Killer7 SINdicate

[Krizzx]

I didn't know Hajimari no Kiseki had already released. We're still wating on Cold Steel 4 and they've already finished the entire next game.



I'm still not liking how they have Rixia just out in the open like everyone is cool with her being stealth assassin and the way they changed her personality from stoic and professional like in the Crossbell games to all cheery and sassy., as well as reducing her skill down to the level of the rest of the team. She was suppose to be a trained professional with elite level skills and capabilities like the guest characters you tend to get near the end of the other Trails games. She went one on one with Arianhrod and pretty much held her own.

[Krizzx]

Well, FFXVI was announced, and I honestly find myself not caring. The last few entries have been so underwhelming that its beyond clear that the forces that made the older games so good are long gone and aren't coming back. Its just selling on namesake and hype at this point.

[Iwazaru]

If you dont have high expectations, but then play and actually like, its bigger surprise.

[Jack]

Well, FFXVI was announced, and I honestly find myself not caring. The last few entries have been so underwhelming that its beyond clear that the forces that made the older games so good are long gone and aren't coming back. Its just selling on namesake and hype at this point.

LOL who cares about Final Faggotry without The Gooch? The last good Final Faggotry was FF X-2, and that's only due to the combat system. Everything else about it (except gfx) was shit. To this day, I can't believe that they never made a real FF game or at least a spiritual successor that used FF X-2's combat. It was basically a normal turn based system but it moved in full real time.

Anyway, can anyone fill me in on what the fuck is so fucking great about Xenoblade 1?

It's not the combat, the combat is shit. It can't be the story, but yet a lot of people do praise it, when the story is just Double Dragon 2, and it even has the NES plot twist of your girlfriend Maria coming back to life through Magicckkk. It's just that magicckkkk in XB1 is actually Science, science that's basically magick, LOL!
BTW, no Xb1 is nowhere near the perfect ending. Come on what the fuck? I thought the ending was underwhelming. You just see Sharla playing frisbee or something with her dildo, Reyn.
(I actually thought it was funny at first how Reyn was getting friendzoned just like Melia when Sharla finally finds her boyfriend, only for her boyfriend to get killed an hour after you found him anyway lol.)
You see the survivors of Bionis rebuilding society and then the shock plot twist is that Fiora is human again.
I felt she should've died again, like they were strongly hinting at coz Fiora's existence makes Melia's completely irrelevant to the story. XB1 & XB2 have the same problem where they strongly hint that the main female protagonist will die, but then they don't. I actually don't mind it much in XB2, coz I actually like Mythra. I think she's very well written, although you prob need to play Torna as well to get her full story.

I often find that most of Mythra's haters, hate her coz she's a Tsundere, when she's not a tsundere at all. Some scenes play into that trope as a joke, but gamers, are so autistic that they don't seem to understand what a joke is.
IMO Mythra came off like a tragic character who was grossly over confident in her abilities that she loses every single thing she loves after she finally uses the power that she was hinting at throughout the entirety of Torna.
That's why she was so mad in XB2, coz in perspectives, she associates her own power with pain so she just wanted to sleep forever or die.
On paper, Mythra is the type of character who should have it all but she's actually a prisoner of her own power, because she's just way too damn powerful that she destroys entire civilizations through an accident, coz not even she truly comprehended just how powerful she is.


I find that to be a much more intriguing tale than Shulks, "WE CAN CHANGE THE FUTURE! WE'RE NOT BINDED BY FATE!" Blah blah so damn generic.
I'm sick & tired of everyone overratting this piece of trash. XB DE is so highly regarded that Gamestop actually paid me $45 when I traded it in. It's weird though coz it was actually only worth $20 just a week or two ago. Xenoblade 2 usually had a higher trade in value at $29.99.
I beat the entire game plus Future Connected in like 90s hours and then I tried doing a 2nd playthrough to see if it gets better, but I only played up to the part where you get to Melia's kingdom, coz by then I was just really fucking bored.

I've already explained why XB1 is shit at the Nintendo thread so I don't feel like retreading that. I will go into full detail as to why XB1's plot is so fucking overrated at the Vidya narratives thread since a lot of my criticisms about XB relate with video game wrtiing as a whole. Gamers honestly don't motherfucking read. Even motherfucking Manga tends to have way better writing than the garbage that you normally see from video games.

Video game plots are so fucking shit, that Fatal Fury 1-Real Bout 1 has a way better story than most Rpgs, that actually developed throughout that entire series.
Samurai Shodown probably does too, but I'm still confused as fuck by SS's timeline. (SSII happens last. Wait what the fuck?)
Fatal Fury's is fairly straight forward but what's cool as hell is how the main character is actually South Town since South Town is the main setting for Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, & Savage Reign / Kizuna Encounter.

Art of Fighting series is when it's revealed that Geese Howard was originally a police commissioner during his rise to power. He had the pimps of the city like Mr. Big working for him. Fatal Fury is during Geese Howard's reign.
Kizuna Encounter depicts the city of South Town in a desolate post apocalyptic setting after Geese.
Fatal Fury 3 & Real Bout 1 was Ryuji Yamazaki, some lame Chink twins & Geese Howard fighting for control of South Town. So it was basically a three-way Yakuza, Triad & Mafia war, although Yamazaki is from China.

