I played Torna without playing Xenoblade 2, although I was somewhat familiar with some parts of the story. I don't particularly want to play Xenoblade 2 but Torna was absolutely worth going through instead as a prequel.
This game very well might have my single favorite JRPG combat system every. It's complex but in a way that makes sense, satisfying and most important extremely fun. Chain attacks and critical Elemental Routes combined with Driver combos are so addicting to get good at once you get a good setup, and I'm honestly impressed at how well SO many different things work together. The main thing holding the combat back is honestly just the Switch itself, there is so much going on at once that during some fights it can slow down to the point of causing you to mess up inputs or just not be able to differentiate between you, the enemies, or your allies. This is not Monolith's fault at all but just another example of how much Xenoblade as a series is held back by the Nintendo consoles that it must be on. Even then, I truly need to express just how good this combat system, easily one of the most fun and most well-designed I've ever seen.
The characters in Torna are fantastic, each and every one of them, even Mythra, who I had a pretty negative perception of going in, which was ultimately redeemed and then some by the end. Lora is a wonderful, extremely likeable protagonist with a unique design that I will miss. Sometimes JRPGs with a lot of party members can struggle to find relevance for each and every one of them, and while this is kind of the case for a couple of the blades, they generally all had a meaningful position in the plot outside of just interjecting themselves at different moments. The connection between Jin and Lora was portrayed beautifully and made for a heartbreaking realization at the end. I was very moved by the story even though there were a lot of details from the original game that I was not aware of.
The core issue of Torna that many have already pointed it is certainly the over-reliance on sidequests to artificially lengthen the game. Most of the sidequests are pretty forgettable, although a couple have some interesting dialogue and interactions, but for the most part it was a bit too much to be forced to go to Community level 4. I honestly didn't mind it for awhile because of how much I was enjoying understanding the combat more and getting better and better, but near the end I was certainly just wanting to move on, I felt a bit disconnected from the story because of how much it ended up making me do unrelated to it. I don't think this is TOO big of an issue just because it honestly didn't bother me until the last like, four or five that I needed to complete but in retrospect it does make the narrative parts of the game seem a bit sparse.
Torna is a fantastic expansion with phenomenal combat that is only held back by the hardware it is on. I hope that Xenoblade in the future goes off of these mechanics in a full length game, as they are incomparably fun to any other JRPGs I have played.
8.5/10
This game very well might have my single favorite JRPG combat system every. It's complex but in a way that makes sense, satisfying and most important extremely fun. Chain attacks and critical Elemental Routes combined with Driver combos are so addicting to get good at once you get a good setup, and I'm honestly impressed at how well SO many different things work together. The main thing holding the combat back is honestly just the Switch itself, there is so much going on at once that during some fights it can slow down to the point of causing you to mess up inputs or just not be able to differentiate between you, the enemies, or your allies. This is not Monolith's fault at all but just another example of how much Xenoblade as a series is held back by the Nintendo consoles that it must be on. Even then, I truly need to express just how good this combat system, easily one of the most fun and most well-designed I've ever seen.
The characters in Torna are fantastic, each and every one of them, even Mythra, who I had a pretty negative perception of going in, which was ultimately redeemed and then some by the end. Lora is a wonderful, extremely likeable protagonist with a unique design that I will miss. Sometimes JRPGs with a lot of party members can struggle to find relevance for each and every one of them, and while this is kind of the case for a couple of the blades, they generally all had a meaningful position in the plot outside of just interjecting themselves at different moments. The connection between Jin and Lora was portrayed beautifully and made for a heartbreaking realization at the end. I was very moved by the story even though there were a lot of details from the original game that I was not aware of.
The core issue of Torna that many have already pointed it is certainly the over-reliance on sidequests to artificially lengthen the game. Most of the sidequests are pretty forgettable, although a couple have some interesting dialogue and interactions, but for the most part it was a bit too much to be forced to go to Community level 4. I honestly didn't mind it for awhile because of how much I was enjoying understanding the combat more and getting better and better, but near the end I was certainly just wanting to move on, I felt a bit disconnected from the story because of how much it ended up making me do unrelated to it. I don't think this is TOO big of an issue just because it honestly didn't bother me until the last like, four or five that I needed to complete but in retrospect it does make the narrative parts of the game seem a bit sparse.
Torna is a fantastic expansion with phenomenal combat that is only held back by the hardware it is on. I hope that Xenoblade in the future goes off of these mechanics in a full length game, as they are incomparably fun to any other JRPGs I have played.
8.5/10