My thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles

[cashwarrior1]

I'm gonna post my Xenoblade Chronicles thoughts here as I play through the games (may be a while lmao). Also, there are going to be spoilers in these, even outside of the ending section, so be warned

First thoughts
I really liked the game, as much as I hoped I would and maybe even more than I thought I would. I found myself constantly impressed the visuals, the world building, the music, everything. Over my playthrough I felt strangely nostalgic, and I think that's because after several years of listening to the soundtrack, I'm finally seeing what the game is about. And because I've listened to the soundtrack so many times, I had imagined what the game looked like and what the story would be like. There was quite a bit of music in the first half of the soundtrack that I felt got stale and weren't as good as the battle themes and themes like Gaur Plain, but when you're running around and taking in the sights, the music becomes so much more enjoyable. I actually felt the battle themes lost some of their impact in game because there was so much to pay attention to and other noises.

Locations - Bionis
Exploring each area and taking in the sights became my favorite thing to do. When I reached Colony 6, I just stood there at the edge and looked around. I saw the arm of the Bionis holding the sword directly above, with the Mechonis far in the distance. I could look out and see the leg that I had just walked up, and the knee where I exited Tephra Cave. I looked down the knee and could see Colony 9 just behind the foot. I could easily imagine walking around the waist to reach the back where we'd climb up to the head. But the game instead had us go inside the lung and then launch up before coming out onto the back which was a huge rainforest? At this point I started to feel like I couldn't place where I was on the Bionis. I had thought the back would be more of a cliff, or a mountain, I don't quite understand physically how Makna Forest fits on the titan. Despite this, this part of the game felt the most magical to me. Partially because it felt like it shouldn't exist in this way, but also because there was more departure from the serious science fiction the story had up until this point. I had realized that this was because the upper half of the Bionis had more ether concentration, which you could visually see (that's why Satorl Marsh looks dull and dead in the day and magical at night). This was also the point in the game where we encountered races and creatures we didn't see much before. Every now and then you'd see a nopon, but here you only see nopon, as well as weird bugs and magical dinosaurs. You also encounter the High Entia for the first time, which has been mentioned several times before. It was here that I started getting answers to certain aspects of the world building (like why was there ancient technology in colony 9). Then Eryth Sea was quite beautiful, with the floating islands and advanced technology, and the stars and aurora that lit up the night sky. Upon reaching Alcamoth, and experiencing the events here, I had realized that this game was kind of like reading a book trilogy. In fact, bits of the story started reminding me of Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (not that the stories are any way alike, but I was getting similar vibes). It was also here that I started to feel a connection to the characters (actually it was just melia lol) and truly felt engulfed in this world.

Characters
Up until this point I had felt the characters and their interactions weren't that compelling, and I still do feel that way. Shulk and Reyn are good bros and their dynamic is based around Fiora, so when Fiora dies, their character dynamic has to change. Shulk was always viewed as weak and unaware, but since obtaining the Monada and the drive for vengence has caused him to become more powerful. Reyn is meant to protect Shulk but as he gains power, Reyn slowly loses his need to protect Shulk. This shift in dynamic leads Reyn to realize that his role is no longer to proect Shulk, but to watch his back. I feel like this character development should've happened by Makna Forest, instead of being delayed to much later, as a lot of other characters get added to this dynamic and they just have no meaningful interactions until after this development occurs. Specifically I'm talking about Sharla, who has literally zero development or place in this dynamic until the game decides that there's romance between her and Reyn (and even that's not interesting at all). I feel like Dunban joined the party at the perfect time for this development to take place. In fact, Reyn has this character development at this time in one of the heart to hearts with Dunban, but it doesn't actually happen in the story until later. The reason I feel this stuff should've happened earlier is because the game wanted there to be romance between Melia and Shulk, which could have been far more interesting. Melia joining the team could've acted as a replacement to Fiora in Shulk and Reyn's dynamic, and just as romantic feelings started budding, we find out that Fiora isn't dead. At this point, Shulk would become distant from Melia, only focusing on getting Fiora back, setting up conflict between the two before they come to mutual respect (once again, this does happen in the game but literally it happens right before the final dungeon). I feel that all of the character developments should have been finished before reaching the Central Factory because by that point we are fully invested in the story.

Locations - Mechonis
Reaching the Mechonis also marks a moment of disconnect between how I imagined the game would play and how it actually came out. I had always thought that we would cross the sword and step foot onto Mechonis Field and it'd be large and open like Gaur Plain. I thought it'd be this moment of awe and excitement at the fact that you're finally on the Mechonis that you've seen in the distance all this time. With an atmospheric theme and a new battle theme (side note, mechanical rhythm is absolutely the best battle theme in the game), you'd feel pumped up to explore the titan. Especially with the fact that the field could've been on the Mechonis arm, leading straight to the head where Agniratha is. I had hoped that it was in Agniratha that you'd meet the people of Mechonis and find out the reasons behind the assault and the story is more complicated than originally thought. Then from there you'd have to head down and go inside the Central Factory where you'd eventually fight Egil. I'd thought that the game would end shortly after where you find out who the true villain is and enter the final dungeon somewhere on Mechonis. Instead, Mechonis Field is the equivalent of Tephra cave, taking place as a climb up the leg. After that we enter the Central Factory, which was even more epic and impressive than I thought it'd be (like goddamn this place is so visually amazing). With this series of events, I felt like the fact that we're on a titan was kind of forgotten/under-utilized as it was once again hard for me to conceptualize where exactly I am. Especially with all the locations being inside the Mechonis rather than on it. I honestly didn't like that Agniratha was a ghost town. It made sense in the story, but it felt underwhelming as the "final" dungeon before fighting Egil (yes the final fight with him is in the Central Factory, but I would've rather gone through that as the dungeon before fighting him), as well as the fact that the game started to have a steep difficulty spike.

Difficulty
For most of the game I didn't have much difficulty with levels or with the combat system. Since I spent so much time doing side quests and running around, I was 5-10 levels higher than the enemies around me. I constantly checked each previous area for side quests after each chapter, but there was hardly anything new during the entire climb of the Mechonis (I also couldn't upgrade colony 6 to level 4 because you don't get the items needed until after every single area on the Mechonis) so I had assumed that there wasn't anything else to do and that the game was catching up to my level for the final few fights, which is fine. It also meant that I felt the game started being more unfair with the combat system with the increased amount of spike enemies. At first, spike creates an interesting dynamic in how you approach combat. Previously, your best way to get an advantage on an enemy was your position (attack from the side or the back), with the mechon being difficult because you need to topple them or use the monado. The addition of ether based enemies created more need for ether defenses and varied attacks, and you can use status conditions and buffs/debuffs for additional strategy (this also allowed you to damage mechon without needing to topple them). Spiked enemies just meant that it's now more necessary to topple them so you can freely deal damage, so I then based my arts around toppling and dazing. But then enemies started having spike after they're toppled, which at first sounds interesting because it means you don't want to topple them. But that just means that there's no way to get an advantage over the enemy and you're just stuck with auto attacking and waiting for your arts to cool down. And this becomes a bigger problem because you're expected to fight multiple enemies at once and sometimes you want to quickly deal with one that's causing the most problem but you can't since toppling them will make you die faster. Spiked enemies made me not want to get into fights because it made me feel restricted in what characters I can use and how I am able to play. But I felt I could forgive this since this is the final area and we just have the final boss fights left right?

