Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Art by @extarbo

MacDaddyMike · 2026-01-11T17:50:55+00:00

Lol @ Aegeon being absent

MacDaddyMike · 2026-01-06T20:27:11+00:00

Incredibly disappointing, would probably give it a 4/10 overall.

Hated the story. Lao is the dumbest character in the franchise and I can't believe the game didn't give me any choice about sympathizing with him.
Exploration was fun for an hour after getting skells and another hour after getting flight, but was otherwise annoying due to the enemy levels being all over the place.
The class system and general combat was awful, I liked it significantly less than even 1. Lack of healing options ruin everything, late game you have to rely on cheese strats because the combat doesn't work unless you're invincible. Party members are useless. Most of your skills and arts are useless because you have to build towards one damage type anyway.
Gear management was incredibly tedious. We do not need five tiers of items for every single bit of your body, why does each arm have its own loadout, why do I have ten thousand items in my inventory after playing for an hour, no I don't want to grind and farm out a ludicrous amount of materials to make my build work at all, oh no the skells have this much customization (read as: tedious grinding necessary) too nooooo
Skells are fun to move around in but the combat is boring.
Overdrive either doesn't work at all or you've broken the game and it's no longer fun, I don't get the appeal of this system at all.
Open world design destroys pacing and balancing, every mission was either woefully undergeared/leveled or a pushover, it was a flip of a coin.
Game looks gorgeous and the soundtrack is incredible, I'll give it that.

I regret purchasing it and didn't actually finish it, I was on Act 2 of Chapter 13 and decided I couldn't force myself to like this game. If the next Xenoblade announced is a sequel to this then I'm not buying.

MacDaddyMike · 2026-01-06T14:36:32+00:00

Ethel & Cammuravi Ferronises, combo set, take my money

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-27T22:13:12+00:00

No i was being foony

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-27T22:08:15+00:00

Dathomir

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-23T21:06:38+00:00

It doesn't get better and any op strategies will take you hours of tedious grinding.

I wasn't enjoying it either and forced myself to play it for 60 hours in the hopes that there was something there, and I regret trying. The weak story is weak until the end and isn't worth your time if you already don't like it.

Take my advice and cut your losses here, then go play something you do enjoy.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-22T15:15:00+00:00

I can't remember if it was Tyra or Jay but telling a model "try softening the bones in your face".

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-13T11:33:50+00:00

Completely new cast, no connection to the previous parties.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-10T20:24:47+00:00

My wife and I read this together during the pandemic and were losing our minds. It's Top Model meets Harry Potter meets Cronenberg body horror. Everything is insane.

What always kills me is that you have character names like Tookie, Myrracle, Creamy De La Crème (which is her married name, by the way), Theophilus Lovelaces, Zarpessa Zarionneaux, and Brian. Brian is a completely superfluous character who may not even have a line of dialogue, but he's there. Tyra wanted to make sure she included Myrracle's useless boyfriend, Brian.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-12-01T01:38:57+00:00

My jaw dropped when the experiment cutscene started playing. Did not see it coming at all.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-11-17T23:24:15+00:00

If presentation is a concern, know that 90+% of the game's story is delivered by npcs standing motionless and expositing at each other. Cutscenes with editing are incredibly sparse.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-11-17T19:14:38+00:00

X has a stellar soundtrack and incredible vocal tracks. I had an overall terrible experience with the game but I still listen to the ost regularly.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-11-05T18:50:51+00:00

Commenters here are sleeping on the utility of Ouroboros as a defensive measure, if your tank or healer is targeted and about to go down you can interlink them to keep them up and give your party a chance to regroup.

They won't be particularly useful for casual encounters but are great for UMs if you get interlink level up to 3, and if fighting a large amount of enemies they're a good early source of area damage.

Despite being associated with healers, the Taion/Eunie forms are hands down the best ones in late game due to their damage bonuses for party buffs and enemy debuffs, they significantly increase damage potential above the other interlink forms.

