Better Late Than Never
Now I must admit two things...first, I am still a huge fan of the Xenoblade Chronicles series from the moment I played and beat the original, played through MOST of the FIRST sequel (Xenoblade Chronicles X) and then completed the second sequel (and current topic of discussion) Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That being said, there are some concerns I still have, even after the game has a few years after its initial release; it is still important to express such concerns if this franchise is going to thrive and be remembered as one of the more iconic gaming experiences of our lifetime (akin to Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-man, Final Fantasy, etc.). This critique will be broken down into two core topics; business-related concerns, and game-related concerns, each with their own subtopics. CHARRRRRGE!
Business Related
Let's get down to the brass tax first before picking apart any gameplay concerns. As much as we like to harp on shady business practices of other companies, they DO have to turn over a profit to remain in business. Monolithsoft, the makers of this game, is no exception. That still doesn't excuse them of any potential ill will should they continue this trend in the future. And so far, there's quite a few...
Let's Just Get This Out of the Way: The Core Crystal Loot Box Problem
While not as arrogant to claim their loot boxes (the Core Crystals you gather) a laughable term as "Surprise Mechanics," these loot boxes are actually much worse than people realize. The Core Crystals are what are necessary to unlock Blades, increasing your fighting options along with the traditional leveling mechanics; usually, you're stuck with inferior 'Common Blades' to bolster your attack abilities with a randomized chance of receiving a 'Rare Blade' among the Core Crystals themselves. Simple enough, but with several catches.
The More You Own, the Less You Will Unlock
First, with each Rare Blade collected, the possibility to collect ADDITIONAL Rare Blades decreases significantly. There are a total of 47 Rare Blades (excluding the DLC Blades but that's a separate topic) in the game. 11 of them are story-based, so you will get them regardless; 4 of them are through sidequests that you must complete to unlock them, and 9 of them are only accessible to the CHANCE of getting them AFTER completing the game and replaying in New Game+. That leaves 23 other Rare Blades that you have to take a gamble in getting as their rates not only vary for themselves but steadily DECREASE as you acquire more Rare Blades.
This is a discouraging way to get players engaged as they have to deal with their gameplay being padded out unnecessarily. Next is the 'modifiers' involved...by this, I'm referring to 1) the type of Core Crystal used, 2) the 'Thought Cloud' placebo, and 3) the Luck Statistic placebo.
The Core Crystal Loot Boxes Used
Let's start with the Core Crystal used; there are three types, being Common, Rare, and Legendary. As the name suggests, these types represent (or supposed to represent) the chances of receiving a Rare Blade; or rather the possibility of getting a Rare Blade based on how difficult it is to obtain said Cores. Commons are precisely that, dropped from almost anything and have, in theory, the lowest probability to get a Rare Blade out of them; become near impossible to get one when you have less than 10 of the Rare Blades that are listable to go left in unlocking. Rare Cores have a lower drop rate than Common Cores and are supposed to have a better chance of getting you Rare Blades than Commons. However, this is the first major concern brought up.
You would think that having this type of core would be a higher priority to that of Rare Cores, but the chances of Rare Blades are no better than that of Common Cores. This means the effort spent in getting these cores is devalued quickly; not meaningless, yet not worth the hassle to acquire these Cores. And once you SOMEHOW managed to get down to the last 6 Rare Blades to complete the collection they are of little value to the player and any Common Cores are of NO value at all. Then there are the 'Legendary Cores;' cores that you must either overcome a unique monster challenge, unlock a special Treasure Chest with Blades of higher-level skills, or master the mechanics of the game to farm, once again, high-level enemies to acquire these cores.
Even that will not guarantee, much less INCREASE the chances of getting the Rare Blades you would need to complete the collection. In fact, once you are down to the last three Blades (One blade, in particular, is said to exist-not-exist), even Legendary Cores are meaningless, but anything less than this is unusable. You CANNOT get any more Rare Blades from Common Cores, and the rate to get them from Rare Cores is so low it's of no value to keep them as well. There are additional factors in play, so to get a more detailed rundown, I recommend following the link here, made from a contributor in GameFAQs, for more information:
That said, it's a lot to absorb all at once...Nothing more to think about. On that note, we move on to the Thought Cloud.
