It has now been 5 whole years since the release of one of the biggest Nintendo Switch games of 2017, the third entry in the fan favorite Xenoblade Chronicles series, [Xenoblade Chronicles 2](https://youtu.be/Xjpao-nD5YU). This game was first conceived during development of the previous entry, Xenoblade Chronicles X, as many players expressed dissatisfaction with that game’s emphasis on gameplay and online rather than story like the first game. And so, using X as a technical foundation, Monolith Soft were able to develop the next game for the then-unannounced Nintendo Switch in rather good time, releasing worldwide just in time for the 2017 holiday season.
You assume the role of Rex, a young salvager in the world of Alrest, comprised of various Titans resting atop a sea of clouds. But the Titans are starting to die out and conflict seems inevitable. The residents of Alrest are capable of bonding with and wielding various living weapons called Blades. After coming into contact with a powerful Blade named Pyra, the two of them set off on a journey towards a bountiful paradise called Elysium, wherein you meet many friends and foes along the way. Paid DLC and free updates were released throughout 2018, which included new Blades, questlines, challenge modes, costumes, gameplay modifiers, and an entire prequel campaign known as [Torna: The Golden Country](https://youtu.be/6kMHFFpZfX0). I personally loved it despite some perfectly valid criticisms, having sunk nearly 130 hours across both the base game and the Torna expansion.
Upon release the game was a strong seller and was generally well received, with critics and fans praising the story, combat, and soundtrack, while lamenting the technical performance, unintuitive tutorials, English dub, and character designs of the various Blades. And it was that last point that seemed to permeate any discussion of Xenoblade 2. Ever since this game’s original launch, the topic of Xenoblade 2’s sexualization of female Blades (of which there are a disproportionate number of compared to males) hasn’t quite escaped public discourse, especially after [Pyra and Mythra were announced for Smash Bros.](https://youtu.be/sdgdxaIkU5g) in early 2021. This was because the Rare Blades (obtained via a gacha system) were designed by various illustrators, and they were given free reign to design them how they wanted. It just sort of happened that way.
by Asad_Farooqui
37 Comments
It took me a while to finish it, I like the story, it took me a long time to figure out combat. Great game.
Xenoblade chronicles 2 is the game that cemented my love for the series. I played them in order but 1 just didn’t do it for me up until that ending. Jumped into 2 and was in love as soon as it started.
Best game I have played in years. 10/10
It was quite the jump from XC1, it’s vast, colorful, quirky and the music and scenery of 2 was mesmerizing.
I am happy with the game, it was a great follow up for me, and a personal favorite among the numbered in the series.
It was immediately my second favorite game on Switch behind BOTW and its still easily in my top 5. The soundtrack is incredible, I love the design of each titan/area, and I find the UI to be quite charming. The combat took a long time to get down but it’s one of the most interesting and satisfying that I’ve ever experienced in an RPG, if not THE most. The character designs are simply not an issue for me and I quite like the majority of them, it adds to the game’s very colorful and fantastical feeling and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like Rex as a protagonist and the story takes a while to get going, but it really shines from its second act onwards.
It’s not a perfect game, between its rough handheld performance and its rare blade gacha system (which really isn’t a problem until the last few blades anyway). It also clearly barely made its release date – its surprisingly polished for what it is but it’s clear that it could have used a few extra months in the oven.
But I dumped 270 hours into Xenoblade 2 (not counting Torna) and I wouldn’t ask for a second of it back.
Favorite Xenoblade by far. Probably in my top five favorite games. Played the story 3 times across 300 hours in game.
Wish I could mind wipe and play it for the first time again.
Currently playing it right now, just started Chapter 8 and having a great time with it. It’s one of the few games I’ve played this year that I have trouble putting down once I’ve started a play session. Very addictive. Love the exploration and environments, the combat system although confusing at times, can be quite fun. The gacha blade system can be a bit annoying, but the dopamine hit when an enemy or a chest drops a rare core crystal is real.
Looking forward to moving onto Torna and then starting the third game.
So I adored the first game. One of my favorite JRPG’s ever.
When I first saw the second one, I was quite disappointed by the art style and anime-esque nature of the game. And then reading reviews and hearing user impressions, lots of people really weren’t super into it, and it seemed like it was just a sort of decent sequel, but missed the mark in too many areas to really match the first game. It put me off playing it for a bit. In fact, I actually bought and played XC1 DE before I got around to playing XC2. Which I’m very glad I did, actually. Because let me tell you:
I fucking *love* Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I never expected it, but I actually like it a bit more than the first game. In my top 100 games of all time list, XC2 is #17, while XC1 is #22. All the added complexity was magnificent. Just so many interconnected systems, sometimes even feeling ‘for the sake of it’, but it meant there was always, *always* a carrot to chase, and some way to keep making your party better or more interesting. I know it was too much for many, but for me, it’s one of those ‘the more you put in, the more you get out of it’ sort of situations. I loved engaging with all these combat and progression systems. I still didn’t do everything, but I easily got my fill.
