This game is big, busy, and full of charm, even if it doesn’t quite hit the same epic scale as the first Xenoblade Chronicles. If you’ve played the first game, you’ll see some familiar creatures (like the adorable fluffball Nopon) and field enemies, but there’s no direct link between the two stories – at least, not initially.
That said, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is prettier than the first game, with vibrant visuals and more detailed environments. It’s also much busier, with a whole entourage of characters following you around. And noisier – if you thought the party chatter in fights was lively before, you’re in for a shock here.
Oh, and the accents? Incredible. The Gormotti cat people sound like they’ve just come from a village in Wales, the Urayans are unmistakably Australian, and the Mor Ardainian soldiers? Straight-up Scottish. It’s an absolute treat to listen to.
You play as Rex, a young salvager who grew up diving into the sea to recover lost treasures from the ruins of a world destroyed hundreds of years ago. In this world, humanity lives on the backs or inside of massive creatures called Titans, as the continents have sunk beneath the sea.
Rex gets hired by a shady organisation to retrieve a mysterious treasure. Turns out, that “treasure” is actually Pyra, a living weapon known as a Blade – and not just any Blade, she’s one of two Aegises, the most powerful of all Blades. Things escalate quickly – Rex gets killed, Pyra revives him, and they embark on a quest to reach Elysium, a mythical paradise where everyone can live in peace. Of course, it’s not that simple. The bad guys who hired Rex have their own agenda, and there’s a sprawling plot involving secret civilisations, ancient betrayals, and events from 500 years ago. Plus, there are loads of side quests.
If you’re familiar with the combat system in the first game, you’ll recognise some similarities here, but there are big differences too. In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, combat was semi-realtime, with each character having a set of moves on cooldown. Your party members mostly acted on their own, leaving you to manage the lead character.
In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, each character has up to three Blades, which are essentially living weapons that grant you their power. Each Blade comes with its own set of moves, and you can switch between them in battle. This means you’ve got access to up to 12 moves at any time, depending on cooldowns.
The combat also leans heavily on combos. You can string together moves to “break” an enemy’s defence, topple them, launch them into the air, and even smash them back down. Pulling these combos off isn’t easy, though. With cooldowns, short timing windows, and the need for specific moves, you’ll need some serious planning (or a lot of luck) to line everything up.
One issue with the combat is how long fights take. Even when you’re massively over-levelled compared to your enemies, battles can drag on for ages. And then there are the special “named monsters,” with their silly names like Glamorous Alfred and Machine Gun Julio. Taking them down can take half an hour or more, even if they can barely scratch you. It feels like a grind, even when you’re doing everything you can to boost your party’s power.
Now, about the Blades. You mostly get them through a gacha-style system by your characters, who are “Drivers”, bonding with crystals you find in loot drops or quest rewards. Some Blades are unique, with their own storylines and voice acting, while others are randomly generated. Over time, you’ll collect hundreds of them. It sounds overwhelming, but thankfully, the game has a clever way to manage them.
You can also send Blades on away missions, a bit like recruiting assassins in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. They go off, complete tasks, and return with rewards. It’s surprisingly addictive and helps you feel like your massive collection of Blades is actually useful, even if they’re not in your main party.
Other than these differences in combat and weapons, the game isn’t really too dissimilar to the first one. It does feel substantially bigger in terms of “hours spent” if not “physical area”, probably due to the increased density and more to actually do. By the time I completed it at around 125 hours in, I think I’d actually come to like it even more than Xenoblade 1, although the first few hours nearly put me off it completely.
I think I had two initial issues with Xenoblade 2. The first was how much had changed since the first game – the location, the combat, the salvaging, the characters I’d grown to love and/or hate had all changed significantly. The other issue was that the first main story mission was on a drab, dark submarine-type ship instead of a massive, beautiful green-and-blue vista like Xenoblade 1 started off. It took me a few hours to start to get into it, but once I’d reached Gormott – a massive, beautiful green-and-blue vista like Xenoblade 1, it had me hooked to the end.
The end, which, despite having the end of the actual world as a possibility if Rex and chums fail, still somehow didn’t have the epic feel of the first game. It was good, although I still don’t really understand the Big Bad’s motives for trying to bring it about (it was a bit like Ultron from the MCU, I suppose – might as well destroy everything because nothing can be bad if there’s nothing there). The main thing that was WHOAAAA was when there were references to Xenoblade 1. I’d hoped there would be, but couldn’t see how. Then I did. No, I’m not spoiling it for you.
The final fight was a bit too easy. I think because I’d spent so long doing side missions and unlocking the skills on the trees for my team, Blades and so on that I was a good 15 levels higher than the end boss so defeated it no problem. Aside from, as I said, it taking ages because most of the fights just do. With the game complete, I could move on to something else but… there are still places to go, missions to finish and more unique Blades to unlock. Maybe I’ll go back and do them?
