• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Releases December 1st 2017

RockmanBN

Member
Every time there's a Xenoblade thread, it is about character design. I am not saying the discussion is pointless, but could we appreciate the world design? The unique countries? The two powers that were not talked about in this trailer? The combat system?

It's like Fire Emblem thread, people always talk about "waifu". Seriously, if you and Takahashi and other staff members like the design, fine. If you don't like them, it's fine too. Being too focus on one side of the coin is stupidity, especially that side is not even the most important thing to Xenoblade franchise.

Well negative takes usually bring more discussion than positive outlooks. Easier to say what you don't like than what you do.

World design has always been good with XB and that's something I'm looking forward for to release.
 

luulubuu

Junior Member
Combined with "look how complex is to kill an average monster, it takes 15 minutes to sloooowly kill him, but how beautiful are all those big numbers popping up on screen, isn't it?"

Nothing like arriving at home and grind 4 battles in a very complex JPRG system that will have a rotation of abilities and optimal picks since 1 minute one and you won't ever bother to try anything else.

Yay
Yes, i'm talking about the author original work, not the publishing process. You're welcome.

You are welcome? Man, low the edge HAHA
 

W. L. Saga

Neo Member
The large majority of XC2 threads (hell, probably all of them) have devolved into complaining about character design so... I don't see how this is getting a pass.

I don't think complainers are in the majority this time, though. At least this isn't my impression at all.
 
Translation:

Can you guys do whatever I want to? guyyys???


Okay, let's talk about the world design;

xenoblade-chronicles-2-switch-c1a0668d.jpg


So far it looks delightful, but just for the gimmick of the titans rather than that it looks...empty? Empty and some times really unispired

20170614_005809_thumb.jpg


If you remove the alien type or titan things, it just "The JRPG plateu: Strikes BACK, AGAIN"

Did you play XBC because that's literally Guar Plains/Bionis Leg in a nut shell.

The Titan they showed during gamescon looked pretty unique. XBC doesn't hit it's first visually striking location until Satorl Marsh and it doesn't look good during the day, only night.

X is actually similar. Primordia is pretty boring. Jungle, Desert and Sand Continents are better. Lava continent is shit.
 

luulubuu

Junior Member
Did you play XBC because that's literally Guar Plains/Bionis Leg in a nut shell.

The Titan they showed during gamescon looked pretty unique. XBC doesn't hit it's first visually striking location until Satorl Marsh and it doesn't look good during the day, only night.

X is actually similar. Primordia is pretty boring. Jungle, Desert and Sand Continents are better. Lava continent is shit.

Oh I did, but you agree with me that the world design aint that hot, so no need to point the subject of conversation that way
 

Ridley327

Member
Pyra's character design is whatever at this point, but as long as she's just as strong a personality as Fiora, Melia, Elma, Lin or most of the female characters* in previous titles, I think that a lot can been forgiven if they nail that aspect.

*Sorry Sharla fans: it's not her fault the game completely forgets about her once Dunban joins and doesn't do anything of value until Gadolt shows up again, and then it goes back to forgetting about her right after.
 

Peltz

Member
Translation:

Can you guys do whatever I want to? guyyys???


Okay, let's talk about the world design;

xenoblade-chronicles-2-switch-c1a0668d.jpg


So far it looks delightful, but just for the gimmick of the titans rather than that it looks...empty? Empty and some times really unispired

20170614_005809_thumb.jpg


If you remove the alien type or titan things, it just "The JRPG plateu: Strikes BACK, AGAIN"

That's what Xenoblade games are though. They all take place on large empty feeling plateaus. They're all about scale and less about level design (although it's there if you fully explore).

They're not meant to be BotW style interactive environments where there's something cool to interact with on every inch of the landscape. It's more about battling and manipulating intricate systems while traversing giant (and often dangerous) environments. And they spice that up with some deep lore, story, and cutscenes.

My only hope is that there aren't a ton of the really horrible and meaningless fetch quests that plagued XBC and XBX. The quest design in XBX was particularly meaningless and terrible in my opinion.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
Oh I did, but you agree with me that the world design aint that hot, so no need to point the subject of conversation that way

I find the world seen so far the second best world design ever.
It's not as good as XenoX, but it's not BotW neither
 

NESpowerhouse

Perhaps he's wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane.
Every time there's a Xenoblade thread, it is about character design. I am not saying the discussion is pointless, but could we appreciate the world design? The unique countries? The two powers that were not talked about in this trailer? The combat system?

