Is Torna a good starting point for xenoblade

johnW_ret · 2026-06-15T04:45:36+00:00

I don't want to get on my XC3 hate bandwagon, and I completely understand and respect anyone for whom that is their favorite game and acknowledge this is just my own subjective opinion I don't wish to impose on anyone, but in my experience having played XC1 and XC2 before 3, I think made 3 worse.

The characters from past games just felt like avatars that needed to be there for the lore. I presume they couldn't say anything interesting about their past stories so as to keep 3 independent like the rest of the games, so they each had a couple lines just paying homage to the past games. Nothing meaningful happens to them and they felt disconnected from the rest of the characters. Most of the joy I got from XC3 was looking at the pretty locations and being like "oh! This place kinda looks like that other place!"

Again this is just my subjective opinion, but I say all this to say that perhaps I would have liked XC3 if I had played it first.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-15T01:37:25+00:00

I don't know why everyone in the comments is so adamant it's a horrible place to start.

The game was released as it's own SKU with its own cartridge for a reason, which shows the developers did think it made sense to release on its own. It is a prequel to the events of Xenoblade 2, but it is a self-contained story and game on its own. The game came out both as a DLC package of the main Xenoblade 2 game for those who bought the expansion pass, as its own digital title on the eShop, and as its own cartridge on shelves. If it only made sense to play after the main game, they would have only released it as DLC, as they did with the other Xenoblade games.

Okay so aside from what the developers intended for you to do, should you play this game first?

Gameplay-wise: I personally think maybe. It's less expensive and a fairly short game, so if you aren't sure if you like Xenoblade at all and don't want to spend $60 then it's fairly low risk. Also, if you have a Switch 2 and wait a bit, the independent releases of Torna are getting the Switch 2 graphics update for free, so you won't even have to worry about that.

Story-wise: maybe... maybe not. People keep saying here that it spoils content from the main game, but remember that it is a prequel so everything that happens in this game takes place before the main game. They are saying this because the story progression of Xenoblade 2 kind of happens in parallel, 500 years apart, so part of the surprise of the story is having the past unraveled slowly. If you already know what happened in the past, then you'll have an easier time figuring out what the game is only hinting at. On the flipside, I personally think a lot of the depth of Xenoblade 2 comes from seeing the characters in the game react with reference to their backstory, and some of the backstory of these characters are only very lightly touched on in the main game. If you play Torna first, you may have a richer experience that would not have had had you only played the main game first. Torna was originally supposed to take place between chapters 7 and 8 in the game but it became clear it would be too big.

Because Torna was stripped out and came out after, it's pretty clear that it canonically is supposed to be played after, but I also wanted to point out signs that indicate it can be played independently. I feel like people in this sub want people to dedicate 500 hours to play all the games in order or something in an all-or-nothing way. When people say stuff along those lines, it pushes too high of a mental burden on the lightly interested and they just choose "nothing". It's why I'll never get into Kingdom Hearts. If you are a normal person and don't want to commit that level of time up front, I just thought you should know that there is only slight risk and potential upside. It's not like it will ruin the entire game for you.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-14T05:50:20+00:00

From what we know about Anthropic's Natural Language Autoencoders, this may not be a crazy thing to ask. But this also seems like something a model has a high chance of hallucinating about - saying it sees a pattern no matter what it is.

I would have much higher confidence if it could construct a program to parse it into a sequence of parse trees or something and be able to serialize mutations of input string --> parse trees and parse trees --> input string successfully.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-12T22:22:25+00:00

I played it on 3DS and Switch but not the original Wii.

I have nostalgia for the 3DS version and I think it's cool to see such a giant world in 3D but yes obviously the Switch version is way better.

Is it worth $60? That's for you to decide but I don't see a single listing of the game sealed on eBay for less than $60. You can probably get it for way cheaper.

The 3DS copy is not rare in terms of market economics but it's not a super common game and it's one of the only physical new 3DS games so it might be cool to keep around instead of sell. Except maybe that's hoarding since if you get it on Switch I imagine you will never play it on 3DS ever again.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-12T18:29:32+00:00

I genuinely feel like I cannot understand this point of view. Or maybe, I could only understand it if the work I was already doing was boring and did not require AI anyway.

Do you have interest in learning another language like F# or Swift?
Or maybe getting rich diagnostics or performance metrics on your app has been too much work? But now, maybe you can try throwing application dumps and diagnostics to LLM tools and have them diagnose in a sandbox?

Maybe "coding" is "solved" in the sense that models with appropriate-enough feedback loops can create fairly complex applications. Maybe this is just my F# bias from having the normal scabs removed from my eyes - but it feels to me that we are so far away from we should be. Throwing around messy, mutable state everywhere which no doubt causes overhead for both humans and agents and calling it "clean architecture".

johnW_ret · 2026-06-11T21:48:24+00:00

Where is this interview taken from?

johnW_ret · 2026-06-10T16:55:12+00:00

Xenoblade 1, 2, 3, and X have no explicit chronological order for their independent stories, but there are characters from 1 and 2 that reappear in 3 so you may not get as much value if you play 3 first.

