Do you ever stumble in one of those games that, despite not being perfect, it manages to cover certain specific things in such a smashingly perfect way that you can't help but give it the highest score ? Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is that game.

It has debated to hell and back how this game is definitely less balanced than its predecessor, especially due to its slow start and the not-exactly-ideal tutorials which omit some key info and also feel more tedious than they could've been if streamlined better. Yet, despite this, Xenoblade 2 managed to slip into my heart, right next to the first game.

The graphics, of course, make full display of the artistic creativity of Monolith Soft, which is able to put very unique spins on what could feel like familiar views in any other JRPGs, where the classic green plains are placed on the back of an enormous quadrupedal titan, while a complex set of caves, a massive lake and a medieval town are all stored inside the stomach of a huge whale-like beast.

The character-design has been another source of debate, but I've never found it bad, if anything I welcome a JRPG protagonist that seems to be coming out of the 90's in terms of weird, yet uniquely striking fashion. I prefer it to normal-looking clothes at the very least. The rest of the cast pretty much follow suit, going for an unapologetic vibe that fits the previous works of the main character designer, while also featuring some guest artists for some of the non-story Blades, including Tetsuya Nomura at his best on designing the main villains of the game.

As with the first game, the title shines in its main story cutscenes where the animators display an amazing craft in how they handle expressions and movements. I've been a huge fan of their direction ever since the first game.

The gameplay is where those previously mentioned problems start to pop up. Xenoblade 2 isn't a bad game, it's legit great once you understand its mechanics, but it's one of those games that will give to you as much as you're willing to give it back in return. its battle system based on elemental combos requires constant attention and a familiarity of the roles and abilities of the different blades, which can be unlocked through the story, side quests or through an in-game gacha system (one that thankfully doesn't involve real money).

Each blade is also crucial for exploring the world as, depending by their skills, they'll be able to unlock shortcuts or secret passages, some of which will be mandatory for some of the side quests. It's a very intriguing system, but unlocking the different abilities and tiers will take time and the game might sometime block the player's progress because of this, forcing them to grind away at the requirements to unlock the abilities needed to progress.

It all feels a bit too tedious for most people, while others might find themselves just vibing with the game and exploring around, clearing side quests and finding all the side-story content that the different blades will unlock through their own requirements.

For people that will be willing to put in some time, Xenoblade 2 will have lots of rewards of course, but it's undeniable that it won't be worth everyone's time, especially as the game sometimes does lack a bit of guidance as mentioned before.

The other side of contempt regards the game's story, which takes quite a bit to get going. It's not bad by any means, but the first part of the game is clearly a huge, careful setup that, much like its gameplay, will reward people who will be patient enough to wait for the game's plot to be ripe enough and show its real flavor, which, to be honest, has moved me to tears, as the characters shown their motivations and stories. Unluckily it's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling anything and one might have to make their own essay about just the plot of the game, as it's rich with interconnected themes about one's purpose, life, death and the dramatic nature of a Blade's life. It's a hell of a ride once it gets going, I assure you.

All of this is topped by an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It shouldn't be a surprise given the track record of the series, but this second title manages to repeat the success of the first game, by having several bangers in its song selections, both in battle themes and location themes, as well as its emotional tunes.

The lows of Xenoblade 2 are quite low due to an excessively tedious gameplay loop that might scare most at first and a plot that has a slow start, but the highs are also among the highest I've ever experienced in the genre. it's worth all of it in my opinion and it's one of those special games that, despite having quite a few crucial gripes, manages to hit me right in the heart and has been worth the whole experience.

Xenoblade 2 succeeds in areas where the first game failed. The environments are gorgeous and diverse. The world building is much better, as is the general pacing of the story. As far as character's go, the cast here fare exceeds that of the original game, with most everyone being notable or important in some way. This game sells you on its world by introducing land conflicts, factions, politics, resource crises, and a central theme of human rights and what being a Blade means to it. Nia, Zeke, and Poppi are among the best written characters in the series. A lot of people see the surplus of anime tropes combined with the style and write it off, but it does what the previous game does so so much more better. Even the anime tropes have importance when you realize what became of Rex in XC3.

