Pulled off my first Full Burst fighting the monster for the Poppi QT Pi quest, which I ended up finishing with an Overkill. Feels good man. Not sure what I'll do with Tora now; I could just run her as another tank, but maybe I'll try a Rex/Tora/Morag setup with the Poppis as Healers. Right now my main squad is:
Rex - Waifu/Nia/Roc|Azami
Tora - Poppis
Zeke - Pandoria/Boreas/Nim
Nia has Electra and Godfrey on her, while Morag just has Aegaeon. Haven't used Morag yet at all.
Also got my first Legendary crystal from raiding the Tantalese Treasury. Now I feel like an endgamer. Need to get rid of some of these Boosters so I can cash in my salvage treasures.
Ooh, and I pulled a common with Orb Master. Nothing else going for him, though.
Playtime is just over 70 hours, apparently. I clocked 120 on the first game and 150 on X, so this will probably fit in around there.
Who should I Drive Vess and Wulfric? I just realized that I was still carrying around their Core Crystals, and that most of the field checks I'm missing need extra Superstrength and Fortitude.
I'm at chapter 3 now with almost 8 hours. Didn't gameinformer say they were at 45 hours by chapter IV? I hope I'm not rushing. BTW, I actually do like the characters. I can't see why reviews had a lot of complaints but so far this game is a Xeno entry from the ground up and I love it.
I'm at chapter 3 now with almost 8 hours. Didn't gameinformer say they were at 45 hours by chapter IV? I hope I'm not rushing. BTW, I actually do like the characters. I can't see why reviews had a lot of complaints but so far this game is a Xeno entry from the ground up and I love it.
Sure, anything works on anyone; outside of perhaps low-level superboss runs you're never really compelled to use certain setups. You've already got an unconventional configuration on 5 there, so you might as well run with it.
I'd say that Boreas and Nim are better on 5 with your setup, unless you want to swap out their main blade for another healer, which I wouldn't recommend, either.
Sure, anything works on anyone; outside of perhaps low-level superboss runs you're never really compelled to use certain setups. You've already got an unconventional configuration on 5 there, so you might as well run with it.
Since Rex gets access to the master driver abilities at the start of chapter 8, he'll get access to whatever axe blades were on the other characters at that point. And since Ray seems to already have at least one axe blade, he'll be guaranteed one rare axe blade by that point unless he's crazy and decides to dismiss a rare blade
Since Rex gets access to the master driver abilities at the start of chapter 8, he'll get access to whatever axe blades were on the other characters at that point. And since Ray seems to already have at least one axe blade, he'll be guaranteed one rare axe blade by that point unless he's crazy and decides to dismiss a rare blade
RNGesus is not a merciful god, but I believe if you look past it's hateful exterior, we will truly be able to find an even more malicious and sadistic interior. Personally I suggest providing human sacrifices
If you're in chapter 3 with only 8 hours played, you're definitely "rushing" but that's not a negative. Everything up to chapter 4 is a really long painful artificial tutorial phase for the game in terms of systems, so not dicking around until later has its benefits too.
Well I finished it. What an awful game. I almost hope this is the last Xeno JRPG if this is what Monolith Soft thinks is acceptable. I haven't been so disappointed in a game in such a long time. This is easily the worst JRPG I've played since Eternal Sonata. At least that game had the decency to be short. This game is easily an 80hr game.
What was there to like here?
It wasn't the story. The story was crap. Tales level crap complete with the same sophistication of themes. Any 5 year old could tell you the some moralizing crap this game does, probably with a bit more directness and little need to keep repeating the same stuff over and over again for hours on end. I get it, life is worth living and it won't change if you refuse to not change. I get it, people need to work together. Jesus Christ did this story have the nuance of a Disney Channel kids show, except here they felt the need to have characters constantly moralize to you the player. It got extermley annoying.
And yet most of the character's had no real development. The party members were awful and for most of them after they had their little episode of development the story put them in the back of the bus, only playing lip service to them every once in a while. Good jrpgs will have their characters tied to the story, the setting, and keep them involved till the end. Not here. Once they join you're party, they are done honestly and in the end what where these character's arcs? Rex's stays an optimistic little generic anime boy the whole time. His only challenge is I guess he loses at one point. Oh boy! A character with really no personality beyond being optimistic anime boy. No challenge in life beyond keep going. No identity crisis. No real conflict. Just super boring. Nothing memorable about this character at all and his strange creepy waifu relationship is lame and otaku baity. He loves Pyra why? What is their relationship beyond "GOTTA GO TO ELYSIUM". Like there's nothing there whatsoever.
