by Solvovir » Mon Aug 08, 2022 5:36 am
Some of Jack’s posts, along some other things other folks had to say, and Xenoblade 3 being a thing finally got a fire lit under me to go back and finish Xenoblade 2. (Yeah I’ve been lurking at least that long, lol. I don’t want to turn it into too much of a tangent, though)
I gotta say, I don’t regret it. Xenoblade 2 really is closer to what Xeno usually is, which is a nice surprise because Blade 1 was basically just Xeno in name only and I was starting to think Takahashi had given up on his vision. While there were some nods and winks to old-school Xeno in Blade 1 that’s really all they were and it’s clear the game was only made to fit in retroactively; even the way Blade 2 tries to tie Blade 1 in feels kind of irrelevant to 2 on its own (not so much 3 obviously), and the fan theory that Gears and Saga might be parallel universes to Blade that just so happen to be other timelines where humanity discovered The Conduit, is honestly far more interesting.
Really, it’s cool how if you know Xeno, then it’s clear after beating it that Blade 2 was meant to be one from the start. Not only does the later part of the game (and Torna: TGC I guess) make Takahashi’s hand on the scenario clear but looking at the big picture Xenoblade 2 seems to take place in a variation of “Episode V” on Xenogears’ Perfect Works timeline, basically making it the most direct successor to Xenogears we ever got.
On another note I feel like the fans are a bit too slavishly devoted to the original Perfect Works structure when Xenosaga showed it falling apart nearly two decades ago. It’s actually easier to understand wtf each game is meant to be if you don’t worry about Episode numbers and just break the timeline up into three big arcs: humanity in space→ a new humanity in a new world → whatever happens after which has never truly been revealed. (Xenoblade 3 might be it but I should finish it first to be entirely sure.)
Interestingly from what I can tell “Episode I” or the space arc seem to be the most functionally different due to, from what little I can tell, humanity not actually making it too far into space beyond where we’ve already been (can’t say I blame Takahashi for changing that; I don’t expect humanity to last long enough travel the stars anymore either, lol) with this simplification we get pretty much all the information about this era that we need from a few flashbacks. The Conduit is discovered, Klaus starts his experiment, and the Xenoblade worlds are created.
No need to go over the next arc in detail, that’s the games.
Interestingly, the long-unknown “Episode VI” or the last arc has been speculated by fans to be a few different scenarios, most common being either the two humanities encountering each other and what happens then, or the end of the universe and the attempt to prevent the destruction thereof. From what I’ve played of Xenoblade 3, it seems to be using both of these (sort of) for its plot. It’d be funny if the predictions were correct all those years ago.
Man it’s frustrating how hard it is to find discussion like this anymore. So much of the new blood in the Xenoblade fandom doesn’t want to look at anything beyond the very surface or talk about any of the complicated shit in the games. The Blade 1 only fags speak like bots, always repeating the same nothing talking points (“The story is good! The combat is good!” etc.”) not really elaborating on anything or going in-depth at all. The 2 only fags while at least coming off as human still seem borderline retarded and only speak up to make conversation difficult lol.
(Yeah I apologize for this but I feel like this gets it across better than I could with my words lol)
Though not of them are all coomers I guess. Some of them are still obnoxious as fuck though and just stick around to complain about 1, X, and 3 being too serious for them (even though 2 could also get pretty damn dark when it wanted to, lol, and 3 can also be plenty silly at times) or the art styles not appealing to them (every Xenoblade game has looked different)
From what I can tell X fags just like to explore and I assume that game scratches the itch the best of them. I dunno I never got far in it.
The people who actually have things to say and offer insight into the plots, characters and themes? They’re the people who played all the Blade games, and even went back to play Gears and Saga, or they already played those and just stuck around for the Blade series, but the difference between those two isn’t that important. However, the difference between them and the ones that only play Blade or even worse, one of the Blades is stark. With the Blade 1-2 only fags, it’s almost all “boobs this, tone that”, it’s hard to tell if these fuckers even play the games.
