Xenoblade Chronicles is a series with humble origins, starting with a release on the Nintendo Wii, which seemed to just barely get enough attention to warrant a localization, and even a 3DS port years later. Then, we saw a niche entry into the series on the Wii U with Xenoblade Chronicles X, trying out new elements, but not given the platform to reach wide appeal. The latest game, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, appears to have been a hit in all territories, according to a comment from the executive producer at development studio Monolith Soft. In an interview with US Gamer, Tetsuya Takahashi said that both Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and it’s DLC expansion, Torna: The Golden Country, have both exceeded sales expectations in not only its home country of Japan, but in North America and Europe as well. At the end of the interview, he teases that the series might one day have a third numbered entry, going “down a path [the franchise] hasn’t gone down before”.

From a sales perspective, I have to say Xenoblade Chronicles 2 exceeded my expectations…We really saw more people pick the game up and experience it in the North American and European territories than we thought would do so...It's still early days for the Torna DLC, but from what we've seen in Japan, the sales of the Torna DLC are exceeding our expectations as well.

I'm someone who gets bored of whatever it was I did last. If the Xenoblade Chronicles series continues, you just might see it take a third option. It might go down a path it hasn't gone down before.

Source

 

[JamiePashley]

In the spirt of porting Wii U titles to Switch, I'd quite like Xenoblade Chronicles X on Switch

 

[kuwanger]

Funny. Every time I play Xenoblade Chronicles for a while and then just give up. The graphics look amazing*. The plot looks at least possibly interesting. The world look immense. But the combat is just so blah. Action RPGs have ruined me. :/

* Also the text is near unreadable to me without component/hdmi. Really, I don't understand the appeal of small text in games. Or websites. Or really much of anything. I want to be able to be up at 4am bleary eyed and still read what's going on.

 

[SushiKing]

Xenoblade 2 for 3DS please

 

[Reploid]

Good.

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Xenoblade 2 for 3DS please

in like 10p.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Funny. Every time I play Xenoblade Chronicles for a while and then just give up. The graphics look amazing*. The plot looks at least possibly interesting. The world look immense. But the combat is just so blah. Action RPGs have ruined me. :/

* Also the text is near unreadable to me without component/hdmi. Really, I don't understand the appeal of small text in games. Or websites. Or really much of anything. I want to be able to be up at 4am bleary eyed and still read what's going on.

To be honest I think in some other way.

Talking specifically about Xenoblade 2:

• The graphics looks amazing.
• The plot is totally blah, not good really, too much fan-service also, not very good characterization.
• The battle system is ok, but way too convoluted. It could be better.
• Text is perfectly readable on any display.
• The maps and exploration are wonderful.
• It is a nice game, there is a lot to do, but probably due to the bland plot, excess of tasteless fan-service, and poor/fake/unrelatable characters, it will be the one with the least lasting impact on my memory.

Talking about Xenoblade X:

• The graphics look amazing for a Wii U game.
• The plot is meh/OKish, at least it does not infuriate me like Xenoblade 2.
• The battle system is good, a little convoluted, but good IMHO.
• You need 20/20 eyesight to read the fucking text.
• The exploration is top notch, the best part of the game.

Talking about Xenoblade 1:

• The graphics look amazing for its era/console, but I can't stop thinking character faces look like adorned easter eggs.
• The plot is good, it has many anime cliches, but it is good still. There is not THAT much annoying fan-service. It has better characterization. I love the British voice acting in this one.
• The battle system is good, but Melia is way too OP and breaks the game, kind of. The AI is too easy to distract sending your tanks to collect aggro and you can cast practically hydrogen bombs safe from afar. You usually can take down enemies ~15 levels above yours without much effort.
• The text is perfectly readable on any display.
• Exploration is good.

 

[DarthDub]

I hope it doesn't have a gacha and farmville mechanics if we do get Xenoblade 3..

 

[Elrinth]

I'm guessing and also hoping either MMO or atleast multiplayer with the next installment of Xenoblade.

 

[kuwanger]

The text is perfectly readable on any display.

Maybe I just have higher expectations, but on SD CRTs the bottom bar often will be blurry, quests will be small/blurry, and the distance/right side ui text will overlap the background making it mostly unreadable. Most of that's avoidable if you're willing to sit within 5 feet or less except the last part. It's also not 100% pervasive. Just some examples:



Part of this is no doubt that the screen is squished relative to 4x3. This would be rather different if the Wii didn't nominally output SD.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Maybe I just have higher expectations, but on SD CRTs the bottom bar often will be blurry, quests will be small/blurry, and the distance/right side ui text will overlap the background making it mostly unreadable. Most of that's avoidable if you're willing to sit within 5 feet or less except the last part. It's also not 100% pervasive. Just some examples:



Part of this is no doubt that the screen is squished relative to 4x3. This would be rather different if the Wii didn't nominally output SD.

