Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

jawafour wrote:I need to start both Chronicles and Chronicles X before I play this

This joke writes itself... (again)

The Watching Artist wrote:
jawafour wrote:I need to start both Chronicles and Chronicles X before I play this

This joke writes itself... (again)

If he plays every day until the 1st he might just make it.

T9Flake wrote:
The Watching Artist wrote:
jawafour wrote:I need to start both Chronicles and Chronicles X before I play this

This joke writes itself... (again)

If he plays every day until the 1st he might just make it.

The Watching Artist wrote:
T9Flake wrote:
The Watching Artist wrote:
jawafour wrote:I need to start both Chronicles and Chronicles X before I play this

This joke writes itself... (again)

If he plays every day until the 1st he might just make it.

Maaaaaatt! T9Flaaaaaake!

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Something something Mechonis field.

I was actually thinking above Xenoblade Chronicles X a few days ago, think I was talking to my brother about it (he never really go into it, he stopped playing before getting a Skell...). Despite a few things, the weak story and terrible city music, I think it was an excellent game with so many reasons to go back to it. It's tempting to buy a Wii U just to play it again but even without the lacklustre multiplayer side, it still was nice to see popups on the corner every now and then when someone completed stuff. I hope Xeno 2 does well so Monolith can do another game based on X.

Quite tempted: http://www.argos.co.uk/product/7606524

So, does one need to have played the previous games before diving into this one?

Tafdolphin wrote:So, does one need to have played the previous games before diving into this one?

I don’t believe so, Taf. All three games are big adventures but you won’t miss much by playing (or not playing!) them in order.

jawafour wrote:
Tafdolphin wrote:So, does one need to have played the previous games before diving into this one?

I don’t believe so, Taf. All three games are big adventures but you won’t miss much by playing (or not playing!) them in order.

Coolo. This is deffo on my to-buy list then!

You might want to review a YouTube video on the battle systems and QTEs etc because the huge impact they have may be confusing at first as battles are fast, but once you get it the flow is very nice and much better than turn-based systems imo. Loadouts and movesets are extremely versatile with different weapon types making a tangible difference to gameplay. There isn't really any skill involved, it's all about timing and a small element of dodging and positioning e.g. rear attack buffs.

I think I put about 120 hours into X so will pick this up at some point after I've done a good amount of side quests in the that game. As much as I like anime sci-fi and robots, I might actually prefer the fantasy setting of this game.

Anyone watching the Direct? It looks to be even more complex and confusing than X was. I cant strawberry floating wait!

Rax wrote:Anyone watching the Direct? It looks to be even more complex and confusing than X was. I cant strawberry floating wait!

Yeah, it certainly looks cool, Rax, but yes - it seems to be very complicated

. I think I really should take a look at the earier games before attempting this!

Nah, jump right in. I did that with X and I loved it. If you insist on playing Chronicles and X before this then man will have made it to Mars before you get to start it.

Green Gecko wrote:You might want to review a YouTube video on the battle systems and QTEs etc because the huge impact they have may be confusing at first as battles are fast, but once you get it the flow is very nice and much better than turn-based systems imo. Loadouts and movesets are extremely versatile with different weapon types making a tangible difference to gameplay. There isn't really any skill involved, it's all about timing and a small element of dodging and positioning e.g. rear attack buffs.

I think I put about 120 hours into X so will pick this up at some point after I've done a good amount of side quests in the that game. As much as I like anime sci-fi and robots, I might actually prefer the fantasy setting of this game.

Cool. And I'm not going to miss anything story wise? Are they all separate narratives?

Watching the direct now. It looks truly excellent and I'm so glad we'll have the option to select the original Japanese audio after seeing how bad that dub is.

Tafdolphin wrote:
Green Gecko wrote:You might want to review a YouTube video on the battle systems and QTEs etc because the huge impact they have may be confusing at first as battles are fast, but once you get it the flow is very nice and much better than turn-based systems imo. Loadouts and movesets are extremely versatile with different weapon types making a tangible difference to gameplay. There isn't really any skill involved, it's all about timing and a small element of dodging and positioning e.g. rear attack buffs.

I think I put about 120 hours into X so will pick this up at some point after I've done a good amount of side quests in the that game. As much as I like anime sci-fi and robots, I might actually prefer the fantasy setting of this game.

Cool. And I'm not going to miss anything story wise? Are they all separate narratives?

I played X and it had absolutely nothing to do with the original game that I could tell. I knew exactly nothing about the mechanics or previous games and have never really played a JRPG before - not even Final Fantasy, but I finished this. I couldn't even tell if it was set in the far future or the far past, and there is some big loss of technology or something (afaik it's based in the future when alien technology massively advances human interstellar travel). This new game is in a fantasy setting like Chronicles 1 (Wii), may have a few returning things but afaik it's set up in a completely different concept with each "world" being on the top of a giant creature, so it's more like dropping into a Final Fantasy game I reckon - it's not like the majority of FFVII fans had played every game since then. Same thing for Xenogears. But I find every turn based system apart from Advance Wars really boring so I don't play most JRPGs.

The "main quest" had an OK to good story arch and a million character development side quests (all fairly similar but some good dialogue and world-building). The main thing is the core gameplay and production values are decent. The monsters are great and fun to battle and there is a lot of variation in playstyles.

The Japanese voices will invariably be better. Famitsu made a valid comment that hte dialogue delivery was simply too slow. But in terms of content, there's a huge amount there for your money. It's better populated than Zelda just lacks the macroscopic polish and is probably a bit too deep in terms of mechanics if you want to just press 1 button and not understand any systems, even on a surface level (I never got into the complexities of triggering soul voices for example and could barely even activate something called "overdrive" that led to massive combo chains).

It's certainly not one to miss for just narrative reasons. It's more an exploration and mechanical realtime RPG with massive worlds and literally hundreds of character relationships and party member combos. It's like the coffee table book of RPGs with lots of vistas and stats to dig into at the back, but only if you care about them.

A good example of this is , post game there are enemies level 50 to 100 that are impossible to even approach without levelling your characters well over what's needed to complete the main story and mastering the underlying systems to get maximum hit points against specific foes and vulnerabilities, based on elements of weapons, elemental defences of armour items (that you can mix), buffs/resistance "arts" and targeting "appendages" (bits of monsters). There's also staggering, toppling and flipping and attacks boosted from different directions, long range and shortrange (melee) effectiveness, and so much more. It's what you make of it.

Thankfully the interface looks less tiny/complicated than the last game, probably due to the small portable screen. It was really hard to read for long periods, my eyes went blurry quite often even with a 37" panel at 6 feet.

Here's the direct. Spoiler Warnings are in effect. I accept no responsibility for your own spoilerage.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

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