Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

The Watching Artist wrote:Just achieved a full burst. not entirely sure what that means but the numbers were big

i misread that and thought you were talking about the bath scene again :fp:

Just got Dahlia.... What that actual strawberry float.

The Watching Artist wrote:Just got Dahlia.... What that actual strawberry float.

i'm so sorry

jawa_ wrote:...I noticed on my Switch late last night that there were three people online in my friends list... and they were all playing Xenoblade; one playing Definitive, one playing 2 and the other playing 3 .

This scenario happened again last night :lol:

. Xenoblade mania!

jawa_ wrote:
jawa_ wrote:...I noticed on my Switch late last night that there were three people online in my friends list... and they were all playing Xenoblade; one playing Definitive, one playing 2 and the other playing 3 .

This scenario happened again last night . Xenoblade mania!

I was playing Definitive last night :lol:

it is quite funny though, it’s probably the first time I have seen a new entry of a game series has released yet people in my friends list are playing different entries of the series at the same time.

The Watching Artist wrote:Just got Dahlia.... What that actual strawberry float.

Massive anime boobies made this game sell

And made something else swell amirite!?

Ain't nothing series than a woman with talons amirite lads!? Oi oi!

Ffs this crashed on me twice today and I've lost about 2 or so hours of progress.

So, I think I might start this over Christmas while I’ve got some time off, would like to play through this and Torna before I get to 3.

Started this last night, just played through the first chapter but much like the first I love the world they are building here. Will need to put some time into the battle system to fully understand how I should be using the blades correctly but it’s interesting so far.

The affinity system seems different to the first in that you don’t seem to have link perks with other characters? Or that could be something that get’s reintroduced at some point in Chapter 2 onwards I guess.

Because I had Torna I also had the season pass so have claimed a lot of the DLC extras (some are still unavailable due to where I am in the story) so I have quite a bit of money so far :lol:

I did send £90k back home tho.

Coming up to 6 hours so very early days but i'm having a few gripes at the moment

1. The mission select/tracker doesn't seem as user friendly as the one in XB DE. It doesn't split out whats a main story quest and whats a side story like you could have in DE when you hit ZR. Am I missing something? Also, if I manually select a side quest in the menu the compass still seems to show the the pink !! icon for the main story but sometimes not one for the side quest despite it being the active quest.

2. The battle system i'm guessing will develop over the next few hours as right now I just seem to be auto attacking until one of the icons fill up. Even the blade just seems to have one move?

3. Speaking about blades, I have a few legendary core crystals, is it worth holding onto them until I am later in the story or should I just bond them all with Rex now?

ITSMILNER wrote:Coming up to 6 hours so very early days but i'm having a few gripes at the moment

1. The mission select/tracker doesn't seem as user friendly as the one in XB DE. It doesn't split out whats a main story quest and whats a side story like you could have in DE when you hit ZR. Am I missing something? Also, if I manually select a side quest in the menu the compass still seems to show the the pink !! icon for the main story but sometimes not one for the side quest despite it being the active quest.

2. The battle system i'm guessing will develop over the next few hours as right now I just seem to be auto attacking until one of the icons fill up. Even the blade just seems to have one move?

3. Speaking about blades, I have a few legendary core crystals, is it worth holding onto them until I am later in the story or should I just bond them all with Rex now?

Regarding 2, the battle system takes about 20 hours to finish giving you tutorials so yes it does open up more to say the least. If you're like me, you'll probably need a few YouTube videos along the way too.

You absolutely do want to look up YouTube occasionally. 2 probably has the best battle system in the series but by God it doesn't want you to know it. (That's unless XCX's is better, but that's even more obtuse.)

It definitely takes some work to get your head round it but once you do it makes perfect sense. And it makes linking attacks together so satisfying :datass:

Annoying you have to resort to YouTube videos rather than them explain it better in game :lol:

I think some of the QoL stuff they introduced in DE is why I’m finding some of the bits in this quite fiddly. Will be putting in more time with it over the break though

Yeah there's definitely some stuff they could have streamlined in XC2.

The Field Skills :dread:

Merry Christmous wrote:Yeah there's definitely some stuff they could have streamlined in XC2.

The Field Skills

Ahh they have mentioned these, do I need to collect different blades in order to unlock these skills? Are the skills just randomly generated on the blades?

Field Skills are great! They just needed to streamline their application - I loved they enabled a kind of Metroidvania style progression element so that returning to earlier areas could open things out or reward you with treats and it made working toward those skills in your Blades feel really rewarding. The "traversal skills" in 3 were a very poor substitute IMO.

The battle system is sublime once it opens up, definitely worth understanding it as the satisfaction you can get from combos etc. makes it feel so good!

I actually restarted this myself the other night and played through all of Chapter 1 in a single sitting. I love this game so much! :wub:

I love the atmosphere of the whole thing, there's a wonderful adventure tone to things that I don't think either 1 or 3 manage to capture in the same way

It's also a far more appealing visual experience than I remember, on a technical level 3 is 100% an improvement - the framerate is far more stable and the resolution holds at a higher point than some of the 240p moments this gives. But artistically, the design direction, the density and geometry of the environments, the level of detail on display etc. for me all of this stuff in 2 is a step above what 3 offered this year. So much of 3 is very drab looking by comparison, very plain and almost under-developed - loads of internal locations are practically just square boxes with a few props dropped into them, "natural" locations are devoid of much density in their design and use of vegetation etc. The forest/jungle type locations in 2 are so rich in comparison.

And my god the soundtrack is still on another level! Again, by comparison 3 is a bit of a let down here - don't get me wrong, it's got some lovely tunes in there but it was always going to be a tough ask to follow up the 2 OST which is probably the closest thing you could get to an 11/10 for me! 2 has such a great mix of tunes - upbeat adventure and character beats, emotional notes, heart pounding action and battle themes, subtle atmospheric and mysterious tunes etc. outside of a couple of exceptions 3's tunes just fall a bit ... flat by comparison. I think if I were to rank all tracks across the OSTs from 1, 2 and 3 I would easily get through a top 20 of mostly 2 and some 1 tracks before I got to anything from 3!

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.

...

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a 2 vs 3 rant!

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 :dread:

), 3 is a big improvement of the horniness front from 2.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Nintendo Switch)

Who is online

Affiliates