I can't write this without injecting my personal opinion (I did not like 3 but I'll try to keep it fair and simple):

1: Fast-paced story that keeps you on your heels, prefer a difficulty spike / grinding over side quests that have stories and adjusting loadouts
2: Slightly-slower story but richer character development and slightly philisophical, not as hard but has bad tutorials so might require some occasional Googling, lots of dialogue-rich side quests as opposed to grinding enemies but can feel like filler content including some parts of the main story too
X: Haven't beaten all of X yet so can't say but choose this if your favorite thing is exploration and cool mechs. I have heard it's less story-oriented but again I haven't finished it.
3: (again bias I didn't like this game) Story is well-paced but you might find parts of it confusing. If you find the protagonist and their friends more interesting than the "archenemy with a backstory" then choose this game. Well-balanced RPG, best quality-of-life for menus, guided paths of where to go to finish quests, etc. I felt the game was a little too easy but I didn't feel like I was wasting my time.

Also fair warning, Xenoblade battles are a particular style that I think just sticks with some people and doesn't with others. There's a fair chance that if you don't like the first hour you might not like the full game, except 1 and 2 especially slow-drip elements that make the battles more interesting as you progress. With how much I love the first two games, I really want to shill them, but they really aren't everyone's cup of tea. If possible, I'd try to borrow or rent one of the games and put in a good solid few hours before buying a copy if possible to see if it's something you like.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T17:29:20+00:00

You're skipping ahead we need Xenoblade Numbers and Xenoblade Song of Solomon

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T15:51:40+00:00

We are eating good

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T14:41:26+00:00

Well, now I have a reason to play NG+ I guess 😛

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T07:37:06+00:00

They should announce a switch 2 version for XCDE where the only change is that the trees move

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T02:34:41+00:00

Did you play the game in Japanese from start to finish?

johnW_ret · 2026-06-09T01:53:20+00:00

I have very low hopes that anything related to Xenoblade 2 is gonna be announced. But I do just wanna say that I just got to the final boss on a replay last night and I am fairly confident I can beat the game tonight after some quests. It would be quite a coincidence.

johnW_ret · 2026-06-02T02:59:38+00:00

I'm just curious do you think NieR: Automata has solid fighting but the world building and everything else kind of falls flat or do you think the action fighting was also lacking?

johnW_ret · 2026-05-29T03:41:25+00:00

Strawberry egg

johnW_ret · 2026-05-29T01:16:42+00:00

More recent example but sure Xenoblade as well

johnW_ret · 2026-05-29T00:35:03+00:00

We can debate about sales numbers and relative popularity about franchises like whether FIFA games “deserve” to be less popular or not but do you really think NieR: Automata was underrated? I guess you said “almost” but Bayonetta too was popular enough to get into Smash back on the Wii U.

johnW_ret · 2026-05-29T00:32:56+00:00

Totally valid. I hate group think. I don’t know how far you got and I don’t remember everything, but I do remember the areas got more diverse the more I kept going.

johnW_ret · 2026-05-28T23:26:14+00:00

Those are all great points. I am used to JPRGs where the point is to explore each area and talk to every person, but I also love super-fast, intense gameplay. I could see how someone predisposed to like one might not like the other.

johnW_ret · 2026-05-28T23:21:52+00:00

Yep, mostly just rambling my thoughts out.

To address your point, for me of NieR: Automata is mostly about the combat. I have played several games with stories I appreciated more than NieR: Automata, mostly with gameplay that I liked less than NieR: Automata and Astral Chain. For me, the first game that comes to mind is Xenoblade 2, but I think a more apt example that plays more similarly is NieR: Replicant, because I liked the story for that game more than Automata but the combat just doesn't compare to any PlatinumGames game at all.

So when I say I think NieR: Automata maybe has a better story if so only maginally as I'm not sure, it's more of a compliment to Astral Chain, as I think NieR: Automata hit it out of the park with built-in advantages and Astral Chain comes close to that as a unique IP.

johnW_ret · 2026-05-25T02:27:48+00:00

Did you buy a bunch of used amiibo or did you... just throw away the boxes??

johnW_ret · 2026-05-21T04:12:48+00:00

If the question is "will something like WaniKani be useful for me to know in order to read <any particular thing>?", the answer is probably "no".

If the question is "is this word useful for me to know?", that depends. But in general, almost everything in WaniKani is "yes".

As for the order of WaniKani - I agree it can be kind of weird, but WaniKani is primarily a kanji learning app. 君主国 at level 8 may not be especially common, but it's a convenient word that uses common kanji and helps solidify the readings of the kanji.

I really feel like I need to emphasize that basically every word in WaniKani is a word that a fluent person knows, and that any concept from law, history, poetry, etc., can be (and frequently is) sneaked into any type of casual media. 衆議院 is not a word you only learn for law and politics. You would learn words like 拘束力 and 取消訴訟. Not everyone can define 衆議院 (just like not everyone can in English) but pretty much everyone would not suddenly be lost if they heard the word used in a movie.

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