Despite the negative perception the internet has given this game, it's my favorite of the trilogy. It has my favorite main cast and Alrest being a group of smaller titans compared to the 2 massive ones of Xenoblade 1 is one of my favorite evolutions of a game concept I've seen. The story is also impeccable and again my favorite of the trilogy, despite a more carefree and slow burn-style start.

Being the first Xenoblade on the Switch it does suffer from a multitude of visual issues, and it does have a lot of mobile game mechanics for some reason like the gacha-based Blade system or the Merc Missions taking real-world time to progress. Nevertheless it's still very fun, albeit lacking in overall polish

Despite being my favorite game of all time, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is not a perfect video game. I could spend a long time going over all the game’s glaring flaws and little things that could be improved. Or I could boot up the game and play it for 5 minutes and remember none of that actually matters.

First and foremost, Xenoblade 2 is an absolutely beautiful video game. Every location is absolutely stunning, sporting a distinct visual identity that’s always pleasing to look at. Gormott is a vast, sprawling plain with the endlessly cozy village of Torigoth tucked away in its corner. Uraya’s cool color palette across its vast swampland and beautiful Saffronia trees perfectly complements the comfort of Garfont Village and elegance of Fonsa Myma. Tantal’s harsh, snow-covered wasteland filled with ancient architecture builds a brutal backdrop for a desperate village struggling to survive. On top of that, Monolith took great care to make these places feel real. Every town is fully populated and every inch of wilderness teeming with wildlife.

It’s not just the locations that look good, either; every element of the game, from effects to menus, is perfectly stylized to fit the pseudo-sci-fi/fantasy world. Character design’s great too, with the game boasting a set of distinct cultures across the different titans in styles of dress and some absolute banger designs for the blades done by a variety of artists. Yes, I know it’s tempting to post a picture of Rex on Twitter with no context and say, “look at this idiot” or to post a picture of Pyra with no context and say, “dumb fanservice game”. But that’s ignoring the work that went into making a lot of creative, awesome-looking characters (and the fact you can easily get used to how Rex and Pyra look within an hour of playing the actual game).

Speaking of awesome, creative things, let’s talk about this game’s soundtrack. Every piece is an absolute banger and fits perfectly within its place in the game. The title screen immediately hooks players in, perfectly sets up the game’s sense of quiet contemplation, and later serves as a background piece in some of its most emotional moments. Each level theme perfectly captures the feel of the area it plays in, from the bustling trade hub of Argentum to the vast wonder of Gormott to the serene beauty of Uraya. The standard battle theme is on the same level as most games’ final boss themes, and every other one brilliantly accents its fight: the savagery of “Deathmatch with Torna”, the over-the-top showmanship of “Bringer of Chaos: Ultimate”, and “One who Gets in Our Way” seamlessly transitioning from the terror of getting spotted by Rotbart to the euphoria of felling a fearsome foe. Even the cutscene music is outstanding. “Counterattack” and “Over the Sinful Entreaty” are outstanding background tracks to some of the game’s coolest moments, “Past from Far Distance” is almost as haunting as the scenes it plays over, and songs like “Friendship”, “Walking with You”, and “Tomorrow with You” perfectly encapsulate the tenderness of Xenoblade 2’s best scenes. I can barely listen to the credits theme without tearing up.

On the topic of audio, the game’s English dub is often a point of contention. I get it, especially coming off of Xenoblade 1. Certain deliveries can feel a bit awkward, and you can get the sense that lines were recorded out of context. That said, I don’t think it’s bad, besides a couple things like Rex’s screams and Obrona’s voice. In fact, there are some great deliveries here, with characters like Zeke and Malos having especially entertaining voices behind them. I also love how the characters from different countries, as well as the blades, all have distinct accents. It’s a cool bit of texture that further develops the different cultures of Alrest, plus a lot of them just sound nice (I could listen to Morag and Nia talk all day).

