THIS GAME. God, it just keeps getting better and bless you Nintendo for rereleasing it on the New 3DS. When it first came out on the Wii I kind of went "huh, cool, I'll get it later" and by the time "later" came around it was out of print and if you could find a copy at all it was $75+. Spoiler: if you have not entered Sword Valley come nae further I KNEW IT. I FUCKING KNEW IT. I knew who Face Nemesis was the second they showed her being built. That is not the thing I fucking knew, but that's what led me to wonder who else was getting stuffed into Mechon-with-faces. No, the thing I fucking knew and which was all but confirmed by someone in Colony 9 telling me her dead dad's name was Xord, was that Metal Face was that dude that ditched Dunban and Dickson in the intro. I KNEW IT. Fuck that guy. I hope the game lets me beat the shit out of him three or four more times. Also: fucking Alvis, man. Who is this guy? He has a triangular thing on the back of his jacket like the thing Face Nemesis Fiora has on her Mechon plugsuit thing and it could just be a stylistic coincidence but he's all talking to Telethia and giants and shit like they're all longtime bros and... what the hell is up with this guy? Also also: I would pay so much good money for a game that's nothing but 70+ hours of Dunban and Dickson traveling around the Bionis and bickering like an old married couple.
...how the hell does Riki have the highest max HP in the entire party!? I haven't been using him or even paying much attention to his stats because I thought he was a mascot! No, he's a fucking TANK! Edit to add shit I forgot: Spoiler: farther into Sword Valley YESSSSS I GET TO FUCK MUMKHAR UP AGAIN. ...after I grind some more levels
Spoiler: if you have not entered Fort Galahad stay away shulk warned you about giant stabby bits of scenery, bro he told you dog anyway rest in fucking pieces, Mumkhar.
Hiiii it's my rarer than platinum fandom!! How ya doing!! Xenoblade 2 was kind of a mess, right???? .... I feel like that's a bad opening, but what with the "Definitive edition" coming out soon, I had to get out of my system. XCX is my favourite one in the series so my taste is already questionable, but, like. Wow XB2 dropped the ball. I can't wait to have Riki back, he is still somehow the only good nopon.
see I got dragged into XC2 by my friends within this month and it's definitely a hot mess but it's my hot mess now, of which I am protectively critical
XC2 was my first game anywhere in the series and... wow, that sure is a game. I got through most of the stuff, made it into NG+, got most of the blades (still missing a couple), got a bunch of the secondary levelling grid stuff at least started, but... wow, there sure is a lot there. Some really good writing, some... other writing. I saw something about one of the other Xeno Something coming out for Switch at some point. I've been lectured about how some of the others have much deeper themes and explore them more instead of just being "here's your collection of magic rocks with tits".
To clarify -- I had a ton of fun with XB2 up until the last minute, and then a Thing Happened that made me hate the game for weeks. The fandom is also Not For Me, it's very "everyone is a lesbian and the world is soft and nice and there's nothing but mutually respectful romcom shenanigans" and I already have my Comfort Object fandom in TFP. It's a mess, but it's a mess that is dear to me. Thematically, I think XB2 flows pretty well from XB1 and there are a lot of great worldbuilding ideas and character concepts there, but it's all kind of frayed from being stretched over the frame of a gachapon harem game. A lot of what was done with Blades as incidental party members was done better in XCX, and Rex only ever being allowed to be the bland self-insert object (despite having some fun flaws and quirks set up first, they did the boy dirty in this regard) and the fanservice that results from that really screws with the themes in general. Torna, the Golden Country shows that they did have ideas other than rocks with tits and even some ambitions, but I didn't like it because it Jossed my favourite headcanons for Malos and Mythra, and I'm petty.