It's like Fire Emblem thread, people always talk about "waifu". Seriously, if you and Takahashi and other staff members like the design, fine. If you don't like them, it's fine too. Being too focus on one side of the coin is stupidity, especially that side is not even the most important thing to Xenoblade franchise.

Seriously, it was the same deal with X and its soundtrack. It got to the point where everyone kept bringing up the same 3 tracks over and over again (you know the ones) without looking at the bigger picture as a whole (sure, the sound-mixing still sucked, but that's a different issue). It was especially annoying considering how amazing the rest of the soundtrack was. How often did people talk about that? Not as often as those 3 other songs, that's for sure.
 
Oh I did, but you agree with me that the world design aint that hot, so no need to point the subject of conversation that way

I actually think it's pretty good. A lot of the appeal of the Xenoblade games is exploring to find the uniqie structures and cool hidden areas. The first area being a grass plain is just standard in open world fantasy games. There isn't an open world game with a more interesting world than XCX so I find the criticism odd.

Yeah it's a plain, but we have seen so little of it. In XBC satorl marsh at night, valek mountain, makna forest all have pretty striking designs but you can find some plain looking areas if you look.
 

Nekster

Member
I find the world seen so far the second best world design ever.
It's not as good as XenoX, but it's not BotW neither

I don't think we can judge the open world design without 20 hours (at least) into the game.

I find BotW open world design brilliant btw.
 
Pyra's character design is whatever at this point, but as long as she's just as strong a personality as Fiora, Melia, Elma, Lin or most of the female characters* in previous titles, I think that a lot can been forgiven if they nail that aspect.

*Sorry Sharla fans: it's not her fault the game completely forgets about her once Dunban joins and doesn't do anything of value until Gadolt shows up again, and then it goes back to forgetting about her right after.

Yeah their characteristics and personalities are usually very well done. Sharla was just bizarre, the only noticeable thing she does after Duncan joins apart from what you specified was:

Promise Melia she would support her in her attempts to gain Shulk's affection, only to not do that at all because the game forgets about her entirely.

She can be alright I'm battle but she is so unimportant to the plot lol.
 
My problem with Pyra's design is twofold:

1) I have a huge problem with oversexualization of female characters in video games. HUGE problem. I find it demeaning to women, unnecessary, and a crutch for writers/designers to lean on when they can't come up with anything else. I have been a huge fan of Nintendo in part because they, for the most part, avoided things like this. For example, Zero Suit Samus' armor was shapely but tasteful and functional. In comparison, Pyra's outfit is ridiculous.

2) The design makes absolutely zero sense. She's a blade, which means she was meant for battle. Her armor doesn't point in that direction at all. Earlier this year, one of the reasons I was overjoyed with Horizon: Zero Dawn was because as I played, I felt like that armor is exactly what a female warrior would wear. It was never a distraction. It was functional. It made sense. Pyra's doesn't. It's a huge distraction and makes no sense whatsoever.



I'm actually quite find of nearly every other piece of design in this game. I love the colorful worlds. I love the unique countries. I think the combat system looks great. I'm just really, really disappointed in the apparent pandering attempted with Pyra's armor. For me, it ruins it all and is why I'm avoiding it.

I don't like her outfit too. Mind you, only the outfit, not her figure. Games are always full of handsome / hot guys and cute / great looking girls. People love good things, and body figure is one of them. That outfit is absolutely weird, unfitting and unrealistic, but I don't think this one thing can ruin the whole game.

I respect your opinion though, it's just that the regular argument on this topic is tiring.

Well negative takes usually bring more discussion than positive outlooks. Easier to say what you don't like than what you do.

World design has always been good with XB and that's something I'm looking forward for to release.

I do not agree with negativity being more discussion, but rather the world loves bashing rather than praising because many people think good things are granted (but they are not).

Translation:

Can you guys do whatever I want to? guyyys???


Okay, let's talk about the world design;

xenoblade-chronicles-2-switch-c1a0668d.jpg


So far it looks delightful, but just for the gimmick of the titans rather than that it looks...empty? Empty and some times really unispired

20170614_005809_thumb.jpg


If you remove the alien type or titan things, it just "The JRPG plateu: Strikes BACK, AGAIN"

Emptiness could be beneficial to depict a huge world. In Xenoblade 2, people are living on the titans(!), it's no surprise that the world designer want to leave some space to show that the land is vast. I think we really need to play the game before commenting on the map design regarding its density, but we may judge visual for now.

And... it looks amazing, even better than Xenoblade X. For example, in that mechanical country, cable cars are moving around. They may be for transporting mines, or even people. "Can I hop on the cars and enjoy the scenery?" I immediately had this thought when the trailer showing that scene. This gives players great imagination, and I totally love these kinds of things.
 