Ending

Spoiler

I fought Egil and Dickson comes out and betrays you and Zanza comes out and now its time to fight. I had thought that we would get transported to one final area and then fight and it'd be done. I didn't like this last portion of the game because it felt like a lot of the world building was thrown out the window. The story made sense to me up until this point. I understood why the mechon attacked Bionis, I understand why homs were turned into faces, I understand that this fighting has been going on for thousands of years. I was just hoping for the explanation as to why Zanza struck in the first place, but the game started saying that it was planned all along, which that one statement made a lot of choices far more questionable than they were before. There was no explanation for why Zanza had to do things in this way, or why he had to wait until his "chosen vessel" was born. He said that's done this time and time before, but creating intelligent life was a mistake? And with the explanations of why Zanza needed to create life as food in order to sustain himself so that he can live forever doesn't make sense because why did Meyneth not do the same thing? And then the explanation of it being an experiment? That ending twist was the thing that I'd spoiled for myself a while back, but was hoping that it would make more sense in context, but it doesn't. It reminds me of how I felt about Mistborn's ending :kekdog:  However, I'm not completely unsatisfied with the ending, as I the fact that 2 and 3 exist and their DLCs (and the soundtrack of 3 specifically) makes me trust that this will make sense with those games. I'm a little upset by the amount of stuff that becomes lost after the Mechonis is destroyed (I had chosen not to fight many unique monsters because I thought I could return later) and how a lot of information revealed at the end needs more explanation. I'm a little upset that the game slowly dropped the idea of exploring a world on a titan (especially with how you would just fly to whatever location you need to get to at the end, and how Prison Island was just in the middle of nowhere and had a distinct lack of visual interest).

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Despite it flaws, this game will stick in my mind for a long time. I hear a lot of people say that 1 is the best, even after 3 has come out, but I feel like I'm going to like 2 and 3 more. I think those games will have better character interactions (from the little bit of 2 I played a while back, I already like those characters more) and answer my questions more completely. I'm glad I played this game, and especially glad I did it in a week and a half lmao. 9/10

[Fantastic Ike]

I need to finish 1...really liking what I've been playing so far. Only skimmed your post because I didn't wanna get spoiled but I pretty much agree with every major point you have.

(Although the main battle theme is a little disappointing imo, doesn't have the drive that a lot of the other battle themes have. Don't dislike it, but it's just fine compared to so many other great tracks)

[cashwarrior1]

Guess what! Time for my thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 2! Once again, there'll be discussion of spoilers (for both 1 and 2).

First Thoughts

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is first and foremost a shounen story told as a jrpg. I think its important to state these basics facts about the game because you will soon see that these two factors greatly influenced my experience with the game. When I played Xenoblade Chronicles, I binged it over a two week period in which I had nothing to do. I wouldn't be doing that this time, as I hadn't planned on playing during a holiday, but rather during summer break. Now this technically isn't my first playthrough of Xenoblade 2, that would've been the 10 hours I played when I first got the game (digitally) in 2020. That time I got it on impulse for the sole purpose of experiencing the story, as I was greatly fascinated by the xeno series as a whole since it was my special interest. Originally I was going to just watch someone play the game, but after the opening cutscene I thought I'd enjoy it more by playing myself. So I got the game and sat down and started rushing through it. I'd skim over the tutorial boxes, avoid exploring or doing side quests, and didn't fully engage with the systems so I could just get to "the good part." Since then, I've learned how to engage with and experience long-commitment media and was more patient. So as I made my way through vaguely familiar scenes and locations in the first three chapters, I made a great deal to pay attention and understand everything about the game. From the combat, the characters, the game systems, and the world building. All stuff that made me love Xenoblade 1 so much. However, this time I kept running into things that slowly soured the experience. First it was small details, talking to npcs didn't feel rewarding in anyway since there was no affinity to build and most of them just gave tips about how to play the game rather than lore about the world. Exploring new areas didn't feel as fun because the filler monster-hunter sidequests from the first game were no longer there and I had no motivation to fight monsters. There was no collectopedia to fill out, so I wouldn't obtain any familiarity with the drops in each area. It was really nice to read what the characters named them in Xenoblade 1 as it gave more insight to their personalities and the world around them, it also meant that when those collectables returned in 2 I could notice them and theorize how these two worlds correlate with each other. Eventually larger grievances started appearing. Blade field skills and requiring a ton of filler blades (or just go insane wondering why so many spots in Uraya wanted high level diving and water mastery skills and I wasn't getting any named blades with those) making me have to clutter the blade list with a ton of fodder, making it more annoying to sift through and keep organized. As well as just the constant having to wait for the game to let me pause so I can go to my characters and figure out which blade is bonded with which driver so I can get a sufficient amount of field skills just to find out that I don't have enough, and then have to go through all those menus again so I can reset my party (this game seriously needs loadout saves). There's a very noticeable lack of polish in this game compared to Xenoblade 1 (DE, dunno about the Wii) in how it lags, the way music triggers bug out, to just the awkward presentation of all the UI and flow. I had heard a lot about this game having a terrible beginning, but a lot of these problems are present throughout the entire experience. Now, after playing the game I wanted to read up on some interviews to get insight from the devs, but there weren't any official interviews on Nintendo's website for Xenoblade 2, so most of the information I got was from gaming journalists trying to get new information before the release. However, I did learn that the team at Monolith Soft was very small (they had 40 members along with some programmers leaving during development, a lot of work was outsourced) due to the others working on other projects (Breath of the Wild). Tetsuya Takahashi also really wanted to push to get a new game in the launch year for the Switch since Xenoblade X didn't make that goal. It's very clear that all aspects of this game were hastily thrown together.

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Locations - Argentum, Gormott, Uraya, Mor Ardain

Gormott

The first four chapters of the game take place on the Titans Gormott, Uraya, and Mor Ardain (Is Argentum the name of the titan or is that just the guild's name?) which serves to highlight the initial conflict of the story. Argentum is a trading guild run by a Nopon who is plotting to get rich off rising tensions between Uraya and Mor Ardain, with Gormott thrown in the middle as a territory of Mor Ardain. Gormott is reminiscent of Gaur Plain but a lot more forest-y. It is a very large area for the beginning of the game and there's so many secrets and places to explore. I think its quite the first impression, especially with Torigoth being so big. Torigoth is one of my favorite locations in the game, I love how its basically positioned on large trunks that hang out over the side of the titan. It's a very vertical city with houses stacked on top of each other and is split by a ship harbor/cliff with bridges stretching across. It feels like lots of ships from all over would be docking and leaving, and local businesses would open up along the lower levels so ships can fly directly to them. I imagine it'd be incredibly lively during the day and very cozy at night. In game, it isn't depicted in this way, likely because Argentum is already the trading hub and Torigoth is supposed to be a colony of Mor Ardain. It is around this point the game's world building shows to be very minimal. Gormott as a whole is presented to be an underdeveloped location where natives live in small villages scattered across the titan (the existence of these villages and this perception of the titan are mentioned and implied by the game but never given more thought) and while I can excuse not showing other villages, I feel like pinning Gormott in this light makes no sense. Especially with its relation to Mor Ardain, who is occupying Torigoth (They couldn't set up anywhere else? This place is huge!) to provide food for their growing army and citizens on a dying titan. The Gormotti people view this occupation is a bad thing, since the soldiers treat them poorly, demand too much of their harvest, and bring no benefit (the offered "benefit" of occupation being protection, which they didn't even need in the first place since they already had Lords) and there's no other way to view it. This conflict becomes even more confusing since the entire reason for occupying Torigoth is to get the locals to provide food (and soldiers) for Mor Ardain's army at the potential of war with Uraya, but neither Niall or Morág want to go to war nor view the occupation as a bad thing. Instead of the game showing us this conflict and just presenting Mor Ardain as a villain, it tries to view the issue with complexity, but only in a way that the only offered solution is for the Gormotti people to just "be okay" with hostile occupation. Simply because the Ardainian titan is dying and they need food to feed their citizens (with nothing said about perhaps reducing their armed forces) it is okay and good to demand the citizens in an occupied territory for their food and their lives.