That shit is just way more engaging to me than some kid getting revenge for his dead girlfriend who is then revealed to be revived as a cyborg, and then you fight off an evil vengeful prince, but you actually form a truce with him only for Disco Jecht to betray you and the evil prince sacrifices himself to fight off God. God looks like Shulk since Shulk was the new vessel for God.
You kill God, and then ALvis is like, you're cool mang, now you get to recreate a new world of your desires.
Oh btw, I recreated your friends in this reality without your consent coz I want you to make a choice fast. The world can't stay in this embryo state for long. You gotta decide on your ideal mang.

Shulk: I want a world, WITHOUT GODS!
Boom world gets rebirthed without Gods and Cyborg bitch becomes normal bitch again.
I don't fucking understand why so many people act as if Fiora & Shulk are the best written couple ever, coz they just feel like a highschooler's interpretation of what they think a true love relationship is like. A relationship where there's no conflict at all. They love each other unconditionally and all that shit. I'm still fucking laughing that 90% of Fiora's dialogue consists of the word Shulk. XB1 fans always talk shit about how Rex & Pyra's relationship feels like a highschool crush, but how the fuck is that not also true for Shulk & Fiora? OOoh she made him some sandwichs in the begining of the game. A bunch of random girls made me food too even when I was in college.
That isn't an indication of true love, you dumb motherfuckers. That just means the girl wants to fuck you and that she's trying to get you to like her through satisfying your tummy with her cooking.

I think Geralt & Yennefer from The Witcher series is one of the only true examples of what a real relationship is like, you're constantly arguing with each other but you put up with it coz you love each other. The witcher doesn't count though since the way they're written actually came from the Novels first. Oh great, the one gaming example that comes to mind, and it turns out that they're actually from a series of books written by a grown man, not a fucking kid who grew up on nothing but videogames.
Actual relationships aren't 1-dimensional "we agree with everything!" affairs. When you think of Pyra as also Mythra, then I'd say that Pyra's relationship with Rex is far more realistic than XB2 haters give it credit for since he's always fighting with Mythra anyway, but he loves her (Pyra) enough to introduce her to his parents and Rex has a lot of moments with her. I think Rex's fascination with Fan La Norne is more of a highschool crush type, but really who doesn't love Fan La Norne AKA Haze?

Shulk & Fiora is what I imagine a lot of generic losers must think their love life is like with their significant other. Oh we're such a perfect couple, even though we don't actually do anything coz our writing sucks. We're simply written as being a perfect couple coz the plot doesn't work unless we're the perfect couple that fairy tales were made of.


Yup I just spoiled damn near all of the real plot twists worth a damn from Xenoblade 1 coz that's how much I don't give a fuck about that game, and I'm angry that Nintendo losers overrated it so much taht I thought it was going to be good. I almost beat it two times, coz I didn't want to admit to myself that I fucking hate this game, but I just couldn't deal with how fucking boring this piece of shit game is, during my 2nd playthrough.
Especially since I played XB2 & Torna first and that game actually was good, even though it took me 80 hours to finally like XB2. I was hoping for a similar effect with XB1 which is why I played it for 175 hours before finally getting rid of it.
Again, I'll detail the plots of both games at the story thread although not even XB2 passes my test for Vidya game plots that are actually good.
What XB2 has is a good general plot outline that would be good to use as a base for a Manga, Anime series or series of novels.
As a game, you simply don't get enough time to explore the setting from the final 3 chapters of the game.
I'm thinking of getting rid of XB2 and replacing it with a physical SOR4 or Bayonetta 2. I'm so disgusted with the Rpg genre and I'm sick & tired of getting into the same stupid arguments with Rpg fans at other forums.

That's the irony of Rpgs, Rpg fans posture as a more intelligent audience, because the games they play are supposedly much more complex when in reality Rpgs have very barebones combat systems and even its writing isn't all that deeper than a Saturday morning cartoon. They actually tend to have a similar depth of a fucking puddle. lol!
Meanwhile I could play fucking Super Tecmo Bowl 2 for decades and not get bored with it coz its simplistic but deep gameplay has as much depth & fun as Street Fighter 2 does, while being a completely different genre. What's the SF 2 of Jrpgs? Let alone Crpgs/Wrpgs?
I think most would say Dragon Quest but that game has every single problem that I don't like about Jrpgs, brain dead combat, dumbass story, but I like DQ's stories because it's intentionally meant to be as deep as a children's saturday morning cartoon, if a childrens' show actually had deaths in it.

I think Final Fantasy is more like Mortal Kombat in that the gameplay is very casual (was never that good.), & it constantly reinvents itself or at least it did up until MK9, so now they just make the same fucking game over & over to the point that MK11 is the 2nd best selling Fighting game of all time after Smash Bros.

TLDR: I think I'll just go back to being a Fire Emblem fan. FE is definitely the Street Fighter 2 of the Tactical strategy franchise, in that it's not the best, but it's fun & very accessible. It's way easier to get people into FE than it is with Tactics Ogre & Front Mission, which imo are both way better than FE. Front Mission doesn't matter though, it's fucking dead, lol.

