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.
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.