Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

Balladeer wrote:

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:There are story related reasons why some of the lack of impact/wow-factor of the visuals and soundtrack of 3 makes sense, but that doesn't excuse it from being a bit of a shame to experience after what 2 gave IMO.

I absolutely agree with basically everything you said apart from your overall conclusion, and this is why. 2's story was by far the worst of the three and 3's the strongest, and I was willing (not happy, willing) to let the soundtrack and colour palette take a hit from the vibrancy of 2 to let that happen. Ideally I'd just want 2 to have a story that isn't 'boy meets girl with the world's stupidest dress sense and dodgiest body shape, obviously agrees to do what she does because he's like 14 or something' and keep the vibrancy, but there you go.

I will say that, despite some iffy physics (Monica ), 3 is a big improvement of the horniness front from 2.

There's so much more to the story of 2 than that though! Sure that's part of it, but it goes so much deeper and in so many other directions yet it all fits together perfectly.

Balladeer wrote:

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:There are story related reasons why some of the lack of impact/wow-factor of the visuals and soundtrack of 3 makes sense, but that doesn't excuse it from being a bit of a shame to experience after what 2 gave IMO.

I absolutely agree with basically everything you said apart from your overall conclusion, and this is why. 2's story was by far the worst of the three and 3's the strongest, and I was willing (not happy, willing) to let the soundtrack and colour palette take a hit from the vibrancy of 2 to let that happen. Ideally I'd just want 2 to have a story that isn't 'boy meets girl with the world's stupidest dress sense and dodgiest body shape, obviously agrees to do what she does because he's like 14 or something' and keep the vibrancy, but there you go.

I will say that, despite some iffy physics (Monica ), 3 is a big improvement of the horniness front from 2.

Prude


But seriously, for me the story in 2 is way better than it gets credit for - it's easy to get distracted by the tits and bum fixation of things (especially when Dahlia is in the room amirite! ) but there's a very deep and moving story there which had a bigger impact on me than 3's did, and also didn't suffer from quite as many "LOL WTF?" plot holes. I would have loved a version of 2 that could have toned a few things down by several notches mind!

3 still has a lovely story though, I'm in no way shitting on it! I really enjoyed the journey it took me on and some of those characters were all timers (Eunie )

I still listen to this games soundtrack frequently.

Merry Christmous wrote:There's so much more to the story of 2 than that though! Sure that's part of it, but it goes so much deeper and in so many other directions yet it all fits together perfectly.

I will emphatically disagree with the last word of this. The reason I simplified 2's storyline the way I did is because I actually thought that much like its combat system, it's a poorly explained mess. Maybe like its combat system, there is an excellent tale underneath the nonsense, and the key premise of 'Place your hand on my chest, now take me to Elysium!' But quite a lot of it got lost in the fog for me.

2 is really good in lots of ways, and to be honest I don't care about overarching plot a lot of the time so long as the characters are good. The likes of Nia and Zeke really deliver there, although I think 3's cast overall are better. But there were a couple of times where I though 'wait what the heck is my actual goal here?' culminating with a final boss that I didn't even try and follow. 1 and 3 didn't have that.

1 has got comfortably the worst story and characters for me, just an amorphous blob of meh.

3 lacked sorely a compelling villain IMO. It spends way too long with a merry-go-round of blink and you'll miss them Consul's who, but for a couple of exceptions, were utterly meaningless to the party. Combine that with some motivational and logic ball drops and it was enough to scupper the whole for me. It has some real high points as a story though and really brings things together well in the final stretch so I give it a lot of credit for that

Balladeer wrote:

Merry Christmous wrote:There's so much more to the story of 2 than that though! Sure that's part of it, but it goes so much deeper and in so many other directions yet it all fits together perfectly.

I will emphatically disagree with the last word of this. The reason I simplified 2's storyline the way I did is because I actually thought that much like its combat system, it's a poorly explained mess. Maybe like its combat system, there is an excellent tale underneath the nonsense, and the key premise of 'Place your hand on my chest, now take me to Elysium!' But quite a lot of it got lost in the fog for me.