All this style would mean nothing if the game didn’t have substance to back it up, and I am happy to report this game has substance in spades. Those beautiful locations are all fully realized semi-open worlds, with most of their landscapes being traversable. On top of the massive open spaces, every area is intricately designed with tons of memorable locales hidden away for players willing to explore. And these areas aren’t just big; they’re loaded with content. Every inch of every level has something interesting: a sidequest, a treasure trove, a landmark or secret area, a heart-to-heart, a unique monster, or even just a strong enemy. The size of the worlds is also perfectly tuned, making them big enough to feel impressive but small enough to be traversable. And the challenges each area introduces with side content, blade quests, and higher-level enemies means you can keep coming back to these places for the entire game. The towns are equally impressive, with a variety of buildings, shops, NPCs, hidden areas, and tons of dialogue serving up tons of content both from a story and gameplay standpoint.

Also, the Field Skills aren’t that bad. Sure, switching blades around to get the right skills in your party is annoying, but that’s it. It’s an annoyance, and nothing more. Nearly every skill check in the main story (and like, 80% of checks in side quests) can be cleared with guaranteed blades, and the process to unlock individual skills is very quick, requiring a few battles at most. Hell, the only time you need to pull blades for the main story is to clear the spider web in Chapter 7 (and even then, getting 1-2 common fire blades is trivial). It’s a minor bump in the road that doesn’t take away from the fantastic exploration. In fact, the focus on world design and exploration alone makes Xenoblade 2 an incredible video game.

But it’s not content to be incredible. It has to be the best there is, and “the best there is” is the best description I could possibly give for Xenoblade 2’s combat. Yes, it takes a while to get the full extent of it, but once you do, there’s nothing else like it. It takes the rhythm of a turn-based RPG and seamlessly transitions it into real time, making the player keep track of positioning, healing, enemy aggro, and Art usage. And on top of that, it introduces some truly phenomenal mechanics that elevate it above the other games in its series.

On paper, 2’s combat may look like a downgrade from the previous installments: you can’t Auto-Attack while moving, your Arts charge based on Auto-Attacks instead of cooldowns, and you only have 3 Arts per character. But look a little deeper and you’ll see how much it really adds. If you start moving and then stop, it resets the Auto-Attack timer, enabling the very useful and probably unintentional technique of “stutter-stepping”: continually move slightly to repeatedly perform your first Auto-Attack, speeding up combat even in the game’s early stages. Even beyond this, I enjoy the decision-making it presents: Do you stand still to deal more damage and charge your Arts or do you try to pick up items, grab HP Potions, and revive fallen party members? Speaking of Arts, the detail about only having 3 Arts is a straight-up lie. Each character can equip up to 3 Blades, which each have 3 Arts, 4 Specials, and their own unique abilities. This change in format gives the player plenty of freedom in deciding their loadouts, forces them to manage Blade cooldowns on top of other combat mechanics, and lets the game map arts and specials to the 4 main buttons, reducing the amount of necessary menuing in combat.

On the topic of Arts and Specials, I think it’s about time I explain the meat of the combat. As previously stated, using Auto-Attacks lets you use Arts, which lets you use Specials. Using Specials lets you perform Blade Combos, which can set up Orbs that let you perform better Chain Attacks. And if you break enough Orbs in a Chain Attack, you deal insane damage with a Full Burst. This also grants you additional EXP if you kill an enemy, which all but eliminates the need for grinding when used properly. Speaking of Blade Combos, each Blade Combo deals increased damage and damage over time, even at lower levels. Ergo, even if you don’t finish a Combo, you can still deal good damage to the enemy.

Xenoblade 1’s Break/Topple system is also reworked into Driver Combos. In 1, the best strategy for harder fights was to break enemies and then continually topple them until they could no longer move, which could feel a bit stale. In Xenoblade 2, Break and Topple have much more limited durations, but Toppled enemies can be Launched and Launched enemies can be Smashed. Launched enemies take more damage than Toppled enemies, and Smashing an enemy deals massive damage and spawns items. All stages of a Driver Combo also spawn HP Potions, increase the DOT and uptime of Blade Combos, and interrupt enemy Arts. This creates a much more dynamic system where you can constantly perform small actions to gain the advantage over the enemy, but there’s also a degree of risk when your Breaks don’t hit and you have to retry. Performing a Blade Combo while the enemy is inflicted with a Driver Combo also performs a Fusion Combo, dealing even more damage. On top of all that, Blades’ affinity increases over the course of a battle and grants you buffs when it maxes out.

