Nintendo Switch

[MayImilae]

Ok, I need to rant.

Rant Warning, lots of spoilers: (Show Spoiler)

First of all, seriously, why are you doing this Monolithsoft.



Just, what. WHAT?! Seriously boobs do not work that way. Neither do spines. Oh sure, you can say she is a blade, and thus isn't "human" in the game lore, but uuuggghhhh, why are the blade women's bodies in this game weird sexualized male fantasies? Oh right, because they literally ARE sexualized male fantasies, because when a driver touches a core crystal the blade is created based on the driver that touches it. FINE game. Your lore is literally saying that these highly sexualized beings were created for and are dependent on another person. You have made sex slaves. Great job.

Especially when you literally force the player to create them. Just walking through town, and go, oh our numbers are really low, you should use this core crystal I had in my pocket to make new sentient life, and everyone, including the blade standing right there, doesn't question this. What the fudge? So you can just create life whenever you want, life that is dependent on you mind, just on the fly, for a weird (and optional) mechanic? And you are creating this generic person who has no personality and the player is inevitably going to ignore, especially since they were force to make them.

And yea, forced, as part of a forced tutorial. Just walking through town, wanting to save a character I really like? Oh no, we have to stop that, we have this mechanic to show you! This has happened a dozen times now, and I'm so sick of it! In Xenoblade 1, it had pop ups sure, but it integrated its tutorials with quests. You still had control as you went through the thing it wanted to introduce you to. Sure they could gate you in to require you to do it sometimes, but you still had control. It didn't interrupt you and force you to do this thing before you could move on. Not only is this less intrusive, but it also just better because the player is controlling the actions and thus will remember more about the process. By forcing you to do it when you want to be doing something else, the player is not going to remember it. Not to mention being forced to do something is not going to make them enjoy it when they first try it, thus they are less likely to want to engage in that mechanic in the future. Just, ugh, this is terrible design Monolithsoft. Breath of the Wild (which you contributed to!) got this right, using the same technique you used in Xenoblade 1, what happened!

And finally the characterizations. Nia is great, she stands up for herself and feels like a genuine person! Pyra is... well, she has yet to disagree with anyone, but she also saved Rex's life and is directing the main quest, and they are hinting that she has her own agenda that she isn't revealing. I'm hopeful here! There's a lot of potential. But...

With the whole driver/blade relationship there are SO many moral questions about the Rex/Pyra. Like, Pyra saved Rex's life and gave him the Aegis, only when he'd agree to join her mission. Ok, this is good. But immediately afterwards, the villain was like "This boy has seized the power of the Aegis!" Uuuggghhh. And then this happened.



Come ooooonnn! I'm glad she seems to have her own secret agenda (which she may not! she may very well have just fallen in love with rex at first sight or some nonsense, but, optimism), but they are two people who just met eachother. Sure they helped eachother through a scary situation, sure they are now allies trying to save the world, but they certainly bonded pretty friggin fast! Relationships are messy! It takes time and awkwardness to sort out boundaries! Fine, so Pyra "read his heart" or something, but that is hella awkward on its own! And even if Pyra knows everything Rex knows, that doesn't establish the mutual trust that is a relationship. Well, I just hope that the hidden agenda angle is what they are going for with her. That she is being extra nice to him and a bit passive because there are critical things she's not telling him. Because so far, they became way too friendly way too fast.

Alright, that's everything. I'm an optimist, so I'm really hopeful that they'll reveal really complicated and interested character dynamics later on. The Rex and Pyra relationship could still be fantastic! But there are already so many things wrong with this game. I'm really hoping that Xenoblade 1 wasn't an accidental masterpiece. I guess we'll see!