The 'Thought' Cloud
This is a placebo effect in that it does not ultimately alter the rate of success of getting Rare Blades. The game even acknowledges that this is not a useful aspect of the game, hinting that it boils down to 'luck' instead of this; meaning the sole purpose was to occupy the screen and distract the player from thinking the Cloud was beneficial in some form. It does not benefit the battle system in any way, and it's not an improvement in either Quests or Increasing Trusts. This is genuinely deceptive in that it falsifies to players they are using skill or building to increase their chances of getting the Rare Blades they need. This is a bad practice in that it frustrates the player into thinking their efforts amount to something while stringing them along for no justifiable reason. Speaking of questionable justification...
The Luck Stat
Just like with the Thought Cloud, there really is no benefit to having high luck numbers. As of this writing, I personally have yet to raise the Luck stat to its maximum amount (if that is possible, please let me know). This means there is really no reason to care about raising something that doesn't overall help in completing the list of Rare Blades available. So I have to ask: why add it in? To increase Drop Rates? Make Criticals better? It's not something to concern over since it doesn't help out when we need it...in other words, Luck is too unreliable to get the results we need; I'm aware of the irony of my statement, having to rely on luck to get an exact result. Luck is also just a placebo for using Random Number Generators to give off the impression that you are achieving something great.
Now how does this correlate to loot boxes? Simple, you have to use them to unlock the remaining Rare Blades, as opposed to the ones that are gated behind the main story or side quests. This is game-breaking as there are key moments in the game that you HAVE to have certain Blades in order to progress in the story OUTSIDE of the ones that are just given to you. They also cannot be bought in-game, meaning you can't go to a store and get them; you have to venture out in the game world and fight monsters/Drivers/Villains/etc. to get these cores, so being able to reliably complete your Blade List is nearly impossible by any other method. This could have easily gone the route of Microtransactions via purchasing these Core Crystals. The blueprint was there and for whatever their reason, probably someone with the good sense to call out the potential pitfalls of this practice, it was not yet acted upon. This does not mean we should give them a pass. The makings of a microtransaction loot box scheme are simply there, and they just stopped short of implementing it. If Monolithsoft continues to make or remake this series, then what's to stop them from simply creating a Microtransactions link to the Nintendo E-Shop when the real legwork was in the game all along?
The Torna DLC...and DLC in General...REALLY?
I understand the need to have such DLC as a possibility, but this informs the critics of the series two things: the company is not able to provide all deliverables in a timely manner and they are deliberately making the game less entertaining by potentially (and even intentionally) cutting out content to sell to customers later. Nintendo and Monolith Soft are not isolated incidents nor are they solely to be blamed. This is a bad practice throughout all of the Gaming Arena/Industry which has caused the quality of gaming experiences as a whole to decline sharply.
The former, that being unable to provide all deliverables in a timely manner, is exemplified in the Torna DLC itself; the design and mechanics are wholly different from the game, yet it has direct ties to the game now; this presents a problem. Why is the design of the DLC different from the main game? Or at the very least, why isn't it possible to have consistent design over these two games? Since the DLC naturally comes after the main game, this is clarification on a small section of the story but that small section is pivotal to how key characters act in the main game.
Game Related
They Went Backwards on Quest Progression
One of the best features of the original Xenoblade Chronicles is that it solved the chore of quest progression. You didn't always need to go back to the same place after fetching items. Sometimes, you just start the quest, get the items and the game automatically concludes the quest for you and provides you the reward on the spot. For its time, this was revolutionary; having to run back and forth to pad the gameplay time was standard for RPGs of the era, and for Xenoblade Chronicles to make this leap forward is their best decision to date. To be fair, there ARE some instances that you may have to go back to complete a series of tasks (Colony 6 for example), but for the most part, other quests are completed as you progressed in-game.
