Review #614: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

 Feels like it's been ages... but it's Rex time now!

 Xenoblade Chronicles was one of the Wii's swansongs in America, a belated game from Japan that we got thanks to the Rainfall operation, a movement I partook in myself. And it was worth it. It was so popular that it got an spiritual sequel in the form of Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii-U. And now, we've got Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a more direct sequel to the first game. MMORPG-styles combat mechanics, huge expanses of lands to traverse... it's all here, and in HD.

 The world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is quite original: Huge beings, Titans, live over the Sea of Clouds, a quite literal sea of clouds, living in a symbiotic relationship with humans that live on top of them. Every Titan is a country of its own, although smaller Titans are employed as ships too. There's a third type of being, not counting monsters, Blades, beings, most of them human-like(and most of them waifu-like....) that come out of 'Core Crystals' and are bound to whichever human opened it. Yeah, Blades are anime as hell. In this world, Rex, the main character, is a Salvager, someone who dives into the Sea of Clouds for treasure and scavenge, just your every-day average joe, until he gets a job to aid a few nasty-looking people in finding some treasure. This treasure being the Aegis, a super-powerful Blade. Pyra, the Aegis, bonds with Rex and both set out to find Elysium and save humanity, along the way joining up with other colorful characters that want to help. The story is quite decent, albeit nothing to write home about since it uses too many anime tropes, but Monolith-soft have always been great at crafting beautiful fighting choreography for their cutscenes, and this game might have some of the best they've ever made. On the other hand, character designs are... a bit bleh. They went far too anime so a few characters, like Pyra, look completely stupid because their designs are all about fanservice. Rex looks stupid too. Among Blades, they had popular Japanese artists design one each, so expect to see some jarring artstyle clashes, heck, Tetsuya Nomura designed Jin, one of the villains, and he looks nothing like the generic anime designs the heroes have.

 One big issue with the presentation is the awful voice acting. It's really, really bad.... at least for the first 10 or so hours. Then I realized something: The Scottish accents all characters have is gorgeous, and the voice actors know how to emote, the problem being that they weren't given proper directions. Couple this with the fact that the audio isn't lip-synched, so it feels like the voices aren't coming from their mouths. On the other hand, the graphics are drop-dead gorgeous, this game is full of scenery porn waiting to be explored. And there's a lot of exploration, the game is MASSIVE, environments and towns are huge, it might take you over 10 hours to fully explore a single titan, if you are thorough. There are a lot of sidequests to go through too, so your work is cut-out for you. Beating the game took me nearly 100 hours, and I did as many sidequests as I could.

 Just like Xenoblade Chronicles before it, Xenoblade 2 is a JRPG that borrows a lot from MMORPGs. You can take up to three different characters with you, you'll directly control the party leader while the CPU controls the two other members. Going over every single mechanic in the game would be an endless endeavor, so I'll cover the basics. Combat takes place in real time, just like an MMORPG, and once you engage an enemy all three characters will auto-attack the targeted enemy. You can move your character around, to reposition him or her, or cast 'Driver Arts'. Each character can be equipped with up to three different Blades, which you can swap mid combat, and each Blade can have a different weapon, depending on the weapon and your player character will give you different Driver Arts. There are four driver arts for each weapon, but you can only equip three, so you'll want a good balance of damage and utility.

 There's no mana, only cooldowns: Auto attacks recharge the cooldown on your driver arts and driver arts charge up your super moves. Super Moves have different elements, depending on the equipped blade, and you can chain them together for even MORE damage. When a link is possible, you can press ZL or ZR to instruct your teammates to use their super moves, if its charged. Combat is fun, and it has a few neat nuances: You can cancel an auto-attack by using a Driver Art the moment it hits, for bonus damage, faster execution and an extra charge on your super move gauge, and you can cancel Driver Arts with Super moves. If you unlock the right mastery you can even cancel Driver Arts with other Driver arts. That said, it suffers from the SAME problem Xenoblade 1 had... battles take too long. Even an enemy 10 levels below you might take you over a minute to take down, and it's not even a hard battle, just that they soak up damage like there's no tomorrow. It might be an incentive as not to overlevel, but a few enemies can call upon other enemies making it a bit tough to avoid.

