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[Tovarisch]

I can't judge the design, everyone has their own tastes and we all know about the cultural features of Japan, but I want to note the style, the technique of drawing, the colors, it's all at a very high level, I'm impressed.

In general, speaking about the trailer and how the game looks, I really like the color scale, the combat interface, everything has become more solid, high-quality, neat and stylish.

What I worry about:
- Uninformative map (Look at the map from Breath of the Wild! All those reliefs, heights and depths, that's how it should be!)
- I hope there will not be situations like: I found the chest! But I can't open it, because I have a small level in a meaningless skill. I can't mark the location of the treasure on the map so that later I can return for it and not forget where it is. I can't take it with me even if I'm sitting in a big and strong robot?
- A lot of senseless quests from soulless NPCs (Again - be guided by the latest Zelda!)
- Hundreds of versions of the same weapons and armor (Seriously, do something more unique)
- Empty lore of the world (A good example here is Final Fantasy 12)
- A lot of unnecessary loot and awkward management of it (If you add this, then make it more useful)
- I really hope that there will be mech here! Not as advanced as in X, but still... At least judging by the trailer, we will have our own airship!
- Using the same melody in the cutscenes (Who did this in X? I hope he was fired)
- Unique dungeons (Gosh, even Fire Emblem Echoes has more interesting dungeons than they were in X)
- Partner management (I really need to run around looking for them to take in the current team or will you fix it?)

For me this is the most anticipated game! Probably even more than Super Mario Odyssey ��
Good luck Monolith Soft!

 

[Rune Corp]

Yeah. I'm hoping to do a very large breakdown of everything shown off in the Treehouse video because there's a bunch of really cool stuff that I like a lot (namely a lot of choices on the combat look really interesting) and want to compile into a readable format. But because of how threads on Xeno games get constantly derailed, it's kinda killing my motivation.

Yes please! I'd love to see this!

 

[James Scott]

Trying to explain bad character designs to anime fans is just a ticking time bomb of disaster.

Remember even this had its own defense force.

Yeah, was glad they took that out.
But as for XC2's Pyre, her design looks pretty good in game. Maybe a bit more clothes would be better, tho

 

[Fireblend]

- Uninformative map (Look at the map from Breath of the Wild! All those reliefs, heights and depths, that's how it should be!)

I agree. I want every map in every game ever to be as good as Zelda's. That's not sarcasm, I really want that.

- I hope there will not be situations like: I found the chest! But I can't open it, because I have a small level in a meaningless skill. I can't mark the location of the treasure on the map so that later I can return for it and not forget where it is. I can't take it with me even if I'm sitting in a big and strong robot?

I don't think has ever been an issue in Xenoblade? At least not that I remember. Was that an X thing?

- A lot of senseless quests from soulless NPCs (Again - be guided by the latest Zelda!)

The quests in the original Xenoblade were outstanding story-wise. The gameplay itself was a bit grindy with fetchquests and the like, but the stories associated with them were as good if not even better than in BotW.

- Hundreds of versions of the same weapons and armor (Seriously, do something more unique)

Also not an issue in the first Xenoblade

- Empty lore of the world (A good example here is Final Fantasy 12)

Did you play the original Xenoblade? They knocked it out of the park on the lore IMO.

- A lot of unnecessary loot and awkward management of it (If you add this, then make it more useful)

Well, this is arguable. The first Xenoblade did have tons of extraneous loot in the form of materials and items but I don't remember management being super hard, and they did have their uses.

- Using the same melody in the cutscenes (Who did this in X? I hope he was fired)

Not really relevant to the game, but sure! I want to hear more of Mitsuda's compositions for this game.

- Unique dungeons (Gosh, even Fire Emblem Echoes has more interesting dungeons than they were in X)

This wasn't an issue in the original XB.

- Partner management (I really need to run around looking for them to take in the current team or will you fix it?)

I'm starting to think you only played X.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

In Xenogears, Soraya Saga was the original creator for a lot of the characters. Nowadays she is retired. Maybe this partly explains the embarrassing sexist designs.

 

[MoonFrog]

If I have to say what it centers on right now. It's that the timing elements (which have their roots in Chrono Trigger's enemy movement) which form the best strategic backbone of the combat in the Xenoblade games and the primary gameplay compensation for the lack of a traditional mana pool are put significantly to the forefront of the combat design here more than ever. There's also smaller stuff like Healing being tied to movement and consequently, not attacking and optimizing arts usage. The guy at the treehouse didn't show off too much of the system's potential as they were missing timings all over the place.

Sounds interesting and something we haven't gotten much discussion about.

If you have any thoughts on party play, those would be appreciated too .

 

[Tovarisch]

I don't think has ever been an issue in Xenoblade? At least not that I remember. Was that an X thing?

In that example, I talked about X.

The quests in the original Xenoblade were outstanding story-wise. The gameplay itself was a bit grindy with fetchquests and the like, but the stories associated with them were as good if not even better than in BotW.

All 480? Really?

Also not an issue in the first Xenoblade

In XB they were more unique, yes.

Well, this is arguable. The first Xenoblade did have tons of extraneous loot in the form of materials and items but I don't remember management being super hard, and they did have their uses.

