Videogame Review: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (at 40 hours of Gameplay)
I bought Xenoblade Chronicles 2 after I played Zelda: Breath of the Wild twice after completing everything in the game, including the DLC’s.
I truly wanted a PS4, but since my husband has one and promised to give it to me when he bought the new Play Station, I decided to wait. He, instead, got an X-Box and now I have to wait a while until the new Play Station comes home. While I wait, I bought Xenoblade.
After having played it for about 40 hours, these are my thoughts.
What I like
Xenoblade is an RPG and it plays very similiar to a Final Fantasy ( a popular RPG from which I have played I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and X).
Characters –
You can have up to three characters in your party at a time and you have to build them up by fighting monsters and getting a variety of experience points. Some experience points help with your level, some with your abilities and some with your arts (which are like limit breaks).
You have what is called a “Blade” in this game, which is like a robot or creature that is your source of power. The main character is Rex and his main blade is Pyra. Although you can get more blades throughout the game and equip as much as three at a time.
Every now and then you need to check how your status is going and if you can upgrade one of many things to be upgraded. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy this part. Like you do in the Final Fantasy series, you must search and destroy monsters to get your characters to the next level if you want to play without dying all the time.
Monsters –
The monsters in Xenoblade aren’t hiding. You can walk right past them and sometimes, if they don’t care or they don’t see you, you don’t have to fight them. A wild beast may attack if you walk too close and it notices you, but a horse-like monster (animal) grazing in the field couldn’t care less, unless you attack them. You can choose to attack any monster at any time. Keep in mind if there are other monsters near, they will come join their friends in their fight against you. Some monsters are manageable if you fight them in isolation, others you and your party can handle in groups.
All monsters have a level. You can see their level floating on top of them. You know your level by going into the menu (it won’t float on top of you), so as you walk around you can decide if you should fight a monster or not. For example, if you are a level 30 and the monster is level 90, then it’s going to kill you in one strike. Don’t get near it. You could probably handle a level 31 or 32 and you can definitely handle levels 30 and below.
Gameplay –
Once you engage in battle, it all becomes very confusing, but it’s still easy to handle. You have a blade. Your two party members both have a blade. That makes for 6 people fighting with you at the same time (plus the monster(s)). They all attack whenever they feel like it. You can control who they fight, more or less, but now how they fight (except for their limit brakes, which are called arts). Your own character (Rex), also fights on his own. All you do is move him around. If Rex is walking, he won’t attack and sometimes you will need to walk to get a potion or a coin, leaving the rest of your party to fight. Each of your blades gets four special attacks, each time you attack normally (which is Rex’s default action in a fight), you will fill up a gauge. Every time you use a special skill, you will fill up your blade’s attack (which has levels, too). You should use them as much as you can. When you also have other blades, there is an icon that tells you their special attacks are ready. This is a good time to use your other blades.
Eventually you get the ability to use a chain attack. This is a different gauge that fills up at the top of the screen that is filled by all of the characters as they attack. Use this one as much as you can, too.
Once you are in a fight, if there is more than one monsters, you can’t escape until you kill all monsters attacking you. You can run away at any time as long as the monsters doesn’t follow you and you get out of sight. Then the fight will be over. If not, then it goes on forever not letting you do much else.
Sidequests –
I like and not like the sidequests. What I like is that you can get a pointer telling you where to go next. Not all have them. Some require you to buy things and I never know what I’m supposed to be getting. Most sidequests I have been completing by looking at walkthroughs. Not all, but some.
Map –
At first I hated the map, but as I am starting to understand it better, I like it more. It took me a while to realize that there was always a mark on the map telling you where to go next. Before I found this out, I would get frustrated not knowing where to go (There is a pointer that tells you how many steps away from your destination you are, but if you are in the wrong part of the map, it will tell you thousands of steps). Once I understood the map, everything became easier! I also like the fact you can move around the map at all times, freely. You can visit places as many times as you want, whenever you want. I like this freedom.
Merc Jobs –
As the story progresses you can send some blade to do jobs for you. I actually enjoy this part of the game. As long as the game is on, the blades leave you for about 30 minutes to an hour to do something for you. They come back with prizes sometimes but they always come back with experience. It’s a great way to level up the blades. Unfortunately, if the blades aren’t assigned to your characters they don’t get the experience points they need to increase the level of the art attacks. You can’t have it all.
What I don’t like
There are many things I don’t enjoy about this game, here are a few of them.
Story –
The story is not great. I am not huge on stories, either. I care more about playing than watching a movie clip of what is going on. This game has A LOT of movie playing time. At some point, I counted 12 consecutive minutes of story. They would not let me play for 12 minutes! That’s ridiculous, in my opinion.
Abilities –
This game uses blades. You have to upgrade your characters and your blades. In order to open some treasure chests or open roads, your blades need to have certain abilities, which have ranks. So, if your character has Wisdom level 2 and the chest opens with Wisdom level 3, then you can’t open the chest or open the door or whatever you want to do. This becomes annoying. There are several ways to increase your blades’ abilities. The most important one is you gotta fight monsters. Monsters give you different kinds of experience, one is points to unlock ability levels. Once you have unlocked them, then you have to earn them. Some are earned by fighting more monsters, but others are earned by doing specific tasks, like killing x number of some specific monster, putting some specific item in your pouch or talking to certain characters. Again, annoying.
Map –
I talked about the map as something I liked, but it’s still not all that great. It’s hard to read and sometimes, you think the road is straight forward, but it isn’t. You may have to go around to find something, climb a ladder or jump on ceilings. It can get a little frustrating at times.
Sidequests –
I also talked about sidequests as something I liked, but not all of the time. Sometimes you have to find people you don’t know where they are. Or find a fertilizer with no name only to find it can be any. Sometimes the money you get by fighting monsters is just not enough to buy everything there is for sale!
Confusion –
Then there is the general confusion I have with this game. I don’t understand what a core is or how some things work. It’s confusing. Some things I just google and try to find out through other people that, honestly, I have no idea how they figured it out. I guess I’m just not that smart or not that saavy a gamer. It’s ok, as long as someone found out for me, I’ll be all right. Still, it’d be nice if I could just figure it out on my own… then I guess it would be too easy for some people. Can’t please everybody.
cheers!
