Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Did You Know?

• The game was announced in January 2017 as part of Nintendo's detailed reveal of the Nintendo Switch.
• The English localization was handled by Nintendo of Europe, who communicated with Japanese and American divisions about potentially controversial decisions.
• A promotional music video for the track 'Shadow of the Lowlands' was uploaded to Nintendo's official YouTube accounts days before launch.

Gameplay

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is an action role-playing game where you control one main character in a three-person party. The world is open, with a day-and-night cycle that changes quests, enemy difficulty, and which items are available. Unlike earlier games that had one connected world, this one is split across multiple giant Titans, and you jump between them using fast travel. Party members also command extra beings called Blades, and you can have three Blades active at once, which sets your class. Blades and their skills come in eight elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Ice, Electric, Earth, Light, and Dark. The base game has 40 unique Rare Blades, with 11 more added through downloadable content and New Game Plus. Most Blades are optional and not part of the main story, including KOS-MOS and T-ELOS from the Xenosaga series. The Challenge Mode, added via DLC, lets you get Shulk and Fiora from Xenoblade Chronicles and Elma from Xenoblade Chronicles X as Blades. Combat is real-time and action-based: you control the lead character, while party members auto-attack when enemies get close. Each character has Arts that deal damage or cause status effects. Winning fights gives you experience points, Skill Points, and Weapon Points. Using Arts repeatedly unlocks Blade Specials, and using them in order triggers a Blade Combo for big damage and seals an enemy ability. A Driver Combo requires hitting an enemy with four status effects in order: Break, Topple, Launch, and Smash, which deals massive damage and makes them drop items.

Plot

The game is set in Alrest, a sea topped with clouds called the Cloud Sea, inhabited by massive creatures called Titans on which humanity lives. Legends claim humanity once lived atop the World Tree in a paradise called Elysium with their creator, the Architect, but were exiled and given the Titans. Blades are powerful beings summoned from Core Crystals who channel power through Ether; their masters are called Drivers. When a Driver dies, their Blade reverts to a Core Crystal and loses memory. The main character is Rex, Driver of the Aegis, a powerful legendary Blade with two personalities, Pyra and Mythra, who share the same consciousness but have different abilities. Rex grew up as an orphan in Fonsett Village on the Leftherian Archipelago and became a salvager. A group called Torna seeks to destroy the Aegis, leading Rex and his party to flee and find a way to the World Tree. Other important characters include Malos, another Aegis and the main antagonist; Jin, a Blade from Torna; Nia, a rebel from Torna, and her Blade Dromarch; Tora, a Nopon specializing in artificial Blades, and his Blade Poppi; Mòrag, a feared Driver from Mor Ardain, and her blade Brighid; and Zeke, prince of Tantal, and his Blade Pandoria. The downloadable content Torna – The Golden Country adds a story set 500 years before the main game, focusing on Lora and her Blade Jin in their battle against Malos in Torna.

Development

Development on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 kicked off in July 2014, while Xenoblade Chronicles X was still being finished. The team heard fans grumbling about that game's lighter story focus and mission-based structure, so they decided to make another narrative-driven title. Since the gameplay felt more like a follow-up to the original Xenoblade Chronicles, they called it Xenoblade Chronicles 2. It took less time to make than earlier games, but early work was rough because the Switch's specs weren't finalized yet. To speed things up, they reused the architecture from Xenoblade Chronicles X. Another push came from a deal with Nintendo to get the game out early in the Switch's life. The team wanted characters to show more facial expressions than before. Lead character designer Masatsugu Saito, working on his first video game, gave the heroes a lively anime look instead of the more realistic, stiff models from past entries. Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix handled the Torna organization characters; Takahashi had hoped to work with him and was surprised when Square Enix agreed. Other guest artists included Xeno series veterans Kunihiko Tanaka and Soraya Saga, who designed some Blades. Tanaka even created a Blade version of KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga trilogy. Takahashi came up with the story, with help from screenwriters Yuichiro Takeda and Kazuho Hyodo.

Reception

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 landed to generally favorable reviews, earning an 83% aggregate on Metacritic from 93 critics. The game drew praise for its story, characters, layered combat, soundtrack, sheer volume of content, and the scale and beauty of its environments. John Rairdin of Nintendo World Report called it one of the finest JRPGs of its generation, highlighting the music, diverse world, engaging combat, and thrilling storyline, and doubted a better JRPG would appear on the Switch. Jason Faulkner of Game Revolution found it a joy to review, citing wonder, exploration, and character. IGN Japan’s Hiroshi Noguchi described it as a timeless adventure with a deeply complex battle system. RPGamer’s Alex Fuller said 2017 was a landmark year for RPGs and that this game capped it off mesmerisingly. Nadia Oxford of USgamer noted it captured the first game’s strengths, borrowed the best from Chronicles X, and improved on them, with a narrative exploring patriotism, war, environmental decline, refugees, and moral questions about Blades. GamesTM called it the apex of open-world design, with exploration compensating for minor flaws. The initial reveal was called unexpected, with USGamer’s Jeremy Parish favorably comparing it to Chrono Cross, and early hands-on impressions from Gamescom 2017 praised its streamlined combat and environments.