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bigtakilla said: The thing is though is that it still is a game muddled by iffy voice acting work, with pretty dated looking graphics for Switch, with a story that obviously isn't striking the right cords with people, and an art style/animations that seem a step back for the series character wise. And the only response to this skepticism is "Oh, it's Monolith Soft". Well yeah, I love Monolith Soft too but that changes nothing. |
I think you are being too generous to past Xeno titles to be honest. All Xeno titles (from Xenogears until Xenoblade Chronicles X) have had some pretty bad voice-acting. The exception was Xenoblade Chronicles, but even Shulk's "fiooooraaaaaaaaaaa" gave me a few eye-rolls now and then, and I played the game mostly on the Japanese dub because of it. If I heard "fiooooraaaaa" out of context I probably would've felt the same as you do now with the voices in this trailer. Bad dubs are standard fare in JRPG's, and the worst of Xenoblade 2 are average for the JRPG genre, and the better ones above-average.
The graphics are technically more impressive than anything Monolith Soft has worked on, besides Breath of the Wild. This is clear even with the low quality images/videos we have to work with. The environments are just as large an expansive as anything in Chronicles or X, except it takes the world design of Chronicles (separate zones) rather than X(seamless open-world.) That it isn't pushing the Switch likely has more to do with its quick release than anything. I personally am fine with the graphics, and would prefer the game release two years sooner as it is, than Monolith Soft wasting time on building a new Switch optimized game engine. Especially since I suspect that they'll be working on XCX2 after this for the Switch. One of the reasons why Xenoblade Chronicles X took so long was because they had to build their propreitary engine, which they are now using for Xenoblade 2 (and other sequels.) Nevertheless, there are quite a few upgrades over X and the game just had a visual boost since E3, so they are definitely not done optimizing.
I am personally not bothered by the art-style. The battle animations seem pretty standard fare for a Xenoblade game. Since it isn't an action-RPG I don't prioritize it as much.
What I care about in a Xenoblade game, first and foremost, is the story, then the exploration/music, then the battle system. So far all of those are constants from X, it seems.
I guess my expectations weren't as high as yours. The Switch (in handheld mode) is a marginal upgrade over the Wii U. One shouldn't have expected a Xenoblade --> Xenoblade Chronicles X level of difference in how the game looks and plays, and what gains we do see are consistent with what the Switch is with respect to the Wii U.
