RIP Rex, we hardly knew ye! ...Welcome back, Rex!

When the writting works (which it usually does with a few exceptions) the cinematics in this game are pretty amazing. The music helps a lot. Something that made me a bit confused in my first playthrough was the huge amount of new stuff. Lots of new characters, mechanics, worldbuilding, all at once. Try to take it easy, step by step, focus on the keywords, you know, the "really important stuff". The rest will fall in place slowly over time. Also, take a look at the tutorial again if you want, don't feel shame about it. The combat mechanics are NOT WELL EXPLAINED, they leave a lot of the important stuff to be said. It's funny, they received so much criticism about that they went all in passive aggresive mode with the tutorials in Xenoblade 3. Like, explaining you what a shop is XD, I laughed a lot. The important part is to be able to use different elements, charging the combos very fast so you can combine them in that graphic at the top right of the screen during combat. At least that's a start. I'd tell you "focus on that for now" but you can't XD, because you have only pyra so you can only use one element. You can't really choose. That's one of the problems with the combat mechanics in this game. For a chunk of it you can't really use them, and when you finally can, the tutorials are so far behind that you don't really know or care. Playing it on youtube will help you. People like me will keep telling you about those mechanics whenever you don't use them. Backsitting, in Xenoblade 2, is actually helpful in my opinion, at least if they don't say spoilers about the story.

Regarding the Blade Combos mentioned here in the comments, it gets easier to understand with more characters in your party. The core thing is: Auto Attack fills Driver Art (the ones bound to X, Y, B), Driver Art fills Blade Art (the one bound to A and with a number). When you reach level I on your Blade Art, you can use it OR you can charge it up further and reach level II and III. But your other party members also charge up their Blade Arts, so you can (as an example) use a level I Blade Art yourself to start the Combo, your partner uses a level II Blade Art within the cooldown period shown on top of the screen (the partner Blade Arts can be used with the Z buttons when indicated), and in that time you yourself should charge up a level III Blade Art to make maximum damage (again with a cooldown window after level II was used) with a third attack. Speed is important here, if one cooldown runs out, the combo resets. BUT don't immediately use II, wait just before the cooldown runs out, so you have more time to charge your own Blade Art to III. The only thing you have to keep in mind is that your characters equip the right blades that have the right Blade Combos that are shown in the tree in the upper right corner. You need blades with the right elements and you will collect those blades over time, so don't worry now about not getting to level III immediately. Because there is still all the Break>Topple>... stuff in XC2 and the chain attack also gets a "new version" for this game. And there is also some new gameplay tech in XC2. You can cancel your Auto Attack after the first hit with a slight movement, that way you won't get the advertised damage multiplier from that 1-2-3 hit combo, but you'll charge up your Driver Arts much faster (wich is a better trade off because Driver Arts do more damage than Auto Attack) because the first hit animation is the fastest. And then you can cancel your Auto Attacks also with a Driver Art while you hit, that triggers a visual cue and your Blade Art charges up faster. So the gameplay is not so static anymore. You have all those cancel-techs, the QTEs in battle and still the placement related to the enemy and many things from XC1. Some like the combat from XC2 the most, I think XC3 is even better, but 2 is definitely a step up from 1 and brings many new things to the table. The game even takes its time to present all those new things, but it fails to explain them in a good way. So don't be afraid to ask us things. For now my biggest tipp is to just keep going and soak it all in.

