Last week I was stuck in a long meeting and paying the utmost attention when Amazon rudely opened my phone to its web page and reminded me that I get pretty sweet discounts on pre-orders. I had been eyeing this game for a while and was not totally sold on if I was going to buy it or not. Thanks to some well-timed cell adverts and a compulsion buy my copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 developed by Monolith Soft arrived in the mail today. I set my watch for one hour and dove right in.
The Experience:
I have not had the pleasure of Xenoblade Chronicles before as it completely went past my radar on the Wii. That along with the fact I have only played an hour into a JRPG tells me that I am only scratching the surface of what this game is. That being said, I have a pretty decent grasp of what I have experienced so far and I am intrigued.
You start the game out as Rex who is a scavenger by trade. Rex lives on a titan that floats about the sea of clouds of the land around them. A very pretty sea of clouds might I add. Scavengers dive beneath the clouds into the water to collect and sell loot. Apparently, Rex is pretty well known because he is picked to go on a high profile mission early on. This is as far as I got because there were optional quests so of course, I had to do them.
The game is an RPG and combat consists of you standing next to an enemy which will allow you to auto attack. Each attacks charges up moves and when they are fully charged you can unleash those moves. The special moves can do more damage or do things like creating a healing potion from an enemy. It's early yet but this combat is kinda slow. It reminds me a little of the speed of Phantasy Star Online. Positioning is a strategy so I think it helps with that. I kind of hope that we see an increase in speed or at least the dynamic evolves.
Your character comes armed with a sword skill that is upgradable, with plenty of slots for more possible upgrades I am sure you unlock through the game. There is a skill tree and you can equip two pieces of equipment. Pretty basic RPG stuff.
From what I can tell collecting is super important here. You need a special utility item that allows you to salvage treasure at salvage points. There is a vendor who carries the utility item at different costs, with the more expensive giving you a better chance of treasures from the deep. When you salvage you will play a QTE mini-game where a large circle is shrinking and you have to hit a button on your control at the right time. You will dive into the clouds and after sometime pull treasure up and sometimes a monster. Treasure can be combined into sets to sell or sold alone at a lower cost. This seems okay and I am curious to see if its the same mini-game, it if it gets harder, or changes the required inputs at some later point.
The game comes with a quest system that helps you out by offering the objective points on a compass at the top of your screen and marks on your minimap. Early in this game, it antagonizes you saying vets do not require this. Well fuck you I am using it. It's nice to know where you are going with the millions of NPCs that I am sure are in this game. You also have the chance to rest at inns to use bonus XP gained from quests. They recommend hardcore players ignore this feature. I am not hardcore.
This game does a great job of displaying what the Switch hardware can do and at the same time the limits of it. The game uses cell shaded anime illustrations that look pretty good. At the same time on a larger screen, you can definitely see where the Switch hardware has limited the art team. The voice acting is alright so far but I was sad to see the lack of a Japanese voice acting option. Maybe its because I don't understand what they are saying but this always sounds better. Also where the hell is the auto-save function. It's 2017, give me an autosave slot.
This game seems pretty good so far and I am a sucker for a good JRPG. This really feels like I am judging a book by its cover because I am only an hour into what I assume is going to be along RPG experience. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is missing a few things that are more quality of life features but looks to have a lot that can keep me interested. It's most likely going to be a while before I finish this title to give my full review but I like what I see so far.
TL;DR:
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a JRPG with a slower action combat system with typical RPG elements. It does a great job of showcasing the Switch graphics as well as showing the limits. I would not say the first hour knocked me off my feet but I am intrigued to move on.
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