Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
released on Sep 14, 2018
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country
released on Sep 14, 2018
A standalone expansion of Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Guide a group of legendary warriors on a journey through the tragic history that doomed a kingdom and drove a hero down a dark path 500 years before the events of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 game. Defend yourself from Malos and his forces using all the fury of this refined battle system, allowing you to fight as both the artificial lifeforms known as Blades and their masters, the Drivers.
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best DLC of all time, adds to the main story in an extremely well written way & for a game of this length it's actually insane that I can not think of even a single piece of criticism. literal flawless game to the smallest degree
Golden peak
This game gets extra points for more jin and mythra content(my fave xenoblade characters) and showing more lora who is now in my top 5 characters. Honestly though, this game is just more of xenoblade 2 which isnt a bad thing, its a really good game and this type of story telling is used to often to show a sympathetic villain in this case jin. We've seen this type of story for these types of characters before and we knew what was going to happen due to this coming after prt 2 but its still executed greatly and hits you in the feel s hard. Honestly, i like this group more than the group in the main part 2 but thats because i didnt care for wrex and a few others(really only liked pyra/mythra, zeke and monag) but this is a masterclass dlc for a good game. I also want to mention here that malos is one of the most underrted tragic villains ive seen as well. Not many ppl mention or like him but when you understand his whole story he truthfully gives jin a run for his money in the tragic villain characterization. Very fun game overall and now I can finally get to one of my most anticipated games, xenoblade 3.
This review contains spoilers
This is gonna sound extremely rude, but don´t expect me to care for a city I know from the start is gonna get blasted into oblivion. If the game introduced me to the characters in an organic way and not forcing me to do a ton of sidequests to progress the story, maybe I would have end up warming to it's inhabitants. But I didn't. It felt like doing busy work, and that's the fastest way for me to stop caring for something.
Also, I didn't like the changes to the combat system. The elemental orbs were applied at the end of a blade combo for a reason in XC2.
This might be my least favourite Xeno game overall.
Also, I didn't like the changes to the combat system. The elemental orbs were applied at the end of a blade combo for a reason in XC2.
This might be my least favourite Xeno game overall.
This review contains spoilers
Could be 4.5 i might change it
amazing prequel a lot tighter story than the base game especially in tone though still has some jarring moments at times
battle system is great and with no blade gacha and less of a reliance on field skills a lot of other parts of the game felt a lot smoother than the base game.
My only issues are really at the end when you have to get community level 4 it feels like a way to arbitrarily increase the game length and puts a weird halt on the story even if you have been doing every sidequest up to that point.
Only real story issue is i dont understand the point of putting that gort fight at the end i dont see why his arc needed to be extended past the beginning of the game i thought that was enough closure
amazing prequel a lot tighter story than the base game especially in tone though still has some jarring moments at times
battle system is great and with no blade gacha and less of a reliance on field skills a lot of other parts of the game felt a lot smoother than the base game.
My only issues are really at the end when you have to get community level 4 it feels like a way to arbitrarily increase the game length and puts a weird halt on the story even if you have been doing every sidequest up to that point.
Only real story issue is i dont understand the point of putting that gort fight at the end i dont see why his arc needed to be extended past the beginning of the game i thought that was enough closure
Torna is, without a doubt, one of the finest expansions I've ever seen for a single-player game, let alone JRPG. Over the nine months following the launch of Xenoblade 2, Monolith didn't just strive to make additional story and game content that filled in the blanks within the base game; they sought to actually make an even greater version of Xenoblade 2 in various ways.
The change to the combat was initially a bit jarring after just getting off of the base game, but I really enjoyed what they did here. The focus on shifting vanguard position between driver and blades was a great mechanical idea that I think better exemplifies how they SHOULD work, as opposed to the base game where the driver does all the work and the blade mostly just lends them power until you do a special attack. It's actually probably a step above the base game's combat, as a whole, but there was something so satisfying about mastering the base game's combat that got me hyped in ways Torna just didn't so I'm kind of undecided on where I ultimately stand.
Story wise, what's here is mostly great assuming that you actually like the story of Xenoblade 2. Even if you didn't, I think there are things here that might be appealing still. For starters, the tone and writing is a lot more consistent which was a bit of a problem with the main game. I think the voice acting direction was also quite improved, at least with the English performances. I really dug how dark this expansion got with some of its plot points and elements. The characters that are already established, like Jin, are fantastic because its just further development for them. It's kind of a mixed bag, really. I didn't hate any character, per se, but they aren't as developed nor share as much good chemistry as the group in the main game. Lora and Jin stand out, naturally. Mythra's greater as a character for what this expansion offers, but I wasn't super into the rest. Addam and Hugo were acceptable main characters but nothing I'm gonna rave about much, to be honest.
The "Community" stuff in Torna is really the only noteworthy hiccup I feel this content has. I just don't get why games will force you to do things that you don't want to do in order to do the things that you DO want to do. Always been backwards logic to me. If the player wants to do side content, then let them do it naturally. Otherwise it just kind of results in the opposite reaction I feel you would want from your players. I actually did side content of my own volition, so this never factored into my experience. But I still think it's wack.
Honestly, there's so much fantastic work here that Torna very easily could have been a Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in an alternate universe if they decided to ditch the idea of it being an expansion and just make it a stand-alone title. It rivals full games in some ways, which I think says a lot about how amazing the team at Monolith is.
The change to the combat was initially a bit jarring after just getting off of the base game, but I really enjoyed what they did here. The focus on shifting vanguard position between driver and blades was a great mechanical idea that I think better exemplifies how they SHOULD work, as opposed to the base game where the driver does all the work and the blade mostly just lends them power until you do a special attack. It's actually probably a step above the base game's combat, as a whole, but there was something so satisfying about mastering the base game's combat that got me hyped in ways Torna just didn't so I'm kind of undecided on where I ultimately stand.
Story wise, what's here is mostly great assuming that you actually like the story of Xenoblade 2. Even if you didn't, I think there are things here that might be appealing still. For starters, the tone and writing is a lot more consistent which was a bit of a problem with the main game. I think the voice acting direction was also quite improved, at least with the English performances. I really dug how dark this expansion got with some of its plot points and elements. The characters that are already established, like Jin, are fantastic because its just further development for them. It's kind of a mixed bag, really. I didn't hate any character, per se, but they aren't as developed nor share as much good chemistry as the group in the main game. Lora and Jin stand out, naturally. Mythra's greater as a character for what this expansion offers, but I wasn't super into the rest. Addam and Hugo were acceptable main characters but nothing I'm gonna rave about much, to be honest.
The "Community" stuff in Torna is really the only noteworthy hiccup I feel this content has. I just don't get why games will force you to do things that you don't want to do in order to do the things that you DO want to do. Always been backwards logic to me. If the player wants to do side content, then let them do it naturally. Otherwise it just kind of results in the opposite reaction I feel you would want from your players. I actually did side content of my own volition, so this never factored into my experience. But I still think it's wack.
Honestly, there's so much fantastic work here that Torna very easily could have been a Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in an alternate universe if they decided to ditch the idea of it being an expansion and just make it a stand-alone title. It rivals full games in some ways, which I think says a lot about how amazing the team at Monolith is.