(ahem)

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Uraya

Moving on to Uraya, this titan is very beautiful. I love how it starts out at the head, where its dark and threatening. You see wrecked ships and other debris swallowed up by the titan. The mercenaries regularly check the mouth for more supplies and potential refugees, that's how you meet Vandham. As you make your way through the damp cave-like interior, filled with poisonous pools and cramped alcoves, the titan slowly opens up and you catch a glimpse of its belly as the music changes into a beautiful and swelling melody... or at least it would if they didn't screw it up. This entire section in the beginning of Uraya could've been a really impactful combination of story telling, world building, gameplay mechanics, and music, but somehow it all got fumbled up and came out incredibly clunky. The belly of the titan is absolutely stunning, however. You make your way along the cliff-sides down to the shallow pool, crossing back and forth. Coral-like fauna and enemies make you feel as if you are underwater. One the titan's sides are translucent gills(?) that let light shine in, allowing for a day and night cycle. Rain pours down from the top as water seeps through the blowhole and throughout the body. Wind blows and the saffron trees glitter like dust. Truly, a place of magic. And to add to the mysticism, Fonsa Myma is ripped straight out of a medieval fantasy (or a disneyland themepark lmao) with the town stretching across the walls of the back of the titan. Crossing a great chasm where a huge staircase connects the top to the bottom. On the other side of the city is a port filled with water, and no visible exit to the titan how do they leave?? Above all the common folk you can see the castle where the queen resides, inaccessible to the player and the citizens. Showing that she has no care for who she rules over, so long as they work the soil and provide the money to her riches. Upon entering Fonsa Myma we get to see that the citizens are poor and hungry and must rely on rations from the queen. But since they apparently need food to feed the army (more likely because she wants to hoard it), the soldiers are very strict and have no sympathy for the starving population. Since everyone's in poverty here, the only way to get money is to fight. Joining the army isn't much of an option for most people and those that do tend to fall out. This is why Garfont Mercenaries exists (as well as others, I guess). The main characters and the citizens immediately view mercenaries as bad people since they "show no allegiance" and charge a lot of money to fight (presumably the reason why there's not enough rations to feed the people). However, we are assured that Garfont Mercenaries is actually good compared to other mercenaries because Vandham cares about them And that's about the extent the game explores this conflict. It sets up a clear issue that is being exasperated by the growing tension between Uraya and Mor Ardain, with the queen being wholly unaware of what's going on (in fact, she's presented in the most negative light in all of this) and with the people having to fend for themselves in whatever way they can to just feed their families. We already have soldiers who don't seem to have much loyalty since they tend to become mercenaries for the money anyways, and tons of mercenary groups full of strong and talented warriors, but absolutely zero attempt at making things better? There's no rebels, no revolution, no attempt at overthrowing the queen, and no attempt at making her aware of the issues in her kingdom to productively solve this problem. Instead, the game presents the historically accurate (probably) and hilariously problematic is Capitalism!!!! (lets gooooo). One of the reasons why talking to the npcs was so uninteresting to me was how much they would just talk about how to play the game (even here in chapter 3, after the average playtime is around 15-20 hours) but the other is soooo much about capitalism. These npcs talk about this to "explain" how to increase the development level of each titan. When you talk to npcs, do quests, and more importantly buy stuff, it'll increase the dev level of the titan. When the dev level increases, the prices of goods goes down and some places get new items (most others you have to do merc missions for). This is great because you can use these items for your pouch where you get small buffs and have something to do with all this useless stuff you keep picking up. But also because buying every item from a merchant will (in most cases) let you buy their deed which gives you permanent buffs like increasing walking speed (why the hell is this locked behind such a convoluted mechanic). Now this is all great until you realize that its not just a npc mentioning this in the beginning of the game. No, its several npcs mentioning this in every single city for the entire game, some cities with multiple npcs talking about it and never change their dialogue 😀😀😀. So when presented with the problem of not having enough food because the queen is a hoarding b-  the npcs say "if we keep spending money on things, then the price will go down and we'll all be able to afford food!" when THE PROBLEM IS THEY DON'T HAVE MONEY TO BEGIN WITH!!

(sigh)

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Mor Ardain

At this point in the story we head to Mor Ardain. Based on everything that happened in Gormott and Uraya, it was clear to me that there's a lot of tension building for conflict between Mor Ardain and Uraya and that we're going to have to stop it. But this game did something so unbelievably stupid that it became amusing. When we get to Mor Ardain, instead of addressing any of these conflicts, we are immediately shown that Ardainians are actually good people and the game literally tells us "oh those guys in Gormott? Nahh they're just a bad bunch, we would never occupy and oppress a native group of people " We then have our attention taken away to some weeb ass maid robot shit and the conflict is just ignored for the next two chapters. Yes, it was at this point that I realized that this game is just a shounen. It's not a sci-fi fantasy like the original (or any of Takahashi's other work for that matter), its just a silly adventure where main character sees all sorts of different places and meets all sorts of different people but none of their conflicts matter because women exist (to be objectified). One of those interviews I read, Takahashi stated that he makes a lot of games with darker stories and depressing setups, he wanted to try something different this time. Instead, he was inspired by the growing popularity of shounen anime and how people loved and got attached to those characters, remembering all good times and silly fun we had So he wanted to make a game where you could think about the characters and smile. What he didn't realize, is you can do that without being cringe as fuck. This game is filled with anime tropes. Why do none of the conflicts matter and none of this stuff is addressed? because that's not what happens in shounen. Why are characters overly animated and have all the exact same character tropes? because that's how shounen is! Why does the game objectify women and appeal to harem culture??? because that's what shounen is!!! _{shounen is literally just the word for boy/juvenile}
But that doesn't mean that it is okay for it to be like this. That just because the tropes of the genre are one way, doesn't mean that you can't tell the same kind of story and have the same experience without all this problematic stuff. And I get that this kind of stuff is primarily just how Japanese culture is, but it just makes the entire game ring hollow. What does this game have to say, what do I take away from this other than just an addition to and a reflection of Japanese society and culture. There's no depth, there's not critique, there's nothing to gleam from it. This is the plotline where instead of confronting imperialist concepts and environmental damages, we follow horny nopon and the one punchline that they have, being that they're horny. It's so ridiculous that I just kinda lost it. Like we're just gonna ignore everything else this game has brought up to watch a greedy businessman and his lackey fly through a tube, giving a 😼 goofy ass smirk as they pilot a 10 foot tall maid robot. At this point, I was enjoying the tropes. It's just so absurd that you have to like it, and I think that's what most people get out of shounen stories. It almost felt like satire of the genre, but I think the genre is already satire of itself and of Japanese kawaii culture as a whole. However, that does not excuse what comes next.