Morag becomes useless and offers nothing after she joins you. Far more interesting as an antagonist because at least she had presence. After she joins your party she just continues to be stern anime female. Yawn inducing. I don't know why people like this character beyond their waifu fetishism. She looks stupid. She looks like Chopin from Eternal Sonata and her cool presence fades after chapter 3. But see here's another character that added nothing to the game. Here we could have seen the reflection of the world's politics as she clearly is bias towards her nation. You get a few snippets, but nothing interesting. Honestly what was her character? Did she have an arc? Did she have any conflict? No.
Zekke. Whatever. Not even a character. They don't do anything with his exiled prince aspect and the anime badass goof thing pretty much stops. But here is the perfect example of where the game basically stops to a crawl to show his backstory and then moves past it. Out of nowhere the game decides to stop what it's doing and have his backstory with Pandoria and then goes "oh were done with this episode" time to move on with the Nia stuff. It was like ok, I guess that's all this character deserves.
Pyra. Just more anime waifu crap. What was interesting about her. That she talks mysteriously about this plot(EVERYONE IN THE GAME DOES. EVERYONE ACTS LIKE THEY ARE IN THE KNOW). She seems to be hiding something? She seems to have some secret? Some agency? Whatever thats all droped midway as she becomes more interested in crushy blushy for Rex. Her character just basically becomes Rex's girlfriend and loses any aspect that made her at all somewhat ok. Even Tusandre Mythra gives up the act as the game goes on.
I don't care about the Nippon character, but at least the chapter about him was full of actually amusing anime jokes. I hate the Nippons and thier humor and va. At least Poppi was somewhat fun in a very cliche anime way.
And then Torna is just whatever. I wish I liked them, but Christ did they suck. Nomura's work here seemed very phoned in. Oh he has glasses and is the smart one! Most of them just seem like overly sad sacks with the dumbest goal ever. WE WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD BECAUSE HUMANS ARE BAD. I almost can't belive this is a theme/story beat in the game. Constantly about how humans destroy stuff. Yes, it's never been done before, but here it pretty much stops there.
Jin/Malos: Human's are bad
Rex: Well yeah, but not always and sometimes they do good.
Jin/Malos: Wel....yeah....but eventually all they do is kill and destroy.
Rex: Yeah, but so what not everyone is like that
Jin/Malos: i guess....but BLADES aren't slaves and thats bad.
Rex: Yeah but your driver's loved you and we work as a team.
Jin/Malos: Oh well...WHATEVER
Thats almost every scene and then anyway I guess Torna realizes how dumb and angsty they sounded anyway because reasons. or rather because the story is crappy. It's funny because right before they died it was like the game frogot to develop the glasses dude and the girl and was like oh yeah they I guess had something life...IDK brother and sister because. It was like wtf are you even trying?
And then Fantasy Pope is also evil because get this bad people did bad things and I guess he should control everything because of that. Nobody saw that coming.
No one here had interesting motivations. No inserting conflicts that reveal some character substance. No villain here had a logical argument that a 12 year old couldn't see a problem with. It was the worst of anime philosophizing and it was embarrassing and tiring to listen to.
And then the sci-fi twist is stupid. In the first Xenoblade it worked. The Monodo and just general setting of the world being on two giant robot gods already establishes that the world has something going on. Here honestly the world feels like a fantasy world and even Blades aren't odd. So to throw in the connection to the first game feels so random and pointless for the story. It also doesn't add much. I guess the creator is some sad sack in a space station who's point is what? He really makes no impact on the story and changes little about the core of the story. We learn about Blades, but as a non angtsy viewer I already know Blades are people and honestly the game does a really poor job of selling the Blade conflict. Yes there's regulations on them and yes the country where they were equals was unfairly destroyed. But honestly they don't seem unfairly treated and the Driver Blade thing needs to exist anyway. The alternative doesn't really work, so honestly whats the endgame? The game brings up this problem and then basically has nothing interesting to say about it.
And I don't know the world never felt interesting to me. But also because it's a typical jrpg world and you know what? That does not work with the scale of the Blade games. Are these supposed to be big nations and big cities? Because they just feel like JRPG worlds and in that I mean a country has one city and that's it and the city isn't big. That works in things like Tales or other jrpgs. Hell in some Tales games they have in the background the rest of the cityscape to make you feel like this city is bigger. But since Xeno games go for scale, it feels like the whole world is small and less than a million people live in it. I guess that's true, but because of that none of these places feel like what they say they are. These aren't nations. They are some small towns. Other Xeno games did'nt feel like that because well in the 1st Blade it is just a small population, likewise in XBX.
Also the environments never felt as big or grand as XBX. A lot of them felt small. A lot of them felt like linear hallways. A big valley here and there, but most of them had few interesting aspects to them. Nothing like XBX's world.