This turns every combat encounter into a satisfying series of loops, where every attack builds into the next. At the start of a fight, you’re at your weakest, only using Auto-Attacks and a few Arts. But as the battles progress, your options open up. You start using Specials and Blade Combos to deal damage. You perform Driver Combos to gain advantages over the enemy and maybe even get a few items. And when your Party Gauge fills up and you’ve applied a few Orbs, you can unleash a Chain Attack and deal massive damage. There are few feelings in gaming as satisfying as performing a Full Burst.

And all throughout, the Cancel Attack system enhances the very experience of fighting. In a similar vein to Mario RPG’s timed hits, Cancel Attacks give you an advantage in combat if you press a button just as an attack connects. Auto-Attacks, Arts, Specials, and even Blade Switches flow seamlessly into each other for extensive chains of high damage and powerful effects. And the sound design just adds on to the satisfaction. Every attack feels crunchy. The feedback for cancelling makes the combos you pull off exponentially smoother. The cinematic angles for Blade Combo Finishers, Level 4 Specials, Fusion Combos, and Chain Attacks help them hit that much harder.

The combat does take a while to get into. You don’t unlock all the mechanics until the end of chapter 3 and it takes a bit longer than that to get all the really cool stuff. Needing to unlock Arts Chaining and 3 Blade slots especially can be a pain in the ass. The tutorials don’t help, either; they’re way too vague for a system this complex and it sucks you can’t re-view them. Also, the game never tells you how good the Art Recharge items are, which makes the early game a lot slower than it needs to be for most players. But if you’re willing to push through those early hours, to really sink your teeth into the battle system and unlock its full potential, there’s nothing else like it. (I recommend this video if you want a good tutorial).

The combat system is fantastic on its own, but it’s backed up by equally amazing character customization. Like I said before, each Driver in the party (with 1 exception) can equip up to 3 Blades at once. Each Blade increases the Driver’s stats, as well as having their own weapon class and element. Element determines what Blade Combos a Blade can perform as well as dealing more damage if an enemy is weak to it. Weapon classes and the Drivers they’re attached to determine which Arts a Blade can use, with 3 out of a potential 4 being usable at any time. The more a driver uses a specific weapon, the more they can upgrade the Arts for that weapon, granting stronger effects and lower recharge times. In addition, each Driver has an Affinity Chart: a skill tree you gain points for as you defeat enemies and complete quests. These grant some pretty useful passive skills, including the aforementioned Arts Chain. All these systems combined with 5 Drivers that can fill a 3-Driver party and the wide variety of Blades already offer a ton of options and a steady sense of progression throughout the game.

But then the Accessories and Pouch Items shoot the scope of customization through the roof. All drivers can equip up to 2 accessories (3 in New Game Plus). These grant passive bonuses ranging from stat increases, to damage increases, to more specific uses like reducing enemy break resistance or preventing enemies from blocking your attacks. One Driver can’t use multiple accessories with the same effect, but otherwise you can do pretty much anything. Each Accessory can completely change how you play the game, assisting in a variety of strategies and synergies. Pure attack, tanking, evasion, crit healing, and even soloing enemies are all possible thanks to this system. Pouch Items are really cool too, essentially being passive buffs you can give to your Drivers for a certain amount of time. Eventually, you can even equip 2 at a time, offering additional customization and power. Like I said before, the Art Recharge ones are the best, but other effects like Special Recharge and Increased Party Gauge can also be useful.

On top of all of that, Blades have their own customization and progression systems. Core Chips grant steady increases to attack power while offering a choice between Block Rate, Critical Rate, and various secondary effects. Aux Cores grant additional effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, avoid attacks, and do tons of other things. Even more impressively, each Blade has its own Affinity Chart. As you fight and complete side quests with a Blade, you increase their trust with their Driver. In addition to increasing their damage, this unlocks the nodes in their Affinity Charts. Filling in those nodes is a bit more complicated: each one has specific actions tied to them, ranging from using Specials to defeating enemies to completing side quests. I love this; it encourages players to constantly use all the different mechanics and keeps progression from feeling stale, since you’re doing different things to get stronger rather than grinding. The nodes themselves offer a few different things: Red Nodes improve Blades’ Specials, Yellow Nodes improve Passive Skills, and Green Nodes unlock Field Skills.