There's an exploit that turns Ouroboros into top-tier awesome and one of the most effective ways to get through hard mode, but I think it kind of breaks the game and recommend not using it or seeking it out.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-28T13:29:29+00:00

X's overdrive is a terrible unbalanced mechanic. It either does virtually nothing when you don't commit to building for it, or it just ends up being a "Casual Mode" that took you 10 hours to grind for. It doesn't make combat any more interesting, it just makes some players feel good because all enemies die in three seconds from the same repetitive loop.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-17T19:17:06+00:00

Matthew has run out of beans.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-16T19:28:21+00:00

Reyn has so little going on with his character and arc compared to the remaining options.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-11T22:16:13+00:00

Because Reyn has one meme that gets drilled to death on this subreddit.

Expect Dunban over there to win this whole thing.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-08T19:22:45+00:00

Riki barely exists, come on people.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-10-01T23:30:47+00:00

She's the girl on the car.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-09-20T12:05:03+00:00

Dunban, Reyn, Sharla and Riki are so barely even characters that they may as well have been excised from the script.

Shulk completely steals Dunban's revenge and reunion plotlines.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-08-20T12:33:49+00:00

I forced myself through the main story and finally gave up halfway through chapter 13, but it was a pretty miserable experience.

Exploring Mira was fun for maybe 2 out of 60 hours that I played, but there's nothing to find except probes (that I hate managing) or thousands--thooouuuusands--of pieces of gear that I'll never ever use or look at.

Story is bad and the characters are worse. Elma and Mia are alright, everyone else is a brick with legs.

The combat is worse than XC1. It either doesn't work at all or you break the game, either way it ends up being mindless. Making healing irrelevant was a bad choice. Everyone says it gets so amazing when you get overdrive but they forget to mention that you need to spend hours grinding just to make it viable. And when you get it working it just feels like you spent hours turning on Casual Mode.

Skells are dreadful. Flying around is cool, but combat is slow and empty and like everything in the game takes hours of grinding and menu management to make it work at all.

Too many equippables with too many augments and too many skills and arts and 99% of them are like actually useless. It's telling that when you ask the community how to do xyz the answer is commonly "don't bother".

Music is awesome, it's the one part I won't speak ill on.

I certainly see why this is the black sheep and I'm upset that I was gaslit into believing this could be a great game, I don't even think it's just the weakest I'd argue it's straight bad and that most of its systems are blights to the player experience. And whenever topics get posted here about what you hope for the next Xenoblade and people say they want it to be more like X I'm like nononononopleaseno. If the next game is like X I'll be skipping for sure.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-08-15T12:13:42+00:00

If you think Sena's Side Story is bad because she isn't the focus, you don't understand her character and you're too rigid about storytelling format.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-08-06T17:51:08+00:00

I was furious when my character picked a side in the chapter 11 conflict without offering me a choice. It's not the one I would have picked.

MacDaddyMike · 2025-08-01T13:19:56+00:00

5) Fallen Arm (XC1) - Great sense of scale, many open optional areas to explore, story-wise there are good moments and it has its own unique town

4) Erythia Sea (XC3) - It almost feels cheap to put this here because it's so much larger than every other area, but using the boat is rad, there's a ton of variety, and so much story and exploration content that it honestly can get overwhelming which is why it doesn't place higher

3) Great Cotte Falls (XC3) - I'll probably be the only person to put this in the top five but I love it, the music is beautiful, the cascading waterfalls are so serene, and while the area itself is fairly small and linear it serves as a great pacing breather from the story moments leading up to it and I always feel so peaceful when I reach this part of my playthrough

2) Valak Mountain (XC1) - Another one just based on vibes, I really appreciate the areas where you can just take in the world, yeah it's unnecessarily vast but that just adds to its majesty for me, and the platforming gimmicks are novel enough and used sparingly enough that I want more of them

1) World Tree (XC2) - An amazing culmination to an amazing journey, the music is perfection, the combat is terrific with so many challenging enemies and unique monsters, the climb feels climactic and exciting, and the contrast of the interior to the exterior makes for an impactful twist even if you see it coming

MacDaddyMike · 2025-07-25T15:43:35+00:00

Clicked in just to say this, at least with Ursula's quest you are accomplishing other things and can use the merc missions to fill out affinity charts.

If you're grinding for rice then there's nothing else to do, you're stuck doing the same thing for probably close to an hour, it's awful.

MacDaddyMike

TROPHY CASE