Item inventory full?

Not really relevant to the game, but sure! I want to hear more of Mitsuda's compositions for this game.

Did you play in X? The same tunes in the cutscenes, in the city. These themes have become the music of my nightmares. Sawano wrote a lot of great tunes, some of which were used only once in the entire game. I'm talking about a strange decision, this time from a sound producer.

This wasn't an issue in the original XB.

But was in X.

I'm starting to think you only played X.

My point is that after the XB there were X and a lot of strange solutions, minor flaws. Some moments should be made as in the original, while others need to be fixed. 😅

 

[Dangerous1992]

what? the sidequests in X were superb, some of the best i've ever seen in a jrpg.

Let's see if a more storydriven game like this one comes close, i have my doubts, especially with all the interesting races they introduced in X.

 

[MicH]

The sound design in X was in general pretty odd to me. In some cutscenes the music is way too loud and completely drowns out the characters, especially because the music has vocals. Other times it is perfectly fine. Very inconsistent.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Hard to set a dialogue if you have already decided that the design is bad.
I would say dialogue is not welcomed by both sides

Problem is it's really hard to defend character designs like this.

 

[cheebdragonite]

The sound design in X was in general pretty odd to me. In some cutscenes the music is way too loud and completely drowns out the characters, especially because the music has vocals. Other times it is perfectly fine. Very inconsistent.

It's actually during dialogue scenes where the imbalance happens; it never happens during cinematics (final chapter spoilers).

* Just to note, dialogue scenes are low-budget cutscenes that use stock animations and don't use as much cinematography techniques. Also interesting to note that this particular dialogue scene in Chapter 11 was meant to be a cinematic with all the added lighting, base animations and camera angles, but they never managed to finish it all.

 

[aravuus]

The quests in the original Xenoblade were outstanding story-wise. The gameplay itself was a bit grindy with fetchquests and the like, but the stories associated with them were as good if not even better than in BotW.

I can't say I agree with this at all. I'm up to Colony 6 now, done all the quests I could (which is pretty much all of them cause I've got a side quest guide at hand) and they've all been super forgettable. "A bit grindy" is also an understatement of the year. X handled its side quests much better, so it's going to be interesting to see how good or bad XB2's side quests end up being.

Not like I've run into anything particularly interesting story-wise in BOTW either, though.

 

[Fandangox]

The quests in the original Xenoblade were outstanding story-wise. The gameplay itself was a bit grindy with fetchquests and the like, but the stories associated with them were as good if not even better than in BotW.

Really? The only memorable ones I remember where the

Spoiler

Nopon smuggling ring, the backstory for the giant/spiders and the drawing book one.

X lend itself a lot better for its sidequest because the setting needed to rely more on them.

 

[Fireblend]

I can't say I agree with this at all. I'm up to Colony 6 now, done all the quests I could and they've all been super forgettable. "A bit grindy" is also an understatement of the year. X handled its side quests much better, so it's going to be interesting to see how good or bad XB2's side quests end up being.

Not like I've run into anything particularly interesting story-wise in BOTW either, though.

Really? I won't argue against the game play involved being bad, but I do remember liking the narrative aspects of quite a few of them, specially those regarding the reconstruction of the Colony and some of the quest lines that involved more than one. Felt like they were mostly decent character building opportunities and helped make the world feel a bit more involved, specially with how some of them impacted relationships, schedules, etc. I definitely don't remember any MMOs-circa-2003-tier "bring me 5 of these because I need to pad this game with something" quests.

 

[jackal27]

All I want out of this story is "boy meets pants".

Still waiting for news on visible equipment changes. I have a lot of issues with the character designs, but being able to change their outfits would help with that a lot.

Also, I'm excited for this game either way. Can't believe it's so close!

 

[aravuus]

Really? I won't argue against the game play involved being bad, but I do remember liking the narrative aspects of quite a few of them, specially those regarding the reconstruction of the Colony and some of the quest lines that involved more than one. Felt like they were mostly decent character building opportunities and helped make the world feel a bit more involved, specially with how some of them impacted relationships, schedules, etc. I definitely don't remember any MMOs-circa-2003-tier "bring me 5 of these because I need to pad this game with something" quests.

I don't exactly disagree with the bolded part, but they're hardly outstanding story-wise. I'm trying to remember some of the ones I've done in the past couple of days and... It's hard. I think I killed a monster cause Grigorio asked me to hang out with Paola, which I remember cause it was so nonsensical.

As for character building, so far I'll still have to disagree. The people involved in the quests are usually Generic People with one, maybe two personality traits (which is understandable, they're minor NPCs). The party dialogue when accepting and finishing quests is just grating - they keep repeating the same useless crap. Shulk says "tell me more", NPC tells more, Reyn says "we can do anything when we work together with Shulk!" and Sharla says something about her healing capabilities or something. Every goddamn time. Just be quiet, guys.

Nice little quests here and there, definitely better than the heaps of very MMO-like fetch and kill quests but very forgettable stuff for the most part. Conversely I can still remember some of X's quests even though I haven't played it since release.

Maybe the Colony 6 quests will be a bit better.