It’s no secret that I’m a filthy weeb, I love my anime and manga. Xenoblade Chronicles is the most anime game I have ever played in my life. I have played a ton of JRPGs in my time, but nothing has come to feel as much like an anime as Xenoblade Chronicles 2. As a huge fan of JRPGs I had constantly been recommended this game and after 190 hours I can see why this game is so highly regarded.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 centers in the world of Alrest with a young boy named Rex who becomes partners with a girl named Pyra and his focus is to get Pyra to Elysium. In Alrest there are both blades and drivers, the latter is what Rex becomes throughout the early parts of the story. In Xenoblade 2, blades are humans or animals that have certain elemental attributes and weapons and which they lend to the drivers to allow them to fight in combat together.
Although each character has a signature blade that is integral to the story one of the main positives of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is having multiple blades. Drivers use core crystals each to summon more blades which allows a vast opportunity of battle customization. Using these cores is kind of like opening a Yu-gi-oh pack of cards. What I mean by this is that when you open these cores, you summon a blade which can be a generic looking blade (a common blade) or a blade with a very unique design (a rare blade).
Drawing blades is one of the strongest points of the game for several reasons. First it is just so much fun and so exciting when you get a new core crystal to have the opportunity to get a new blade, although admittedly it will more often than not lead in disappointment, however when you do get that rare blade the feeling of satisfaction of a new partner gives you a high like you wont believe. The next best part of getting new blades is actually in battle. This is what makes sure that this game never gets stale as getting a new blade will not only have new special attacks, but may also have a new element or new weapons for you to experiment with.
I love my Final Fantasy and Tales of games but none of those comes close to feeling like an anime like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does. First off, the character designs and not just the main characters, but also the rare blades I mentioned earlier all look like they could have been ripped straight out of an anime. A big part of this is that each of the blades has a different designer and some including the designers from Fate Grand Order and Code Geass! Each of these rare blades also have their own voice actors and blade quests which are quests specific to those characters which is great as It allow you to get a deeper understanding of the character.
I watch all my anime in Japanese (shoutout to Crunchyroll), not only do I like the voices better generally, but I feel like because there is such a difference in our cultures a direct translation just never truly captures the experience accurately. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is no different; I personally am not a fan of the English voices, but I absolutely adore the Japanese voices they really feel like actual anime voice actors. This is my biggest flaw with the game and its more a me problem and I understand that I am probably the minority. For whatever reason the names of the blades changed for the English versions and the Japanese versions. Aside from Pyra who uses fire (Pyra sounds like Pyro) and Homura means flame, I never understood why they had to change the names. The reason why this bothered me so much was because the subtitles would use the English character names and it would really take me out of the moment when I would hear Homura, but read Pyra. I just wished if they didn’t want to use the original names, which in all honesty I can’t understand why not, the subtitles would have adjusted to whichever voices you used.
You cannot talk about Xenoblade Chronicles 2 without talking about the music. This score, god damn. It is amazing and truly feels like an OST from an anime and I found myself in certain worlds never wanting to leave because of just how good it was. From the combat music, the overworld music, or the story music Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does an excellent job of adjusting to the environment and situation to allow perfect harmony between the two.
The final reason on how Xenoblade Chronicles 2 feels like an anime is the obvious one: the story. Let me make this as simple as possible, if you like anime you will love the story. It really is that simple. The characters are so lovable, each bringing a certain aspect to the group: from the naïve Rex, to the tsundere Nia and the comic relief Tora. The story starts with a group travelling and learning more about each of the characters and the world, but with tradition JRPG fashion, shit goes down. The story provides several of those anime clichés that you know and love: from comedy to great fight scenes to incredibly heartfelt moments this story gives you everything you look for in an anime.
When it comes to the actual game-play of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 there is one word I would use to describe it: massive. This game is massive in every sense of the word and I think that’s obvious when I told you that I stopped playing at nearly 200 hours in. The first aspect of how huge this game is obviously the world of Alrest. This world is goddamn huge. It’s so much bigger than any other JRPG I’ve played and feels more like the open world of games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Breath of the Wild. From beautiful fields, to small villages’, to big cities and to an arctic world, Alrest has every type of setting you can imagine. The one downside to the world is that when you need to go to a certain location, the map can be very frustrating. For the most part the map is fine, but it can get incredibly frustrating when you can’t tell where you are supposed to go because a certain pathway is blocked.
Now I couldn’t write a review of a JRPG without talking about the combat. At first the combat seems ridiculously simple. The combat is similar to an MMO where it’s an auto-attack system with the ability of doing special attacks. In addition, when all enemies are cleared, your characters start automatically healing themselves with no cost. However, do not underestimate the complexity of this game. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is incredibly intricate and can be very complicated. The combat system has so much depth that I couldn’t even begin to start explaining it. However, one of my favorite parts of this game is that it does a great job of gradually explaining the information so that you are not getting overwhelmed. Even in the later chapters I was still learning new things, but I really appreciate that I was able to follow along all the way.
PROS
- Amazing Character Designs
- A Story any anime fan would love
- Lovable characters
- Beautiful World
- Great Score
- Entertaining side quests
- Blade Quests
- Rare blades and drawing them
- Detailed Combat System
- Vast amount of customization
- Massive world
- Long game, but doesn’t feel long
- Complicated Battle system, but explained well
- Great Japanese Voice Acting
CONS
- Map Can be frustrating
- Not a fan of English voice acting
- Many character names changed from Japanese to English
- Subtitles don’t adjust to language changes
CONSENSUS
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is not only the best JRPG on the Nintendo Switch, but just might be one of the best JRPGs of all time. With only a few minor issues, none of that is close to allowing me not recommend this game. If you are a fan of Anime or JRPGs I am confident that you will love this game.
RATING
9.5/10: EXCELLENT
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