The Xenoblade fanbase are at the beginning stages of being jsut as annoying as the FE fanbase, who fucking hate everything except the one FE they like. I feel that FE is a much stronger franchise though coz the core gameplay is actually good. It seems that XB2/Torna is the only XB with good gameplay. (I haven't played XBX but XB1 fans hate that game as much as they hate XB2, AYY LMAO!)
Anyone who actually thinks that XB1's combat is good, either doesn't understand that combat is supposed to actually challenge you, or they actually like that XB1's combat feels like you're watching a movie, since it's not very interactive.

[HOUSELANDER]

Its the feelings, just like how Persona 3,4 & 5 people like it for the feelings.

[Jack]

Its the feelings, just like how Persona 3,4 & 5 people like it for the feelings.

Of course it's feelings. The question is why?
How is Persona in any way comparable to Xenoblade? I can understand why people like Persona. The combat is fast, fun & addicting and the writing revolves around teenage social issues that would relate well with the teen audience. I understand the praise for Persona games.

I don't understand the over exaggerated praise for Xenoblade 1, where XB1 fans love XB1 so much that they constantly shit on Xenoblade X & XB2.
As I said, it can't be the gameplay. The gameplay is basically MMO combat, how the fuck is that so original? Ironically, Xenoblade 2 actually does have an original battle system that I've never seen another game do, not even Torna has the same battle system, yet XB2 is constantly hated on for supposedly dumbing down XB1's combat which is fucking hilarious coz XB1 already had dumb combat. XB2 actually utilizes the break, pierce, topple combo from XB1, chain combos & the party gauge as part of its combat, which were the only three "deep" elements of XB1's combat to begin with. XB2 has elementals, focus attacks, special arts tiers and all sorts of new stuff to keep track of that actually adds to the combat. If you have an attack that has an evade bonus, you can actually use that attack to dodge lasers and shit during the combat animation. It gives you an invisibility frame. XB1 had nothing like that. I could go on & on listing all of the combat elments that XB1 doesn't do but I don't feel like writing a long post right now.

Edit warning: I no longer mark spoilers coz that's how much I don't give a shit about XB1. Ironic, coz I made this thread in anticipation for XB1, only to find out it sucks, lol.
____
It can't be the story that causes everyone to praise Xenoblade 1 so much, coz the story is legit horrible. I'll get into that in the story thread, because there's so much about XB1's plot that's just plain bad. Peeps constantly insult XB2's plot but it's legit the only Xeno game that has writing which actually compares well to Xenogears.
I'd want to jump in that conversation, but I don't want to ruin it with my pressence since plenty of motherfuckers hate me at that board.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/20 ... 2/78974519

My main beef with XB1's story is how the story revolves around Shulk (none of your party members matter, not even Melia.) but Shulk himself isn't an interesting character at all, and a plot twist late in-game reveals that he was already dead, and was used as a new vessel for God. It was apparently a longwinded 17 year plan to cultivate every event in Shulk's life so that his body could eventually be harvested by God. What ruined the plan a bit is that Shulk can slightly change the future by taking control of his fate, which resulted in Disco Jecht stepping in to kill Shulk himself so that Shulk died a 2nd time for God to be reborn in his body.

How the fuck is any of this such groundbreaking story? It sounds like the same fate bullshit from Dreamfall the Longest Journey, but far less pretentious than the douche who wrote the Dreamfail games.
I think XB2's plot is way better coz it's about trying to prove that humanity isn't suicidal and addicted to murder, war & chaos. That sounds way more badass, but since gamers are dumb as hell, they have no idea that that's actually what XB2 is about. Most Xenoblade 1 fans described Xenoblade 2 as a shitty Harem Shonen Anime when there's nothing Harem anime about the XB2 at all. It does contain a lot of Shonen anime elements but I don't see how that's a bad thing when even Xenogears was extremely Shonen anime. It reminds of what Enel said on his youtube channel about how a lot of people use the "Shonen anime" complaint, because they're bad at arguing and have the inability to articulate what exactly it is that they hate.

This is exactly why I'm moving over to manga. I'm getting old, and I'm getting fucking sick and tired at how I seem to be the only person in the English speaking world who actually understands these video game stories to the level that I do. Just look at how badly Killer7 gets misinterpreted. People actually think that game revolves around magic rather than information warfare. I shouldn't be too surpised, even videogames that are supposedly based off of HP Lovecraft, have no fucking idea that what Lovecraft feared most was cultural degradation, he saw Race-mixing as one of the main reasons why a culture degrades. What do the idiot game writers do? They just create games filled with Fish people instead, and then literally make them look like fish, AYY LMAO! Oh and make the big bad fear be Cthulhu or whatever, when that wasn't the fucking point of Cthulhu at all.

Ironically, The Dark Soulds devs who made Bloodborne, understood Lovecraft more than most, coz that game actually revolves around Impure Blood, The Blood of the Beast. That's exactly what Lovecraft feared, FromSoft just made it sound cool as fuck, instead of 'racist', which is how Lovecraft's writing would be interpreted today. Shite, even the Boondocks cartoon gets censored now for being 'racist.'

That's a whole other subject though. My point is that game writing is shit coz the people playing games don't understand shit at all.
With manga, I actually see a lot of popular One Piece channels who know exactly what makes it good (He straight up says it's the adventure.), and it's refreshing to me to actually see such intelligent people for once coz I sure as hell never see that in the gaming community lol.


