Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Review

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I feel like a bit of a Xenoblade Chronicles apologist in that I’ve liked all of the games so far even when a lot of friends and family haven’t been able to get into them. The thing about these games—and XC2 in particular—is that you gotta get past the opening fluff before it really grabs you. In the case of XC2, that doesn’t happen until about 10+ hours into the game, which seems like a rather tall order to ask of someone. Unfortunately, the story is pretty dumb… and only gets dumber as the game progresses. I ended up skipping, like, 80% of all cutscenes. It was your typical JRPG melodrama with cringe-worthy, anime-style “humor,” and I just didn’t have the patience for it.

When it comes to Xenoblade Chronicles, though, I’m in it more for the combat and exploration over anything else. And once the game opens up and lets you start exploring, it really is awesome. There are so many different lands to visit, so many different towns to shop in, and so many different quests to complete. Yeah, a lot of the side quests boil down to “find this, kill that,” but many other quests tie into the unique personalities and abilities of the secondary Blade characters. I’ve ignored the main story for hours at a time as I chased down side quest requirements just to make my party’s Blades more powerful.

The Blade system is an interesting mechanic that’s both fun and annoying. Most Blade characters are summoned from “core crystals,” and it’s pure random luck which one you’re gonna get. For the longest time, my healer character was stuck with tank Blades, and my tank character had all of the low block-rate Blades. But with so many Blades and options, it does keep the battles from getting stale. You can always switch up people’s roles if you get bored and experiment with different moves, weapons, and elemental specials. I’ve always liked the XC battle system, and XC2 is no slouch. It’s a bit complicated, sure, but once you find the rhythm, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, even 60 hours in.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.