GRAND AMBITIONS IN SHACKLED EXECUTION
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As a JRPG, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (from developer Monolith Soft) is great in almost every sense
of the word - it is immense, clunky, ambitious and overwhelming. In its finest
moments, it's spectacular, with some dramatic story revelations, magnificent sights and thrilling boss encounters. But to get to the good parts you have to burrow through endless distractions, like messing around in menus and grinding oversimplified side mechanics for hours. The whole package feels unwieldy. A great piece of work lies hidden somewhere within, but you have to scavenge deep to
find it.
Taking on Xenoblade 2 is quite a commitment. The systems are complex and hard to crack, with tutorials that only barely scratch the surface. It took me nearly 120 hours to
finish, and for long stretches of time I made zero progress. And after all that time investment I still left loads of sidequests unresolved and many map regions unchecked. For a full completion I probably would've had to
spend double the amount of time. I can guarantee you this; had I fulfilled the attempt, the review score would've suffered.
The narrative centers around an orphan named Rex. He lives on the
back of a friendly old Titan, called Gramps, who swims around a vast sea of clouds. The
pair eke out a living by diving deep into the cloud sea, scavenging what remains of an ancient civilization below. Rex and Gramps travel far and wide, and sell their salvage at different ports around the world.
Their planet is called Alrest, and is also the home of several other, larger Titans, all of them host to a number of different civilizations and ecosystems. But the Titans are a dying breed, and the world might be going with them. No one understands why. In the center of the world a gigantic tree reaches for the sky. At its top lies Elysium, allegedly the home of the world's founder, The Architect, who has isolated himself from his creation.
The story kicks off as Rex gets enlisted by a shady group of people to
scavenge the wreck of an old sunken ship. Aboard it he comes across a
mysterious Blade, in the shape of a girl named Pyra, whom he
inadvertently awakens from slumber. He becomes her Driver - her "master" - much to
the chagrin of Rex's employers, the Torna, who sought to possess the Blade for their
own, selfish reasons.
Let's just leave it at that. The story of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is built upon an almost
equally fascinating mythos as the first game, with ancient titans, gods,
humans, beasts, machines and legends all coming to a head because of
political strife and territorial struggles. In the beginning of the game we're thrown into Rex's
shoes, totally unaware of the grand scheme, but we figure it out
alongside him. Through his eyes we bear witness to an all-encompassing depiction of this universe.
A lot of the sidequests help us to get a better grasp on the lore. We explore the
world, we help various townsfolk, we enlist new companions, we tear down old lies, we rage against the machine and we strive to save the world.
Rex promises to get Pyra to Elysium, where she can make everything right. From humble beginnings, Rex ends up debating face-to-face with Gods, demanding some answers about the inequities of the world. In that way the game justifies its size - such a journey should not be treated like a cakewalk. It is quite the hero's journey.
What's unique this time around is the inclusion of the animate weapons, the
Blades, who act as companions alongside the rest of your adventuring team. Pyra is just the first of many. Unlocking them is a mechanic that veers dangerously close to lootboxing, but Xenoblade 2 gets away with it because it's impossible to pay real money for it.
This is instead done by using an in-game currency known as core crystals.
Although you can improve your odds, you have to be real lucky to awaken the
really good, unique ones. Otherwise you get the generic, boring ones.
The unique blades come in astounding amounts and variations, each one with their own design, weapons,
combat skills, upgrade trees, questlines and Heart-to-heart conversations,
and every companion can hold three of them at a time. Leveling them up is like a neverending chain of sidequests, that can both be entertaining - like unlocking fun cutscenes - or frustrating - like trying to locate a specific enemy among all the maps in a specific region
The Blades' character designs have faced a lot of ridicule, and it's impossible to disagree. Never before have I witnessed such a collection of waifus. I'm absolutely no puritan, quite the contrary, but there's a time and place for everything. Having these Blade-ies wiggle their bum or hooters at the camera as you're trying to get to the bottom of a serious event can take the edge of the situation - or at least be a little distracting.
The game has a very involving storyline, but it is poorly told, with some antiquated cutscene standards. Because of bad editing, voice lines are separated by annoying pauses, and the voice acting quality varies wildly (I chose English audio). Whenever the characters get caught in an emergency, they always find the time to blurt out their feelings in tedious speeches before escaping. I like the unlockable Heart-to-Heart conversations the most, and in
general the writing shines in the more low-key scenes -
although there are exceptions to that rule as well.
The world is visually astounding. Every new Titan you visit has its own distinct vibe, be it mechanized or more organic, which is accentuated by its own soundtrack. The spirituality of Indol, for example, is beautifully captured by a church choir that changes in intensity depending on the time of day. In comparison to the first game, the sense of actually inhabiting
the body of a living being is more prevalent. You can even see its head
swaying in the distance from certain locations, as it swims through the cloud sea.
But navigating it is a
bloody nightmare due to the unhelpful map and compass, both of which are
among the worst I've seen in any game. I can sympathize with the desire to
not hold the player's hand, but Xenoblade 2 doesn't make plotting your own course an
engaging time. The verticality makes it hard to determine what path to pursue to reach your marker. Some paths are closed off and only accessible by activating certain Blades' field skills. And everything is done with a certain sluggishness; movement, menu navigation, map access, even the simple act of picking up collectibles on the way there.
The semi-automatic action combat is where the game shines,
with all the stats, the build variations, the Blades, the chain
attacks and Blade combos. Amidst all the chaos of NPC:s, blades and monsters,
I still feel like I have total control. Without much effort I can execute
powerful attacks, link them together into combos, and improve their damaging effect by combining different elements. And then I can top it off with a
devastating chain attack where my companions take turns to hack away at
the enemy.
The AI isn't awesome, especially not when the companions insist on running into
hazardous environments, but their standard combat performance got me through some tough times. The
endless variations of party setups and timed pouch item benefits would have
made for great replayability, were it not for the game's absurd length.
Knowing beforehand what a timesink it is, and how extensive my backlog is,
I'll probably never find the time to replay it.
My party setup ended up kinda vanilla, with mostly canonical blades and a
few rare ones I was lucky enough to unlock early on (Boreas, Vess and
Godfrey). It got me through to the end without too much of a hassle, but I
got the feeling that if you know what you are doing, the game allows for a myriad of different builds all the way to the end.
I now look back on a highly mixed playthrough. Some
sessions were great and heart-stoppingly dramatic, and some were horrible because I stubbornly tried to make progress on some side stuff, only to realize it was too early. At around level 60, one sidequest ended up in an encounter with a level 90+ dinosaur that killed me in one hit
before I had time to draw my weapon. Due to incidents like this, the amount of unresolved side stuff became like a backlog-within-a-backlog, which felt kinda stressful. I also learned the hard way that the game doesn't feature auto-save, when I lost 3-4 hours of progress to a game crash.
But I liked the game nevertheless, almost against my better judgement. Through all its
highs and lows, through the great ambitions and shoddy executions, the low-brow
humor and pretentiousness, the existential angst and juvenile anime
tropes, I eventually got deeply invested. It's no beginner's first JRPG, but I am almost becoming a veteran
at this point, and I believe I'll think of Xenoblade 2 fondly once my brain lets me filter out
the wasted time and remember the good stuff.
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