I'm one of those people who generally just ignore the battles in One Piece (the battles aren't bad, but I prefer the background political stuff that's happening at the same as the battles.), coz I hate how the battles stop the story when the actual story is what makes OP so damn interesting. Especially after wasting my time with so many stupid ass video games. The TLDR of One Piece: It's basically the same exact story set-up as the Suikoden games, where it's all building up to a final confrontation with the leading kingdom or military force within the setting.
Just replace Runes & True Runes with Devil fruits and a grander focus on criminals although you do see a lot of development on the rulers & civilizations that make up the world of OP.
Edit: lol this was supposed to be a short post, but heh whatever. I can't exactly write what I'm thinking without explaining what I'm saying.

[Krizzx]

People like Xenoblade because it was fun and creative. The game was filled with content and interactions. The environments looked great even on the original Wii version without the texture effects and dynamic lighting. Biggest of all, is people like the characters more.

Xenoblade 2, in comparison, felt scaled down in every way except for the addition of Blades. The moveset was reduced from 8 to 3, and all the unique combo mechanics were stripped down to just the break topple system. For example, Melia had her elemental burst system, while Dunban his buff variation/solo combo system. The characters in Xenoblade 2 all had static designs, where in Xenoblade 1, the character looks changed with every piece of gear.


Comat in the first game felt more engaging. You were constantly having to reposition to dodge attacks, get attack position bonuses on enemies and interact with your teamates. Xenoblade 2, less so. The environments in Xenoblade 2 felt kind of uniform and flat, where the first games world was filled with diverse terrain and structures. The first games world was more fun to explore, because there were more unique things to find. It was filled with hills, valleys and tunnels to explore all with distinct designs.









The environments of Xenoblade 2 were boring and stale. Terrain was mostly flat and repetitive.


Then the biggest issues. The characters themselves. I did not like Rex at all. The personalities of the character were pure stereotypical Anime. Nia was the Tsundere, and Morag the calm, quiet elite. The way Xenoblade 2 played out felt a lot more kiddy.

Contrast to Sharla the medic who watches over an entire fallen colonies people hunting her boyfriend and his attacker, or Dunban the strategist who lost an arm and sister but still continues to fight and make astute decisions in spite of it.

The characters were better written in the first game. As for the plot itself, I didn't particular care for either of the main villains or the ending. The ending of Xenoblade 2 is basically the ending of Baten Kaitos. An older Monolith Soft game.

While I like the Blade themselves, I thought the randomness of the Blade system was horrible.

The quests were also more diverse in Xenoblade 1. Xenoblade 2 didn't really have anything like the Colony 6 quest. You also had lot of quests with multiple outcomes in Xenblade 1 that then spawned their own quests. Xenoblades 2's quest felt like an all around downgrade.


To sum it up, Xenoblade 2 just felt like an all around downgrade. There was nothing memorable about it for me. I still haven't played Torna, but I doubt that will change my opinion much.

Now of course, Xenoblade X had the best environments and Quests in my opinion. Its a shame the story of X was gutted to accommodate the character creation and online component.

[Jack]

Xenoblade 2, in comparison, felt scaled down in every way except for the addition of Blades. The moveset was reduced from 8 to 3, and all the unique combo mechanics were stripped down to just the break topple system.

I always see this absurd comment at other messageboards. It's akin to saying that Tekken is worse than Mortal Kombat coz Tekken only has 4 buttons while Mortal Kombat has 5 buttons. Virtua Fighter is the worst fighter coz it only uses 3 buttons. What matters is how it's utilized, not the volume of what you have.

In any case, You also have 8 moves in XB2, but 4 of them are special arts that you have to charge up. Each tier of those special arts have special properties assigned to them such as passives, elementals & group heal attacks.

The most popular Xenoseries channel (He's a fan of the entire series, whcih includes Saga & Gears) has an in-depth vid on XB2's combat and he's correct for the most part.

I don't understand how the hell XB2 gets labeled as slow, boring or simplified when you can actually build Mythra or Fiora to do instant 30+ hit attacks that make it feel like you're playing a fighting game setting up for a super move.


I see Enel pulling off shit that I would've never thought of doing until I saw him do it. He fucking killed Almathus in like 5 hits by knocking him off of the stage through a hole in the ground that Enel caused during the battle., LOL! Xenoblade 2 even has enviormnetal kills, which is something that I never saw happen in XB1. Granted, the enviornmental kills are kinda annoying in XB2, coz it also happens to you. I've lost some 15 minute long battles simply coz a random enemy on Bringer of Chaos, got a lucky critical on me and sent me flying off of a cliff.

For example, Melia had her elemental burst system, while Dunban his buff variation/solo combo system. The characters in Xenoblade 2 all had static designs, where in Xenoblade 1, the character looks changed with every piece of gear.

That's what I hated about XB1's combat, how every character specialized in one thing but in XB2 you could mold all 5 drivers to into whatever build you wanted. Morag works damn well as a combat healer, coz Elma & Obrona do attacks that heal the party when equipped on a woman. Rex was good at every role including tank. (Kinda obvious he'd be a good healer with Blade Nia.) The only reason why Rex is best suited for Atk is coz he's the only one who can use Mythra & Pneuma. Fiora is actually a good substitute for Mythra though.