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Story - part 1

I'm going to recap the story of these first four chapters as well as touch a bit on character dynamics before I go into the second half of the game. The setup is pretty simple. Rex is a salvager, he is presented with an opportunity to take on a big salvage with some mysterious strangers (and the game gives an actually valid reason why he was chosen, later). After going through the abandoned vessel and opening the door, they come across the Aegis. Rex accidentally bonds with it and Jin immediately kills him as to not make it a problem later. Nia doesn't like this because Rex is innocent and Malos is evil. Pyra, luckily, is able to use half her life force to bring Rex back to life so long as he promises to take her to Elysium. There's a brief confrontation with Malos and then we escape on Gramps to Gormott (also Nia defends us from Malos and falls onto Gramps). So immediately we are given our goal of getting to Elysium. We have to get a boat since Gramps is no longer big, and that leads to exploring Gormott. Basically every bit of world building I explained earlier is told here, but we also get a bit more of Nia's backstory. Right away Nia and Rex have good chemistry. She clearly has went through some serious stuff, and Rex being all care-free and childish helps her to see the value in family and friendship (not right away though, the game does a good job pacing this). To my dismay, we also get Tora, the worst character both gameplay wise and story wise. He is interesting and necessary at first, being a wielder of an artificial blade (which is a cool concept) and fulfilling the tank/aggro role of the group. He helps us get a ship to get to Elysium and tags along because he thinks we're cool On the way to the World Tree, we come across two obstacles. One being the giant pit surrounding it and the other being Orphion, a huge robot snack dude (super cool). We suddenly get gobbled up by the Uraya titan which means we have to once again find a way out. This part of the story has more really nice chemistry between Rex and Nia and really forced romance between Rex and Pyra (And Tora is there). Vandham is a really well done character, especially as a mentor for Rex. Up until this point, Rex has been very childish, so having a really experienced driver teach him how to more properly use the Aegis' power felt appropriate. We also meet Zeke, the best character. Up in Fonsa Myma the gang goes to meet Minoth, who would know how to get to Elysium. Here there's a play about the story of Addam and a lot of hinting about Pyra's past (in retrospect, hiding all this information felt unnecessary but it makes for engaging story telling) and Rex gets a better understanding of the power he wields. A lot of the character development in this portion of the game felt necessary but also severely underdone. I feel like Rex especially should've learned a lot more from everything here and began to be more mature. This was the perfect chance to really show the chemistry between Rex and Pyra and it all just felt very superficial (partially due to the voice acting, which I'm going to chock up to bad directing in the recording sessions). The way this chapter ends quite honestly doesn't make much sense to me. Malos and Ahkos kidnap Minoth's daughter to lure Pyra to meet at where she was first awakened (WHICH DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN ANY CONTEXT AT ALL, WHY HERE) alone. This is exactly where all the bonding and character building between Rex and Pyra should've come to fruition. Rex should've noticed much sooner that something was on her mind. I think Pyra going alone was fine, but I really felt like it should've happened through a communication (either Pyra convincing Rex to let her go alone or him convincing her to let them go) rather than the way it did, since it just showed that no character development has happened. The actions of Malos and Ahkos also don't make sense to me. I get that they're evil and are trying to lure out Pyra so they can take her, but they literally talk about it like they're just playing games and "having fun" like that's just being evil for the sake of being evil and these characters (ahkos especially) are supposed to be more nuanced than that. Vandham dies Mythra shows up and everyone is shocked and then it turns out Mythra is just as unlikeable as Pyra yayyyyyyyyy.

After some filler about chasing down a Gormotti kid who's village got attacked by a gang (and nothing comes from that grrrr) we have to head to Indol to meet the Praetor who can tell us how to get to Elysium. And to show you how far away that is, we have to stop at Mor Ardain first before we get there! Literally since this place is just a stop on the journey, the entire plot here was made into filler. Tora gets some actually interesting character development with his lost father and grandfather, and how Poppi was him trying to finish their dream. I was really hoping that he would grow from this and would move him towards the found family kind of growth, but it didn't and nothing changed here. Like Poppi was supposed to have character development by forming a drive to exceed the expectations of her creators (and she absolutely slays doing it) but it felt undercut by everything else. Also Morag joined our party because Mor Ardain's actually good At this point I had thought that this filler was about to be the most impactful piece of plot, since Bana mass produced artificial blades that anyone can use. I thought that we'd start seeing drivers with them (and make use of the mechanical hunter gems I've been getting), or that it would start going to the mercenaries and Gormotti and insight rebellions against Uraya and Mor Ardain who're causing problems for the citizens since the rulers are preparing for war for literally no reason. I thought that Tora was gonna have access to artificial blades to use alongside Poppi and he'd become an actually useful party member. But nope, none of this happened and the artificial blades were practically forgotten. Bana was selling them to Torna, which feels like an excuse to tie it in with the story even though there was already a much better way of doing that sitting right there. Regardless, at this point we head towards the Leftheria Archipelago, for what I had thought was the second half of the game...

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Locations - Leftheria, Indol, Temperantium, Tantal, Spirit Crucible Elpys

Leftheria Archipelago

Leftheria Archipelago is one of those locations that give you a sense of adventure. Like you're not at the end of the game, but you've entered a new chapter. Most of the game's locations take place on titans, moving around in the cloud sea. They're basically like continents. So if you took several smaller titans and put them in one location, it becomes like an island chain. This is a pretty cool idea for a location, though that's about as far as it goes. The actual archipelago isn't very interesting. One thing that made Xenoblade 1 so magical was how it's always interesting to look up. Look up and you see the sword of the bionis above you. Or you see the trees glow with ether at night. Or you look into the canopy of giant trees. Or you see the sky light up with aurora and stars. In Xenoblade 2, you can look up and see the head of Gormott, or Mor Ardain, and the World Tree. But there's no glowing ether, there's no seeing places you've not yet been, it's all very dull. Leftheria feels the most barren and least magical by result. It does have a giant wall of cloud sea, which is supposed to be because the central titan is hidden beneath it, but the wall doesn't really evoke that sense. To cross the wall you walk through an underwater tunnel where you can see creatures swimming and the ocean floor... and its also very boring. The other side of the archipelago is the exact same as the first. Traveling from titan to titan could've been really cool and fun. There could've been fun interactions between them and maybe they each hosted different kinds of environments and it adds to the world building. Instead they're static creatures with the only movement being small platforms that go from place to place (they don't even go anywhere interesting either). At the end we reach Fonsett Village and I thought this place was quite nice. It gave off a quaint seaside village vibe where everything was quiet and peaceful. Unfortunately there wasn't anything else interesting about it. The village is quite isolated from the rest of the world, the only people that visit are traders and adventurers. I think there was a pretty fun sidequest of tracking down the money Rex sent to Corinne to see why so much was lost, and then setting up a new direct route. You can see that some more people show up at the port and the villagers talk about having more trade and connection to the outside world. I wish there was more of this.