So then why does this become a concern for Xenoblade Chronicles 2? Because the progression of side quests is backward from the first game. Instead of further improving the model, they take it away and make you do a lot more unnecessary running. This becomes tedious quickly. To make matters worse, if the quest requires multiple mercenary missions, on top of already multiple steps, it could be dismissed altogether as a waste of time; the finest example of this mistake is none other than Ursula's "Bearing Her Soul" Marathon Quest. The quest consists of getting her 'score' up to a certain point to where she can put on a concert of 5000 attendees and succeed. As of this writing, that quest remains incomplete; YEARS after this game was purchased. The interest was lost as the effort put in didn't match the results shown. You would get to the end of the game sooner than you would in completing this one quest...assuming you even have the fortune to HAVE her in your party due to the earlier mentioned Core Crystal Loot Box System.
The Main Character Rex is Dumb; He's Just Dumb
Let's not beat around the bush; Rex is a terrible protagonist. He's comically dense, knows almost nothing of the world around him, and even gets himself killed over a job he took without even getting the details for said job. To be honest, this entire quest PREDICATES on his inept ability to think things through and his lack of understanding of the world OUTSIDE of salvaging. If he had simply thought things through, the story would have gone in an entirely DIFFERENT direction...and he would still be alive. Things in the story do not happen because Rex has a grasp of situations nor a willingness to grow and understand the world around him. He is, after all, the audience surrogate to this interpretation of the events of Xenoblade Chronicles in THIS world...Things happen and Rex is placed at the location of where they happen. He's mostly there to fulfill the role of Driver to the Blade, Pyra, as she is the one dictating the pace...that and another Blade connected to her.
Far Too Much Busywork Disguised as Customization/Optimization
Being an RPG, at some point, you would need to customize and optimize characters to bring out maximum stats and buffs to see the full potential of what they can do. A fine example of this is none other than Final Fantasy 6 (Final Fantasy 3 in the USofA). Here, you can optimize all characters to reach their full potential or at least have access to the full set of spells available; only to discover that not EVERY character needs every spell, but getting the right balance can make your journey that much more enjoyable. I highly recommend viewing the following breakdown of this great game when given the chance, courtesy of the fine folks of Resonant Arc, and the link provided is down below:
So why is it that THIS form of optimization is better than the optimization provided in Xenoblade Chronicles 2? Simply put, the optimization in FF6 is better suited to the characters themselves and, while daunting at first, doesn't hurt the overall aspect of the game and can be skipped altogether without much ruination to the game as a whole. This is not the case with Xenoblade Chronicle 2, as you have several hurdles to jump just to get the appropriate levels of optimization.
To provide an example, let's say you have a Rare Blade that you unlocked via the Core Crystal Loot Boxes. First, you have to add an attack chip to bolster its attack and strength. Next, you have to provide Core Chips to further augment its abilities with the Driver that Rare Blade is linked to. You THEN have to 'build Trust' by 1) Using that Rare Blade in Battle, 2) Use their Favorite Item (DIFFERENT From their Liked Item) which is from a generalized category...excessively, 3) fulfill Heart-to-Heart Chats and Blade Quests, with some of these quests being nightmarishly long as explained in earlier.
This is not just a statement of three separate options. This is the usual method of any real optimization you have from these Blades, Rare or otherwise. It's counterintuitive to have players go through all this busywork and not see a return on their investment in a relative time period. This is not factoring in the DRIVERS either, and their need to be optimized. Long and short, it's just a mess of time-wasting with almost little to no reward other than to complete the game and never bother picking it up again...unlike myself who put in nearly 500 hours into the game and still have not been able to get all that I could with a non-MMORPG style of game.
Let's Wrap This Up...
Okay, so that was a lot. Here's the rub: just because the game doesn't have a built-in microtransaction store doesn't mean they didn't lay the blueprints out. Clearly, they were recovering from the below-average sales of Xenoblade Chronicles X when it didn't reach the same levels of success that the original game did. They also recognized how much profit they could make with the Core Crystals with people buying them instead of farming them, yet for whatever their reason, stopped short of doing so. This still is a concern as the game isn't made better for the consumer, rather it sets up the false pretense that any future game releases/remakes can just add on a link or DLC that gives you what you should have already received from purchasing the game at its original store price. That's it, I'm all...out of juice.
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