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Nuvendil on 27 December 2017
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sc94597 said:
bigtakilla said:

Well I disagree with you. Dialogue is also good in some areas and downright terrible in other detracting from the stories delivery.

I think people are misremembering most of the voices and dialogue in Xenoblade. With the exception of Melia and Shulk/Alvis/Zanza (except when screaming), most of the voice acting was also mixed. Especially when it came to enemies: particularly the faced Mechon. 

But really what matters to me when it comes to the story are four things: depth, pacing, writing, and uniqueness. In terms of depth: Xenoblade 2 > Xenoblade, pacing: Xenoblade 2 = Xenoblade, writing: Xenoblade 2 = Xenoblade, and uniqueness: Xenoblade 2 = Xenoblade. 

Xenoblade 2's story does the stuff Xenoblade did, but with much more detail. The enemies are fleshed out with back stories, and have motivations that are very human. The party-members also have backstories which are independent of the main character's. The lines between good and evil end blurry, rather than the total 180 from evil to good (or vice-versa) that one finds in some of Xenoblade's baddies and goodguys. So on and so forth. 

That is okay, because Xenoblade was attempting to perfect the Gnostic allegory, whereas the Gnosticism takes a relative back-seat to other themes in Xenoblade 2, although as a Xeno-game it is very much present and prominent.  

Xenosaga was a mess with its pacing, and suffered a lot from this. 

Xenogears excelled in depth, writing, and uniqueness, but also had bad pacing. 

Overall, out of all Xeno-games, I like the balance that exists in Xenoblade 2 between these four categories the most, even if I was more impressed by Xenogears' story when I first played it. 

Yes, people do misremember Xenoblade's voices.  It was serviceable with good highlights.  It was also uneven and had a lot of wooden lines and delivery at numerous junctures.  It's been that way for all 3 now and it's starting to try my patience.  For the first, I get it, new IP with a ton of money already poured in, didn't do awesome in Japan, don't want to risk too much.  And X was a problem project and the Wii U was in really bad shape.  But 2?  They've put it front and center alongside Mario and Zelda as a cornerstone title on a system doing excellently.  A lot of the issues I have encountered could have been easily fixed with some retakes and editing.  It's time they spent the money to get the acting nailed down and resync the lips.  

And yeah, XC seems more concerned with the metanarrative while XC2 is more concerned with the characters and plot.  Kinda like the difference between The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit.  The first is almost exclusively focused on the metanarrative, the third is mostly just the ground level plot and characters, and the second is a middle ground between the two.  And both I think do their jobs well.