Xenoblade 2 is a flawed game, but one that i was able to push through and enjoy nonetheless. While i was playing the first half of the game, i almost considered giving it up, but i was told to push through because the game "got good" 30 hours in, and while i don't think that is exactly true, i did enjoy the game more towards the end. As for why i felt that way, ill start off by explaining the bad, and then why it becomes more tolerable as the game progresses.
Starting off, Xenoblade 2 has one of the most over complicated convoluted battle systems out of any JRPG i have ever played, and its accompanied by one of the worst tutorials in any game i have ever played. The tutorials consist of walls of text that somehow either tell you absolutely nothing important, or blatantly lies to you and gives you very poorly worded descriptions of how the games systems work, also you will still be getting tutorials 16 hours into the game, meaning you cant fully use the games combat system until that point, which sucks.
Regarding the combat systems, there are about 6 too many. every character in your party has their own skill tree, their own up-gradable arts that don't upgrade for levelling up for some reason, their own accessories, and their own consumable food slot. now imagine trying to balance all those when the game essentially tells you nothing important about them.
In terms of side quests, I've always found the side quests in the xenoblade games to be some of the most boring, tedious, and repetitive tasks in any game, but the difference between xenoblade 1's quests and 2's quests is 2 actually forces you to do some of them to progress, which is very very boring and feels like filler to the main game. The game also does a terrible job of explaining what to do for these quests. there are what feels like hundreds of in game items, and often the game will tell you "go get fifteen shartbeetles to save Blargo's birthday party" and then elaborate no further and give you no direction on what you need to find. Even when the game does tell you where to go, the in game compass is terrible and barely accounts for vertical movement, which is a problem when almost every map is extremely vertical in design (this is a problem with the main story too).
Now by far the biggest problem with Xenoblade 2 is the field skills. There is no positive aspect to these and no improvement as the game progresses. essentially, as part of the previously mentioned over complicated systems, there is something called the blade affinity chart that each weapon you use has. its basically a unique skill tree for each weapon, except part of the skill tree does absolutely nothing at all for the main purpose of the weapon; combat. Instead the game uses this part of the skill tree called "field skills" to randomly block your progression for no reason to force you to do boring side quests to up your blades affinity so you can go back to the obstacle that blocked your progression and tap a once to remove it. For example the game might present you with a boulder and tell you that your blade needs earth mastery 3 to remove it and continue with the main story. So what happens if you don't have earth mastery 3? You now need to go and grind for 5 hours with an earth weapon doing the most boring stuff imaginable to you can move past the completely pointless obstacle that blocked your way. Another problem with this is the way in which you unlock different weapons almost feels like a mobile gacha game system. So you may not even have a blade that can use earth mastery, which means spamming a loot crate like resource called core crystals and hoping that the game randomly gives you the correct blade that you literately need to progress the story. field skills are genuinely one of the worst aspects to any game i have ever played and they single handedly bring down this game so much its insane, and i have no idea why the developers ever thought they were a good idea.
Now here is why i think this game still was enjoyable and did get better the more i played. While its true that the combat system is way too convoluted and poorly explained, and there is no changing that, with enough google searches and random experimentation, it is possible to wrap your head around it. Once you do finally understand it, you can do some pretty crazy stuff. That is all I'm gonna say about that because if i even tried to explain it this review would be 50 pages long.
The story in this game is pretty boring for the first half or so, and the characters for the most part feel very unrealistic and one note. they never feel like real people when they are talking about their goals and aspirations. it sometimes feels like watching a really cheap anime or one meant for very young kids like beyblade or pokemon. The character writing never really does get better for most of the story aside from a few characters that are interesting that are introduced. What saves the game is that the actual concept of the story is super cool, and the world building is incredible, and near the end of the game you start to get way more cool world building moments and hints to the overall lore of the game than you do poorly written character moments.
That essentially wraps up my thoughts on this game, but i have a few final notes ill share here:
- The music for this game is absolutely amazing
- The connections to the first games story are super cool
- Field skills REALLY SUCK and never get better at all, like they are actually so bad its insane.
- The maps and environments are super cool to explore despite the terrible compass.
One final issue i feel it would be wrong not to mention is its particularly poor treatment of its female characters. The game is filled with little sexist stereotypes, and in typical crappy anime fashion, thinks jokes bordering on SA are very funny and plays it off in the worst way possible. Thankfully jokes like that are few and far between in the game and i was able not to look past them, but to enjoy the game despite them, but it would be understandable if not everyone could. this game also has some pretty bad cases of bikini armour, while the male characters are all allowed to wear actual armour. all this is particularly surprising considering how unlike the first game it is.