DemWalls

Member
I'm not offended, I don't think anyone is offended, the design is just over the top and of course that means some discussion about it.

Sure, you're not. But the tone of some comments, especially elsewhere, really makes me think that there are people who are actually upset. Who knows though, after all it's hard to judge such things by a few words on a screen.


And I don't think this can be said to all of the characters, though. People took images of Lin and the default male Cross and ran them to the ground like if they were the only characters in the game. The majority of the other characters were fine.

Speaking for myself, I find it a general problem. For example, in an image such as this (the first one I came across)

char--party.png


I don't think anyone looks good. Not even Elma.
 
Sure, you're not. But the tone of some comments, especially elsewhere, really makes me think that there are people who are actually upset. Who knows though, after all it's hard to judge such things by a few words on a screen.




Speaking for myself, I find it a general problem. For example, in an image such as this (the first one I came across)

char--party.png


I don't think anyone looks good. Not even Elma.

Doug looks pretty good imo.

When X got away from the doll eyes the characters looked fine. Most of the male characters strayed away from them and were fine as a result. It's just the the game is female driven so you see shitty doll eyes a lot. Elma is still the best though.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
If there is one thing I have complete confidence in, it's that I am going to love traversing the environments and just staring at them while listening to the beautiful soundtrack. I also think the combat looks amazing. Takahashi has yet to let me down plot wise (yes Xenoblade X had less of a plot, but what was there was great!) and that's over the seven games I have played by him, so no worries there either. My only complaints are the VO, which I think will be fine when actually in game, and the design of the sword characters, which is certainly annoying, but not something that will hurt my enjoyment of the game. Basically, I will not be surprised at all if XC2 is my GOTY.
 

Ridley327

Member
Yeah their characteristics and personalities are usually very well done. Sharla was just bizarre, the only noticeable thing she does after Duncan joins apart from what you specified was:

Promise Melia she would support her in her attempts to gain Shulk's affection, only to not do that at all because the game forgets about her entirely.

She can be alright I'm battle but she is so unimportant to the plot lol.

Yeah, her and Reyn just kind of stop mattering at the same time, though Sharla doesn't have the strength of memes like Reyn does with every other battle line he gets.
 

W. L. Saga

Neo Member
I don't think anyone looks good. Not even Elma.

We'll agree to disagree, then. I found those pretty good in general. None of the faces really do bother me, and Lin's the only case of 'doll face' (besides one of the options for female Cross, I think) that I think can be pointed out as a bad 3D translation.
 
Yeah, her and Reyn just kind of stop mattering at the same time, though Sharla doesn't have the strength of memes like Reyn does with every other battle line he gets.

Reyn isn't demphasized at all during the story though. He's Shulk's support pillar. It's just that towards the back end of the game there isn't much characterization in cutscenes for anyone besides Shulk, Melia and Seven. Reyn has a lot of awesome heart to hearts.
 

Kaizer

Banned
Sure, you're not. But the tone of some comments, especially elsewhere, really makes me think that there are people who are actually upset. Who knows though, after all it's hard to judge such things by a few words on a screen.




Speaking for myself, I find it a general problem. For example, in an image such as this (the first one I came across)

char--party.png


I don't think anyone looks good. Not even Elma.

Gotta say, I feel the character design is a step above Xenoblade X for me, as I HATE these character models, but the original Xenoblade still looked the best of the three so far.
 
I'm so pumped for this game. Day 1

xenoblade-chronicles-2-switch-c1a0668d.jpg


I love this town. I get Kingdom Hearts/The Last Story feel from it. This game is going to be awesome.
 

TheMoon

Member
I thought the game was way more graphically impressive in this showing than during e3. It's hard to tell totally from compressed videos, but I think it also got a resolution bump. I haven't read the entire thread though.

Did anyone else feel the same about resolution?

I don't think we can really judge this based on youtube/streams.
 

TheMoon

Member
Her boobs are really big on the artwork too. It doesn't fit the design. Everything on pyra is sleek, slim and long. Her boobs just shooting out of her chest just to such a degree hurts it.

Then I think her arm pose is tricking me, it looks more reigned in due to the way her arms are posed.

Btw, If the OT is not called "Puberty hit the Monado like a truck" what's the fucking point

I'd like to preemptively apologize.
 
In this entirety of this thread has anyone talked about the factions in this game?

How the story may go about this? It's quite interesting how each country are on a unique titan.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
In this entirety of this thread has anyone talked about the factions in this game?

How the story may go about this? It's quite interesting how each country are on a unique titan.