Meila was the only reason that I was able to soldier through the boredom & tedium of XB1's combat. She's the most similar to the Xenoblade 2 combat system (in that you're constantly charging up attacks.), but her problem
is that she has no downtime and she's easy to spam due to how she can constantly charge up elemental bursts the instant one of her attacks hits a cooldown.
What made Melia boring is that every battle is the same, the only thing that changes is which elements do I copy pre-battle to use as a stat buff. The third elemental, I used exclusively for elemental bursts.
The funny thing, isn't elemental bursts what Xenoblade 2's combat entirely consists of, except you actually had to build up combos to initiate a fusion combo, elemental bursts and the like?

Dunban's solo combos are also in XB2, but you're meant to switch between your three blades to pull them off, or in Torna, you tag in a different teammate. Torna uses a tag battle system siilar to a Tag team fighting game. The most basic break,topple, pierce combo was waiting for CPU Jin to start a combo, and then you have Adam tag in with Mythra to continue the combo with her tag in attack, and then finish it off with her special skill.

In XB2 You actually have 24 moves at your disposal per character once you realize that you're actually meant to switch blades between cool downs, at least during early game. I rarely switch in postgame coz you're better off building up combos with Mythra, T-elos & Fiora's critical hit recharges or Elma's quick auto cancels, which are even faster in overdrive mode.

Then there's Eye of Shining Justice.

I bet that you didn't even know about EOSJ, coz a lot of what you're saying sounds exactly like the type of people who didn't even bother to explore XB2's gameplay.
Who fucking cares about Dunban's "Look at me, I can do basic shit that every driver can do in XB2 but I'm the only one who can in XB1" LOL!
That's exactly what makes XB1 so damn boring. What's the point in using Sharla when she can't attack worth shit?
Riki can heal the entire party, tank & fight. Riki actually feels the most like a XB2 character since his combat role is completely customizeable.
At least in XB2, I don't have to use Nia as a healer. I don't use her at all, lol. When I do, it's as an attacker if I have Zeke or Rex as the tank & healer.

People like Xenoblade because it was fun and creative. The game was filled with content and interactions.

What does that mean? I didn't think XB1 was fun or creative at all, not even for its time, LOL! (DRAGON AGE ORIGINS HELLO! The far more superior version of XB1's combat.) How is this better than Lost Odyssey? I don't even like LO, but it's way better & much more deserving of the title "Legendary Classic" than Xenoblade 1 is. Always bet on the Saka-Gooch.
Xenoblade 1 is actually every single thing that I've always hated about Rpgs and made me realize that I still hate rpgs, because they lack any sense of gameplay depth or complexity. People only play these games for the story, but even the story is fucking shit. (I'll explain way in that Vidya game story thread since it'd prob require me 3 posts just to explain why it's the most generic Jrpg plot I've ever seen, but with a slight sci fi tinge.)

XB1 PLOT TLDR: The events were mass manipulated between a faction of 3 to rebirth God (who we later find out is just a human from Earth, lol.) in a new vessel. That new vessel is Shulk, who died before the events of XB1 happened. The Entia chick orchestrated events in Entia that would force the Emperor to die. Disco Jecht orchestrated events at Colony 9 to raise Shulk & prepare his body for when the time came for the rebirth of God. It's actually Disco Jecht who planned for Fiora to die, to cause Shulk to be enraged enough to travel across the country so that he could eventually get close enough to God, to then be used as a vessel.
The stuff with the war between the Prince of Mechonis were just collateral dmg, but what went unplanned is that Shulk managed to initiate a truce which forced Disco Jecht to step in and kill Shulk again, so that Zanza could be reborn in Shulk's body.

At this point, we find out that Shulk wasn't defying fate at all, fate was simply the pre-ordained plan that the Alvis & Disco Jecht laid out for him, AYYY LMAO!
The third member of the faction controlling everything is Alvis, who acted as Advisor for the Entia country but in reality he was playing everybody coz he's actually an information processing unit.

In XB2, we learn that Alvis is a processing unit that was designed to interact with the living, to gather intel so that information could be used to repopulate the planet with more life forms based off of that intel. This was also Mythra & Malos's purpose, that we never see them do since they're already at war with each other and they both die during XB2's ending. (Pyra & Mythra after the ending are presumably just human lifeforms, rather than a Blade. Pneuma was their true form who died along with Malos and disappeared with the Zohar.)

We do see Alvis take part in creation of a new born world, during the ending of XB1. Had I seen this ending back when XB1 was the only game, I would've fucking hated it coz it made the rest of XB1's plot so fucking irrelevant, LOL!

XB2 PLOT TLDR: The entire plot is being carried forward by events that happened in Torna.
It's a struggle to break free from Human servitude who exist to do nothing but commit atrocities & war, through their own ignorance.
Alrest is a repopulated Earth created by Klaus who is the same god from XB1. XB1 only had a portion of him, which is why Klaus was such a 1 dimensional villain in XB1. Klaus isn't a villain at all in XB2 and he's actually a sympathetic character who gave up on trying to recreate Earth coz the Tornan war showed to him that no matter what, humanity will always destroy itself.

