Can we honestly just stop with this mentality that you can't critique extra content? "Don't criticize the DLC, you don't have to buy it! Don't criticize this game mode, you don't have to play it! Don't criticize  this ultra powerful blade, you don't have to use it!"

It's the lowest, dumbest form of defense you can make and it's really just being wishfully ignorant

But why? By having a lot of content appealing to a lot of different individuals, you can please more people. The way I see blades is similar to how armor worked in the last two games. There was armor that was revealing, armor that was badass, armor that was weird and alien, armor that was casual, armor that was cool. There was enough content for you to be able to tailor the experience to your own personal tastes.

The same applies here. Instead of armors, you are given a ton of different "blades" of different styles. As such, you can say "I don't like that design so I'm not going to use that one". There were people talking about one of the ice skating blades a little while ago and people were saying that they didn't like the design and others were saying that they did. That is exactly the reason the game gives you so much choice.

I think you have to acknowledge the subjectivity of many of these criticisms. Some people like many of the designs that people are complaining about. When I was playing Xenoblade X, I purposely made my characters look as ridiculous as possible. Different people have different tastes...

It's been posted already, but man you've got to have some perspective (or a sense of humour). 
That design was phenomenally bad

I don't see how you can literally end your comment with "and he isn't saying what you inferred" yet you start the comment with saying I'm willfully being ignorant to his intent? How can I be "willfully ignorant" to something if I genuinely inferred it wrongly? Even with harsh wording nothing in that reply is "willfully ignorant" or an "attack", so those are both mischaracterizations. What I said counts for any time these kind of defenses are brought up, not one user in particular, so the harsher wording was meant to critique the defense and not the defender. 

I'll admit that after re-reading it I might have inferred wrong,  but to infer something is "to deduce or conclude (information) and reasoning rather than from explicit statements", as you know. So to infer something always leaves you with the chance of being wrong in your conclusion. If I was, I apologize, although I really do not think the comment was as nasty as you're making it out to be. 

To be fair, it's not exactly hard to see how I could infer his comment that way. In fact, one more sentence and he would literally be confirming what I'm saying. I mean read it again "If you don't like a blade, just don't use them... Theres plenty of highly varied designs so I find it hard to take the criticism that some of the blades aren't appealing to some people as anything more than a minor nitpick." That's literally one sentence off from being the generic, badly thought out kind of defense you see for any game with scrutinized side content. Even the attitude is the same, "If you don't like the content just don't engage in it" ... well the content is there so it should be scrutinized and in the case of blades, each blade is more or less useful than another so it could be a super effective blade that is important even if you don't like it. He even kind of just shrugs off the criticism which is exactly the kind of attitude someone would have when making such an argument.

So again, maybe what I inferred was wrong, but it's easy to see how I came to that conclusion. Also, what you inferred could very well be wrong. In fact, he just replied to me and hasn't made any point to contradict what I've inferred. 

I don't care about the "oversexualisation" part but that girl in the last picture is just horrendous design. Almost makes me want to go to Japan and slap whoever designed that thing in the face. And that's coming from someone who thinks Pyra's outfit looks quite alright.

It’s rated about the same as XCX currently, but not as divisive. XCX has a bunch of really low reviews that effectively were “Wahwahwah, it’s different from XC, I dun licke it, wahwahwah!” But the 84% score is acceptable because numerous reviews scored it in the mid 90s; and without the crybaby reviews, XCX is a low 90s game. XC2 doesn’t have those high reviews, almost all are a few percentages away from its average, they’re in the 70s and 80s. It’s weird because it’s essentially a much more refined version of the first game along with a much more dynamic story, and way better dialogue; and the first one had lots of high reviews.

It’s kind of weird that the majority of reviewers score Xenoblade 2 down in the realm of RPGs like Shadows of Valentina and I am Setsuna. Because, from what I have played, it is substantially better than those.

To be fair, the first game had a lot of that Project Rainfall support among the gaming press community, which heavily skewed bias toward them, because they were committed to supporting the game before its launch in the US. So if the game had a normal launch, it may have not scored as highly.

First off I'd like to say that I might have inferred wrong what you were saying, so if so I apologize for reading your comment wrong. Although you aren't really contradicting my inference, I have a feeling I might have read too much into your comment.

The point I'm trying to make is that the attitude of "it's just side content" or "just don't use it" as a way to flippantly wave of criticism is just a bit too much. It's the same reasoning that leads people to just defend any aspect of a game that's not mandatory. The reality is, people are going to scrutinize it if they feel strongly on it, just like they'll praise it if they feel strongly on it. Saying it's a minor nitpick is fine, that's just your opinion. But it seems like you're taking a lot credibility out of those criticisms, without actually doing so effectively.