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Indol

Our next stop is Indol! Yay! Indol is the primary source of power in Alrest and we finally get to address all the problems that have been brought up. Indol is a religious city, so immediately all the npcs have something interesting to say. Honestly not much is said about their religion other than how they worship the architect and they are always trying to convert people. Luckily for the priests, there are plenty of people to convert in the refugee camp. A large plaza is filled with tents of refugees who have lost their homes and families due to war. Indoline priests show their graciousness by feeding and preaching to them while viewing them as an unwanted stain. The refugees detest blades, who they view as the reason they lost their homes, and Indol who distributes core crystals to the other countries. Very quickly the game addresses the refugee problem by saying "it's sad these people have lost their homes, they should be grateful that Indol feeds them and lets them stay here, but instead they're angry at Indol." The refugees lost their homes and families because Indol provides Mor Ardain and Uraya with blades. They are protesting against blades because they're the immediate and visible cause of their misfortune. Instead of looking at the actual cause of this, the game simply sees that they're protesting blades and "but blades are nice! We've had good experiences with them and so therefore they never are used to cause harm to other people," painting the refugees as in the wrong. What makes all this worse is the game then explains exactly the cause of the problem and the characters never think to solve it. In order to make core crystal bonding more efficient, the Praetor has to purify them. This means that all blades in Alrest go through and are registered by Indol. There's a very clear power vacuum here and it just goes right over the heads of the main characters. At this point the tensions between Mor Ardain and Uraya have exploded into a big battle over Temperantia. The catalyst of this being Mor Ardain digging up Judicium titans and Jin piloting one (we'll get to that in the next section). The war between these two countries is stupid. Mor Ardain is a military state and keeps doing things to support the war effort while both Morag and Niall don't want this to happen. In fact, it feels like people keep acting against their wishes and go unpunished, allowing them to freely exercise power in an oppressive way. Having this be the case just makes no sense. If Mor Ardain keeps doing oppressive imperialist actions, that should either be completely supported by or shut down by the king. The king wouldn't be opposed to all of this but do nothing about it except "wish it wasn't this way." You're the KING you have the power to change things! And if not Niall, then Morag should be doing something to fix relationships with other countries as she is literally traveling to them constantly. And then Uraya is just there. Like there's no reason why Uraya has conflict with Mor Ardain other than "oh they always fight amongst themselves, it's been that way for centuries" like okay yeah then I guess they have no choice but to prepare for war. Both of these countries were so obsessed with preparing for war over literally nothing that it became an actual war, hurting thousands of civilians and ruining countless lives. And once again in the aftermath all the characters show that they are good, actually, and only the Urayan queen (who appears to be completely oblivious to everything) is shown in a negative light. This game repeatedly paints the oppressed people and those that have been harmed by the people in power as being wrong, while paints the imperialist powers as noble and right, while saying the only reason problems exist in the first place is due to misunderstanding and a few bad apples.

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Temperantia

Temperantia is a cool location. There's supposed to be lore about it being a battle ground of Malos and Mythra but other than that its a large barren area with not much to see. I just like how threatening it feels.

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Tantal

LETS GO ITS TIME FOR TANTALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tantal is by far the best location in this game. The titan is a turtle that swims beneath the cloud sea. The only way for it to surface is if Pandoria asks it to, and as a result it has been isolated for hundreds of years. Despite being isolated, they are still in partial contact with Indol, as Amalthus has blackmailed the king into creating core crystals. Core crystals are formed from titans using their ether flow, and as a result of doing that, Genbu has become a frozen wasteland. Immediately the environment is amazing. You walk across large hanging cliffs and can look out at the tundra below. In the center is a beam of light passing from a frozen lake, through Theosir and into the top of the titan. Theosir itself seems to be floating in the center, which is just an awesome concept. The music here is sung by none other than Anúna (also Indol, but this one's better) and the lyrics add to the lore. It feels like a lost civilization that is a shadow of its former glory. Since the titan is too cold to grow much food, they rely on it from Indol. But the people can't live off that, and so a black market has formed to try and smuggle in goods from outside while the king turns a blind eye. The npcs also talk about how if you keep buying things, the prices will go down and then everyone will be able to afford to eat but I digress 😑 Surrounding the city are giant pillars of old ruins formed around stalactites. Everything about this place feels magical and otherworldly. Once I was exploring one of the pillars and I looked out over the frozen lake and there was a giant level 90 octopus monster and several others that were utterly gigantic. It was very hazy and so I wasn't sure what I saw was real until I targeted it (one of them was over level 100??). Absolutely terrifying and definitely the most memorable location.

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Spirit Crucible Elpys

I want to briefly talk about Spirit Crucible Elpys. Back in Leftheria, it was mentioned that there is a larger titan hidden in the cloud sea. Well, this is that titan, which is a pretty cool bit of lore. It also gives context to why adventurers would come to Leftheria, to seek the rumored treasure in here. Unfortunately we don't actually get to see what this titan looks like, and so it ends up just feeling a bit like a cave. Though the music and weblike design of the walls is more evocative of xenoblade 1 and tephra cave. The big open hall at the end is also pretty cool, and I especially like the detail that you can salvage in here since it does lead to the cloud sea.

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Story - part 2

Leftheria Archipelago is the place of Rex's hometown. This makes for further bonding between Rex and Pyra and more failed romance (I get I'm aromantic but this stuff really is bad). Morág and Brighid also get some character development (there wasn't room for that last chapter 💀) in their relations to the other characters. Here we get insight into Pyra's feelings, how she is afraid that being around Rex will cause him more pain, and that she feels the world would be better off without her. Stuff that I really wish pushed Rex to become more mature, but instead Pyra's feelings are communicated to literally everyone but him. Next up we head to Indol and Zeke joins the party (thank god). At Indol the plot gets a bit more complicated. So we are trying to see the Praetor to figure out how to get up the World Tree. We're told that we have to take care of Ophion first and in order to do that we need to go to Tantal. Though this information isn't revealed until a bunch of other stuff just happens. So I need to talk a bit about Jin and Torna, as they are the main antagonists in the story. Malos is an Aegis, and is working with Jin to retrieve the other Aegis, Mythra. In order to open the seal, they need someone born in Leftheria who is also a skilled salvager, hence Rex. After Rex bonds with the Aegis and escapes, Jin and Torna decide to continue with their plan. Malos predicts that Pyra is also trying to reach Elysium, and so it's not immediately important to take care of her. In the meantime, Jin has been attacking Ardainian and Urayan ships and taking core crystals. These attacks are also supposed to spur war between the two countries, to get humans to destroy themselves, as Torna's goal is the liberation of blades, I guess. The problem is that both countries primarily know the attacks are from Torna, and not the other, and also Jin knows that Indol controls the core crystals. So why attack all these random ships to gather core crystals instead of attacking Indol to stop the production? Also why gather core crystals in the first place? I get the liberation of blades, but I don't see how that contributes to that goal. Anyways, Jin goes to Temperantia and uses a Judicium titan to attack Urayan forces to try and make it seem like Mor Ardain is attacking. Because of this, we have to go check it out and stop Jin. Some words are exchanged, characters know things that I don't since I haven't gotten that far in Torna, and Jin kills Haze. His actions don't make much sense, but that's what Torna is for. Mor Ardain and Urayan forces then show up and immediately start attacking each other, no questions asked, and Indol shows up to call for a cease fire. A summit is going to be held to diplomatically resolve the conflict and finally address all the problems. Except nope, because Bana returns in another fucking maid robot how is it that this dude returns but the mass produced artificial blades don't??? Because of this, none of the conflicts get resolved and literally every problem that was brought up in the first half of the game never is addressed or talked about again 🙃