As for the art style/anime stuff – it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I expected. It’s a bit cringey at times, but I ultimately came to really enjoy and appreciate the characters more than in the first game. Quite a lot more dialogue and interactions and whatnot went a long way. And the game was still super gorgeous overall. Environments aren’t always as big as in the first game, but they’re far more dense, with more secrets and more interesting exploration overall. Really liked that part of it. I played it for 170 hours or so, but I still saw videos afterwards where people were exploring in places I totally missed!
So yea, it’s phenomenal, in my opinion. A masterpiece. It has plenty of flaws, and I can see why some bounced off of it, especially those weren’t really into engaging with all the systems, or were too overleveled, making engaging with the systems needless(seriously, there’s almost no need to manually level your characters here, and it helps maintain a decent level of challenge). But for me, it was unforgettable and I still often think about it from time to time.
My Switch says I played it for 255 hours.
What summarize the game best for me is the fact that I could write a 15 pages essay on every flaw the game has, and yet I would conclude with “still, it’s the best experience I’ve ever had on Switch”.
The final three chapters are incredibly strong and Rex and Nia mean a lot to me.
Deeply flawed, but the good stuff is absolutely incredible. Some of the best worldbuilding I’ve seen in a JRPG, and the main antagonists are all fantastic.
I still love it to this day. The characters, the story, the music, the world design, the combat. It all clicks with me.
One of my favorites of all time , personnally. Maybe it was the right game , at the right time, but I enjoy it despite its problems. Its also the first non-Pokemon or Mario RPG I ever beat.
I love it despite the field system.
I bought my switch at the start of the pandemic to play the new Animal Crossing as I gather a lot of people did back then. Excited to see what exclusives were available (I’d been gaming almost exclusively on PC since my PS2 and DS as a kid), I browsed through the eshop and picked up some JRPGs one of which was Xenoblade 2. My only experience with the franchise at this point was noticing Xenoblade X had a cool collector’s edition box one day while shopping and listening to its soundtrack once I got home.
Deciding to give Xenoblade 2 a shot when not playing ACNH, I quickly lost myself in the exploration of Gormott Province. Shortly after, I was hooked and spent multiple weeks wrapped up on the couch hogging the TV to play Xenoblade to the neglect of my lonely Animal Crossing island :c
While I agree there’s fair criticism to be levied, I’ll stress that I’ve yet to experience such a magical journey in a videogame as I did during those comfy weeks playing this game. I’d invite anyone who can look past some character design and has the patience to give it’s combat system some time to click for themselves – explore this enchanting world and help your new friends reach Elysium.
Outstanding game with some design flaws. The story, music, and environment are absolutely incredible and memorable.
Hopped in pretty late to the series. Started with DE and then got to 2 which is probably my fav game ever. Still finding myself playing it from time to time and I just cant get over it. Fantastic game that every jrpg lover should experience!
Favourite Xenoblade game for me (played them all). I felt far more connected with titans and cities then small colonies in Xenoblade 3. Story was better, liked the environments and characters better then xeno 3.
Despite the few technical issues it has, it’s probably in my top 3 all time favorite games, and my favorite Xenoblade game I’ve played (which is only 2 and 3 tbf). Sitting around 210 hours in it between main game and Torna, and I haven’t even touched New Game Plus.
Is 1 or 2 better? Currently on sale and unsure what to try…
Hands down my favorite Xenoblade game. I put so many hours into it over the years. I can easily just boot up the game today and watch the story beats, do some side quests, or even just vibe to the music. A modern JRPG classic in my opinion. The game definitely has its flaws no doubt but the good outweighs the bad tremendously for me. A DE version for the next Nintendo console would be amazing.
Playing through it right now for the second time, in preparation for XC3 (I wanted to replay the whole series before playing 3).
The thing that stands out is how involved and addictive the gameplay loop is. I’ll start out trying to explore a new area, then I’ll get a side quest and do 80% of it before the last step in the quest isn’t able to be completed yet, then I’ll run into a field skill check, and oops I need one more level of dark mastery so let me defeat five ridiculously named monsters, but oh my merc group has returned so let’s send some blades out on a new one, and so forth. It’s so easy to lose hours of time playing this.
The music is fantastic: tantal upper level theme is probably my favorite. The environments are great; I do have a soft spot for some of the areas from XC1 so that edges out XC2 in that regard for me, but they’re still very creatively structured and interesting to explore. Graphics and performance are meh but it’s a switch game.