Not sure what do you mean by "distance/right side ui text", perhaps I am so used to it I can't notice it.
Could you please point it out? (i.e. time stamp and description)
I am quite sure it may be obvious, but I just can't see it.

Regarding text and screens, back in the day when I played this (and due to space limitations on my room), I had my Wii hooked to my PC through a capture card using S-Video, all of this displaying 16:9 on a 24" LCD monitor, and yes sitting at the normal PC usage distance - probably some 3 feet away. It looked quite alright to me not blurry at all, perfectly readable. Though I must say that when I had the chance to plug it to an actual TV using component it looked better. I am not sure if I ever used composite for my Wii with this game, I remember using composite on the early days with other games, but it looked so bad I quickly changed to S-Video.

 

[kuwanger]

Not sure what do you mean by "distance/right side ui text", perhaps I am so used to it I can't notice it.
Could you please point it out? (i.e. time stamp and description)

At 2:21, the top text "Select Arts" is virtually unreadable, half of "Target" is unreadable, etc. For distance (top center) to target, that video is dark enough to not really have any points where it's obscured, but look forward/back in the walkthrough anywhere there's lots of light tan mountains, bright green grass etc that intersects it it becomes difficult to read. It's less a "can't you just remember or move a little to see it?" and more a "that just looks sloppy" to me.

. I am not sure if I ever used composite for my Wii with this game, I remember using composite on the early days with other games, but it looked so bad I quickly changed to S-Video.

I'm used to games looking "bad" (or more accurately, in the past I used to play several feet away from the screen so I just didn't care). It's all part of the 10' interface (although I think 6' interface would be more accurate). Now that I've got a Wii2HDMI and use my LCD monitor that's less than 3' away it's all a moot point on that front. It just seems like, again, sloppy design. *shrug*

 

[Justinde75]

Xenoblade 2 was the reason I purchased a switch back in december. I would've waited till smash bros came out otherwise. Got the special edition as well.

 

[Issac]

Good news! I really liked XC2 apart from one detail: The fan service. And the translation is a bit meh at times. But other than that it's all good

 

[Flirkyn]

Like the rest of the Xeno's game (gear/saga/blade) it's one of my BGE.
I can only be glad to see that it's successful I hope for a X2

 

[MasterJ360]

For a jrpg it served its purpose well for the Switch, you don't have to like its style, but overall it kept you busy if you kept the interest alive after the story.

 

[CathyRina]

I hope this won't give Monolithsoft the wrong Idea. The best part about XB2 was... the Torna Expansion. It had a lot of QoL improvements like mineral gathering being faster and Mob Kill harmony requirements telling you the area and not just the map, a much faster and visually appealing battlesystem that made more sense than "Take my weapon while I shoot magic goo into you" and the fanservice is reduced to just Mythra/Hikari and there is no RNG Character progression at all since all Blade's you'll ever be using come from the main story.
Speaking of the Main story in my Opinion chapters 1~6 are complete garbage. Which is a shame because Chapter 7~10 are great. The game is almost as badly in medias res as FF13. There are flashbacks to Torna almost in every chapter. Sometimes even multiple in one chapter. The Characterization isn't that well done either. When it comes to Character and Story Xenoblade 1 feels like a fluke. Which is disheartening for me to say because that game felt like a masterpiece and the Dev interviews seemed like the devs understood entirely what made that game so great.

 

[Lazyboss]

After losing faith on JRPG from the past 10 years, Monolith soft gave us XC1 and now XC2, it have everything I ever wanted in JRPG, good story, good ost, good battle system, good challenges and secret bosses, huge world and tons of exploration.
The only problem with it (which I don't really care about) is the English voice acting, playing it in Japanese and it's much better, they even changed the names of characters and cities in English to make it worse.
The story DLC was nice, and it's the second best expansion after the witcher: blood and wine.
I can't wait for XC3 properly in the next 5 years or something, XCX was so bad and I hope they don't waste time on XCX2 and give us XC3.

 

[SushiKing]

Good.

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in like 10p.

I'd still play it

 

[ChaosEternal]

Good to see it's become so popular! Hopefully the translations for any future games in the series will be more faithful though.

 

[geodeath]

I will try this game, but in a couple of youtube videos i watched to see what it is about, as one of my friends is shitting his pants with it, i noticed that during fights the characters do not stop speaking/shouting at all. I almost had a headache in the few minutes that i watched. Is this indeed a ball breaker or is it ok you think?