Maybe this is just a problem on GameFAGs though. The posters there always tended to be pretty damn stupid in my experience for the most part (though some of the Gears and Saga fags were the exception. Those were the people who got me wanting to know more about psychology, religion, etc, in the first place). But the thing is if I can’t discuss anything there, where the fuck would I ever go to discuss this shit? If discussing things on GameFAQs is difficult, then talking about anything on 4chan is probably impossible. Occasionally someone who knows what they’re talking about would show up there, but those occasions seem to be getting more and more rare. Feels like the place is mostly bots and retards that are impossible to tell from bots. Places like Resetera and so on are right out since I doubt I’d be accepted there even if I wanted to be. Same likely goes for Discord groups; sometimes you will find people on “the other side” of the “culture war” on Discord but most of them who play Xenoblade tend to be coomers who are still too dumb to discuss the games on a level beyond the most basic (I don’t care if people are attracted to the characters or not, the problem is that I keep running into people who seem to want to only talk about jerking off in these parts of the fandom)
I guess I’m mostly stuck discussing Xeno with my younger brother, who, even though he can be simple-minded at times, still can articulate himself a thousand times better than most of the faggots I run into online. He doesn’t share my opinions on Xeno exactly, but I can understand why he thinks the way he does about this or that. He is able to explain why he likes Xenoblade 1’s story more, saying that the mostly straightforward struggle for survival with a twist to it here and there was really all the story needed, while he felt that Xenoblade 2 was trying to do too much and be too many things at once. He also told me why he didn’t like Rex (“I feel the game tries to sell you on him having a charisma to him that he doesn’t, really. He just comes off like a complete dork. Ironically I think Addam is the same kind of character Rex was meant to be, or at least grow into, done right, but I just don’t buy it with Rex.” He said something like this.) He has made complaints about the tone of 2 and 3 (and a little bit of 1, too, lmao. Starting to feel like he just wants Xenogears and Xenosaga back to me.) “Ah, Takahashi has mellowed out. What has he found to be so happy about? I feel like JRPGs like this need a bit more of an edge to them, just a bit more at least, so that it’s easier to get invested in the drama.”
Real simple takes, but they’re something, and good fucking luck finding even just that amongst the nonsense vomited out by the drones that infest the ‘net. I can only hope it’ll get better after everyone beats 3, but honestly, it’ll probably get even worse.
Some of Jack’s posts, along some other things other folks had to say, and Xenoblade 3 being a thing finally got a fire lit under me to go back and finish Xenoblade 2. (Yeah I’ve been lurking at least that long, lol. I don’t want to turn it into too much of a tangent, though)
I gotta say, I don’t regret it. Xenoblade 2 really is closer to what Xeno usually is, which is a nice surprise because Blade 1 was basically just Xeno in name only and I was starting to think Takahashi had given up on his vision. While there were some nods and winks to old-school Xeno in Blade 1 that’s really all they were and it’s clear the game was only made to fit in retroactively; even the way Blade 2 tries to tie Blade 1 in feels kind of irrelevant to 2 on its own (not so much 3 obviously), and the fan theory that Gears and Saga might be parallel universes to Blade that just so happen to be other timelines where humanity discovered The Conduit, is honestly far more interesting.
Really, it’s cool how if you know Xeno, then it’s clear after beating it that Blade 2 was meant to be one from the start. Not only does the later part of the game (and Torna: TGC I guess) make Takahashi’s hand on the scenario clear but looking at the big picture Xenoblade 2 seems to take place in a variation of “Episode V” on Xenogears’ Perfect Works timeline, basically making it the most direct successor to Xenogears we ever got.
https://imgur.com/yugP7kn
On another note I feel like the fans are a bit too slavishly devoted to the original Perfect Works structure when Xenosaga showed it falling apart nearly two decades ago. It’s actually easier to understand wtf each game is meant to be if you don’t worry about Episode numbers and just break the timeline up into three big arcs: humanity in space→ a new humanity in a new world → whatever happens after which has never truly been revealed. (Xenoblade 3 might be it but I should finish it first to be entirely sure.)
Interestingly from what I can tell “Episode I” or the space arc seem to be the most functionally different due to, from what little I can tell, humanity not actually making it too far into space beyond where we’ve already been (can’t say I blame Takahashi for changing that; I don’t expect humanity to last long enough travel the stars anymore either, lol) with this simplification we get pretty much all the information about this era that we need from a few flashbacks. The Conduit is discovered, Klaus starts his experiment, and the Xenoblade worlds are created.