*About the "blade combo" chart on the upper right corner, hope this helps and doesn't confuse you more:* Blades are classified by element type. For example, Pyra is fire. An icon will tell you what element a Blade is. When you execute arts, you raise your Special level (the art on the right button). It reaches level I first, and if you don't use it, it can raise to level II by executing more arts. Then level III and some Blades can even reach level IV. If you use it at any point, it resets to 0. In order to complete the blade combo, you have to decide which route in the chart you want to go. Let's say you want to go fire-water-fire. Then you would have to perform a level I+ Special with a fire Blade. Before the gauge goes down, a level II+ one with a water Blade, and then III+ with a fire Blade. If the gauge goes down at any point, you lose the progress. It sounds absurdly hard to perform, but it's actually pretty easy when you get the idea. When you complete a route, the Blade who performs the third Special does a super powerful attack. Later in the game, Blade combos will have other *absurdly powerful* effects, but too soon to talk about that until that time comes 👀

@vascotech88

Ай бұрын

The absurd nonsense of the tutorials in this game lol

@SolitarySaturn

Ай бұрын

Seems like Calculus ;)

He is already hooked, I can see it. No need to comfort him with "the game starts slowly". Saturn is no Anime hater, I think he can appreciate the style for its expressive nature and can overlook the more "out there" designs or even like them (for me some hit, others don't). Saturn and newcomers alike, prepare yourself for one hell of a ride. Xenoblade is gonna Xenoblade again!

Great episode! Oh by the way, Malos and Odin from FF16 share the same voice actor

@SolitarySaturn

Ай бұрын

Ohhh cool!

I know there are people who doesn't like rex, I usually don't like kid protagonists too, but rex is so well written. He is my favorite character in the franchise, after playing torna jin is a close second. Torna is not necessary to play the series, but i highly recommend, i finished 100% in only 60h, and it's all about character development. Just seeing again the beginning of rex and pyra journey already makes me emotional.

You did not just make an Altered Beast reference

@SolitarySaturn

Ай бұрын

I am so glad somebody caught that!!!

@Eclosion5

Ай бұрын

@@SolitarySaturn favorite Sega game ever lol

1:13 woah! you played xenogears?? so you HAVE dipped your toes into the xeno-series before (before xc 1 DE I mean)

@SolitarySaturn

Ай бұрын

Yes I played Xenogears when it originally released on PlayStation and I love that game!

@monolith_hard8505

Ай бұрын

@@SolitarySaturn no way! that is AWESOME to hear, did you play xenosaga too? it's probably been a while since you played it but I hope you'll be able to appreciate some of the returning themes and ideas (from both gears and saga), blade 2 and 3 espescially (xc1 was a lot more subtle on that front I'd say) very much feel like heartfelt love letters to that passion project between takahashi and his wife that started all those years ago with xenogears. also, you probably already know this, but if you enjoyed gears' amazing soundtrack (how can you not?), then you'll be pleased to know that yasunori mitsuda returns for the music (for 2 AND 3) which makes it even more perfect! and to top it all off, they even got joanne hogg (she sang the ending song for xenogears) to finish off the trilogy which I can only describe as cathartic as a big gears/xeno fan. although she did collab with mitsuda in 2018 for the xenogears 20th anniversary concert (the choir group ANUNA featured in xc2 ost also appears there btw), which makes it less shocking in hindsight, but still. you've GOT to check that concert out and the new arrangements if you haven't already!

Well. Xeno's series is from the same creator😀

This game has some of the worst tutorials in the series sadly. I believe they tried to go with an approach as if a friend is explaining you the mechanics rather than make it simple and direct. Small details are overcomplicating the language too, for example: "Draw your sword while targeting the enemy, to target an enemy press X" should be written as "Target an enemy with X, then draw your sword with Y", or "Press X while holding down R" should be "Hold down R and press X" This also complicates life for non native english speakers, with expressions like "When you hit home", for a non english speaker this can be understood as hitting a real house with your fist (as example), why not write: "Press the next attack button when the previous one hits the enemy" Im surprised this was never patched.

@vascotech88

Ай бұрын

Oh, and the Game: "...it will even give you a chance to perform a Blade Combo... but I'll tell you more about that another time" Me: Damn it game, if you are not gonna show it now, dont tell me about it Game: "Right, now lets talk Blade Combos" Me: ...

@lucassmith3790

Ай бұрын

Especially weird since Torna completely fixed it, and the same method wasn't patched into the base game.