Almathus & Jin push the story forward, and both have the same goal of wanting to kill God. Malos is allied with Jin who also wants to kill God, and humanity itself since his programming was influenced by Almathus's hatred of God & humanity. Even Almathus is somewhat sympathetic coz we actually see him try to save a man, who later went on to kill a woman and was about to kill her baby until Almathus stepped in and killed the man that he previously rescued. Almathus then later kills the baby. We never see it, but it's implied. Who else did it?
That was the tipping point that made Almathus really angry at god for making such a fucked up society. When he was a kid, he heard his mother get murdered and was stuffed inside of a sleeping blanket.

Skip all of this since this is a TLDR, the TLDR is that XB2 is near a societal collapse. Mythra & Pyra only wanted to see god so they could request for death. God himself was also just waiting to die, coz he viewed humans as completely useless. He only decides to give Alrest one more chance to save itself from destruction, because Rex wanted to at least try and change the future. A Similar turn of events as XB1, but the difference is that the entire wasn't being orchestrated from within unlike with XB1. XB2's plot was just multiple factions with different causes all racing to meet the creator and destroy him, or have a conversation with him.

Comat in the first game felt more engaging. You were constantly having to reposition to dodge attacks, get attack position bonuses on enemies and interact with your teamates. Xenoblade 2, less so.

That's funny, coz I feel that XB2's combat is far more engaging due to how many tactical factors that I have to pay attention to during a fight. Especially on Bring of Chaos mode. Keep in mind, I play both XB1 & XB2 on the hardest settings and is the main reason why I laugh at XB1's joke combat coz it's so easy to solve.

You also get attack position bonuses in XB2, in fact every driver in the game has Shulk-style position based attacks.
In XB2, you have to create the opportunity to strike a vital point. It's not given to you unlike in XB1.
The application is different though. In XB1, Shulk merely had to use his attack gave his aggro to Reyn or whatever so that he could instantly backstab or Shulk just had to do it the old fashioned way and simply walk to the side of back. In XB2, you use those position-based attacks during a Blade's special art. You get into position during the special art and then you attack.

Why is that considered of lesser tactical application when in reality, I actually have to apply more brainpower in XB2 just to apply the same amount of dmg as XB1's Shulk. (XB2 Shulk is actually stronger but that's coz his Monado Future sight grants him more buffs.)
In that regard, I would consider XB1's Shulk as far more brainless since he has a move that's designed to get aggro off of him and he can reposition anytime he wants.

In any case, this doesn't matter coz XB2's combat focus centralizes around building up heat, combos & focus meter. So you're better off just standing there trying to combo attacks into one big combo rather than just running around poking for easy to hit position-based attacks. This is exactly what I mean when I claim that people claim that XB1's combat is far more complex, when in reality it's actually easier, & simpler to understand. They mistake ease of use, for better, when really XB1 is just easier.

The environments in Xenoblade 2 felt kind of uniform and flat, where the first games world was filled with diverse terrain and structures. The first games world was more fun to explore, because there were more unique things to find. It was filled with hills, valleys and tunnels to explore all with distinct designs.

I'd say that they're about the same, and those common perceptions that I always here, are just clouded by nostalgia. I think my perception is far more reliable coz I played XB2 & Xb1 during the same year. I will give it to XB1 though since XB2 just copies XB1's environments for the most part. XB2 doesn't have a single original environment at all. Even Torna is basically just the Bionis leg, but with an Ancient Feudal Japanese theme.

XB2 has the far better final dungeon though. XB1's final dungeon just looked like a generic Rpg final dungeon while XB2 took place in a dead American city that eventually rose up into a skyscraper that took you into an outer space satellite which is why the Aegis's are so powerful. They just have to ability to control satellite cannons from outer space.

Then the biggest issues. The characters themselves. I did not like Rex at all. The personalities of the character were pure stereotypical Anime. Nia was the Tsundere, and Morag the calm, quiet elite. The way Xenoblade 2 played out felt a lot more kiddy.

Contrast to Sharla the medic who watches over an entire fallen colonies people hunting her boyfriend and his attacker, or Dunban the strategist who lost an arm and sister but still continues to fight and make astute decisions in spite of it.

How does that imply any depth when that's the only thing that happens in their story throughout the entire game?
That's what I don't fucking get, why are XB2 characters labeled as tropes when they actually get character development?

Dunban is just the hero who originally wielded the Monado (Until Disco Jecht trolled him. Disco Jecht actually controls who can use the Monado.) Shulk became the successor. What the fuck does Dunban do throughout the rest of the story, besides being the moral support for Shulk? He's only other function is to tell everyone that Fiora & Shulk were always meant to be together and that they're a perfect couple. XB1 doesn't show to me why they're a perfect couple. It just tells me coz the plot doesn't work without Shulk being madly in love with Fiora.

What does Fiora do the entire game beside die, get reborn with a Goddess inside of her, and then does nothing but mentally support Shulk in his desires & wants? She's the type of character who'd best serve the story dead, coz alive, she's not interesting at all. Her entire life revolves around Shulk. I had a higher opinion of Fiora back when I only knew of her in Xb2. In Xb2 she comes off like Nami from One Piece, just an adventurer who's in for the ride.