 Regardless, grinding is a bit important, as taking down an enemy a few levels above you might be nigh murder, particularly early on in the game before you had the time to upgrade your stats. It's funny since enemies with a higher level than you will target you as soon as you come in front of them. Just as with an MMORPG, there are high-level bastards roaming the lands, and if you come near them they will make a bee-line towards you and murder you in one or two hits, making exploration a hassle. Dying has no penalty, thankfully, you're simply sent back to the last checkpoint you hit. A patch released later allows you to turn down enemy aggressiveness, so you might look into that. I decided to go for the purer experience and dealt with it, sneaking when necessary. If you're anything like me, be ready to have higher-level enemies just join in on your fights, to help their buddies.

 There are no armors are weapons, but there is character customization. Firstly, you can buy or find Chips which you can spend on a Blade to upgrade their weapon. These chips may add passive abilities depending on the Blade, for instance, the Pentagon Chip makes Dromarch's Arts heal for more, but if equipped on another blade, like Pyra, it does nothing besides alter the attack power. Each Blade can equip a different number of accessories, for passive abilities, and each Driver can equip up to two accessories for boosts or buffs, such as recovering health every time you cancel an auto attack. Lastly, both Drivers and Blades have 'Affinity Charts' that work in different ways. For Blades you have to fulfill certain conditions in order to fill the Affinity Chart and earn its bonuses. For Drivers, well, defeating enemy grants you Experience Points, WP and SP. Experience points are self explanatory, WP are used to strengthen your Driver Arts and SP is used to unlock bonuses in their Affinity Charts. Bonuses can be anything from bonus HP to letting you cancel Driver Arts with other Driver Arts. Affinity Charts sound great on paper, but they are very small. Plus, earning WP and SP takes a long, LONG time, so be ready to grind a lot.

 Besides being your weapons, Blades have a secondary characteristic: Field abilities, abilities required to explore. Field abilities are the worst part about the game because they are mandatory to finish the game and complete a few quests. For instance, you might come across an updraft, but to use it you need 'Wind Mastery Lv 4" and "Leaping Lv3". This means that you need to get Wind Mastery Level 4 and Leaping level 3 with your equipped blades. Yes, even if you have the requirements they don't count unless the blades are equipped. This is particularly annoying because the game also wants you to send your Blade on 'Merc Missions', during which time they are unavailable for use. It's incredibly annoying to come across a literal road block because you don't have the necessary level or amount of blades to clear the threshold, or be forced to call back your blade from the Merc Mission, those ridding you of your XP rewards.

 I've talked about Blades a lot, but how do you get them? Lootboxes. Ingame lootboxes. They are an entire world of their own, so I'll probably forget a few things, but I'll do my best. As you play through the game you'll come across Common Crystal Cores, Rare Crystal Cores and Legendary Crystal Cores. Which blade you get is entirely random. While you get a ton of Rare Blades at first, eventually it'll come to a point where you'll be swimming in trash Blades. Rare Blades are the Blades designed by popular Japanese authors, and THESE are the ones you want: They have exclusive, necessary Field Skills, they have a larger Affinity Chart and thus are WAY stronger than the other Blades and, thirdly, you can only complete their Affinity Chart by fulfilling secret conditions. The last part is a bit of an annoyance, but you can go online and figure out the conditions. I recommend you do.

 Unlocking new Blades sounds kinda fun, but there are a few caveats, for instance, you need a Driver to open Crystal Cores, and then the Blade gets locked on them. It sucks, since you might get one of the epic Healer Blades, which work great with Nia, on your DPS character. You might get Agate, one of the best DPS Blades on your Tank. There are a few 'Overdrives' that let you swap Blades between drivers, but they are extremely rare. If you have the DLC you get a few freebies, which kinda sucks, but then again, I bought the physical release of Torna so I had said DLC. All in all, the Blade system is decent, but it could be better: Let players switch Blades freely between Drivers and don't have the dumb secret conditions for their Affinity Charts.

 Playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a massive undertaking. The game's world is enormous, there are a ton of sidequests to complete, a ton of Blades to find and a ton of optional superbosses to find. Even if you decide to focus strictly on the main storyline it'll take you a while before you're done with it. The story is not as philosophical or as interesting as the one in the first Xenoblade game, but if you like anime and their recycled tropes you'll probably enjoy it more. I had fun all the way throughout, even if I grew a bit bored with the combat once I hit the 80 hour mark, it didn't stop me from finishing the game. That said, once you're done with Xenoblade 2 you'll probably want a palate cleanser or two.
 8.0 out of 10