The combat is very innovative as well, I like the combination of driver combos and blade combos and the flexibility of using different blades. It does seem like some enemies are randomly way more powerful than others at the same level, so i was never really sure how difficult a fight would be based on level alone.
The side quests are vastly improved from the first game where half of them were simply “collect 10 whatever’s” or “defeat 5 enemies”. The stories are generally interesting and provide world-building. The blade quests in particular are creative and very involved, although it’s hard to know how and when to trigger them without stumbling across them.
The negatives: some of the game is just a bit too slow. The movement needed some sort of upgrade where you can run a bit faster, like the gems from XC1. I love the vast environments but you can spend so much time just running straight. Also didn’t like the field skill popups when coming across a collection spot. In these cases agronomy or whatever are just a bonus and not required like a skill check so there’s no need to take ten seconds popping up with two different characters saying the same thing repeatedly.
I didn’t love the blade gacha mechanics overall, even though you do get that dopamine hit when getting a rare blade and the collecting aspect of it was fun. I just wish there was some sort of alternative when getting the last few blades other than farming crystals. The endgame stuff where you’re farming and grinding (for gem crafting materials in XC1, core crystals in XC2) adds so much extra time for the trade off of completing the collection and/or fighting the super bosses and I’ll never do that, it doesn’t seem worth it at all so despite the fact that i like to 100% games I’ll never do it for this series.
It’s a bit annoying constantly going to the wiki as well. If i need to fight five x enemies to level up a skill, I gotta look up where to find them because I’m not running around searching aimlessly. If a blade needs four of their favorite pouch items, I have to look up which items and where to buy them. There’s a lot of back and forth on the wiki to save time because otherwise you have to rely on stumbling across things and you’re gonna miss a ton of content.
The general blade management/menu tax is my other main gripe. Despite some of it feeding into the addicting game loop, managing all your blades is a pain in the ass. Equipping 30+ rare blades with multiple aux cores and core chips, keeping up with your characters WP and accessories, having three different merc groups constantly returning and being sent out is draining and I spend half my time in the menus. You have to open a million common blades and then dismiss them when you’re farming for rare blades and they just generally get in the way and are fodder for field skill help and merc missions.
The story itself is pretty good, I’m not an anime fan so this is probably the closest thing to anime I consume. It’s pretty cringey at times but I like the general lighthearted tone and banter of most of the characters, except tora who’s kind of an incel creep but it’s played for laughs.
Given my post is mostly flaws, it would seem like I don’t love this game but I’ve been super addicted to it..the stuff it does well is amazing and top of the genre, and the negatives are mostly time taxes that are inherent to the genre in one way or another. I might never play it again after this play through but it still definitely holds a place in my heart and I hold it in very high esteem overall
One of my favorite switch games of all time and my favorite game in the entire Xeno series. The blade system in particular was a work of art that I loved. The story was great. The characters were great. Combat was definitely complicated but once you understand it, it is phenomenal. Can’t heap it’s praises more.
Took a while and a few tries to get into it but once it finally clicked i enjoyed it immensely
I just beat it, haven’t beaten torna.
Hell of an experience and I fully enjoyed grinding out every rare blade to s rank (and some select ones to s+).
I’m going to beat Violet but already eager to go back, beat Torna, blast through ng+ for the dlc blades and start Xc3 which is sitting there sealed waiting.
Still probably in my top 5 games. The character development, themes, worldbuilding, and the poetic nature of the characters’ lives was absolutely unbelievable. In some ways I even felt that the characters were more developed in Xenoblade 3, in spite of that sequel’s higher productions values, better gameplay, and better story.
The most flawed of the 3 Xenoblade games, but the high points are still plenty good enough for those flaws to hardly mean anything in the grand scheme of things. The game is very misunderstood I’d say, mainly due to the very overly “anime-y” feel the game has for the first decent chunk of the game. Mainly referring to the sexualized designs some of the women characters had, of course mainly Pyra and Mythra, and the anime tropes that are thrown in like the obligatory hot springs scene (even though it’s incredibly tame, short, and is used to set up an important plot detail, but everyone that actually talks about this scene just so happens to ignore those points) and the few slapstick scenes that generally miss the mark, least in my opinion.
Many people that haven’t played the game or did not care to pay attention, just see it as a game for horny guys to play and I even seen some people describe it as a hentai game, which is just straight up incorrect. What the game actually is, is a game with great characters, incredible villains (best in the series imo), a 10/10 soundtrack, deeply customizable and fun, if not at times complicated combat, a phenomenal story that I think a lot of people can relate to or find some appreciation in, and just so happens to be marred down somewhat by a slow beginning, generally unfavorable anime tropes and designs, and frankly pretty bad tutorials.