So we head to Tantal to get the Omega Fetter to control Orphion, who is an artifice of Mythra's. Tantal is actually the direct bloodline of Addam, the hero, so they're cool. But it turns out they're not cool because after reading Amalthus's letter, the king immediately wants to annihilate Pyra. And Pyra views this as the best outcome, so she doesn't really resist. Poppi girlbosses her way out of the jail and our heroes show the king the power of friendship and family, and this all would've been more impactful if any of the characters had actually developed. But oh no using the power of the giant laser has caused Pandoria to lose control of Genbu and he starts diving deep into the cloud sea! So we have to rush to the head and retrive the Omega Fetter. Once we do reach it, Torna shows up and we get a cool ass battle followed by an even cooler battle with Jin 😎 Jin realizes that Rex and Pyra share pain, which means they're weak and Mythra tries using her artifice to hit Jin. But he reveals that he has the power to control particles in the air, which is sick, he's so cool. So Pyra then threatens to use the artifice to destroy herself to save Rex. Really cool scene, made Pyra feel like an actual character which is a plus. Unfortunately without Pyra, Rex gets all in the dumps and wants to give up. However, all the other characters who actually bonded with Pyra and got to know her rightly point out Rex for being selfish and childish (poppi girlbossing again). It was at this point that the lack of character development and maturity from Rex made sense, as this moment wouldn't've happened if he did have that. It does still feel like this should've happened wayyy sooner and feels like a poor excuse, as Rex was just an unlikeable character up until this point. And even then, things don't really change as the story is about to barrel to the climax and there's not much time for Rex to properly understand and talk to Pyra. Instead its all just told to him by people who already have a better relationship with her.

Despite not having Pyra, there still is hope! There is a third sword that has even stronger power, and Addam has hidden it away... in Leftheria. It's behind a door only Leftherians can open (omg just like the beginning!!) and here theres a little detail that I think was overlooked. Rex's backstory is that his parents basically washed up on the shore of Fonsett and died shortly after, and he was just a baby. So he wasn't actually born in Leftheria. The point of the door is people with Addam's blood could open it, and that's why he founded the village of Fonsett. Anyways, Spirit Crucible Elpys is a place that drains the force of blades, and makes it dangerous because of that. I don't understand exactly why this titan would do that, the game doesn't explain, but this really is just a way to force Nia to reveal she's a blade. Her character is that she was afraid and untrusting of people and has to overcome that fear and be who she truly is (slay). She also expresses her love for Rex, which makes sense as they had good chemistry. It also feels very aimed at male desires as like all the female blades are over sexualized and flirtatious towards Rex. It feels like Pyra exists solely for that purpose (her design especially) and Nia's blade design (and the fact that only Rex can use her) serves that purpose, despite her being a queen in it.

I think now would be a good time to explain the grand theory I had about this game and its place in the Xenoblade series. I had always thought of the world of Xenoblade 2 as an extension of the world of Xenoblade 1. In the first game there were two titans standing in an endless ocean and that was all they knew. We find out that the entire life cycle and function of the titans was used to serve the purpose of feeding Zanza so he can destroy it and create a new world. This cycle has been going on for a long time (I think its directly said, but it definitely is implied). We learn from Alvis that Zanza was a guy named Klaus who tried an experiment presumably to save his world that lead to the creation of this one. It implied that this world is a purely digital one, or at least separate from where Klaus is from. After Shullk defeats Zanza, he gives up the power of the monado to have a world without gods, and you see them looking off in the distance and into the sky wondering what else is out there. This brings us to Xenoblade 2. Since Zanza is no longer present, I had thought that the life cycle of the titan that served to feed him would continue. But instead of it being used by Zanza, it would've become the life cycle of the titans. Eggs would form and birth new titans and blades would be born from the ether flow of said titans. The existence of the collectables from Xenoblade 1 confirmed this for me, as well as other details of the world. I bring this theory up because the way the game was presenting Addam made me think that he could be Shulk. He was always hooded, his voice sounded mature like that of Shulk's, and in the scene where he gives his message to the people of Tantal, the clothing under the hood looked like Shulk's and his eyes were blue like Shulk's. Spirit Crucible Elpys having very similar music and textures to Xenoblade 1 also made me think this way. However, the game never reveals who Addam is until Torna, and I am still in the middle of playing that.

With a new found hope and power of friendship, Rex decides that doesn't need the third sword and has everything he need right with him. We head for the Cliffs of Morytha for a showdown with Malos and Jin. Malos is wielding a Monado, which made me feel more confident in my theory, though I fear that it exists just as an easter egg (actually now that I think of it, I think Mythra having three swords might be the three Monado from Xenoblade 1). The Cliffs of Morytha are a really cool location, it has ruins and is the corpse of a dead titan. Hanging off the edge of the pit around the World Tree, and being up close to it is an awesome atmosphere. The Jin and Malos battle feels like a big climax, as all our characters have finished their arcs and have found their resolve. All that's left is stopping the villains. I just want to comment on two things that kinda bothered me. This entire game, Malos has felt like the side villain. Jin was the main antagonist, everyone else in Torna acted according to Jin's plan and Malos says that he's doing everything based on what he wants. So when we fight Malos and Nia uses her power to manipulate water in a very clever way, causing Malos's muscles to expand, I had thought that that was his death. Coming up to Jin and Malos just appearing like everything was fine was immensely disappointing, along with the game revealing that he's actually the main bad guy in the upcoming chapters. During the fight with Jin, he reveals that his "true power" is absolute zero, and this moment is also really disappointing. I know that it is an anime trope for people to reveal their "true power" or "true nature" and its supposed to be a big moment, but to have Jin go from "my power is to manipulate particles in the air" to "my power is absolute zero" is dumb. Manipulating particles in the air is just an explanation of how he uses his power, being able to stop all the particles to simulate absolute zero is not a separate power, its just using your existing power in a new way. I don't like how its presented here. Despite Rex denying the power of the third blade, Pyra's bond with him allows her to show her full strength with confidence and she finally has resolve. This is an awesome character moment for Pyra, and I loved it. It also comes with some new game mechanics! And it is now finally time to talk about the gameplay wooo.