This gives Blades a ton of utility in different strategies, which is only compounded by the Accessories, Core Chips, and Aux Cores. You could go for pure damage with heavy hitters like Mythra or Herald. You could use tank-class blades like Brighid to evade attacks. You could build entire strategies around blade-specific mechanics, like Dagas’ Kaiser Zone or Adenine’s boost to elemental weakness damage. And this is before you get into Tora and Poppi, who not only can perform Driver Combos by themselves, but have a unique progression system that lets you fully customize the abilities of all 3 Poppi forms. It’s truly incredible.

Now, there is one part of this system that often falls under scrutiny, and I do understand it: The Core Crystal Gacha System. Basically, a good chunk of the game’s Rare Blades are locked behind random drops from specific items. It can be annoying when you want a specific Rare Blade but can’t pull them, or when you do get that Blade on a different Driver than you wanted. That said, I think a lot of the criticism is overblown, and a good chunk of it probably stems from people’s gut reactions to the words “Gacha System”. First off, there are no microtransactions involved. All resources are earned by playing the game normally. In reality, the Core Crystal system barely differs from most RPG drop systems, and people never throw fits on Twitter about those. In fact, the game is actually really generous with Rare Blades: a lot of really good ones can be earned through either the main story or through side content. Plus, Common Blades are better than you might think, offering good stats, good Specials and some really useful Passives like Orb Master. That’s ignoring how generous the base chance is for getting Rare Blades and how easy Legendary Core Crystals are to farm later on. Is it a perfect system? No, it can be a hassle to get the last couple Rare Blades in the endgame, the game’s a bit too stingy with Overdrive Protocols, and there are probably better ways to encourage switching up your team on replay. But it’s not nearly as bad as it’s often made out to be. At worst, it’s a small blot on an astounding canvas.

There’s a lot more to do in Xenoblade 2 than just exploring the world and fighting things. Sure, those are your main means of interaction with the game, but there’s some pretty neat context surrounding them. Xenoblade 2’s sidequests are great, both from a gameplay and story perspective. They grant a variety of tasks, which mainly involve collecting items, fighting enemies, and exploring certain locations. While that might sound a bit repetitive, the way these basic elements are combined keeps the quests from getting boring. In addition, they all have pretty neat stories tied to them, some even extending through multiple sidequests. The quest chain involving the organizations in Mor Ardain is the obvious highlight, but I also love the Nopon History quest chain, the one where you build a school, the quest in Gormott involving the missing soldiers, and anything involving the Garfont Mercs, just to name a few. Even the smaller quests do a great job fleshing out the world and giving character to the various NPCs. You learn a lot about the different nations of Alrest just from seeing how these people interact in their day-to-day lives.

Blade Quests are another great addition. Every optional Rare Blade has their own dedicated side story, complete with fully voiced cutscenes. These help elevate the Blades from just being numbers on a sheet to being fully defined characters, with certain ones like Dagas having really good arcs throughout their quests. And of course, the Xenosaga fan in me will always appreciate KOS-MOS getting story relevance, even if it is self-contained.

Not only are these quests intrinsically engaging, but they offer great rewards. You get additional EXP, money, and SP (for Drivers’ Affinity Charts) for each one you complete. Blade Quests even grant additional abilities for the Rare Blades. This constant stream of rewards creates this really satisfying gameplay loop of completing quests, getting stronger, and taking on tougher quests. If you’re worried about becoming overleveled after doing all the side quests, don’t worry; all EXP gained from quests is completely optional. Don’t get me wrong, there are some stinkers among the quests. Ursula’s Blade Quest and the Nopon Doubloon quest are pretty annoying, and the compass isn’t too helpful for certain navigational challenges. But the batting average is pretty damn high, and the side quests are overall one of my favorite parts of the game.

If that wasn’t enough for you, Xenoblade 2 offers additional side content to keep you busy. Completing side quests and buying items in an area increases that area’s Development, which lowers prices and opens up new items in the stores. Buying all the items in a store even lets you buy the store, which grants a passive buff during overworld gameplay. This a lot to the game mechanically and thematically, since you’re helping people around the world through your actions and have much greater incentive to interact with the different shops. I also really like Salvaging as a way to integrate Rex’s passion into the gameplay and as a means of making money. (Seriously, you can get a ton of money with just a little salvaging. It’s insane.)

