「Xenoblade Chronicles 2」|| Why I Found It So Disappointing

[@ArinagaGeo]

Issuing some corrections on this video: 1. Firstly, my understanding of the battle system was somewhat incorrect and for that I apologise for presenting misinformation. If you place the same blade on two different characters, they do not have the same arts. This means that my criticisms from 21:24 to 21:52 are invalid. My apologies once again. 2. After some review, I think that my points on Pyra's character design are not expressed in the way I would have liked, and come through as a little weak upon a rewatch of the video. I still feel that Pyra's design is bad, but it's a little more nuanced than I present in the video. 3. There are a couple of counterpoints brought up in another comment which I feel that I would like to respond to on an individual basis, however it's been a reasonably long time since this video was published and since I last played this game. So I don't want to get anything wrong. For now, I will just say that I accept a number of these points have merit and I appreciate some of the explanations, however my opinion hasn't been swayed, and I would like to say that my criticisms of the game presented in the video still stand. Thank you very much for opening a discussion about this. I appreciate everyone that has engaged with this video, whether that be positively or negatively, and hopefully I can continue to improve and refine my content in the future. See you soon!

[@NintendanGX]

I couldn't agree more. Xenoblade Chronicles is also my favourite game ever, and I wasn't necessarily expecting to like Xenoblade 2 more, just that it'd be a worthy sequel, contention with the clique fanservice-anime character designs not withstanding. I didn't go into the game expecting to be as disappointed with it as I currently am. I like it just fine as its own game, hell I put 400+ hours into the game including the DLC and obtaining Shulk, Fiora and Elma, but it's an utter failure as the numbered sequel to Xenoblade 1. The story has an overabundance of shounen anime cliques, such as plot convenient bullshit being thrown in every 5 seconds with no explanation than "I'm an Aegis", character deaths serving no purpose other than cheap misguided drama, insultingly bad character architypes like Mythra the tsundere, Tora the pervy otaku, Zeke the full-of-himself chuunibyo, and Azurda being the cutesy talking flying animal mascot for most of the game. It's disgusting, when I know for a fact Monolithsoft can do and already has done better. These aren't characters. They're anime architypes, and they're done to death in Japanese media. If Xenoblade 2 existed as an anime series under a different name with no ties to the Xenoblade franchise, I wouldn't even watch it because that's just not the level of quality I will accept, anime or game. It doesn't help that there's an overabundance of insulting fanservice, and while I'm by no means one of those SJW's who wants all game characters to cover up, I don't believe these tropes have a place in this franchise. I don't play a Xenoblade game for this. Gameplay is a mixed bag and a mess. A lot of good ideas were brought to the table, but they also added some terrible mechanics and took away others that made for a more intuitive and user-friendly. Exploring is fun, but not when a field skill requires me to jump in and out of a pause menu for 30 seconds each time I want to progress. The combat introduces quite a few neat ideas, like the driver combos (Break > Topple > Launch > Smash) and elemental Blade Combos, as well as how both of them can work in tandum with one another. But I don't like how long battles now take to finish, even just against regular enemies that you outrank by over 10 levels. Blades offer a variety of combat options that you can switch between after cooldown periods, but now switching between targets is more finicky and less responsive, plus, like you just mentioned, they broke auto-attacking by disallowing it while a character moves. And all of that isn't even getting into the garish menu designs and setup. The only people who won't take issue with this are people who've played the game for enough time that they got used to it and know where everything is, and also haven't played the previous two games to know a good menu if it slapped them across the face. It breaks the flow of the game when so much of what's in the world requires you to jump in and out of it constantly without getting lost, when you just want to progress normally like you would beforehand. Xenoblade 1 had a menu that allowed you to continue moving in-game while you scrolled through it, and it was only necessary to look at it if you needed a reminder on what quest objective you had, fast travel, or character customisation. And while we're on the subject, the world map is far more convoluted than it needed to be. Not terrible, but why they didn't let you switch between upper and lower layers of the map by pressing R, instead of segregating each layer to an entire location in a given nation, I'll never know. It's like the developers were told to reconstruct the first game based on memory alone, without remembering any of the finer details and conveniences said game introduced. They also didn't include any of the QOA improvements Xenoblade X made gameplay-wise, like bodypart-targeting and a sprint feature that'd cut down on wasted time retreading the same ground after a fast-travel. Say what you will about X's story and main characters, but it holds its own as a great game for its gameplay and sidequests alone. I'd honestly call it a better overall game than 2. I've probably pissed off some people by saying all this, but hopefully most of you will understand my frustration. I like the game, I really do, and I'm going to jump into Torna with an open mind just like I did with the base game. But I wanted to love it more than I currently do, and half of what I loved about 1 and even X to an extent has been gutted from 2 and replaced with questionable to awful design choices. I sincerely hope Monolithsoft never returns to this moe-anime style of game ever again, and only carries over what worked, rather than what artificially lengthened the game.

