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[remember_spinal]

I honestly don’t know how this is one of the highest rated games of the year? Do people just have an extremely high tolerance for tropey anime storylines?

The animation and production levels are really good, especially on something running on switch hardware. I thought the characters, were all very one note, the battle system really is the most bland thing ever, you’re mostly just going through the basic functions in regular field map battles, selecting the same 3 commands and for bosses its the same montage over and over that just go on forever when you do chain attacks. They are cool the first couple times you see them, after a while they just get excruciating.

I feel like JRPG standards over the last few years have just nose dived if this is the cream of the crop.

Edit—

Also, the music was really good

 

[Guilty_AI]

I know some people who really disliked it, despite them being huge fans of Xenoblade 2.

Main complaint was "absurd amount and lenght of cutscenes with tons of useless banter".

 

[Mister Wolf]

I didn't think it was boring. Its inferior to 2, but most rpgs are so thats not saying much.

 

[Danjin44]

I fucking loved it one of the best game I played last year.

 

[bender]

I played for good ten to fifteen minutes and thought it was fine.

 

[Poppyseed]

My biggest issue with the game is toward the end the resolution and frame rate are basically, well, non-existent really.

 

[Cornbread78]

It's an outstanding game and well made, just falls short with some of the feeling that made XB2 so great.

The chp 5 hour cutscene was long af, but really well done, however, the 2 hour final boss was just annying af

 

[YukiOnna]

Tropes exist in almost everything though. Why is anime specifically singled out here? Same could be said for Hollywood style or whatever.

I personally loved it, although it did not top XC2, it was one of the highlights of last year.

 

[remember_spinal]

It's an outstanding game and well made, just falls short with some of the feeling that made XB2 so great.

The chp 2 hour cutscene was long af, but really well done, however the 2 hour final boss was just annying af

It just feels liek you’re watching an anime after a while and everything inbetween is just busy work to get to the next episode

 

[Topher]

Lots of variety of JRPG though. Especially on Switch. Xenoblade Chronicles has clicked with me for some reason, but I'm loving SMT V and Triangle Strategy Also have Liv a Liv on my list. Octopath Traveler 2 next month. Plenty of options.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I thought it was great. Probably the only game that kept me engaged from start to finish last year.

 

[ParaSeoul]

I know a lot of people who pretended to like it even though they were underwhelmed

 

[Icymanipulator]

I watched my friend play for a bit, the dialogue was beyond cringe.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

Absolute weakest of the series in every aspect.

 

[mrabott]

Honestly, few JRPGs are good these days. It's always the same clichés, the same uninteresting characters with the same voice actors.
Even higher quality games like Persona 5 suffer from this.

I would like to play Tales of Arise, but I already know that what awaits me is 100 hours of the same boring story.

 

[pramod]

Most JRPGs are extremely boring.

 

[PonyStation4]

I found it to be terrible and I say that as someone who enjoyed Xenoblade 2.

 

[remember_spinal]

Honestly, few JRPGs are good these days. It's always the same clichés, the same uninteresting characters with the same voice actors.
Even higher quality games like Persona 5 suffer from this.

I would like to play Tales of Arise, but I already know that what awaits me is 100 hours of the same boring story.

This is why im looking forward Final Fantasy XVI, i want to see what a AAA “mature” JRPG is like. I feel like the last one i played in that vain was like Shadow hearts

 

[RoboFu]

Yes

 

[mrabott]

This is why im looking forward Final Fantasy XVI, i want to see what a AAA “mature” JRPG is like. I feel like the last one i played in that vain was like Shadow hearts

I want to play the new FF XVI but it won't be at launch. Even a game like this has the same clichés that the Japanese love so much.
The boorish, grouchy protagonist who will single-handedly save the world. The long-haired villain with the evil look. The meathead villain who talks screaming.
And the protagonist's female partner who, despite knowing how to fight, still needs him to be saved.
Ah and it will definitely be voiced by 1/3 of the final fantasy XV cast.

