In the original Xenoblade, Shulk's hometown was nearly destroyed by a surprise Mechon assault, during which Fiora was killed. She was Shulk's childhood friend/love interest, younger sister to Dunban, and a close friend of Reyn - all of whom lived in Colony 9.
Colony 6 (Sharla's hometown) was attacked at the same time as Colony 9 and Melia's father, the Emperor of Alcamoth, was murdered defending their Capitol from a separate Mechon assault. How is that not a host personal reasons for being central to the game's plot? Each of them were wronged and personally effected by the Mechon's actions.
In Xenoblade 3, Naoh and the others are child soldiers thrust into the ongoing war between Keves and Agnes, and were eventually chosen by Guernica to become Ouroborus. Right before he died, he set them on the path towards Sword March and told they'd learn the truth about the war and who their "real enemy" was when/if they got there.
Yet, you're claiming Rex's involvement was in any way more personal than either Shulk's and his friends', or the Ouroborus group's? No way
.
In the original Xenoblade, Shulk and Melia are the only party members who have fully fleshed out backstories and motives. Everyone else are just placeholders who are there because either they just want to follow Shulk (Reyn, Dunban, Fiora) or they have nothing better to do (Sharla, Riki). The bad guys' backstories and motives, meanwhile, are either laughably stupid and self-defeating (Egil) or literally don't exist (Zanza). Shulk's and Melia's combined revenge quest is the only thing that carries 90% of the plot, and the remaining 10% is the utterly-cliche-for-jRPGs "kill God to save the world" quest.
Xenoblade 3 is about a group of people who, for 99% of the game, have absolutely no impact on the events around them. Everything happens despite them, not because of them. At every turn until the very end, they are simply cut off from actually accomplishing anything. Stories where the main characters are that powerless are simply impersonal travelogues, about the events around the characters rather than about the characters themselves. And most of the secondary Hero characters have little reason to actually join them and often good reasons not to, making their presence in the party pointless at best and nonsensical at worst.
None of that is true about Xenoblade 2. All the characters, both good *and* bad guys, have fleshed out histories and motives, and they have a massive impact on the story rather than being powerless observers.
It is not honestly deniable that Xenoblade 2 has by far the best writing of the series. You can still deny it, but not honestly.
Dude, Dunban's backstory was that he was the venerated war hero who defended the Colonies during the battle of Sword Valley. The "Hero of the Homs" and the Mechon retaliated a year afterward by attacking both Colonies at once. Remember? Even when the Monado started killing him, he felt it was his responsibility to fend of the Mechon invasion. Fiora was also his sister and sole living relative, who was killed during that invasion.
Reyn was part of Colony 9's defense force and not only saw their hometown reduced to rubble, he saw many of his comrades in arms die right in front of him. Sharla's tale was similar to his, she even recounted Colony 6's casualties shortly after Shulk and Reyn arrived at the refugee camp.
Each of them had a personal reason for joining Shulk and Melia on their journey. To claim otherwise blatantly disregards canonical events.
And no, in Xenoblade 3, the Ouroborus group had a tremendous impact. Who do you think was freeing everyone from their flame clocks and helping them to adjust to life free from the yoke of the Consuls? As word began to spread of their heroics and their successes against Mobious, both Keves and Agnes forces began to rally behind them.
As for their collective story, II already said that they're child soldiers literally born and raised to do nothing other than fight. That was literally all they knew until they met Guernica who finally opened their eyes and set them on the path to both Sword March and self-discovery.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
\"Xenoblade 3 is about a group of people who, for 99% of the game, have absolutely no impact on the events around them\"
Uh, I\'d agree that 2 has (slightly) better character writing than 3, but that is a strange thing to claim
\"Each of them had a personal reason for joining Shulk and Melia on their journey. To claim otherwise blatantly disregards canonical events.\"
Eh... Reyn and Fiora really were just going with the flow, while Dunban and Sharla\'s reasons weren\'t very strong or particularly explored. Riki actually has a good reason for being there, but Riki is also pure comic relief
I don't call being skewered in defense of one's hometown, then being made to serve the enemy against her loved ones "going with the flow". As soon as she was freed of Egil's control, Fiora decided for herself that her place was to fight alongside Shulk and her brother. She wasn't going to allow them to shoulder the burden alone, not even for her sake, and even told Melia as much.
Ditto for Reyn, who plainly told Shulk he was already planning to leave the Colony to avenge Fiora and the others. It's just that Shulk beat him to it by saying it first, so Reyn went with him. Plus, he had sworn to always have Shulk's back. Along the way, he developed feelings for Sharla and his desire to protect her and Juju gave him even more reason to fight. All of that was proactive, he wasn't simply following Shulk's lead.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.Leave a Comment:
Xenoblade Chronices 2 is an excellent game, easily the best of the Xenoblade series.
The Xenoblade series in general is an acquired taste. These are anime-inspired jRPGs, particularly when it comes to their art style and character design. That, and all the blatant anime tropes the games indulge in, can put people off.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 turns the anime art and troping up to 11, and that can be a pretty rough. But if you get through that, you'll find a touching personal story about a gang of misfits who come together out of personal convenience and end up tight-knit friends. Every character has believable histories and motives, and even the blatant anime troping makes perfect sense when you understand who these characters are. This is in contrast to the rest of the series, where the stories are impersonal and many of the characters lack solid motives to be there. It feels as though the prior games were practice runs and Xenoblade 2 was where the writers hit their stride.
Of course, when talking about a jRPG, you need to discuss combat. The Xenoblade series overall has an odd battle system that feels slow but is actually pretty fast. Your characters and the enemies are always moving and acting, and you need to be aware of your strategy and time your strong attacks properly to build up massive combo damage. Xenoblade 2 maintains this system, but puts its own stamp on it with the Driver-Blade system. Your attackers are Drivers, and behind each is a secondary character who is a sapient living weapon, a Blade. The Blade gives the Driver a specific weapon to fight with, and specific magical powers to soup up their attacks. And your Drivers eventually can equip up to three different Blades who they can swap between during combat, to give themselves more weapon and combo options.
The combat system is very powerful and versatile, but there is a lot to keep track of. Newbies can find it pretty overwhelming even early on, and learning it is a tall hill to climb. And this, unfortunately, leads to Xenoblade 2's biggest flaw: its in-game tutorials are garbage. It feels like the developers tried hard to edit down the tutorials so the player wouldn't need to sit through hours of lessons on how to play. But the result is that tutorials are usually badly phrased, often pop up at strange times, have many bad examples, and rarely but sometimes give wrong information. Also, you can not go back to review tutorials later, so too bad if you've forgotten something twenty hours in.
Depending on the tutorials to get good at the combat is a fast road to quitting in frustration. So I recommend watching Chuggaaconroy's spoiler-free Everything I Wish I Knew About Xenoblade Chronicles 2
video as a starting point.
Over all, getting into this game is a slog, and lots of people just can't be bothered. If you manage to make it, though, you're treated to the most touching story and well-written characters of the series. If you're a jRPG fan, you owe it to yourself to give Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a try.