[@LordlyWeeb]

You can't say a game was dissapointing and then say you put 400 hours into it.

[@cypher838]

@Hkg 1 bullshit. The development of characters in 1 were fantastic

[@xord5293]

Yikes, some X2 are pissed off here. Logical reasoning of why X2 is hot garbage doesn’t work with those. They keep saying that X1’s combat is trash when they don’t even realize that there is a color multiplication modifier in chain attacks - they fail to see the beauty of the first game because they were tainted by the dopamine from the second game. Sorry X1 doesn’t have anime expressions, or catch-them-all Pokemons, or tities and boobies, or an autoattack to driver to blade arts to orbs, or the power of friendship LLLOOOLLL - it has much better than those. Makes me feel sad for them, frankly.

[@xord5293]

@Hkg 1 It sounds like you already hate all of it, in which case I don't really need to tell you more of anything. You don't like it, and that's ok. Just keep in mind that if you hate it without truly understanding all of it, you might be missing out on one of the best games of all time. Just sayin'. Btw, there is no RNG in chain attacks - if your party members have high affinity with each other, and your Tension, Skills and Skill-Links are in check, the chain attacks should be fine. Doesn't it make sense how the chain attacks should not really work as well if the party members still don't know/like each other, and by extension are not as coordinated in battle? That's called story-gameplay consistency, which is absent in X2. I don't know what you mean by ''la''. What about Sharla? She is the main healer, which can also be built to be a DPS machine if you know what you're doing.

[@xord5293]

Hkg 1 I assumed as much from your comment to me an hour ago, which sounds like you hate X1 and are looking for things to dilute it down. If you like both games, then that’s great.

[@marcobrosato7677]

Awesome video, it does not show that this was your first venture into writing critical analysis. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is my favorite game of all time, so I often look for people expressing what they dislike about the game that is NOT the very repetitive and boring "anime boobs, bad voice acting" reply. Watching this video made you brought up a lot of valid criticism and I gotta agree with a lot of it. It does not take my experience with the game away (thank you for not trying to do so, the lack of ill will is appreciated), and I would love to try to explain the things I loved about it and how it changed me at a person at some point in video format. It's very clear that you gave the game a fair shot, and even did some good research for this video! Thank you for broadening my views on the game. On a side note, the DLC does indeed clear up most of you're misunderstandings of the main game. It also has improved combat and is far more cohesive then the main game as a self-contained story. It's a short game (20-ish hours) and well worth the money i.m.o. So if you ever change your mind and want to try it, i'd recommend it even if you didn't enjoy the main game.

[@xord5293]

I like your comment and approach. I too was dissapointed by X2 - after being a Xenoblade fan since 2011. I heard alot of good things about the DLC though, but I am not really sure if it will mend my experience with X2. Still, I might give it a try at some point.

[@allhailthewhale1423]

Anime boobs are awful though. It displays such a lack of respect that the game has for itself.