 

[Exede]

2 > 3 > 1 my personal opinion here. All of them have highs and lows but the gameplay of 3 is superior to the other 2 Xeno games

 

[remember_spinal]

Starting out i thought i was going to find big cities and townships and all types of unique NPC’s i think once i got 60 hours in and still haven’t seen anything but little military camps that all look the same i was starting to feel a deep sense of dread and sunken cost fallacy.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Careful, Danjin44 put me on ignore for saying that

 

[cireza]

Games nowadays are bloated to no end. Back in the 90s we would have some of the best JRPGs ever, and one thing they all had in common was that pacing was much faster and games lasted less than 40 hours.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

I feel like JRPG standards over the last few years have just nose dived if this is the cream of the crop.

Most JRPGs are extremely boring.

Games nowadays are bloated to no end. Back in the 90s we would have some of the best JRPGs ever, and one thing they all gave in common is that pacing was much faster and games lasted less than 40 hours.

I love you all

 

[NecrosaroIII]

3 >>>> 1 > 2

Solis cast of characters. Fun gameplay. Fun world to explore. What's not to love.

Only slight let down for me is the soundtrack, which is still great. I just expected a bit more considering the pedigree, but what we got was still dope. Chain Attack is the best song in the series.

 

[Hoppa]

It was my first Xenoblade game, I probably played less than 2 hours and didn't enjoy any of it. The auto-combat was weird and I didn't care for the character or environment design. I'm not much of a JRPG guy so I don't have a lot of patience for these types of games normally, but coming from Triangle Strategy which I really liked, Xenoblade didn't click with me once.

 

[Kataploom]

Xenoblade games are not for everyone, they are very high quality games for those that will enjoy it's story, characters, etc (basically, those that don't hate anime just for the sake of it). If it didn't click right away and you're not expecting to enjoy art and exploration while the combat finally opens up completely then it's just not for you... Those are not games that you'll just pick and play quickly and do awesome stuff right away etc, those games demand attention, time, effort on knowing their complex battle system and other systems too, that's in part what makes them so good for us... Btw, I liked anime a lot so I enjoy those games to no end, but it's ok not to like them, I don't like most western games, not everything is for everyone, but the Xenoblade games are just quality densely packed, they actually tend to overdeliver...

 

[Chastten]

I wouldnt call it extremely boring but it is my least favorite game in the entire series, and not by a small margin if I'm being honest.

It's weird. I love the story and setting. The music's great. The expanded combat with the bigger party should be a massive gamechanger. I should love this game, but here I am merely liking it. About halfway through I just put the combat on auto mode and just made my way through the story. That never happened before in a Xenoblade game.

I guess I'll just blame my expectations which were too high. It's a solid 7,5 or even 8/10 game but I expected a masterpiece, which it just wasn't.

 

[Aldric]

I liked it a lot. I don't know what you mean by "tropey anime storylines". That doesn't really say anything.

Personally I think the ending of chapter 5 and beginning of chapter 6 are some of the best narrative moments I've experienced in a videogame and I don't see how they're particularly "tropey anime" or whatever. I think the world design is also vastly above average, as you mentioned the OST is great and the combat might not be for everyone but it allows for an immense amount of customization with the classes system and all the combinations at your disposal.

 

[anthony2690]

I tried 1 & 2 on the 3DS & switch.

I think I would've enjoyed them a lot, but performance left a lot to be desired and resolution was insanely low and noticeable even when playing handheld, I got noticeable further in the second game and dropped it 10 hours in, whilst some parts of the game were great, some characters really irritated me.

& The auto combat thing was really strange.

I hope Nintendo's next machine packs a bit more punch so we can have nice looking games at a nice frame rate.

I've never played 3 though.

 

[sigmaZ]

I honestly don’t know how this is one of the highest rated games of the year? Do people just have an extremely high tolerance for tropey anime storylines?