I like your point that there is a lot of blades for everyone and that there's variety, because that's a great point. I also like your point about it being a nitpick, because I think with enough sound reasoning you could make a great argument for that being the case. Those two points in particular could be used really well for a review or discussion. The thing is, Blades seem to be something the community is really divided on and actually cares about, so just saying "ehhh there's one for everyone don't worry about it!" seems like shrugging off criticism for no reason. Especially since a lot of games can have varied designs that still appeal to the majority. Also, blades, at least from what I can tell have objective advantages. Most of the blade designs people don't like seem  to come from Rare blades which are better than other kinds of blades. If there is an objective advantage to using one blade,  than telling someone "just don't use it!" seems really dismissive of the situation. What you're saying about "acknowledging subjectivity" is also a non point. Really you could just say any criticism is subjective and dismiss people that way. 

And just to be clear, I'm not really even talking about this game's blades. I've talked about how I haven't liked some pre-release, or that I don't like the look of Pyra but I don't really care about this game in particular, at least juuuuuuuuuust yet, it's a much broader attitude that I don't think should be applied to criticism.

I agree with that. I don't think that the first game was overrated, it was that great. 84 is definitely a pretty good score, for sure, but I really don't know what makes it worse than the original. I think it's better in almost any conceivable way, based on 30 hours of gameplay though. Unless the final way is a trainwreck, this is a really worthy successor of the original game. I can't really picture myself playing the first game after playing XC2. Because the flow, gameplay and characters are much better. I think a lot of people won't agree with me about the first game characters, but... C'mon. They were not pretty good, were they? The plot is fantastic, but I find that the relationship between Pyra and Rex totally destroys any relationship in the first game. 

2017, when you can't enjoy a game because 0.00000001% of the content offends you.

This SJW, gamergate, nitpicking, feminist, weebo or whatever this bullshit is has to stop.



This thread is about review scores and it moved over to characters look oversexualized and this game is typical anime, like what the fuck does "typical anime" even mean? Being made in Japan?

Fuck....what is going on?

I would like to put some forks into my eyes because of the stuff I am reading here. 

But people would ask for pictures after doing so.

Haha, you came on a little strong so I tried to de-escalate but I guess I should have just been up front. I do think you misunderstood my original point a bit. Its not that you can't criticize, it is that you have to bear in mind the subjectivity of criticisms which relate to "path" decisions. Basically, I wouldn't complain that Dishonored is bad because you have to be slow and methodical if you are going for a Ghost/No Kill run. You don't have to play the game in that manner, and there are many others who do enjoy playing in that manner. On the other hand, if something like a DLC pack is bad (which is typically extra pieces, not path based decisions) that is deserving of criticism (although I would criticize that independently of the base game) and if there are objective criticisms (ex. The framerate drops when you play a Dishonored guns blazing (not that it does, that is just an example)) that is also very much deserving of criticism.

Now, as to your points, I'm not really sure what you mean when you are bringing up the community. I don't think that many people making poor criticisms improves the strength of those criticisms (if that is what you are saying). Could you elaborate?

And for the blades being Rare blades, I haven't played the game so I'm not entirely sure how "necessary" any one individual blade is, but there are a lot of rare blades. Common blades really aren't used much except for the very beginning of the game and for sending them on quests (which doesn't really involve gameplay). From what I can tell, there are maybe 9 unique blades (tied to the character) and like, 30ish rare blades, and from my understanding, they can pretty much all be viable. Because of that, I think you can make the game work with pretty much any of them that you like, but again, I haven't played it so I can't say for sure. If there are any OP blades with awful designs, I think that is more deserving of criticism (and obviously the unique blades like Pyra are more deserving of criticism).

About the subjectivity of criticism, maybe that is a difference in the way I think of criticism because I am of the mindset that there is a lot of objectivity to art criticism. Maybe objectivity is a bit of strong word (but I'll keep using for lack of a better word), but a good critic can see past their own biases and understand the merit of things they don't personally like. However, I think criticism of character designs and things like art style tend to be highly subjective, moreso than most aspects of the game (Obviously the technical aspects would be more objective, but I'd say also there is more objectivity to voice acting, writing, combat, side quest design etc (that isn't to say you can't criticize these in a subjective way, just that there is more room for objective criticism)).