Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017)

[drahkon]

36 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Finally, the game is getting a lot of flak off people for the outfits that the female characters wear and the size of the breasts of some of them.

[nekunando]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I was out and about this morning and seen that GAME had one of the collectors editions left in stock. I actually cancelled mine from Nintendo UK when I seen Simply Games were shipping the normal version early. I'm enjoying the game so much that I decided to pick it up. I had £130 on my GAME card anyway. The thing is HUGE!

 

Does that mean you have an extra copy of the game you wish to sell for a generously good deal to a fellow N-Europe veteran to help give him an extra special Christmas..?

[Hero-of-Time]

5 minutes ago, nekunando said:

Does that mean you have an extra copy of the game you wish to sell for a generously good deal to a fellow N-Europe veteran to help give him an extra special Christmas..?

Nah. Already sold it to one of my mates.

[Sméagol]

I watched unboxings of both the EU en NA collector's edition. It's a damn shame we're getting a softcover artbook, because aside of that, our box looks so much better than the American one. I would gladly pay 10 euros more if it meant getting a hardcover artbook and full soundtrack, making it the perfect collector's edition. I can't wait for mine to arrive. Hopefully shortly. Within the hour. Or at least today. I've been enough outside for today.. But maybe I should go out again anyway, and hunt down the postman. I mean, I've downloaded the Japanese voicepack over a day ago! I want to hear them!

[nekunando]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Nah. Already sold it to one of my mates.

No problem

What's in that huge box?

[Hero-of-Time]

4 minutes ago, nekunando said:

No problem

What's in that huge box?

Game, steel case, CD and huge art book.

[Lens of Truth]

Only a couple of hours in and very impressed with the sheer confidence and brio on display here - the sweeping orchestral music, beautiful visuals, direct storytelling, humour and streamlined gameplay. Surprised I actually find the English voices a lot more charming and in keeping with the cheeky style than the genero Japanese cast of stock characters.

One negative so far - they simply MUST turn off the horrible sharpening filter applied to handheld mode. Performance is otherwise great. I'd sooner have it a little soft than an edge enhanced mess with artifacts and halos around every character. What were Monolith thinking?! Havent seen this sub-amateurish attempt to 'soup up' the undocked display on any other switch game... thank goodness docked mode looks superb! Until they patch this out I'll only play handheld for grinding purposes.

[Hero-of-Time]

13 minutes ago, Lens of Truth said:

One negative so far - they simply MUST turn off the horrible sharpening filter applied to handheld mode. Performance is otherwise great. I'd sooner have it a little soft than an edge enhanced mess with artifacts and halos around every character. What were Monolith thinking?! Havent seen this sub-amateurish attempt to 'soup up' the undocked display on any other switch game... thank goodness docked mode looks superb! Until they patch this out I'll only play handheld for grinding purposes.

Yeah, it is pretty rough. The game could have probably done with more time in the oven for optimization. It certainly lacks polish in undocked mode and was probably just pushed out for Christmas period.

[Sméagol]

Finally. Well, there we go! See you next week.

[martinist]

Finished chapter 1 a while ago. Still getting a hold of the battle mechanics. Kinda confused by the arts combo system but i'm still getting the hang of it i guess.

[MindFreak]

Started it today and am only 30 minutes in. The first battle was awkward because the auto-attqck stops when I move. I'd rather attack myself then.

[Hero-of-Time]

This game...

My characters are now level 45 and I've just started chapter 6. Man, things got dark pretty fast.

I love the cutscenes at the end of chapters. They are all hype as hell and get you excited to play the next chapter. I've actually gone back to the Event Viewer and watched a few of them again.

I'm a big fan Jin, Akhos and Malos. They kinda remind me of Organization XIII from the Kingdom Hearts series. 

The boss at the end of chapter 5 was my first sticking point in the game. I was stuck on the thing for ages, despite being a higher level than it. At half its health it would go crazy and obliterate my team. I managed to eventually brute force my way through it but methinks there must be an easier way.

The soundtrack continues to amaze me. Nier Automata was going to win my OST award but this has it beaten. It has so many amazing tracks and I haven't even listened to everything on offer yet.

Time to call it a day and start my next session in the morning.

[drahkon]

@Hero-of-Time You still have to send me your Switch (thank God there's no "backspace rule" in this thread. Give me your Switch and the two games I want to play.

[V. Amoleo]

Why does the music in this game not flow correctly?  It sorta crashes into the next piece rather than subtly changing.

I've just got onto Chapter 2.  Enjoying it so far.  Though I'm not sure if should be running about during battles.  You can't avoid attacks like that and it seems to cause you to break your attacking chain.

Edited December 3, 2017 by V. Amoleo

[MindFreak]

Yeah, I'm also just standing still most of the time. But I can see that that tactic isn't going to cut it against tougher enemies (like those we meet in the first big plain).

Also, how do I cancel a battle / sheath the blade? I can't run fast enough away from an enemy that is too strong with my weapon out.

[Hero-of-Time]

44 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

Yeah, I'm also just standing still most of the time. But I can see that that tactic isn't going to cut it against tougher enemies (like those we meet in the first big plain).

Also, how do I cancel a battle / sheath the blade? I can't run fast enough away from an enemy that is too strong with my weapon out.

Hit the R trigger and then B.

Standing still is fine if you want to steadily do more damage. Personally, I prefer to unleash my specials at a fast rate. After I've scored a hit I quickly flick the movement stick. This cancels the next hit but it fills the special meter much faster.

[Hero-of-Time]

There a few things that have damped my experience so far.