Also the whole Titans thing was lame and did'nt do anything. At no point did I ever feel like I was on something. If you took out a few sky boxes, this world would feel like generic rpg world. Nothing like realizing your on the arm of a mech god like in XB1.
As for the battle system. It was fun somewhat. It always felt slow. When you switch to combat it felt like your character was now walking through water. Animation was slow and felt like it took forever. Stupid that animation was prioritized as characters would miss out on topples and launches because they had to do their animations. AI was dumb and I've never felt that about ai controlled parties. Not in FFXII, Persona, or whatever. Here since setting up combos depends on your party as well, means you have to wait and pray they switch to the Blade you want them to. Meaning you can miss out and chances and moves you want to do.
The RNG blade system is awful. That is all. After 80 hrs I never got Kos Mos. Fuck this.
And that's it. I hated this game. This has really killed my intrests in Monolith Soft. I can't belvie they made something this awful. I mean I don't even care about how ugly the game looks. There's not a cool design in this game. NEVER HIRE THIS CHARACTER DESIGNER AGAIN. I don't even care about Pyra's tits. Whatever they are stupid, but her outfit in general looks lame. Colorful robot girl anime shit in a world where no one looks like this. Then her and Rex decide to cosplay like Kos Mos. Everyone looks like crap. The game was crap and I hope honestly the Xeno series is dead if this is what they think they can make.
Yeah, collecting stuffs, getting lost, finishing up subquests, etc.
Story's damned good, but the subquests have been equally interesting so far. Each have their own little stories, and some of them relate to events that happened in the past.
It's the Witcher 3 of JRPGs (although yes, none have been as good as the best subquests in that game)
And the fact that 90 hours in, we keep adding things to the game play, it's so good
Like this battle system is something else. So deep
Also, to the guy a few post above, I guess there are some bad opinions after all. The game is most definitely not crap. If it is, then it is the best crap I've ever played.
W
And I don't know the world never felt interesting to me. But also because it's a typical jrpg world and you know what? That does not work with the scale of the Blade games. Are these supposed to be big nations and big cities? Because they just feel like JRPG worlds and in that I mean a country has one city and that's it and the city isn't big. That works in things like Tales or other jrpgs. Hell in some Tales games they have in the background the rest of the cityscape to make you feel like this city is bigger. But since Xeno games go for scale, it feels like the whole world is small and less than a million people live in it. I guess that's true, but because of that none of these places feel like what they say they are. These aren't nations. They are some small towns. Other Xeno games did'nt feel like that because well in the 1st Blade it is just a small population, likewise in XBX.
I disagree on this point, simply because it was mentioned that the world just went into a drastic change after 3 huge titans fell after a war, and that they are dying out.
There's no big nations or big cities because this is what's left in that aftermath.
Got the game for Christmas and just started playing it now that I'm on vacation and I JUST beat Persona 5!
I beat Chapter 1 and just built Poppy and... well, my thoughts on the game are all over the place.
I think the art style is distracting and abysmal, the sound mixing is woeful, and the hook is nonexistent compared to X.
But the gameplay was a step in the right direction in simplifying the labyrinthine mechanics of X and... Well... As much as I hate the art and writing, it's kind of charming in how infuriating it is? It's the audacity of it all, like it's trying to provoke me and I find that quite endearing.
I'm five hours into it and my girlfriend has watched me play all of it, so we're enjoying pointing out the absurdity of a lot of stuff (mostly Pyra's... everything and the severe disconnect between narrative and gameplay). But I'm surprised at how much the both of us are enjoying it, especially since I was ready to write it off as I did for Tokyo Mirage Sessions (RIP).
You can only progress to stage IV if you have maximum affinity with the equipped Blade. When you're using Mythra, her level IV will fail if you're in a covered environment. (She's the only Blade with a weird caveat)
I disagree on this point, simply because it was mentioned that the world just went into a drastic change after 3 huge titans fell after a war, and that they are dying out.
There's no big nations or big cities because this is what's left in that aftermath.
And yet these Nations seem to have a huge military with the need of big airships. Mor Ardain has a senate and a line of kings. There's a history between that nation and the one Vandham is from. Mor Ardain is seeking to occupy and take over other nations because now their resources are dying. The classic JRPG evil church stand in has basically carved power and had a history of doing it. The world has a bigger history then the presentation allows for.
The fact that the 3 titans died doesn't really ague aginst my point. If they were in the game they would probably be small one city places to.
The problem is the world is small and up until now the Xeno games have been true to their world's scale.
The continents of Mira are big, but it's not the whole Mira and Neo LA is under construction and regardless there's not a huge population anyway.
Likewise Xenoblade 1's world does not pretend to be this huge world filled with tons of nations and whatnot.