Sharla does nothing the entire game but mope over her boyfriend and later on she consoles Melia who got friendzoned by Shulk. Sharla's story was about to gain some depth when it's revealed that her boyfriend is alive.
She's obviously still in love with him but this in turn friendzoned Reyn (& I actually felt sorry for him, LOL!)
Oh but that's all conveniently solved when Sharla's boyfriend sacrifices himself from an attack that was meant to kill the party, but it kills him & destroys his Face-Mechonis mech thing instead.


Reyn gets some development, he starts off protecting Shulk but then later admits that it's Shulk who is protecting him, lol! So far, this seems exactly like what I've always been stating that the XB1 cast don't matter. They have no purpose outside of Shulk.

Riki, has no relevance at all, but he's also the best character due to this, AYY LMAO! It's similar to the Dog from Shadowhearts. You can't hate on the only character who isn't fucking retarded.


Melia is the one character who has some depth but she sadly stops developing once it's revealed that Fiora is still alive. Melia doesn't even develop much in Future Connected. Unlike in XB2 Torna where an entire cast of characters gain way more development such as Adam, Brighid, Mythra, Lora, Jin, The blonde guy with the really fucking weird name, that one dude who made a play about Mythra in XB2 (You play as him in Torna.),
Torna gave you so much needed background info on the main conflict of XB2 which is the rivalry between Torna & Almathus. We actually saw Almathus's rise to power in Torna, and he did it like a full blown mafia boss through political assassinations similar to Delita from FF T.




Now compare this to XB2. You're correct on your assessment about Morag, she's the only one who didn't have development at all, coz she already starts off as a complete character. Morag is the most similar to XB1 characters precisely coz she doesn't have any character devlopment. Not even a power up.

We'll start with Nia. Nia is standoffish because she's not actually Human. She's a Flesheater. Flesheaters are hunted down like criminals coz they eat the flesh of their driver. This is why she refused to help Van Damn, and let him die. She was too concerned about her own well-being.

She was originally the blade of a man who had a daughter that was labeled as Nia's sister. They're not blood related at all. After the daughter died, the man forced Nia to eat her dead sister's flesh so the sister can remain living on through Nia. After the father died, Nia resonated with the father's blade who was the talking Tiger guy. From then on the two continued the charade of being related to that father and his daughter.
She was eventually rescued by Jin after she was captured by Almathus's forces. (We don't know it was Almathus though, it was implied to be Morag's people.) Nia then has a brainfart and says she loves Rex coz she's a fucking moron and that's probably the first male that ever spoke to her like a person, AYY LMAO!


Zeke is some retarded dork with the worst luck ever, who's actually the Prince of a kingdom. It's later revealed that his bloodline relation to Adam is a lie. (In Torna, it's implied that Zeke is relared to the Tornan King's Brother who escaped from Torna rather than to die with it.)
He was kicked out of his country and was eventually housed & nursed back to health by Almathus who he later worked for.
During a battle, Zeke's shit luck got the best of him and he died. Pandoria turned him into a Blade Eater to keep him alive.

So far, what these stories are showing are the bonds that Blades & Drivers have. it's a metaphor that implies they're the same person. The Blade takes on aspects of the Driver but the Driver is resonating with subconscious qualities of their persona, which is physically represented as a Blade.
Did Xenoblade 1 even have anywhere near this amount of depth to its characters? I almost beat two times, and I wasn't exactly rushing but I do not recall Xenoblade 1's character having any metaphorical depth at all.

This leads us to Rex. Rex is a 14 yr old boy who works for a living and sends the money he makes, back to his village. From that start, he already seems way more mature than Shulk is, lol! Shulk is supposedly a scientist but we don't actually ever see him work, and all of the real science shit is done by the Mechonis Princess chick.
Rex is often labeled as a self-insert because he's not the main focus of the story unlike with Shulk. XB2's story is about Mythra which is why she's also in Torna, but Rex isn't.

Rex's role though is the illogical drive to chase after dreams. I like Rex because he's not a typical gloomy motherfucker, unlike with SHulk.

See where I'm getting at? I think gamers have a very immature outlook on life and they could only relate with angsty retards like Shulk.
Shulk had all the reason in the world to be angsty. He saw his girlfriend murdered in front of him, in cold blood. Shulk was also very selfish and kept trying to hog the burden of his future-sight to himself. Shulk learns throughout his journey that Friendship is everything! (LOL AND MOTHERFUCKERS CLAIM THAT XENOBLADE 1 ISN'T SHONEN!)
The difference with Rex, is that Rex is already knows about the "power of friendship". The only time Rex ever angsted was when Pyra got stolen from him and told everybody that all he ever does is hurt her through his own ineptitude.
Shulk's personality quirk is that he's very angsty.
Rex's personality quirk is that he's extremely impulsive and doesn't think at all.

I don't really think one is better than the other but I really don't see what's so special about Shulk once you realize that the entirety of Shulk's plot was designed by Disco Jehct, not Shulk's own actions. Shulk's actions didn't matter until after he died again & Alvis brought him back to consciousness.


Then there's Tora. Tora is basically a Weeb Iron Man. Tora was born without the potential to become a Driver so he made his own Blade, which was fucking hilarious to me coz I didn't play Xb1 yet. XB1 makes it clear that Noppons are actually an intelligent race who know how to make advanced inventions that are equal to high mechanical tech.
Tora just has the typical story of never let anyone tell you what you can do. You can do whatever you want so long as you have the drive & desire to fulfil your wishes. It's just that Tora's wishes was to make a Robot Waifu, LOL!