Sadly now-a-days the game is looked down upon by a decent amount of people due to some poor reviews and discourse around the game seems to be never-ending. Personally I just wish more people would actually give the game a fair shot instead of seeing one review and treating it as fact as for every poor review of the game there is, there’s several dozens reviews praising it for the points listed above. Overall, if you can deal with the negatives the game has, you’re in for a pretty good time, even if Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 3 are better imo.
Great game, with good characters and interesting gameplay.
Terrible field skills and character upgrade system, pointless gacha and dumb costume for Rex.
It’s one of the few games that really rationalizes your characters becoming more powerful in line with the story and not just gaining levels, equipping armor/weapons, and arbitrarily attaining skills as is the case in most games in the genre (including XC1 for the most part).
Yeah there is some itemization, but you build affinity with your Blades (i.e. the whole power of friendship meme, but in gameplay) AND you’re consistently getting new options to expand your battle arsenal damn near to the end of the game that are connected to the story. But I also say that to say that the combat is rough for the first 3 chapters of the game as a result (but really opens up after that).
Sure, the game goes a little hard into Anime tropes and some of the character designs are.. well not functional, let’s just say, but if you can avoid getting too blushy crushy over that (kappa), it’s a fun ride with a story filled with all those Xeno-series thought pieces baked in.
All in all, it took enough risks to be its own game from XC1 while also retaining enough familiarity to still be a Xenoblade title and build the franchise that seems to be well on its way to a 5th game (if you count XCX).
Bonus: it also nailed the DLC content.
The game that is in my mind a real hard 5/10 neutral but not because of it being generic or generally mediocre but because for every element that would make it a masterpiece it got another that would make me want to throw a brick at it. Its perfectly split for me between high highs and low lows, the general world is amazing, but the tutorials suck and I really care for now the game teaches me things. The story is fairly decent with some issues and the party of characters is incredibly mixed and split between some amazing, some annoying and some that literally barely exist. The presentation is somewhat more vibrant and esthetic but it also deals with gross oversexualization of some of its characters and GaTcHa MeChAnIcS. It has a banger soundtrack but it also has shit cringy comedic moments. It has amazing writing for its villains yet it fails to make me care for additional gatcha blades at all…
I could go on and on. I have tons of praise and tons of issues. Torna the golden country dlc however is fantastic, I love its story and characters way more and thats what matters most to me in a jrpg. Absolutely amazing example on how to make a great prequel.
Also its somewhat funny, I bet this game got better with time for most people but it actually got worse for me since I became more aware of my taste in games and noticed flaws that I didn’t before later on.
I still think Xeno 2 is one of my favorite JRPGS of all time, and I have played so many of them since I was a kid. I also like Xeno 2 battle system more than 3, it was flashier and blade elemental combos were fun. I do think Xeno 3 did everything else better though, which also makes Xeno 3 one of my favorite RPGS of all time.
It felt like it wasn’t for me. I really really enjoyed xenogears growing up, and Xenosaga was cool despite being really creepy (play it as an adult, holy shit its creepy). But I just couldn’t get into this series. The setting was really cool with the giant corpses of gods that make up the world or whatever but none of the characters really did it for me. I know animey games don’t usually have the deepest characters but I just found them to be on the lame and annoying side. I never got past the first game though, and mass effect 1 isn’t very memorable untill 3/4 through the game when that fuckin thing starts talking to you, so maybe I gave up too early.
I thought the tone was too Anime-y, and the combat was unbearably boring and poorly presented. I put it down after too many hours because I just wasn’t enjoying myself. The story was also annoying, because so many boss fights would be followed by a cutscene where the boss does an anime powerup and beats up my team anyway.
And as an aside, the Nopons literally made my wife cry any time they were on screen because she thought they were so cute. That didn’t change my overall impression, I just think it’s funny.
Great game for a story and lore lover myself. Gameplay was great. Hated the gacha mechanics and field skills though.
The gameplay was nice, but I had a hard time getting past the JRPG-isms, like that dude that constantly said “meh meh meh” and the unnecessarily skimpy outfits on some of the Blades.
I’ll be honest the weird assumedly one sided polyamory thing was a bit off putting?
Like I expected to be given a choice in romance/flirt dialog or to have it give me a choice to opt out entirely. Just felt odd and like a Haram fantasy anime which blegh.
Gameplay was good, some elements of the story were compelling, others fell flat. I’d say 7/10 for me.
I picked it up and played it right before the release of xc3. I liked it overall, the story and setting was definitely the strong point. Combat is a bit overly complicated at first but once you get the hang of it, it works well. Absolutely hated the oversexualization and the stupid tropes, also the game is very poorly optimized and lacking many many QoL features. I would only recommend if you are a fan of the xeno-series. 7/10
One of the worst tutorials for combat ever. But one of the best games I’ve ever played