Ok, I know I've talked about Xenoblade 2 a lot here but, I need to rant. No spoilers or anything.
Xenoblade 2 is not a good game.
Emphasis on game. The narrative is great, the music is SOOO good, the characters and worlds are very good (poor character design aside), and I want to play it to see how the narrative plays out. But this is a video game, and the majority of ones time in the game is spent *playing* said game. And playing the later parts of this game is awful. Sure gameplay was okish earlier in the game, but it gets worse, and worse, and worse. And not simply an increase in challenge, oh no, that would be fine, I mean less refined, more punishing, and more broken. The balancing and difficulty curve have fallen apart! I'm in a stretch of the game nearish to the end (chapter 7) where it's been one disaster after another. Despite tons of grinding and being obscenely over-leveled, the game is punishing and brutal; dripping narrative as slowly as it can between awful, unfair, punishing, unfun padding. Today I finally cleared a really difficult boss (12 levels above and I still required luck to win), then after a few hours of play (including lots of side quests and even more leveling!) I was hit with yet another difficulty spike, and its even beyond all of the leveling I did so I have to do yet more grinding. UGH! That's like the 7th one in the bloody game, and the second one I've hit in the past day! There is only so far a great narrative can carry bad gameplay, especially in the era of streaming and letsplays.
For the past week or so, I haven't enjoyed most of Xenoblade 2. Sure there were some good moments here and there with the characters and narrative, but the majority of it has been spent grinding. If our PS4 didn't break, I'd just be playing Horizon Zero Dawn and probably wouldn't touch Xenoblade 2 again. Honestly, I still might just get another game anyway to tide me over until the PS4 is repaired...
If only Xenoblade 2 had a Story difficulty like Horizon Zero Dawn. Every game should have that!
Xenoblade 2 is not a good game.
Emphasis on game. The narrative is great, the music is SOOO good, the characters and worlds are very good (poor character design aside), and I want to play it to see how the narrative plays out. But this is a video game, and the majority of ones time in the game is spent *playing* said game. And playing the later parts of this game is awful. Sure gameplay was okish earlier in the game, but it gets worse, and worse, and worse. And not simply an increase in challenge, oh no, that would be fine, I mean less refined, more punishing, and more broken. The balancing and difficulty curve have fallen apart! I'm in a stretch of the game nearish to the end (chapter 7) where it's been one disaster after another. Despite tons of grinding and being obscenely over-leveled, the game is punishing and brutal; dripping narrative as slowly as it can between awful, unfair, punishing, unfun padding. Today I finally cleared a really difficult boss (12 levels above and I still required luck to win), then after a few hours of play (including lots of side quests and even more leveling!) I was hit with yet another difficulty spike, and its even beyond all of the leveling I did so I have to do yet more grinding. UGH! That's like the 7th one in the bloody game, and the second one I've hit in the past day! There is only so far a great narrative can carry bad gameplay, especially in the era of streaming and letsplays.
For the past week or so, I haven't enjoyed most of Xenoblade 2. Sure there were some good moments here and there with the characters and narrative, but the majority of it has been spent grinding. If our PS4 didn't break, I'd just be playing Horizon Zero Dawn and probably wouldn't touch Xenoblade 2 again. Honestly, I still might just get another game anyway to tide me over until the PS4 is repaired...
If only Xenoblade 2 had a Story difficulty like Horizon Zero Dawn. Every game should have that!
![[Image: RPvlSEt.png]](https://i.imgur.com/RPvlSEt.png)
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