[@xord5293]

This video is 2 years long but perfectly sums up many things about why Xenoblade 2 is just bad. I am baffled how some defend this game. They got attached to the characters in X2, yet somehow think that the story, combat, world and music are somehow good. I guess the attachment they developed to characters somehow make everything else the game has a masterpiece. Then... they roam the internet saying that Xenoblade 1 has 1-dimensional characters, cliche villains, and 'primitive/boring' combat. Many of them don't understand anything X1 throws at them. Bruh LOL. I met one such person who did not even know about the color multiplication modifier, yet felt entitled to bash the entire game. Yikes hahaha. Anyway, what I gathered is that Monolith was busy doing Breath of the Wild, and Nintendo wanted another Xenoblade for the Switch's release. Monolith hires another team to do X2, and the team is instructed by Nintendo to make a game that appeals to a younger audience (hence anime style and expression... with... boobs.) Morag, Nia, and some other characters, with Uraya, are the only good things from X2. The combat is great at the start, but get stale incredibly fast when you realize every battle is about smashing orbs - EVERY, BATTLE. What X2 did broke my immersion from X1's perfect story - especially with Alvis thing (making him an... 'eigis' and changing his necklace from a key to a 'crystal' ................ what an afterthought it is to have to CHANGE the original game to make it adapt to the tit-filled X2). So what I do is just ignore that X2 is canon altogether - problem solved. The issue is that Future Connected felt empty and pointless... kind of like how X2 felt - which makes me think that Monolith lost their touch. Oh well, I have X1 on the Switch and won't complain I guess. It just sucks to know that we will probably not get another good Xenoblade game - even though OG fans are the ones responsible for having Xenoblade localised to the west (i.e Operation Rainfall).

[@LCardosed92]

I completely agree with you. Actually the only thing I liked in Future Connected is the fact that I could see a bit more of best waifu Melia. But besides that, nothing special going on.

[@xord5293]

@@LCardosed92 Right? I mean - Future Connected removed all other party members and replaced them with Nopon clones, and I still don't know the reason why. Does Reyn, Dunban, Sharla and the rest really not care how Melia finds her new purpose so little that they are all absent from FC?? Impossible... that makes me think Monolith omitted the other characters just to cut development time. Ok, Bionis is destroyed, which makes sense since Zanza is defeated and he is basically the Bionis. Why is the Bionis Shoulder the only piece left of it when it should have been destroyed as well? Because the devs already have the 3D model for that area? The Fallen Arm was not destroyed with Mechonis because it was detached from it, which makes sense, but the Shoulder? I can't believe how little Monolith cares for Xenoblade 1's story. Ugh, I don't know... Even if I really enjoyed seeing Melia kick some ass in cutscenes and the overgrown Alcamoth, FC left a very sour aftertaste for me - no story, generic environment (never thought that were possible in a Xenoblade game), generic adventure music, and overall just feels empty and sad.

[@LCardosed92]

@@xord5293 Yeah the worst part for me were the nopons. They really don't add anything to the story, they are just there to consume time with pointless dialogue. They could have replaced them with one of our previous party members, or who knows even add Tyrea as a party member. Worst case scenario, it would even be better to just keep Shulk and Melia as the only party members instead of adding those nopons. Because at least there would be a chance to have decent dialogue instead of pointless conversations.

[@XelchanTheBrave]

I'm sorry you received flak for this. Somehow people who dislike this game or express criticism towards it get treated very poorly by its immature fanbase. I'd love to write a proper comment and I might one of these days, right now I just can't because I'm busy with schoolwork (using reviews as background noise lol), but let me say I really appreciated your video and agreed on all points. It is sad you got called a weeb and got an "okay" out of pouring your love and concerns for this studio in 26 minutes.

[@xord5293]

Oh and 1 thing I learned from talking to many of the die-hard fans of X2 is that you can't win an argument against them. You present facts and counter their arguments flawlessly, yet they somehow completely ignore or misunderstand those facts and just continue rambling why X1 is terrible. Given that X2 is relatively popular, I doubt we will get another decent Xenoblade game. Takahashi thinks he did well with this one. It could be time to pack up and leave this series for good if it gives me another Pokemon game with tits and boobs - even though I've been a Xenoblade fan since 2011.

[@LCardosed92]

I think there is still hope for the series. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was actually a very controversial game. Some people love it, some people hate it. Unlike Xenoblade 1 where most people like it. And I think Monolith Soft knows they have this feedback and are willing to improve the series again. I know Future Connected wasn't very impressive, but at least with Xenoblade DE they kept the characters similar to what they were supposed to be. They didn't give Melia massive boobs or anything like that, so that is a relief.