I think its cool you have your own titan. I guess thats how you go from titan to titan? Also wonder what else you can do there.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I just want to play a JRPG in which the main character does not look like a chipper young shonen hero in adventuring gear while his magical sword girl looks like she fell backwards out of a fetish cosplay shop. Like anyone saying that design isn't coded "sexy" in a very anime way is being disingenuous, regardless of how you feel about that. She is
 

sanstesy

Member
Translation:

Can you guys do whatever I want to? guyyys???


Okay, let's talk about the world design;

xenoblade-chronicles-2-switch-c1a0668d.jpg


So far it looks delightful, but just for the gimmick of the titans rather than that it looks...empty? Empty and some times really unispired

20170614_005809_thumb.jpg


If you remove the alien type or titan things, it just "The JRPG plateu: Strikes BACK, AGAIN"

What?
 
I just want to play a JRPG in which the main character does not look like a chipper young shonen hero in adventuring gear while his magical sword girl looks like she fell backwards out of a fetish cosplay shop. Like anyone saying that design isn't coded "sexy" in a very anime way is being disingenuous, regardless of how you feel about that. She is

You do know your young shonen hero is a scavenger and it's been said he is older than he looks.

Also why do people find Rex a problem?
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
That's what Xenoblade games are though. They all take place on large empty feeling plateaus. They're all about scale and less about level design (although it's there if you fully explore).

They're not meant to be BotW style interactive environments where there's something cool to interact with on every inch of the landscape. It's more about battling and manipulating intricate systems while traversing giant (and often dangerous) environments. And they spice that up with some deep lore, story, and cutscenes.

My only hope is that there aren't a ton of the really horrible and meaningless fetch quests that plagued XBC and XBX. The quest design in XBX was particularly meaningless and terrible in my opinion.

This is true however. The Xenoblade games are about the only series where I actually like the enormous empty worlds, mostly because of how good it feels to run across them
 

Fou-Lu

Member
Yeah, and the staff intentionally leaving out two factions makes it even more interesting. The two on the far right were not mentioned in the trailer.

We need space for pre-Elysium twists. A Xeno game cannot have just one twist.

I hope one of them is underwater.
 
I just want to play a JRPG in which the main character does not look like a chipper young shonen hero in adventuring gear while his magical sword girl looks like she fell backwards out of a fetish cosplay shop.

Well then you wont be playing this lol

Like anyone saying that design isn't coded "sexy" in a very anime way is being disingenuous, regardless of how you feel about that. She is

I don't think anyone has even implied Pyra isn't suppose to be sexualized lol
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
You do know your young shonen hero is a scavenger and it's been said he is older than he looks.

Also why do people find Rex a problem?

I don't really have much of a problem with Rex honestly, his design is silly but its never really bothered me, and I'll swap out his weird leg armor. Sorry should have been clearer, its his juxtaposition against her that bugs me. Even if you can dress him in "sexier" armor Shulk style later the fact that these two default appearances are what the developers thought we would want to see of these characters is...bleh
 
Yeah, and the staff intentionally leaving out two factions makes it even more interesting. The two on the far right were not mentioned in the trailer.

Discussion like this is so much better than threads devolving into character designs every single time.

But yeah that's quite interesting. I wonder why they haven't mentioned them yet? Maybe it for story purposes and might spoil some things.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
Discussion like this is so much better than threads devolving into character designs every single time.

But yeah that's quite interesting. I wonder why they haven't mentioned them yet? Maybe it for story purposes and might spoil some things.

Since it seems Rex has mysterious origins I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was his homeland.

If my theory that Rex is actually an artificial being created by Spaceship Elysium doesn't pan out anyway. :p
 
We need space for pre-Elysium twists. A Xeno game cannot have just one twist.

I hope one of them is underwater.

Discussion like this is so much better than threads devolving into character designs every single time.

But yeah that's quite interesting. I wonder why they haven't mentioned them yet? Maybe it for story purposes and might spoil some things.

I agree with Fou-Lu. They must have some mind-blowing twist going on to those two mysterious factions. Even though many people were criticizing Xenoblade X's main story, the Chapter 5 reveal was still very good. I hope to see twists on that caliber.
 

Harpoon

Member
According to the subtitles in some European versions of the new footage, the Nopon leading Argentum is named
Bana
. This amuses me.
 

Reki

Member
According to the subtitles in some European versions of the new footage, the Nopon leading Argentum is named
Bana
. This amuses me.

That sidequest in XC was SO good.
I loved the melodramatic final battle with Tragic Decision.

In XC2 he'll definitely be a boss.
 
Top Bottom