Nice to hear the Persona producer praising the character design here. I know the game got criticized on message boards for overdesign, but I absoluted loved how colorful and whimsical everyone looked. It was a marked improvement over the previous two games, which struggled to create attractive in-game models. Kind of curious if this is something that the Japanese fandom cares less about than the Western one, given the how Katsura speaks about it.

The amount of "Mythra standing in front of landscape" captures I've taken speaks for itself.

It's a shame that the development was lacking, given how much I loved the game, I can only wonder how much better it would have turned out with more resources. Hopefully we keep seeing updates over the next year or two, we've already seen minor fixes here and there.

The game definitely felt a significantly smaller production than XCX. That's for sure. On top of the world being segmented, even if all combined it felt like it might all fit into one to one and a half continents of XCX.

I definitely appreciated the greater focus on presentation; cutscenes and elements that really brought the characters to life. That is something I felt was lacking in the original Xenoblade. I never felt I got to know the cast nearly as well as I did in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - especially outside of the main characters - there always seemed to be too little for comfort from a Monolithsoft game, a studio which usually excels in developing a wide number of characters; even right back to their roots in games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6. Even with the smaller dev team, cutscene quality and quantity were significantly improved; even if there were some contextual issues (like you beat the crap out of an enemy and defeat it, only to cut to a cutscene shows you getting your ass kicked), but that's a separate, issue.

On polish. I wouldn't say the polish was any worse than the first Xenoblade Chronicles or Xenosaga Episode 3 (which while considered by many fans to be the best of the trilogy, is easily the worst polished Monolithsoft game with a "Xeno" in it). Monolithsoft's non-Xeno games, like Disaster and Baten Kaitos all have very glaring polish issues which dwarf anything among their Xeno-games; but still, these games all have their fans.

I think the overall biggest flaw with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is that there's no one that will have a perfect experience:  there are too many systems for most people to grasp, and for those who do grasp them there is WAAAAAY too much tutorial.

Yes. As much as I love Xenoblade 2 (and I really do) the lack of polish does disappoint. I hope they can do some fixes 

Monolithsoft effectively built the topography for Hyrule. So that’s Mira and Hyrule, two GIANT worlds they’ve developed. Hopefully they have something even more grand-scale for their third open world game.

Honestly, as great as it would be to get another Xenoblade game, I hope they try something else like a new IP.

I read in an interview that the head guy himself was somewhat uneasy about jumping into another massive game after their more recent titles and I prefer it when developers get to experiment and not be locked to one franchise or type of genre (doing so usually drives away talent).

Not sure what they could possibly do, I gather since one of the main guys behind it has left plus it would have to move to HD sprites or polygon models a Project X Zone 3 is unlikely, but I hope the next thing I hear coming from them is a new type of game that lets some of their guys blow off steam before the next RPG epic.

I didn't read the article, but hearing this sounds impressive. Your average AAA game these days has triple the personnel.

Oh wow Monolith Soft are magicians, it's amazing how they managed to make such a big game in a reasonable amount of time and with so few people. Square-Enix could learn a thing or two or three or four or many more from Monolith Soft.

Development kicked off July 2014, so closer to 3.5 years.

Yet Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is so good.

Monolith Soft is one of the best studios right now.

As they mentioned in the interview the UI is rough not only in design but the fact that items have to be sold literally one piece at a time. 

Personally I have found more than a few glitches. Including a section that you can reach in Tempertia that seems like a jump able portion but some of the rocks glitch out with no collision at all. Also various weird instances including enemies seeming to be placed at weird positions like upside down flying enemies or unique Monsters standing at 60 degree angles.