The animation and production levels are really good, especially on something running on switch hardware. I thought the characters, were all very one note, the battle system really is the most bland thing ever, you’re mostly just going through the basic functions in regular field map battles, selecting the same 3 commands and for bosses its the same montage over and over that just go on forever when you do chain attacks. They are cool the first couple times you see them, after a while they just get excruciating.

I feel like JRPG standards over the last few years have just nose dived if this is the cream of the crop.

Edit—

Also, the music was really good

Boring... Hmm. It was fun to play, it was just very mediocre.

 

[Fluo]

It's a good game, but 7/10 for me at best.

Liked the combat and class system, the music was great, but main characters and the plot were easily the weakest in the series. Kid-soldiers are a bit too tropey for my taste.

And that armu breeding quest, man, like who thought that was a good idea?

 

[GymWolf]

I felt the same about xeno 2 and bailed out after 20 hours.

The gatcha mechanics and mmorpg feeling combat (that was still introducing shit 20 hours in) didn't helped.

Didn't even bothered with 3.

 

[Elysion]

99% of jrpgs not called Final Fantasy are tropey and predictable as fuck. The FF games on PS1 were my intro to the genre, and I used to think I was a big jrpg fan who was just disappointed with the quality of new jrpgs. But eventually I recognized that the majority of the genre was always kinda meh, and that it wasn’t jrpgs as such that I liked, but FF games in particular. While the FF series had its ups and downs too of course, there hasn’t been a single FF game whose main plot or characters made me cringe in the way so many other jrpgs do. Every single one of them had a plot and setting that was at least interesting, something I can’t say for most jrpgs. One of the few other exceptions I can think of are the SMT and Persona games, though even they feel a bit repetitive at times when it comes to character tropes.

Another aspect that most jrpgs are terrible at is character design. For some reason FF is one of the few franchises in the genre whose characters don’t look either ultra generic, over the top, or like trashy fan-service/pedo-bait (Persona is good too, but that doesn’t really count since it takes place in the real world with real clothes). The character design of Xenoblade 2 for example is the main reason why I haven’t bought the game. The mc look like a doofus, while the female lead‘s ‚clothes‘ look so utterly trash that I‘d be embarrassed to be caught playing the game. FF games are some of the few who usually manage to strike the right balance between sexiness and trashiness, between generic and ridiculous. FF (post FF9 at least) is also one of the only examples of the genre to not have an anime art-style.

Though regarding Xenoblade in particular, I actually really liked the first one when I played it on Wii back in the day, even though the characters are walking clichés of course. But I always liked the overly philosophical and convoluted stories of ‚Xeno-’ games (Xenogears is still my favorite among them), so I could forgive that.

 

[Spukc]

2 was fucking hot garbage so i didnt even touched 3

 

[Brigandier]

I found it very boring, the characters boring and not very memorable can't remember their names, story was meh and the bad guys were pathetic compared to Zanza and Malos, music compared to 1 and 2 was bland and unremarkable.

The battle system compared to 2 was boring and a huge step back.

The world was good and the visuals for a switch game incredible but overall I preferred bionis/mechonis and alrest.

I read that the next Xenoblade will be set in a new universe like a reboot, Thank god.

 

[mcjmetroid]

I found this to be the case with all of them. Now I'll admit I didn't try very hard but I really never found the combat engaging.

Whereas I'm playing through Chained Echoes at the moment and while not perfect has me absolutely hooked with its smart combat.

 

[Cornbread78]

Honestly, few JRPGs are good these days. It's always the same clichés, the same uninteresting characters with the same voice actors.
Even higher quality games like Persona 5 suffer from this.

I would like to play Tales of Arise, but I already know that what awaits me is 100 hours of the same boring story.

Actually, Arise does something a little different and does it pretty well actually...

