Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - First Impressions

IT’S TIME. THE RETURN.

What’s up people, it’s been a hot minute since I posted anything, but here we are. Couldn’t go without wishing you all some happy holidays. But enough of this.

XC2 released quite a while ago, but unfortunately I missed its initial release because I was busy (with other games). Now that I’m through with those and the holiday season is upon us, I was able to pick up the game yesterday, and not going to lie it’s been a great time with it.

I’ve only had about 3 hours with it, which while it sounds like a lot (longer than Sonic Forces lol), it’s barely scratching the surface with how long this type of game experience lasts. And so I definitely wanted to share my fresh first impressions. Let’s just hop right into it.

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THE STORY

And so let’s begin with the story. Again, I’m only about 3 hours, but that has been plenty enough for me to witness the setup and the ambition of what the story is building itself up to be. It begins with Rex, not your typical scavenger, who takes up a well-paid job from the chairman of a large commerce group.

We then are introduced to a group of Drivers, warriors, and their Blades, who act as a weapon or of sorts: Malos, Jin, and Nia. These Drivers are to help you with your job, and so you all embark on the mission. You find a sunken ship under the sea of clouds, bring it up, and explore its interior.

What follows is a series of events that establishes a goal and its motivations, introduces the antagonists, as well as makes an ambiguous mention of seemingly important and very interesting “things” that are integral to the story moving forward.

Already I’m very invested in the story. I’m specially eager to find out about Pyra and her sword, which again the game has been very ambiguous with. I’m also really enjoying myself with the characters. Rex makes for an interesting protagonist; he himself is as much of a mystery as Pyra is at this, and is a nice change from XCX’s avatar protagonist.

But specifically all the mysteries so far are what are really pushing me forward. What’s with the World Tree, what do the antagonists want with the Aegis, what even is the Aegis? Already it’s a contender for best narrative of the year for me, which to be fair I didn’t play many such games with strong narratives this year, but I still think it gives XC2 proper credit.

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GAMEPLAY

I’m also thoroughly enjoying myself with the gameplay. The combat is very similar to that of Xenoblade Chronicles X, with auto-attacks requiring no input and constantly chipping away at opponents, as well as Arts being much more powerful attacks that require charge. However, there’s a couple small but key changes in XC2 that add so much more depth and strategy to the game and make a much better battle system in my opinion.

For one, you can now only auto attack while being still, and additionally you must be aware of the Affinity between you and your Blade which weakens the farther you move away. Also, your Arts are now directly charged through auto attacks. What this means is that now you must take into your positioning much more heavily, and assess risk-versus-reward.

There’s some Arts that do much more damage when damaging a specific part of an enemy (for example, striking it from the side or the back), and so to get said damage boost you must move and position yourself accordingly. But by moving, you stop auto attacking and as such stop charging some other Arts or special attacks, as well as risking loosing your Affinity Link with your Blade. It’s in every way and extension and evolution from the preocupes battle system, which I already loved, but I now love even more with the added factors to now take into .

The world is now also much more contained compared to XCX’s huge, extreme open world. It’s perhaps just as large, but it’s definitely much more segmented and more linear. Though I will sorely miss X’s freedom, I didn’t mind this change at all. I think it fits the narrative much more, what with the focus on a linear and cohesive story. There’s also still some open areas as well, so it’s not a completely loss.

Additionally, there are some Blade skills required to access other parts of a map or to interact with certain items, similar to X’s field skills. For example, Pyra is required to burn down some wooden obstacles and progress. This will surely encourage one to carry multiple varied Blades, and to experiment with different play style brought from those Blades. It’s a change from X once again, in which you could basically explore 70% of the massive world as soon as you began the game (and the other 30% you accessed with Skells).

The vistas so far have been excellent as well. The sea of clouds, the World Tree, Elysium... Alrest has been a beautiful environment to visit so far. Which brings me to my next point...

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THE PRESENTATION

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is... such an interesting game when it comes to presentation. For one, I’m a very huge fan of its artstyle. It has definitely grown on me, and it looks much more natural and fitting in actual gameplay. Definitely pleased with it.

But the most noticeable improvement, to me at least, compared to X is the animation. Cutscenes have so much more smoothness and a flow to them and don’t feel as stiff compared to X. There’s also a lot of them, much more than in X relative to the amount I’ve played, but again the animation is much more improved. There’s still a couple of quirks here and there (Rex’s eating animation...), but overall it’s just much nicer. One thing, though, is that I’m not too big of a fan of the UI. It’s a bit messy and convoluted, and generally unattractive.

Character style is very nice. Rex, although his outfit is still a bit weird, has grown on me, as has the comparatively “anime” looks of Pyra and Nia. They certainly look unique, if not a bit goofy. While on the topic of characters, I’m really enjoying the voice acting and script present. Rex’s English actor fits him a lot, and overall has a really nice voice (and that accent... wow!) My personal favorites however have to be Nia and Azurda. There’s just something about the smoothness of their voice and their accents that I really love. Specially Nia. I really like her character so far.

And let’s not forget about the soundtrack, it is breathtaking. It is a huge improvement from X, whose tracks where generally hit-or-miss, as XC2 has consistently provided me with excellent pieces. There’s already a few that have been among the best of the best for me this year, just stellar pieces that make me want to replay them over and over. XC2 definitely deserves a mention among the best soundtracks of the year.

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Overall this game has blown my expectations away already, and I’m very excited to hop back into it soon. But anyways, that’s it for today.

It’s been a clean minute since I posted something, and this was a bit of a shorter one, so I apologize if this seems a bit lacking, I’m a bit rusty and I rushed a bit with this. But I definitely plan to blog more again, can’t leave 2017 without awarding some of the games I played this year now, can I?

But anyways, that’s it for today. Bless up, happy holidays and have a good one.

~Delta Stream

(Also, for all you new JOYCONMEN).

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