Still though, that's way more thougtfully engaging to me then
Dunban, Yeah dude I was the hero but Ima take a back seat to you Shulk coz, I dunno reasons. You make a good coupling with muh sister!
Reyn, yeah mang I was protecting you and shit but you're like stronger than me now so well, I'm just gonna fuck off and fuck Sharla.
Sharla, all I care about is Galdolt, then he died so now I'm jumping on Reyn's dick. Oh sure, you can make her sound deeper by being this tragic survivor of Colony 6 who fought in the defense for Colony 6 against the Mechonis, but how does that actually add to her character? I'm just describing what Sharla has done. It doesn't change that her character amounts to nothing more than a submissive female role in a video game. I don't give a shit about that, I'm just saying, Sharla doesn't do anything at all.
You could easily rewrite Sharla as an NPC and you wouldn't change the plot much.
In fact, I'd replace Sharla with Vanea who actually does influence the plot and is one of the most important characters in XB1.

Seriously, wtf does Fiora even do after she comes back? Yeah mang, I like got my ass fucking killed but then I came back to life as a vessel for this Goddess chick. The goddess chick is such a fucking weakling though that she got one shot killed by Zanza and well, I basically have no plot purpose anymore since the godess chick is dead so I guess I'll scare Melia by telling her that I will die coz my body is part Goddess Monado or some shit. It doesn't really fucking matter, the writer of this game is just making up shit now, LOL!

The characters were better written in the first game.

In what way are XB1 characters better? Do y'all just like their tone, rather than their actual writing coz their writing fucking sucks. Xenoblade 1 characters are basically just Shulk's equipment. You could easily rewrite Xenoblade as a Metal Gear Solid game with the rest of the party are just Codecs. That's how much story influence they have, barely any.

In XB2, you don't need Morag, Zeke, Nia either, but at least they don't come off as just MGS codecs or generic equipement. They feel like fully actualized characters who have lives outside of Rex. That's the main reason why Rex feels much less grand than Shulk, coz the plot doesn't revolve around Rex at all. He's just some random dork who resonated with Mythra. That could've been anyone.
Without Rex: Nia would've part of the Torna raid during the end of the game, and would've been killed by Almathus.
Without Rex, Zeke would've been part of the Almathus raid on Torna, and prob killed Nia, lol.
Without Rex, Morag would be in a war against the Gormotti and would possibly support Alamathus during the Trona raid.
Without Tora, Tora would still be masturbating to anime or something instead of fucking his robo-wife.

Without Shulk:
Dunban would still be the leader. Reyn would still be some random foot soldier. Sharla would still be a random survivor of colony 6. Melia would've been assassinated. Fiora would still be dead since she was only revived due to her importance to Shulk.

Melia is really the only character of XB1 who has a life outside of Shulk, but even her life stops once she starts hanging out with him, lol. Her plot doesn't even move forward in Future Connected since we already fucking knew that she's the Empress of the Entia. We didn't need to see her Empress ceremony.

While I like the Blade themselves, I thought the randomness of the Blade system was horrible.

yeah it fucking sucks. I played Torna first so I always had the dlc which makes it easier to unlock Blades. I don't understand how someone like Kos-Mos isn't a default blade since she even has Story cutscenes in-game that actually add to the lore of XB2. She explains to you what the fucking Last level actually is, lol.

The quests were also more diverse in Xenoblade 1. Xenoblade 2 didn't really have anything like the Colony 6 quest. You also had lot of quests with multiple outcomes in Xenblade 1 that then spawned their own quests. Xenoblades 2's quest felt like an all around downgrade.

I don't give a fuck coz I skip the quests for both games. They both suck ass at Quests. Witcher 3 this ain't, coz Witcher 3 actually has sidequests that are far better than the actual main game. Side quests in XB1 & XB2 are just generic MMORPG garbage. Some of the sidequest in XB2 do lead to bigger stories for some of the blades, but I don't ever like doing any of them except for Kos-Mos coz Kos-Mos's sidequest is badass, since her quest revolves around the World Tree AKA Destroyed Los Angeles, lol & allusions to Xenosaga.

To sum it up, Xenoblade 2 just felt like an all around downgrade. There was nothing memorable about it for me. I still haven't played Torna, but I doubt that will change my opinion much.

That's funny coz for me, XB1 was just some generic shitty ass Jrpg that wouldn't even be considered an 8 out of 10 on the PS2 due to how similar it is to Final Fantasy 12 & Dragon Age Origins. DA O is clearly the best of those three. Shit that was like Bioware's last decent game. Morrigan's complexity of combat & all around ability to control the pacing of the battle makes Melia look like a joke.

XB1's challenge mode was an extreme disappointment coz I beat the entire challenge mode on the first try for every fight. I'm still playing the shit out of XB2's challenge mode, since the combat in that game on the highest difficulty levels, actually is a challenge. I play games to discover & master the ruleset. XB1's combat is just too damn simple and easy to master, as if the devs didn't understand what makes a good game. Good thing Nintendo bought them out, coz Nintendo forces Monolith to focus way more on gameplay now.

[Krizzx]

They've finally announced a sequel to The World Ends with you. Only one chick....

[Iwazaru]

SF1 remaster



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