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Gameplay

Characters

One of the biggest complaints I've heard about this game is that the game does an awful job at teaching the combat system and that it becomes really fun by the end. I agree for the most part. Having the walls of text pop up so frequently and a lot of crucial information popping up in the midst of an important battle made things feel clunky, but once I understood the general process it wasn't too bad. It also helped a lot to be familiar with Xenoblade 1 since a lot of aspects of that battle system return here (the blade combos specifically). Each character uses a blade to fight and your arts are based on the weapon your blade wields. Weapon types also have different arts for each character, something I didn't realize until the end of the game, so every character is designed to fill a specific role. Rex's primary blade is Pyra and his role is similar to Shulk in Xenoblade 1. You don't want to take any aggro and you want to position yourself to take advantage of different arts. Immediately this is problematic as Rex moves incredibly slowly, attacks very slowly, and you don't have anyone to take aggro until you get Tora. The act of moving meant my three attacks have reset and my talent gauge doesn't fill, so anytime I'd try to position myself for side attacks or back attacks I'd have to either wait to deal full damage or the enemy would have moved. It also made collecting HP potions annoying since they'd land so far away. Later in chapter 3 Rex gets the ability to topple enemies which is helpful for using blade combos. Nia plays the role of healer and is immediately more fun to play as. Her attacks are fast and her movement speed is faster (movement speed is based on the weapon you have, so that makes sense) which means getting HP potions and healing is top priority. Since Nia plays support, she also doesn't want to take any aggro, which leads Rex to be the aggro taker for a little bit. Her role as support makes it easier to find out what blades to bond her with. While you can make her into a paladin or tank, she is basically the only healer you have and will have to be on all team comps. Since every character has a primary blade that you cannot remove, you always have to build your teams around that. This is why Rex is more annoying to use since Pyra doesn't fill any role that well and doesn't synergize with other blades well either. Nia always had dromarch, so she will always be a support role. While you can make her more attack focused or a tank, she doesn't handle aggro well and if you're not supporting your team they'll die easily. Tora fulfills the role of tank with Poppi and that is it. After chapter 4 he gets Poppi QT and can switch between them, but you can't fill the third slot until you reach the Cliffs of Morytha (and not even then since you need Pyra and the whole party, which you won't get until halfway through Land or Morytha) and its a long sidequest. Poppi also doesn't work the same way any of the other blades do and requires you to play Tiger Tiger to get points to unlock upgrades. And any upgrades you make on Poppi doesn't even carry over to the other models even though its literally just the same character. It's just far too time consuming to try and make Tora viable and its not even worth it. Also, there's a DLC quest that creates a new remote Poppi model and a giant mech that's separate from the new model... AND TORA CAN'T EVEN USE THEM. Especially when the game introduces mass produced artificial blades and you can't get any for Tora to use, he is just so useless. Morág is a better tank role than Tora. Brigid does a great job at drawing aggro and dealing damage especially since she attacks pretty fast. And lastly we get Zeke with Pandoria, and he is probably the best character to play as. His attacks are slow but he deals a lot of damage and can also be a good tank. Both him and Morág can fulfill a healer role if needed, but Nia already does a great job at that and Rex is just kinda useless. But this is a shounen and so you're supposed to be a teenage boy wanting to be surrounded by girls so Rex is given the special treatment of having Nia as a blade. Blade Nia is really good, she attacks fast, runs fast, and is still a healer. She honestly still doesn't synergize well with Pyra but she's a good alternative in the chapter where you don't have her.

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Team building

Team building is what I feel makes the combat system so good. Deciding which blades to use based on what role you want the character to play is fun. Figuring out how to strategize with blade combos and special arts (having elements that play well off each other) is fun and satisfying. When you unlock the ability to cancel arts, the flow of battle becomes much more enjoyable as you can use art after art and immediately switch to another blade and use their arts then special and switch again and rapidly build up the party gauge, its very satisfying. I kinda wish this was something you could do from the start but I think making it locked helps the player understand the system well to fully utilize it. The game is fun but it all falls apart due to one fatal flaw. Gacha mechanics. So each character can bond with a core crystal to get a blade. There are a bunch of generic blades that aren't very powerful but having a ton of them really helps out with field skills and merc missions. Instead the blades that you really want to get are the rare ones, as they have unique designs, affinity charts, and side quests. The problem is that you have to roll them and get lucky. You can choose between different boosters to increase a stat that plays a part in the roll in a way that I don't understand, as well as using rarer core crystals makes you more likely to get a rare blade (not that it actually works). Having this all be up to chance would be fine if it wasn't for several other things. Firstly, there are a lot of field skills and even quests that you can't interact with unless you have the right blade. Team building is now up to chance as you hope to not only get a rare blade, but one who's role actually fits the character you're bonding with. Oh yeah, when you bond a blade, you bond it to a SPECIFIC DRIVER, and ONLY THAT DRIVER CAN USE IT!!! This single choice made the gacha mechanic so much more agonizing as I bond a blade to a character when they would be better suited for another, and the only way to switch is to use an overdrive which are incredibly rare items. Not to mention that the game decides to be cheeky and after Cliffs of Morytha, Rex can becomes a "master driver" and can use blades bonded to other drivers. Which means I wasted tons of core crystals getting rare blades on Rex, when he would've been able to use them if they were bonded with someone else! And also Nia becoming a blade means that the amount of blades I have bonded with her would've been better suited on Morag or Zeke. I understand having the gacha system make it so that everyone's experience adventuring is unique. You get a few unique blades and have fun quests as they grow alongside you and then you beat the game. But when you get to the end of the game and you have a clear vision of how you want your teams to look and you want to see what other blades there are but have a more fleeting chance of getting rare ones, it becomes incredibly frustrating. I was saving all my common core crystals for Indol because the game mentioned that the Praetor purifies core crystals to give them a higher success rate. I thought this meant I could purify core crystals and turn them into rarer ones, but that never happened. Amalthus said that the reason he could do this is because he's the driver of an Aegis, and Rex wonders if he'd be able to do it. So I thought oh okay so we're going to be able to purify them ourselves. That never happened. The game never gives an option to make it easier to fill out the blade list. You just have to try and try again, coming across rare and legendary core crystals and still getting fodder. Absolutely asinine.

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Items

Being a jrpg, this game loves to plaster you with a bunch of duplicate items that provide insignificant stat changes that have little to no impact on gameplay. Each character has two accessory slots you can equip items to. Items range from increasing a stat by a small amount to very slightly boosting the resistance to a single debuff. Enemies throw out many different debuffs and inflict many different status. Attacking with physical or ether is near meaningless as your characters will always be using both and you only care about the effect of the art or filling your special gauge. If enemies deal physical and ether damage similarly feels meaningless. I've had to look up what the other stats do multiple times because I have no idea how they affect gameplay. Some items do things that arts do and are also primarily useless. The most useful items are ones that don't boost anything since those tend to have actually noticeable affects to battle. I generally do not like jrpgs because they ask me to go through menu after menu to look at stats so I can use one of my limited slots to slightly increase said stat to aid in battle, just for me to encounter another problem because whoops I didn't realize this enemy would shackle my driver instead of using a blowdown move. Not that it would've mattered since other enemies tend to show up in battle that also use break, topple, stench, and any other debuff that I couldn't have prepared for. I primarily want items to aid in strategies and be beneficial against all kinds of enemies. I don't want to have to go through menus to find the right item to face off one enemy when the problem could lie in team comp, levels, bad luck, or just going into battle with the wrong character as the lead. Part of me feels like these things weren't as bad as Xenoblade 1, but alternatively every encounter felt very dull. Like there was no tackling challenges with a new strategy or an enemy countering one strategy and having to shift gears to another. There's only one strategy in these games and when the enemy counters that strategy the game says "use an item to reduce the chance of that happening" which is not a fun solution. This is why Tantal is my favorite part of the game. The battle with Mikhail and Patroka is very clever. The primary strategy is to use specials to make your way up the special tree to get enough orbs and perform a chain attack. Some enemies counter this strategy with stench, which reduces your special gauge. This is always annoying as all it does is make the battle longer and the only way to prevent this from happening is by equipping an item. However, in this fight, there is a weather totem that causes this to happen. At first I was mindlessly battling until I realized I couldn't get past level 1 specials. I then had to notice the weather totem and change my strategy to focus on that while my teammates kept the others busy. Once it was taken down, I would use a bunch of specials and later the totem would pop back up. They countered my strategy and I was able to meaningfully respond and show agency. This is what the game should be doing. When an enemy counters a strategy, I should be able to adjust mid battle, not be forced to do so before the battle begins.