 

[PonyStation4]

Xenoblade games are not for everyone, they are very high quality games for those that will enjoy it's story, characters, etc (basically, those that don't hate anime just for the sake of it). If it didn't click right away and you're not expecting to enjoy art and exploration while the combat finally opens up completely then it's just not for you... Those are not games that you'll just pick and play quickly and do awesome stuff right away etc, those games demand attention, time, effort on knowing their complex battle system and other systems too, that's in part what makes them so good for us... Btw, I liked anime a lot so I enjoy those games to no end, but it's ok not to like them, I don't like most western games, not everything is for everyone, but the Xenoblade games are just quality densely packed, they actually tend to overdeliver...

I would say the story and characters were the worst parts of the 3rd game. 2nd would be the dialogue, which of course could just be down to bad translations by Nintendo. 3rd would be the combat system being too slow, due to poor balance of having enemies with too much HP. Then there's getting too much exp and making it difficult to raise class ranks.

 

[Gudji]

Gonna buy it tomorrow.

 

[Fbh]

Still haven't played it.
Multiple reviews mentioning it's in the 100 hours range if you do some side stuff was an instant turn off.

Was going to pick it up to play during the summer but once I finish the stuff I'm playing now I'm probably going to pick up Chained Echoes or Fire Emblem Engage which both seem to have more reasonable lengths

 

[Metnut]

To go from Xenogears to these boring games is so disappointing. Hopefully they finally abandon this series and try something else.

Probably unlikely because for some reason these games are popular.

 

[Kataploom]

I would say the story and characters were the worst parts of the 3rd game. 2nd would be the dialogue, which of course could just be down to bad translations by Nintendo. 3rd would be the combat system being too slow, due to poor balance of having enemies with too much HP. Then there's getting too much exp and making it difficult to raise class ranks.

Haven't played 3 yet but yeah, sponge enemies are the worst... yet I don't think that makes the games "bad" by any year JRPG standard, to me they are top of their genre

 

[Ulysses 31]

2 > 3 > 1 my personal opinion here. All of them have highs and lows but the gameplay of 3 is superior to the other 2 Xeno games

Bu tthere are 3 other Xeno games...

 

[JokerMM]

it's light years better than 2

 

[Sleepwalker]

Whoever came up with the idea that jrpgs need to be 70+ hours needs to be taken out back and shot

 

[ANDS]

Haven't beaten it yet, but yes. The story starts off well enough, but you are clocking where the twist is like WAAAAAAAY sooner than the game thinks you should be. Once I started to realize most of this was just going to be a brutally boring open world (like how the fuck did they go from XB2 to XB3 in terms of engaging with the world, I'll never know) with you chasing down classes. . .yeah, it'll be awhile before I go back and finish that one.

. . .it also, and I owe this to the more "realistic" feel of the game, somehow looks "worse" than XB2. XB2 felt alive and vibrant, XB3 is just a giant brown rock. Ugly game. Excellent gameplay though (if you aren't playing on HARD which was fantastically overtuned when I last played).

 

[Dr. Claus]

It's an outstanding game and well made, just falls short with some of the feeling that made XB2 so great.

The chp 5 hour cutscene was long af, but really well done, however, the 2 hour final boss was just annying af

Yep. Doesn't help that the game was incredibly poorly balanced. Even on the hardest difficulty, I was breezing through most of the game by chapter 3 and never felt like I had a good challenge outside of the rare higher level challenge monster, which only made me more overleveled/OP. If they had the option to *lower* your level for greater challenge, I think the game would have been far more enjoyable for me.

 

[PonyStation4]

Haven't played 3 yet but yeah, sponge enemies are the worst... yet I don't think that makes the games "bad" by any year JRPG standard, to me they are top of their genre

The thread is about Xenoblade 3, which is what I assumed you were referring to. The 2nd game is good, but the 3rd games story and battle system is a large step down from it.

It's strange you would make generalizations of how good a series is through both your posts, when you haven't played the most recent entry. Expecially when the latest entry is a lot worse than the previous game