Xenoblade Chronicles 2 flawed but GREAT ...

[Johnw1104]

NightlyPoe said:

Johnw1104 said:

After about 20 hours in and still feeling like it's a darn tutorial the game has really lost me... haven't played it in a few days and am having a hard time getting back to it.

It's a shame as I feel if the thing wasn't so insanely linear and took some more queues from Monster Hunter it'd be a heck of a title.

There's a saying that kept popping into my head while playing which, while harsher than is fair, I think sums up my view of the combat and such thus far: "Wide as a lake, shallow as a puddle". Every time I learn of a new combat mechanic, slot, or what have you I'm immediately disappointed to see that it's remarkably limited. Rather than making the mechanics deep and interesting, they seem to have favored quantity to provide the illusion of depth. Perhaps there's still more to be revealed in time but, seriously, fucking tell me everything so that I can finally play this game properly after a couple dozen hours of time invested.

Still, I'm decently early in the game by virtue of taking every opportunity to go salvaging and hunting on my own so that I can, you know, actually play them damn thing, so maybe it gets better... I'm just not sure I can force myself back to it. For a game that I actually rather like most of the characters, voice acting, and aesthetics in, that's quite a rarity.

I do love the Nopon though, and generally I'm someone who's not that interested in cutesy people. Dang they're cute and funny.

I just remembered one of my biggest gripes: Thus far I have, in nearly every scripted battle, mopped the floor with the enemy only to have it cut away to what feels like a full-length episode of anime where the person I just wrecked is actually completely fine and kicking my ass. This wasn't a one time thing, but instead it seems to happen almost every single time. That is one of the most maddening dang things I've ever encountered, and makes you feel as if there was no point to playing.

At least in most other RPGs and JRPGs when you beat a boss they want to stick around they show him struggling and fleeing the scene, making you both frustrated and satisfied. Having everything you do in the actual game amount to nothing and instead rely on cutscenes for the consequential fighting to occur has just killed this experience for me.

I don't know if this is something others have experienced often, but this is one of those rare titles that I initially liked and still feel I would like if the game would just get the heck out of the way and let me play it.

All I can say is that maybe you're a great note-taker, but I would have been totally lost if they'd just tossed me into the deep end.  I'm not the most accomplished JRPG player, particularly for modern takes on the genre and my brain melted during the Nintendo Directs when they were explaining all the mechanics.

The extended tutorial was extremely well-paced for me.  It felt like each new tool they gave me fell into the rest and I could start experimenting with them while juggling my old skills as well.  So I could simultaneously move my character around for maximum damage as I built up blade combos and driver combos while deciding when to cancel an art or switch blades to build up my blade arts, all while working towards finishing with a big chain attack.

Having all those mechanics come to me as easily as they did, felt satisfying as I got a sense of mastery from the game's scaffolding approach to teaching me.

Well I'm glad it worked for ya. I don't mean to suggest that I'd just nail the combat perfectly if it were all presented to me initially by any means, but I've always liked to have the tools presented to me early and learned for myself as increasing difficulty demands more from me as I go.

It's a bit like the Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis grand strategy games I adore; despite playing them for many hundreds of hours over a decade+ I still find myself learning new things from time to time (though some of that is due to the many expansions that keep it fresh), and the best way to learn those games really was to just throw yourself into the deep end, get your butt kicked, and adapt your strategy lol

I think this game (and others) could have used something akin to the "Newbie Island" of Crusader Kings known as Ireland, where you really get to experiment with the mechanics and such in an easier but still challenging setting (by virtue of being disunited and on the edge of the continent there isn't the same risk of instant death as other starts, though the Vikings will arrive soon enough :D). There's something fun about having all of the tools available and just trying to figure the game out for yourself with impending doom encouraging you to investigate the mechanics further. The challenge is to keep the interest high enough that players don't jump ship when confronted with that difficulty, and while Xeno 2 definitely did that for me, I can see why it's often not a risk studios want to take.

With all the glowing praise in this thread, though, I think I'll certainly press on with the game... I may just blitzkrieg through the rest of the early portion of the story until it really opens up into what I've been reading about in the comments here.

Last edited by Johnw1104 - on 27 January 2018