Once we unlock Pyra's full power, Rex becomes basically the only character that makes sense to control. Not only can he use any blade, but he has Nia who is a great healer and Pyra who and now use her third blade to completely dominate battles. Going into this form means that you cannot die, her specials will work with any tree and attacks all orbs. You can only use it once per battle, but most of the time its best to use it as soon as you get it. I think this is a really fun power trip but it does take the already single minded strategy and makes it even more so.

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Music

A brief aside on battle music. The music in this game has a more cohesive vision than Xenoblade 1, which makes sense given that Mitsuda was now sound director as opposed to  Takahashi. However, I did feel that the music blended in together much more. The regular battle theme was fun, but for whatever reason the second battle theme, "Exploration" only played in Spirit Crucible Elpys? I was expecting it to play in battles starting at Leftheria for the middle portion of the game and then "Still! Move Forward" would play in the last portion. Anytime boss battles happened in the story I couldn't really tell which music track was which, and I guess that's fine but it did make me feel less hyped about a lot of things in general.

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Story - part 3

Chapters 8 and 9

After the battle with Jin, we fall beneath the cloud sea to the Land of Morytha. It's a giant city that humans once built and completely is in ruin. Jin temporarily joins the party and we finally get to have more insight into what he wants. Really he simply despises humans and thinks that all they do is bring destruction upon themselves and use blades as tools to get what they want. Presumably Malos has the same feelings and Amalthus as well. That's why Nia says they all want the same thing. Jin, however, comes around and realizes that destroying the world isn't what he wants. Land of Morytha is supposed to hint at what this world truly is, and it starts the process of everything in the rest of this game giving more questions than answers. Climbing up the World Tree was really cool. The interior being advanced technology with guitars and the sick ass music and seeing all the mechanical enemies. We also learn that Praetor Amalthus is a bad guy oh nooooo. The Torna people also aim at stopping/slowing down Amalthus as they view him as the cause of all the problems. The reason why they despise this world and humans is because of him. It makes them all seem more human and more likeable and I was genuinely rooting for them at this point Rex not understanding that Amalthus wants control over everything and Pyra was annoying, he constantly shows himself as incapable compared to the other party members. Also up here is where we finally get to see the artificial blades! And there's only two of them! Wow what a waste of an awesome idea!! Amalthus calls a bunch of the titans to come gather at the World Tree and finally I get to have that cool moment where I can see the places I've been and there's stuff to look at in the sky. Going to Mor Ardain or Gormott, you can see the other titans in the distance. And in Chapter 9 you can watch Mikhail fight Indol. For how choppy this game runs, these scenes at the end are really smooth and I spent a lot of time taking it all in. The party continues up the tree and encounters Jin and Malos. Malos goes on ahead and Jin still seems to feel that stopping you is the right move. Though it kind of feels like he doesn't care about the outcome anymore and just wants to see your resolve, which is fine. Amalthus shows up along with the last members of Torna and fucking kills them lmao. This fight against Amalthus feels like a proper final boss. Like its the man behind all the problems that didn't resolve and is the primary reason the antagonists do what they do. It was far more satisfying to battle him and I would've rather seen him as the true final boss than Malos who was just there. Jin dies and I was genuinely sad

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Ending

Finally, we reach the Low Orbit Station and start to piece things together. This is an amazing location and atmosphere. I spent a lot of time just looking below and at all the details of the station. This was the entrance to Elysium, and you can see images of the green field and tree along with signs that say "USA" on them. I know that Xenoblade X isn't canon, but its existence had made me excited about a potential revelation that this game was about to do. Inside Elysium, its a barren wasteland. It seems like this was humanity's last stand at escaping whatever destruction they brought below and it too ended in failure. Going into the church to meet the creator, we are treated to some visions that annoyed me. I just think the trope of suddenly dreaming that everyone you know is behaving differently (everyone being mean and blaming Rex for making them chase a lie) doesn't reveal anything about the characters or any internal struggles. Especially for someone as barebones as Rex. But here is where everything gets interesting and far more confusing.

The Architect is Klaus. I did not see this coming at all, but instead of being surprised I was concerned. Concerned because I can't see where this story is going. So when Klaus did the experiment with to create a new world, it caused his being to split into another universe. That universe being Xenoblade 1. In that game he was Zanza and was very much evil with a specific goal, but was stopped by Shulk. In this game, he appears to be uncaring about what happens (despite this being the original world) and is simply interested to see what happens. He says his time is running short and soon he'll be killed in the other world and his power will disappear from this one, which means that Pyra won't be able to stop Malos or something. I find this plot point so confusing because I don't understand what Klaus is trying to achieve, and I don't understand why Alrest is the way it is. I can understand Xenoblade 1 being something completely created to serve the purpose Zanza designed, but there are so many similarities between that world and this one. Is ether, titans, blades, the monados, all that stuff just part of this world and simply got transferred into the other one? Or did the experiment cause these things to be created in this world? It is implied that the cloud sea and the titans and blades were formed after the experiment, but core crystals are also a technology that humans used in their dying years. The failed creation of blades is why we have those zombie like enemies in the Land of Morytha. These are all questions that I assume will be answered in 3, so I'll just have to wait.

In the meantime, we gotta fight Malos who has piloted the giant artifice and is going to destroy the world. Though the battle is just in the hanger and you just kinda fight him there. It's honestly kinda boring and not emotionally driving other than the music. Its why I think Amalthus would've been a more satisfying final boss in this moment. I also feel like there's a world where the second phase of the fight was us fighting in Mythra's artifice. I feel that would've been a really cool battle and made sense, even if piloting the artifice was new in this moment, but I guess the final battle was never important in this story. After defeating Malos, the Beanstalk has to be destroyed so it doesn't fall down and destroy the planet, so Pyra sacrifices herself to do it. The music in this moment is what makes it emotional, as well as the fact that Rex's voice actor finally gave a desperate yell of Pyra's name that's heart-wrenching. This ending is action packed and despite the losses, we are happy because everyone is able to move onto new land that just suddenly appeared. Oh yeah, one big force in the conflicts is that titans are dying and there's not enough land lmao. Honestly that aspect of the plot might as well be as insignificant as everything else in this game, including Pyra's death. Bro just comes back as both Pyra and Mythra, like I would've rather y'all's sacrifice be final, but I guess Takahashi did want to make a feel good game and that wouldn't make you feel good.

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This game is not for me. I am not the target audience and I only played it so I could experience the series as a whole. I do not think that I will ever play this again unless I want to experience the trilogy again, but despite that I did at least have fun. I'm giving it a 4/10, I liked Xenoblade 1 wayyyy better and am very disappointed by this one. Currently I am playing through Torna and I can say that I have much better things to say about it, so I'll write that review when I finish!