[@xord5293]

EmptyChannel You’re right - your comment made me actually excited for future Xenoblade content. Thanks for that haha

[@warcatbattalion]

THIS GAME IS SO POPULAR AND BASICALLY MAINTSREAMIZED XENOBLADE-SERIES, MEANING FUTURE GAMES WILL BE LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF THE GREAT XC1.

[@faidou9954]

This makes me wish Xenoblade Chronicles X was ported to the Switch instead of this sequel being made.

[@shulkash8799]

There some things wrong with this video : 1. The games shows how the party travels from titan to titan. It may not be as united has one , but it does have it 2. In the game, it mention that torna was destroyed by Mythra, not malos. 3. The reason that the malos can negate Nia attacks, is that malos has all the information of all living things in his core crystal, so he has information or dna to negate rapid cell replication. 4. Jin’s motivation is to destroy all humans, because he has seen what are humans are capable of doing to other people like wars. And face many hardships after the death of the tornan people in the hands of indol, it caused him to feel depressed that the people he love were taken away from him and caused him to dislike human and was left alone to his throughts without a purpose and the only person in his hour of need was malos A more in depth analysis of Jin character in the link. www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/97t1tf/jins_motive/ www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_Chronicles/comments/9hinp9/analysis_jins_decision_to_join_malos_golden/ 5. It true, character maybe consider put to the side lines, but the original had this flaw has well, character like riki and sharla. These characters are also put to the sidelines in the narrative after frointer village and Gado’s death. 6. The quest in 2 are easier to do than in 1. The collection point in 2 are better in providing items and giving you what you want than 1 and in 2 it easier to complete them because of them. And two ‘s pictures help you have a bit better indication of who is the quest giver than the description of one. 7. The connection to one complains are some true , but some not. If you go to the school that alvis is ontos, Ontos disappears , before turning to a blade administrator, so he won’t be limited by some of the restraints like his partners, or another way to explain the multi Monado in one that universe has every deity with it or alvis, like pyra‘s sword in spirit crusible,can make 3 different weapons that can be self contained , if you go with the school that ontos and alvis aren’t the same person then alvis is the combination of all the cores powers like mythra’s foresight , malos’ weapon and any power of ontos. The flashback part of the two and one are both told by different people one is told by alvis’ eyes and the other is told by Klaus. Alvis being a computer saw some of the aspects, as being lock out to anyone other than Klaus has an selfish endeavor. Klaus saw it has a selfless endeavor to improve the world, but it back fired.

[@cypher838]

And people say that Gramps reverts back to his dragon form at the end is an asspull, even though pnuema has info of everything in the whole universe, so it makes sense.

[@cypher838]

@DarkSonic180 I wouldn't call it an asspull because there is an actual explanation as to why he reverted back.

[@cypher838]

@DarkSonic180 you clearly did not pay attention to when they said that.

[@cypher838]

@DarkSonic180 they Fucking did. Did you not pay attention?!

[@shulkash8799]

DarkSonic180 they did explain it and how it happened if you feel that is an asspull or you don’t like the explanation then it fine and just say it.

[@jerelwright1495]

And ppl say x was bad when ppl say xeno 2 is a legendary game like wtf.

[@jaydeejay4166]

X is my favorite but if you went into with the expectations set by the first game and jrpgs in general, I can see how you would have been disappointed.

[@jerelwright1495]

All I can say is I hope to God monolith soft never do this again

[@Xenowolf8]

Enel sounds like the kind of person that would defend Xenoblade 2’s voice acting.

[@xord5293]

AIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYAHH!!

