At the time you're reading these lines, you may have already seen almost every unique aspect we could discover about Xenoblade 2 at gamescom. Because of a weird lift embargo right after the Nintendo Treehouse styled presentation, the image were faster than words. But since we think about players/gamers who avoid videos, here is a report from the 45 minutes of visit, Joy-Cons in hand, inside the new lush world created by Monolith Software.
I we have to be honest, we may as well admit that Xenoblade 2 wasn't very high in my wish list. At the time it got revealed in last January, it's the generic character design which was the most problematic to me, followed by the concern of the technical part from the Switch. The worldwide date, set to the end of 2017 and the clogged UI - a constant in the series, though - reinforcing the feeling of filler épisode to fill the Switch library as fast as possible. The E3 demonstration already gave a glimpse of potential for the interconnection between game systems. It is in Cologne that we could at least get a better playable overview of Tetsuya Takahashi and his team's ambitions.
No surprise for the fans of Xenoblade, the section was happening on the body of titan, an excessively big creature living as others in a sea of clouds. More accurately we were inside this gigantic being, in what seemed to be a rib cage pierced in different spots by the intrusion of salvagers, Rex being part of one of these groups. Very stoy but also hymid with vast stretches of water and luxuriant vegetation, the area was offering breathtaking landscapes when playing with the free camera. Even if the exploration was for the most part happening in wild environements, we ran into an aerial ship and quickly got through a city as populated as it was high (perchée is a word we use for a bird sitting in a tree to give a better idea) at the end of our playtime.
The emphasis was however on the battles, still in real time as well as the possible interactions with the scenery, especially the harvest and salvage here. The second part not being the most interesting (only a specific level of mastering in a specific action was enough to make random ressources spring up), we're more gladly going to talk about the fighting, even more complex than XenobladeX's. Even though every recruitable character in the team deals with his own style, from tank to healer, as well as buff/debuff or range specialist, the fundamental rule of Xenoblade 2 will be the flexibility of profiles depending on the players needs or desires.
Combining it with certain Blades (they actually translated Blade into Lames which is pretty weird to me) - biomecanical weapons taking the shape of living beings - and making them evolve in a certain way thanks to a process similar to gems in the first Xenoblade, we can heavily modify the natural tendencies of a protagonist. Rex being the only character we could use in this demo (He doesn't say exactly that but I prefer to correct it myself) directly it was important to chose the attributes of his partners to balance the team depending on the dangers around. The Blades elements, randomly assigned (we can try to force) during the link with their "master" (Driver I guess), wille have an essential role in the realisation of devastating magical combos. After charging a meter by using Arts,chaining a level 1 magic attack, then 2, then 3 in the time allowed will trigger an ultimate attack you can reinforce thanks to a little QTE, relate to the association of the 3 elements.
A guide displayed at the top right of the screen allow us to see which combination will give which special attack, sealing an element as a result - or even a type of attack as a bonus - from the targeted enemy. The counterpart is that your opponent will become much more resistant to the sealed element, pictured as a little colourd sphere flying around it. Thanks to 3 measures of tension, shown as blue gauges at the top left of the screen (which are also used to revive a fallen ally), we can unleash a powerful chain attack which can break one or more seals. With a smart choice of elements, the damage counter will explode in the course of combos, continuing as long as we get the "excellent" mention from more and more deceitful QTE.
Enumerate the whole list of combat subtlety in this preview would make it much longer, much more than reasonable, but be aware that the positioning is even more important than in the other Xenoblade games since it's impossible to attack while moving and now on we can send the opponent in the air to better crush it on the ground with the right Arts then. If the jumps are not as fanciful/lunar and not available in water (???), the fall damage is back. To end this, the sprint from Xenoblade X doesn't seem to be back mais we'll encount specific interactions which will modify the area's morphology, as long as we possess the right elements in the group. Finaly, we're going to wait to be able to try the game in peace on a well set screen to really judge the visual and sound quality of the title even if the few musics we heard were clearly pleasant to the ears.