JRPGS always ask you to use your imgination, because they can't possibly depect the world to real life scale. Like I said Tales will have a cityscape in the background so you know the city is just not a few screens. Xenosaga and Gears had cities as maps themselves so you knew they were big even if you visited only a specfic area. Xenoblade games with all their scale never did that because the story and world never called for that. What you saw was the world and it made sense. Thats not true for XB2 in which I find it hard for this more classical jrpg world to really follow the one city, one climate rule. Because the scale hurts that imgination.
Well I finished it. What an awful game. I almost hope this is the last Xeno JRPG if this is what Monolith Soft thinks is acceptable. I haven't been so disappointed in a game in such a long time. This is easily the worst JRPG I've played since Eternal Sonata. At least that game had the decency to be short. This game is easily an 80hr game.
I can definitely agree with a lot of your points. Especially about the human nature aspect this game approached being tired. Which is why I said earlier that I felt motivations were too wishy washy.
There was...
blades as slaves
that were expressed mid way through the game, that I thought would have been a great avenue to pursue further but... it never got brought up again. But it may just be too dark and mature a theme for the target audience. I still reel at the thought of soylent in Solaris from Xenogears.
I disagree on this point, simply because it was mentioned that the world just went into a drastic change after 3 huge titans fell after a war, and that they are dying out.
There's no big nations or big cities because this is what's left in that aftermath.
I actually empathize with the point in that the map scale sometimes doesn't seem to match up with the portrayal in the narrative, especially with Uraya and Mor Ardain.
But I personally can't really take it as a flaw because I always felt the zones in XB1 and XBX were unnecessarily big, and made exploration/traversal far too monotonous. On the other hand, XB2 achieved a pretty good balance between scale and gameplay density for me.
And yet these Nations seem to have a huge military with the need of big airships. Mor Ardain has a senate and a line of kings. There's a history between that nation and the one Vandham is from. Mor Ardain is seeking to occupy and take over other nations because now their resources are dying. The classic JRPG evil church stand in has basically carved power and had a history of doing it. The world has a bigger history then the presentation allows for.
The fact that the 3 titans died doesn't really ague aginst my point. If they were in the game they would probably be small one city places to.
The problem is the world is small and up until now the Xeno games have been true to their world's scale.
The continents of Mira are big, but it's not the whole Mira and Neo LA is under construction and regardless there's not a huge population anyway.
Likewise Xenoblade 1's world does not pretend to be this huge world filled with tons of nations and whatnot.
JRPGS always ask you to use your imgination, because they can't possibly depect the world to real life scale. Like I said Tales will have a cityscape in the background so you know the city is just not a few screens. Xenosaga and Gears had cities as maps themselves so you knew they were big even if you visited only a specfic area. Xenoblade games with all their scale never did that because the story and world never called for that. What you saw was the world and it made sense. Thats not true for XB2 in which I find it hard for this more classical jrpg world to really follow the one city, one climate rule. Because the scale hurts that imgination.
I actually empathize with the point in that the map scale sometimes doesn't seem to match up with the portrayal in the narrative, especially with Uraya and Mor Ardain.
But I personally can't really take it as a flaw because I always felt the zones in XB1 and XBX were unnecessarily big, and made exploration/traversal far too monotonous. On the other hand, XB2 achieved a pretty good balance between scale and gameplay density for me.
That's fair, I haven't finished the game yet, so I'll see where it takes me.
Really impressed and happy with the game though, barring some design decisions, although one or two things makes me wonder if it's relevant to the story.
I'm at chapter 3 now with almost 8 hours. Didn't gameinformer say they were at 45 hours by chapter IV? I hope I'm not rushing. BTW, I actually do like the characters. I can't see why reviews had a lot of complaints but so far this game is a Xeno entry from the ground up and I love it.
Also, to the guy a few post above, I guess there are some bad opinions after all. The game is most definitely not crap. If it is, then it is the best crap I've ever played.
You can only progress to stage IV if you have maximum affinity with the equipped Blade. When you're using Mythra, her level IV will fail if you're in a covered environment. (She's the only Blade with a weird caveat)
The distance affinity stuff is weird too. Just stay close and it goes up? Or do I need to get REALLY close to make it go up more? or faster? This info isnt in your link :P
I am not simply because it doesn't fit in with my topple-launch-smash set up. I'd probably have to control someone else if I use that blade on Rex, which I might do but for now I'm just pushing through to see if I can get back to my old set up at the end of the chapter.
A Nintendo related game is an echo chamber? I guess the jokes on me for expecting anything else.
I guess the best part of being done with the game is I won't have to interact with it's fans that just want you to jerk it off. But I guess thats every Nintendo related fandom.