The first is the battle at the end of chapter 5. It's not as hard as the road block that was in the original game but it was still irritating. It seems there are quite a few people not happy with that fight. It kinda punishes you for being good at the game and using the mechanics well.

Next up is just how much HP regular enemies seem to have late on in the game. The battles themselves aren't hard, they are just tedious. Enemies don't hit you very hard but they are damage sponges. Even if you are a higher level, some enemies take ages to get put down.

Lastly, the game has started putting up roadblocks that require certain Field Skills to be at a certain level. For the most part the FS feature has just been for extra collectibles and a kinda throw away feature but late game it becomes important to actually progress. If you haven't been using a Blade that has the skill needed, or if the RNG gods haven't been kind to you, then you are stuck until you grind the skills needed. Apparently there are a couple of other places where certain skills are need to progress and someone on Era who has finished the game was kind enough to inform me on which Blade I should be looking to level up to avoid getting stuck.

Stuff like this is exactly why reviewers should be finishing games before putting out a review. These things don't crop up until mid to late game and as such a reviewer would miss them if they just only played the start. They aren't game breaking by any means but they have effected my enjoyment.

[RedShell]

6 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Lastly, the game has started putting up roadblocks that require certain Field Skills to be at a certain level.

Getting horrible flashbacks to Xenoblade Chronicles X reading that.  This kind of thing was exactly what saw me giving up on that game.

[Blade]

I've just read the first paragraph of the Kotaku review

Never mind reviewers not finishing the game. This reviewer hated the first xenoblade, couldn't be arsed playing the second and then was shocked he didn't like the game he was reviewing.

[Grazza]

3 hours ago, Blade said:

I've just read the first paragraph of the Kotaku review

Never mind reviewers not finishing the game. This reviewer hated the first xenoblade, couldn't be arsed playing the second and then was shocked he didn't like the game he was reviewing.

 

Two reasons I didn't put myself forward for this one.

[liger05]

From Digital Foundry :

Undocked:
- Dynamic resolution, very low, down to 368p at its lowest and up to 552p;
- Worst image quality in a Switch game in portable mode;

That's unacceptable. 368p is ridiculous. Wasn't sure about this game but the handheld performance really keeps me from getting this.

 Can't believe they couldn't do stable 540p minimum. 

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by liger05

[Hero-of-Time]

40 minutes ago, liger05 said:

From Digital Foundry :

Undocked:
- Dynamic resolution, very low, down to 368p at its lowest and up to 552p;
- Worst image quality in a Switch game in portable mode;

That's unacceptable. 368p is ridiculous. Wasn't sure about this game but the handheld performance really keeps me from getting this.

 Can't believe they couldn't do stable 540p minimum. 

 

The game lacks a lot of care and polish that you expect from Nintendo. There's the resolution issue but there's also issues such as textures not loading when you teleport to a new area, game crashing and sending you back to the Switch home screen which means you lose any unsaved progress ( happened to me but luckily I had just saved ) and a few framerate drops.

I mentioned it earlier but I honestly think this was pushed out the door to make it in time for Christmas. It just seems weird that the game runs this poorly in undocked mode and has other issues while docked, when more time in the oven could probably sorted most of these things.

[Dcubed]

7 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I mentioned it earlier but I honestly think this was pushed out the door to make it in time for Christmas. It just seems weird that the game runs this poorly in undocked mode and has other issues while docked, when more time in the oven could probably sorted most of these things.

I was thinking the same thing.  I was shocked that they actually got it out in time for this year at all and it's pretty clear that they made some sacrifices to pull that off.

 

I'd expect some performance patches next year as they roll out their DLC plans.

[MindFreak]

I honestly think it looks fine in undocked mode and is certainly is a joy to play either way. Sure, Zelda was nicer to look at but I don't think about it when playing. I did notice a few framerate drops in docked mode, though. That's worse than a low resolution on a small screen.

 

I'll be playing this 90 % in handheld even though it looks a bit rough sometimes.

[Sméagol]

On Saturday, I think I played for almost 14 hours straight if the in-game time is to be believed. That wasn't such a good idea in hindsight, haha. But I'm enjoying the game. Finished chapters 1 and 2 that day, and also managed to get a rare blade. Started chapter 3 yesterday, but haven't done much. Nia is awesome, and I love her Japanese voice. I'm slowly getting to grips with the combat system, I'm slowly understanding those elemental combos (or whatever they're called, there are so many combos). My strategy for chapters 1 and 2 was generally to cancel auto-attacks with my arts, and slowly build up to a level IV special.

But the game is not perfect.

Some minor gripes:

• No video capture (I mean, I know it's coming, but as a major Nintendo game, you'd expect it to have it from the start). I mean, now I can't share all my hilarious deaths.
• "Skip" travel is a bit immersion breaking
• No overview of tutorials.

Some major gripes:

• I'd like a more intuitive map system, preferrably à la Zelda. After finishing chapter 2, I had no clue where I needed to go. Blindly following the marker just lead me to a steap cliff everytime. I went almost everywhere, found 2 rare cores in the process, but I didn't figure out where to go until I messed around with the skip travel function which actually lets you view a zoomed out map.
• I appreciate the option for Japanese voices, however, none of the party banter has been subtitles, and that's a huge disappointment. I feel like I miss a lot. Also, I suspect the subtitles aren't properly translated, but rather just captions from the English voices (dubtitles in anime terms), but I could be wrong.

I think there was something else but I forgot.

I haven't had any problems with performance so far, it's not the smoothest or prettiest, but nothing major. Then again I mostly play docked. I also came across various fiels skill barriers, but nothing hindering my progress so far.

Anyway, I'll get back to it now.

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by Sméagol