No need to go over the next arc in detail, that’s the games.
Interestingly, the long-unknown “Episode VI” or the last arc has been speculated by fans to be a few different scenarios, most common being either the two humanities encountering each other and what happens then, or the end of the universe and the attempt to prevent the destruction thereof. From what I’ve played of Xenoblade 3, it seems to be using both of these (sort of) for its plot. It’d be funny if the predictions were correct all those years ago.
Man it’s frustrating how hard it is to find discussion like this anymore. So much of the new blood in the Xenoblade fandom doesn’t want to look at anything beyond the very surface or talk about any of the complicated shit in the games. The Blade 1 only fags speak like bots, always repeating the same nothing talking points (“The story is good! The combat is good!” etc.”) not really elaborating on anything or going in-depth at all. The 2 only fags while at least coming off as human still seem borderline retarded and only speak up to make conversation difficult lol.
https://imgur.com/D0APPSU
(Yeah I apologize for this but I feel like this gets it across better than I could with my words lol)
Though not of them are all coomers I guess. Some of them are still obnoxious as fuck though and just stick around to complain about 1, X, and 3 being too serious for them (even though 2 could also get pretty damn dark when it wanted to, lol, and 3 can also be plenty silly at times) or the art styles not appealing to them (every Xenoblade game has looked different)
From what I can tell X fags just like to explore and I assume that game scratches the itch the best of them. I dunno I never got far in it.
The people who actually have things to say and offer insight into the plots, characters and themes? They’re the people who played all the Blade games, and even went back to play Gears and Saga, or they already played those and just stuck around for the Blade series, but the difference between those two isn’t that important. However, the difference between them and the ones that only play Blade or even worse, one of the Blades is stark. With the Blade 1-2 only fags, it’s almost all “boobs this, tone that”, it’s hard to tell if these fuckers even play the games.
Maybe this is just a problem on GameFAGs though. The posters there always tended to be pretty damn stupid in my experience for the most part (though some of the Gears and Saga fags were the exception. Those were the people who got me wanting to know more about psychology, religion, etc, in the first place). But the thing is if I can’t discuss anything there, where the fuck would I ever go to discuss this shit? If discussing things on GameFAQs is difficult, then talking about anything on 4chan is probably impossible. Occasionally someone who knows what they’re talking about would show up there, but those occasions seem to be getting more and more rare. Feels like the place is mostly bots and retards that are impossible to tell from bots. Places like Resetera and so on are right out since I doubt I’d be accepted there even if I wanted to be. Same likely goes for Discord groups; sometimes you will find people on “the other side” of the “culture war” on Discord but most of them who play Xenoblade tend to be coomers who are still too dumb to discuss the games on a level beyond the most basic (I don’t care if people are attracted to the characters or not, the problem is that I keep running into people who seem to want to only talk about jerking off in these parts of the fandom)
I guess I’m mostly stuck discussing Xeno with my younger brother, who, even though he can be simple-minded at times, still can articulate himself a thousand times better than most of the faggots I run into online. He doesn’t share my opinions on Xeno exactly, but I can understand why he thinks the way he does about this or that. He is able to explain why he likes Xenoblade 1’s story more, saying that the mostly straightforward struggle for survival with a twist to it here and there was really all the story needed, while he felt that Xenoblade 2 was trying to do too much and be too many things at once. He also told me why he didn’t like Rex (“I feel the game tries to sell you on him having a charisma to him that he doesn’t, really. He just comes off like a complete dork. Ironically I think Addam is the same kind of character Rex was meant to be, or at least grow into, done right, but I just don’t buy it with Rex.” He said something like this.) He has made complaints about the tone of 2 and 3 (and a little bit of 1, too, lmao. Starting to feel like he just wants Xenogears and Xenosaga back to me.) “Ah, Takahashi has mellowed out. What has he found to be so happy about? I feel like JRPGs like this need a bit more of an edge to them, just a bit more at least, so that it’s easier to get invested in the drama.”
Real simple takes, but they’re [i]something[/i], and good fucking luck finding even just that amongst the nonsense vomited out by the drones that infest the ‘net. I can only hope it’ll get better after everyone beats 3, but honestly, it’ll probably get even worse.
