s actually much more going on here than just a desert town, for starters just exploring around mor ardain you can find numerous factories and chemicals plants which for highlights how they’ve managed to survive in those harsh climates as well the technology they use and how much it messes with their titan since they are the only civilization we’ve seen at that point to mine all the way to their titan’s ether reserves there’s also areas of the titan that have become abandoned and are overrun with monsters one of those areas literally had to be locked off with a gate because of how dangerous it was and you can experience all of this
Temperantia (bland battleground)
Again there’s a lot going on in this space as well, it’s literally a place where the aegis war happened so of course you’re going to find a lot of the area ties back to this for starters there’s a giant crater that was most likely created by an aegis with creatures living inside , the titan weapon you fought Jin on is always there and can be viewed from almost anywhere on the map, there are tribal hideouts for several different monsters, there are several toxic pools and springs for monsters that thrive in that type of environment, you can find a garrison of Ardainian workers developing weapons and monitoring the area, you can find the site where they discovered upgraded the titan weapon you fought Jin as well as more of those weapons being worked on, there is an ardainian titan weapon that was sealed away most likely because it was too powerful and there are also monster that stand around and worship the weapon like some type of idol
Spirit crucible elpys (bland cave)
There more here than just your average cave, you can literally walk on the Titans bones early on in there, there’s an underground river with creatures inside of it, there’s a completely dark area where you can only see the glow of your blades, there is an area with spider web all over the place and has nothing but arachnids there, there’s the path to the vault which is just nicely built pathway but then there are also monsters swarming all around you, and the vault itself which is a little in ruin but mostly intact especially with Addams crest and the light shining down on it
Land of Morytha (bland city)
Morytha is a city.....under most circumstances this wouldn’t be eventful but in a world like that of xenoblade 2 the fact that there is just a regular modern city that’s just dead and under the cloud sea is very huge and important to the story, but apart from that just what’s inside is interesting on its own, you can see massive sky scrapers in the distance, huge creatures from the cloud sea as well as giant tornado, the area is crawling with guldo enemies which are humans that tried to replace their brain cells with core crystals in an attempt to obtain immortality after the world went to ruin, there are also leftover over machines walking around that came from the world tree, you can explore parts of the dead Tornan titan including its womb which was used facilitate blades becoming Titans, you can even see the roots of the world tree...speaking of which
World tree (bland Amazon warehouse)
It’s a space station that extends all the way into low orbit, as you’d expect it’s filled with all sorts of crazy machines and systems, there’s even a walking area outside that lets you see the rings of light that appear around the world tree as well various enemies flying around including the artificial blades made in Mor Ardain, there are also Indoline guards as well as Indoline titan weapons, you can see various important Titans in the game just looking in your direction after Amalthus controlled them, you could even see mikail fighting in his mech before it went down
I’m sorry I typed a lot about Titans in particular but the fact that you said they are visually uninteresting when there are are so many things happening on them as you explore and lots of interesting locations on them it really bugged me
The blade designs aren’t stupid or garbage.... YOU DON’T LIKE THEM I hope you are aware there is a difference between something being bad and you simply not liking it, a lot of the blades have really interesting concepts and designs such as nim’s chimeric features showing how close she is to nature, praxis and theory’s designs mirroring each other, Zenobia being physically based on Fujin to represent how powerful she is, Crossette having fireworks to represent her excitement, Dagas being partly made out of gold to show his alleged status, Sheba being in a bathtub as a reference to Bathsheba ..... if YOU don’t like them then just say you don’t but don’t say they are badly designed because of that and don’t insult the people that do like the designs by trying to insinuate they only like them because of their boobs or because they’re showing skin or because they have a fetish
There is only one battle in the game that you can’t lose on and that’s when pneuma awakens every other fight in the game can be lost, I mean I can see why people would dislike but even then it’s not that big of a deal because your reason to keep going is to see what happens in the story I mean at that point what’s the point of even getting their health past a certain point because you’re going to lose any so why should you even try at all
Also while the “gacha” aspect isn’t my favorite it also isn’t required to complete the game or get through most of the game you don’t need all the rare blades to get through the story or even the end game content, it’s really not that different from other rng items which are very common and regardless there are plenty of blades that aren’t RNG and they will be more than enough for the entire game but outside one or two specific things you aren’t even required to use to rng blade core system
This Xenoblade review series has made me the laugh the most out of the videos on your channel. Your jokes in these videos are really great, keep it up.
Playing the game and understanding it is a lot of fun and it's still very quotable. I played Xenoblade 2 and had quite a bit of fun. Now the Gacha system wasn't that bad since a good chunk of them aren't really needed to beat the game. For designs Morag, Zeke, Driver Nia they're all great and sound pretty good too. I can't really imagine them without their english dubs since I've spent way to much time getting used to their voices. A lot of the heart to hearts are fully voiced and some of them are great. We get to really hear the talent of the VAs since the main story clearly didn't do them justice. Now of course obviously the story was the weaket part of the game but the combat was fun once you know how to play the game and what has gotten me to love it for the most part although most of the areas did feel pretty bland.
Now as for Torna the golden country it was great at least from what I remember, I wonder if you'll do a review on that too
Uhhh idk, banana? Weird question but ok, feel like others are gonna agree with me on this tho.
i respect your Opinion but i find it kinda funny that Many Points you point out in this Video are actually the reasson why i love this game so much . I really love the Gatcha system because it makes every Playthrough kinda unique . And Building and planing for your perfekt team is really fun . Forthermore Corecristals give you a reasson to explore the world other then just XP . It just feals more rewording then Xenoblade 1 . I for my part predictet the big story Events from Xenoblade 1 and for me Xenoblade 1 is predictable as heck like Fioras comeback . But hey everyone has his own Opinion and i am totally fine with that . And dont get me wrong i love both games but i just think Xenoblade 2 is the better game . ( Sorry for my bad English )
I totally respect your opinion as well! I'm glad that some people were able to enjoy the game, and that it got more people into the series!! This game in particular just wasn't for me, and that's how it goes sometimes
Did you have a seizure while writing this?
@@awesomesauce7264 they mentioned that english isn't their best language.
@@hola-gy8te Just saw that
There are more than a few points I agree with you in this video, however I think it's really good for Rex to be an absolute idiot.
He is a kid from the country side, with little to no real common sense and knowledge, who just got handed DAMN EXCALIBUR, the key to open up a paradise or some shit, estability, saving a decaying world. Well shit, that is pretty damn dope! I am now the hero! Everything will go well! But shit hits the fan and by god he needs to mature quickly and he surely takes his time doing so, taking his own death(kinda), Azurda's death, and Daddy merc death until he finally begins getting it. The culmination of this for me are the points where he breaks down in chapter 7 and by the end. I am not gonma say it couldn't be done better or that he is a master character, but I really liled just the waking up to reality slap by slap unitl it's like OH SHIT. THIS IS REAL. NOT A FEVER DREAM
admittedly, yes, he is dumb.
Sorry Lord Astronaut but I actually unironically love this game 😔
There's nothing wrong with liking this game! Everyone should like what they like, and not be ashamed of it