The last major mechanic I want to talk about is the Merc Group, which basically lets you send your idle blades on special missions. These are often used for Blade Quests, normal quests, and unlocking more of a store’s inventory. They also grant additional EXP, money, items, and help unlock skills for the blades. I love this feature. It adds to the sense of progression since you’ll probably have a Merc Mission running at all times, and also helps if you want to develop a Blade without using them in combat. It also makes all the blades feel useful, since you’ll often need specific field skills to start a Merc Mission or to have it complete faster. All this great content doesn’t even cover the additional difficulty modes, New Game Plus, or Challenge Mode, all of which add fantastic depth and replayability just by themselves. With all these different mechanics combined, Xenoblade 2 is a masterwork of game design.

But there’s far more to it than that. Many people say an RPG is only as good as its story, and this story is certainly as good as the RPG behind it. The story of finding hope in a dying world is done beautifully, and leads to quite possibly the best final act I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s exciting, well-paced, and isn’t afraid to go dark places, but still remains a heartwarming and optimistic tale throughout. I won’t go into detail here for the sake of keeping this review spoiler-free and not tripling its length. Instead, I’d like to dispel a popular myth surrounding this game.

Many people have claimed the story is “tropey anime garbage” and that it doesn’t match the serious tone Xenoblade 1 had. Yes, the story has silly moments, but they pretty much vanish halfway into Chapter 4, and they never interrupt the more serious parts. There are only 10, maybe 15 minutes of these scenes over the course of a 100+-hour game. If that’s enough for you to dismiss a game, then I’m sorry, but I think that’s incredibly shallow. Plus, this game can actually be really funny when it wants to. Throwaway lines like Pupunin’s “wife ran out on me”, Heart-to-Hearts like the cooking disaster in Argentum, and pretty much everything involving Zeke von Genbu just make me crack up. Not to mention, Xenoblade 1 has plenty of light-hearted moments: Colonel Vangarre, Riki’s introduction, half of Reyn’s dialogue. Hell, one of the most emotional scenes in the game was turned into a meme by the fandom, which got big enough for Nintendo of America to post about it on Twitter. I think at least a little comedy is fully acceptable.

This fantastic story is backed by an even better cast. Every member of the main party is memorable, well-written and has at least a few great moments throughout the story. Sure, Morag and Brighid are a little underused and Tora has some…questionable moments, but that doesn’t make the overall cast any less lovable. Each of them supports the game’s central themes in some way, on top of having some great interactions both in the main story and outside of it. The villains are just as good, easily being my favorite cast of antagonists in all of Xenoblade. All the major antagonists and even a few of the minor ones have interesting roles to play in the story, complex motivations that intertwine and often clash, and wonderfully interact with both the thematic material and the main characters. Again, I won’t go into spoiler territory, but there is one character I will talk about quite a bit.

Rex is a fantastic main character. Sure, he may look like a dorky kid with a stupid outfit and subpar voice acting, but give him a chance and you’ll know why this kid made himself the Aegis’ Driver. Even in a world brought to the brink of destruction, suffering from the mistakes of its people, he keeps smiling. He helps everyone he can, tries to understand even the worst of humanity, and fights for its best. It’s amazing how profoundly Rex impacts the people and places around him just by being the good person he is. Not just Pyra and Mythra, but the other party members, the villains, and all the people you meet along the way. As amazing a portrayal as Future Redeemed gave Rex, it could only do so thanks to Xenoblade 2’s rock-solid foundation. And all this came from a humble salvager with a big heart.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will always be a special game to me. It came into my life at an important time and helped my broaden my horizons for what games were capable of. But even considering that, I think it’s a masterwork of game design and storytelling, and my appreciation for it only grows with each passing day. I know it’s not for everyone, but please, give this game a chance if you haven’t already. Don’t dismiss it because a YouTube comedy video made it look bad. I’m sure you’ll find something to love.