2 is really good in lots of ways, and to be honest I don't care about overarching plot a lot of the time so long as the characters are good. The likes of Nia and Zeke really deliver there, although I think 3's cast overall are better. But there were a couple of times where I though 'wait what the heck is my actual goal here?' culminating with a final boss that I didn't even try and follow. 1 and 3 didn't have that.

have you tried asking people/looking up the story?

Yes, after the fact. Didn't salvage it.

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:1 has got comfortably the worst story and characters for me, just an amorphous blob of meh.

3 lacked sorely a compelling villain IMO. It spends way too long with a merry-go-round of blink and you'll miss them Consul's who, but for a couple of exceptions, were utterly meaningless to the party. Combine that with some motivational and logic ball drops and it was enough to scupper the whole for me. It has some real high points as a story though and really brings things together well in the final stretch so I give it a lot of credit for that

1 had the worst characters for sure (although the most bearable Nopon), but the motivation (teeth-gritted revenge) isn't one you normally see that way from a shonen hero, and I thought the plot was clear and interesting enough afterwards.

As for 3's villains, this is somewhat fair for most of the merry-go-round, and I didn't think the Big Bad was great; but it was still better than Malos pulling out a mediocre robot at the end of 2, and I don't think you're giving N and his manic shenanigans enough credit.

To clarify, though: when it comes to 2 and 3 for me, we're talking about which of the 9/10s is most 9/10.

I think I like the plot in 1 the most. Going in completely blind when this game came out on the Wii was an experience and a half, and I loved where it ended up. It starts out like a revenge story, but turns into so much more. I love Shulk and Dunban. Those guys are great.

The characters in 3 are the best for me. None of them are annoying, which is an achievement.

Ooh I think you're being awfully kind to Sena and Manana there.

"I'm the girl with the..." SHUT UP SENA!

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:"I'm the girl with the..." SHUT UP SENA!

Or Eunie's My Fair Lady x Dick Van Dyke chimney sweep accent.

Rex Kramer wrote:

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:"I'm the girl with the..." SHUT UP SENA!

Or Eunie's My Fair Lady x Dick Van Dyke chimney sweep accent.

"You what?!"

shy guy in a pear tree wrote:

Rex Kramer wrote:

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:"I'm the girl with the..." SHUT UP SENA!

Or Eunie's My Fair Lady x Dick Van Dyke chimney sweep accent.

"You what?!"

You wanna watch what you're snuffing saying m8

Someone wants something a bit meatier!

Rex Kramer wrote:

Jenu-All I Want For Christmas wrote:"I'm the girl with the..." SHUT UP SENA!

Or Eunie's My Fair Lady x Dick Van Dyke chimney sweep accent.

Okay yes but I genuinely like Eunie. The High Entia being all hoity-toity in XC1, and then one turns up in XC3 and she's pure cockney is Very Good to me.

Eunie is the best character in the entire Xeno franchise

Lagamorph wrote:Eunie Nia is the best character in the entire franchise history of gaming

Fixed that for you.


But Eunie is also great

Jenuall is correct but Laga isn't far off.

This isn’t flowing as nicely for me as XB:DE did, the map system/mission markers system is quite annoying and I miss the QoL features they introduced in DE. Also some of these side quests where you need to find X amount of an item, I’ve been searching collection points for ages in the right areas but the spawn rights are awful on the key quest items. Need 7 Confusion Ivy but I’ve managed to find 5 in 20 minutes

I also liked the battle system in DE more (so far, only at the start of chapter 3) and the break - topple - daze system. So far I’m just auto attacking until my extra moves become available, use them and build up Pyra’s move to level 4 so I can use Burning Sword. Occasionally pressing ZL or ZR to trigger one of my teams specials as well.

8 hours in and it’s not got me as hooked as DE did at this point.

Break, topple etc. is still in this (and expanded to be better...) Are you timing your arts so your Blades attacks grow quicker? Are you using positional arts to boost attack power? Have you been working through the tree for blade combos to increase damage?

For me the battle system in this is absolutely peak RPG action, but it does take some time to understand and click.

The map and markers are just gooseberry fool though, no getting away from that. DE and definitely 3 really tidied this up