This game is far from perfect and frustratingly bad in some ways. it feels almost as if a conscious choice was made that they had to keep the game from getting too good. But the game does have its moments, and honestly i might even play it again some day.
Starting off, Xenoblade 2 has one of the most over complicated convoluted battle systems out of any JRPG i have ever played, and its accompanied by one of the worst tutorials in any game i have ever played. The tutorials consist of walls of text that somehow either tell you absolutely nothing important, or blatantly lies to you and gives you very poorly worded descriptions of how the games systems work, also you will still be getting tutorials 16 hours into the game, meaning you cant fully use the games combat system until that point, which sucks.
Regarding the combat systems, there are about 6 too many. every character in your party has their own skill tree, their own up-gradable arts that don't upgrade for levelling up for some reason, their own accessories, and their own consumable food slot. now imagine trying to balance all those when the game essentially tells you nothing important about them.
In terms of side quests, I've always found the side quests in the xenoblade games to be some of the most boring, tedious, and repetitive tasks in any game, but the difference between xenoblade 1's quests and 2's quests is 2 actually forces you to do some of them to progress, which is very very boring and feels like filler to the main game. The game also does a terrible job of explaining what to do for these quests. there are what feels like hundreds of in game items, and often the game will tell you "go get fifteen shartbeetles to save Blargo's birthday party" and then elaborate no further and give you no direction on what you need to find. Even when the game does tell you where to go, the in game compass is terrible and barely accounts for vertical movement, which is a problem when almost every map is extremely vertical in design (this is a problem with the main story too).
Now by far the biggest problem with Xenoblade 2 is the field skills. There is no positive aspect to these and no improvement as the game progresses. essentially, as part of the previously mentioned over complicated systems, there is something called the blade affinity chart that each weapon you use has. its basically a unique skill tree for each weapon, except part of the skill tree does absolutely nothing at all for the main purpose of the weapon; combat. Instead the game uses this part of the skill tree called "field skills" to randomly block your progression for no reason to force you to do boring side quests to up your blades affinity so you can go back to the obstacle that blocked your progression and tap a once to remove it. For example the game might present you with a boulder and tell you that your blade needs earth mastery 3 to remove it and continue with the main story. So what happens if you don't have earth mastery 3? You now need to go and grind for 5 hours with an earth weapon doing the most boring stuff imaginable to you can move past the completely pointless obstacle that blocked your way. Another problem with this is the way in which you unlock different weapons almost feels like a mobile gacha game system. So you may not even have a blade that can use earth mastery, which means spamming a loot crate like resource called core crystals and hoping that the game randomly gives you the correct blade that you literately need to progress the story. field skills are genuinely one of the worst aspects to any game i have ever played and they single handedly bring down this game so much its insane, and i have no idea why the developers ever thought they were a good idea.
Now here is why i think this game still was enjoyable and did get better the more i played. While its true that the combat system is way too convoluted and poorly explained, and there is no changing that, with enough google searches and random experimentation, it is possible to wrap your head around it. Once you do finally understand it, you can do some pretty crazy stuff. That is all I'm gonna say about that because if i even tried to explain it this review would be 50 pages long.
The story in this game is pretty boring for the first half or so, and the characters for the most part feel very unrealistic and one note. they never feel like real people when they are talking about their goals and aspirations. it sometimes feels like watching a really cheap anime or one meant for very young kids like beyblade or pokemon. The character writing never really does get better for most of the story aside from a few characters that are interesting that are introduced. What saves the game is that the actual concept of the story is super cool, and the world building is incredible, and near the end of the game you start to get way more cool world building moments and hints to the overall lore of the game than you do poorly written character moments.
That essentially wraps up my thoughts on this game, but i have a few final notes ill share here:
- The music for this game is absolutely amazing
- The connections to the first games story are super cool
- Field skills REALLY SUCK and never get better at all, like they are actually so bad its insane.
- The maps and environments are super cool to explore despite the terrible compass.
One final issue i feel it would be wrong not to mention is its particularly poor treatment of its female characters. The game is filled with little sexist stereotypes, and in typical crappy anime fashion, thinks jokes bordering on SA are very funny and plays it off in the worst way possible. Thankfully jokes like that are few and far between in the game and i was able not to look past them, but to enjoy the game despite them, but it would be understandable if not everyone could. this game also has some pretty bad cases of bikini armour, while the male characters are all allowed to wear actual armour. all this is particularly surprising considering how unlike the first game it is.
This game is far from perfect and frustratingly bad in some ways. it feels almost as if a conscious choice was made that they had to keep the game from getting too good. But the game does have its moments, and honestly i might even play it again some day.