Xenoblade is not a saga for everyone and I think you have to have time and desire to play it.

It is an rpg that can be heavy in many aspects, but with an unforgettable story and well carried.

The combat system is something that does not attract attention at first, it is semi-automatic. The automatic attacks are done alone, and you have to place yourself in the correct position to use the skills of the controlled character. In this game, it has the particularity of the elements that you will have to be aware of to know what to attack the enemy with and make combos.

The biggest flaw of this installment would be the gacha they have put in it. Other than that, the combat system seems to me the best of the three in the series, and an unforgettable cast.

I recommend it if you like good stories, it will not leave you indifferent.

Xenoblade no es una saga para todo el mundo y creo que hay que tener tiempo y ganas para jugarlo.

Es un rpg que se te puede hacer pesado en muchos aspectos, pero con una historia inolvidable y bien llevada.

El sistema de combate es algo que no llama la atención en un primer momento, es semiautomático. Los ataques automáticos se hacen solo, y tienes tú que colocarte en la posición correcta para usar las habilidades del personaje controlado. En este juego, tiene la particularidad de los elementos que tendrás que estar pendiente para saber con qué atacar al enemigo y hacer combos.

El mayor defecto de esta entrega sería el gacha que le han metido. Fuera de eso, el sistema de combate me parece el mejor de los tres de la serie, y un elenco inolvidable.

Lo recomiendo si os gustan las buenas historias, no os va a dejar indiferente.

To preface this, I am not one of those people who hates this game because of the fanservice. In fact, that is actually one of the few things I like. That said, I do think the fanservice does take away from the story they are trying to tell.
Aside from the soundtrack there is little here that I do not hate.
The combat system is tedious, slow, and painful to engage with. The world exploration is fine but made tedious by the collection point system, which like many things is explained only slightly. The plot to this game is, in concept, quite good, but is held back by its protagonist. For the story it is trying to tell, Rex is at his best only a mediocre fit for the role. He has no growth, he has no sense, and his character moments do not sell the game on his realism as a character. Several character moments happen without the proper setup and then are gone the next minute. Possibly the worst aspect of this game is that Rex has literally negative chemistry with either of the two female leads.
It is difficult to believe that the Rex in Xenoblade 3 is the same person as the Rex in this game. Possibly the worst protagonist in a JRPG I've ever played.

Has the reverse problems of the first game. Gameplay is much improved over xenoblade 1, but a majority of the cast and the story just falls so flat that this only barely squeezes into a 3.5/5. I also just do not care for the gratuitous fanservice (especially of characters that are supposed to be children!!) and just how generally horny this game is. Many of the blades were more often annoying than charming as well, and wow do some of their designs suck (I'm looking at you Dahlia). Combat is solid but still has some jank to it, mainly the many moments of dead time before you get your builds going where you just stand around waiting for an animation to finish.

I've written entire rants about the story and its flaws to my friends (spoiler: it is not that it is slow-paced, I didn't mind that) but to shorten it as much as I can my main issue is how much of the final 10 hours and the climax of the story rely on caring about the villains and caring about pyra/mythra, and I just had neither experience. I think the idea of having 'reluctant' villains (e.g. Malos, who is basically being mind-controlled, and Jin) is interesting, but it makes it so that you spend the last ten-fifteen hours chasing people who you know are probably going to switch sides anyways, or in the case of Malos, are just being mind-controlled by the Praetor because Malos is not allowed to be an individual. It is thematically interesting, but narratively unsatisfying. We needed a more direct, consistent and personal threat akin to Metalface to patch up this hole because now it felt like I played 50+ hours just to see Malos do exactly what the Praetor wanted anyways. Speaking of the praetor, what a wasted character. He is all vague and mysterious the whole game, then shows up for the climax to become a squid monster and then dies. It just was not satisfying. As far as Pyra/Mythra are concerned, the main driving force behind the plot, who cares man. Pyra says basically nothing of note or value for 30+ hours, and by that point its far too late for me to start caring, and Mythra is fun but gets far too less screentime in comparison to Pyra. Mainly it just feels like these characters are here as bait for horny people, and I audibly groaned every time the camera angled itself to get a better look at their chest or butt.