[@obamaorb7426]

Getting to this late, but honestly the vast majority of your points I find agreeable aside from a few minor things, both of which I get why. First of all the blades having the same arts on everyone, which obviously you've addressed and I appreciate that you've corrected yourself, only shows you're open to constructive criticism and will correct yourself when you're wrong. Second of all is your criticism of Jin, a character I found to be quite intriguing and liked throughout the story. What I don't like about your criticism is how you grossly understate his motivation, namely Lora's death. You say something along the lines of 'a few guys' killed her, when what in fact did happen was one of the 3 major powers in the world attacked the titan she was on trying to destroy Mythra. The way he sees this is that people will sacrifice anything, even innocent lives simply to fulfil their own desires, him linking this massive force to humanity as a whole wouldn't be much of a stretch in his mind especially considering past experiences with people like Gort, who's presence prior would only validate this to him. Of course he shouldn't, but this isn't a flaw in his character, it's a flaw in him as a person which only serves to add to his character. I understand that Gort only majorly appears in Torna but he isn't my main point. That would be my only major criticism of this critique as, on the whole, I did find it agreeable and well written, I hope you continue to make videos like this as I found this one not only well made but entertaining. Best of luck if you do :)

[@warcatbattalion]

completely agree. I watched announcement of XC3, so I went and played XC1 remake and damn that was amazing. I got hyped for the series and had a lot of hope and expectation for XC2.... but then XC2 is FAR WORSE than XC1 in every single aspect. every single one of them. what a disappointment... I'm no longer sure whether to play XC3 or not after this. I just can't care anymore.

[@warcatbattalion]

1. Menu that's annoying to navigate 2. Map that's not only uninformative, but also misleading 3. I have to press L analog 4 times to go from minimap > big minimap > bigger minimap > no minimap > minimap every single time 4. Useless Skyrim and WRPG-esque destination compass that does shitty job at showing me where to go. 5. I have to open Blade affinity menu to actually acquire skills I just acquired 6. There’s 3 seconds delay before I can press anything after I opened quick travel menu 7. Simple things like changing targets in battle is pain in the fucking ass. Yeah I know it’s R + Y/A, but sometimes... MOST OF THE TIME it doesn’t fucking work 8. Area designs are boring and uninspired. It has no charm unlike Bionis. 9. ALL enemies are sponge and battles are so sloooooooow and they give you little to no EXP. spamming 1st attack cancel trick and drive combo just to deal real damage every single time is just boring. there's no incentive to fight at all. 10. I played with jap names mod, but I hate that translation is 4kids-tier I had to subconsciously correct so many of them it's actually pissing me off 11. I have to open the quest menu just to see the detail of the quest instead of having pop up the moment I received it like in XC1 12. So many obvious padding contents like “time to ride the ship but OH NO oh no our wallet got stolen! Gotta talk to bunch of NPCs, chase some kids and beat some bandits!” “time to enter the door but OH NO it’s closed all of the sudden and we have to the corner of area, beating many enemies and press the switch and go back to the door!” 13. The story is boring without any tension, sense of urgency or threat. they keep saying titans are dying war bad killing bad, but despite that, It lacks seriousness. It's like sunday morning shonen anime. And the pacing is soooooo slow. 14. Too much cutscenes that don’t even progress the story or tell us something new, Trails syndrome 15. Characters don’t behave like humans, but 1 dimensional tropey anime characters 16. Homura has no more personality than a broken toilet 17. The writing is full of "wacky ecchi romcom anime" tropes and moments 18. Gacha locking up contents and a waste of time. The gacha Blades and their quests (and every single quest in this game, really) add nothing to the game, narrative, world. It doesn’t help that the world in this game is completely separated unlike the connected XC1’s world. There’s no point in these Blades. 19. No changeable outfits, no fun fashioning like in XC1. Blades should’ve been actual weapon/cosmetics that alter your appearance/outfit/weapon. It’d be much better than this walmart Persona 20. How I had high expectation because XC1 was so good 21. the fact that THIS GAME IS SO POPULAR AND BASICALLY MAINTSREAMIZED XENOBLADE-SERIES, MEANING FUTURE GAMES WILL BE LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF THE GREAT XC1. Damn that was awful.

[@Kazuma4068]

I never wanna buy this game because of this video.

[@bonehead8784]

3:30 well it does fit her character more than the Japanese voice imo since in Japanese it just sounds like a cliche 5 year old which sounds plain weird in some scenes

[@PALGAMER630]

Okay.

[@bonehead8784]

To be fair, Pyra's design is supposed to represent how her and Rex are 2 sides of the same coin