Some stuff I really liked: Nia, Vandham, Morag and Zeke are fantastic, worldbuilding is great and the game looks beautiful, and there's like one major scene with Nia near the end that I adore. Also I like the cutscenes in which Rex uses Vandham's weapons its so baller and it just activates the neurons in my brain.

It's a testament to how much I enjoyed the music, environments and various elements of the games writing (story, world building and some the characters) that I even bothered to finish this despite chipping away at it for years.

I just found the act of playing it to be repeatedly off putting. Mainly due to the glut of systems that I feel the game does a poor job of explaining to the player or encouraging the use of. That's not even touching on the idea of a gacha system being tied to such a key element of the game's RPG systems and progression.

There's absolutely a lot of interesting systems at play here, particularly in the combat, but the game goes out of it's way to muddy any chance of those system's actually getting a chance to shine. Which is a shame, because I feel like if the UI easier to navigate and more legible and some of the systems were more cleanly explained with stronger onboarding that explained the value of engaging with them, then this would've been an incredible RPG. As it stands though it just feels like a game crumbling under the weight of it's own gameplay ambitions and ideas.

And yet despite all those frustrations, the narrative and elements of the presentation really compelled me to stick with it and finish. There's a lot of really great work done here that makes the game a lot more unique and memorable than it's predecessor. It's just a shame that it felt like the game didn't want me to actually experience that most of the time.

this game was a super mixed bag for me.

things i enjoyed;
the characters and overall plot. i definitely would say i prefer the first xenoblade game to this one, but this one had neat concepts and ideas that i found myself thinking about and sharing with my friends even when i wasn't playing. i think the worldbuilding around titans and blades is really cool, and i love the directions this game goes with it. i can understand other peoples problems with rex, and i do think there are times where his dynamic with pyra is written in... strange ways, but for the most part i think they're both very sweet characters that have a cute dynamic. in fact i like the entire main party's dynamic with each other, a lot. each of them stand out in their own ways for me. the villains also delight me, and i loved the turns the last couple of chapters took.

things i did not like;
there are a couple locations in this game where i really did not enjoy exploring them, mainly the factory. the map is not always helpful because while the planes you explore are multilayered, the map is not, which can make exploration confusing.

the gacha system was starting to frustrate me late game. i pulled no less than 150 crystals in a week and still finished the game without a non-story required blade on the 4th party member. admittedly with this particular character, they function fine just with their starting blade and even benefit from just that blade equipped, but it was nonetheless frustrating in terms of gacha rates. this may have just been my awful luck, i'm not sure, but it definitely had me irritated with that aspect.

the combat in this game was not my thing, personally. i found it slower yet more complicated than the combat from xenoblade 1, so it felt like a downgrade on that regard. once i learned some of the tricks from online information, it sped up, but the in-game tutorials are not well worded which does not help in combat being a slog sometimes because the game itself will not be where you get the needed information to speed it up.

in terms of plot and character, i had one major gripe; there is a love confession late game that i found very sudden, out of place, and out of character- it felt like the character doing it had been written with care up until that very moment, where they were handed to someone else who said "you haven't made them fanservicey enough" and wrote that confession in. what i'm about to add is definitely me projecting as well, but as someone who is lgbt, other aspects of what the character was saying and experiencing in that scene (and even one way earlier in the game) felt adjacent to coming out of the closet, so having a heterosexual love confession during this added to me finding it strange.

also, yeah, the fanservice. i'm not someone inherently bothered by this, but the way it's presented in this game, it genuinely can take you out of the plot sometimes.

okay. so i didn't realize how many complaints i had with this game. i'd like to be clear i am still leaving with an overall positive opinion of this game, but that's because i personally value story more than gameplay, and the story of this game was fantastic. i think if you're like me in that sense, and don't want to slog through the gameplay issues i've mentioned here, you might have just as good if not better of a time watching a compilation of the cutscenes from this game on youtube. it'll take you way less time and cost less. you'd be missing side quest plots and non-required blade specific side plots, but i had such bad luck with blade pulls playing it myself, i can't really say you'll get to see all of those anyway. if you want to experience a great and large scale story with fun characters for yourself and don't mind gameplay problems, i'd definitely say check it out for yourself.