Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch)

 It is not very often that I find a game that I will spend a long amount of time with.  Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a fun 80 hour spin.  What kept me going wasn't simply the good gameplay mechanics and wonderful characters but the sense of exploration.  There was always some new thing to discover, some new place to get to, or even some treasure to dig up.

Let me get this out of the way, I thoroughly enjoyed the game.  The combat is very complex and I never really had a firm grasp on it.  Just like the first game, it falls into the Break, Topple, Whatever cycle.  I never really had the blade setups to be able to utilize this effectively but when I did, it was satisfying.  There were a few really difficult bosses but all in all, I didn't struggle.  Of course, I had learned from my time in the first game that you shouldn't pick fights with things much higher level than you.

What really kept me going in this game was the story.  I grew to love all the characters and never really could guess what was going to happen as I went through the game.  It definitely made a little more sense as I made my way to the ending and the ending was okay.  It did lack impact but I understand why it was the way it was.  To top it all off, they really built the world.  Each area was unique and felt different.  The sense of scale was huge as you are traveling on the backs of giant Titans.  It really makes you insignificant at times, even more than the first game and just how miniscule you were against the Bionis.

To go along with the good story, characters, and setting.  The soundtrack is superb.  Each new area has a fitting theme and really helps you get into the setting more.  From the floaty Leftheria theme to the choir in Tantal, each fit perfectly.  Some of the battle or more actiony themes were awesome too.  It was always great to hear them kick in right before a super cool moment.  

In addition to the wonderful story, there are tons of side-quests.  Many are there to get you more EXP so you don't have to grind.  Which is much appreciated as combat doesn't give a whole lot of EXP to level up.  I actually got to be 2 levels higher than the last boss just doing side-quests and then sleeping at the inn.  It was a wonderful incentive.  Some of the quests were kind of annoying in that they had long tasks or confusing points to get to.  

There are also blade side-quests.  A lot of these are mandatory to continue powering up the blades you have been using.  They range from very well done to completely annoying to finish.  They help tie all the rare blades you connect to the characters.  It is a shame some take a long time to trigger or have really weird specific things you have to do to get them to trigger but for the most part, doing the ones for your favorite blades does pay off.

I really only have three complaints.  The RNG on the blade bonding was a little rough.  Burning through 30 Legendary Cores and only getting one rare blade (on the wrong character) was a little disheartening at times.  I was able to build a decent team but I ended up with a lot of really good blades on the wrong driver.  Overdrives being as rare as they are didn't help much.  This was only a minor complaint though.  It didn't stop me from progressing.

The second complaint is the map.  It was incredibly confusing at times trying to get to a specific marker.  There is no height indicator or guideline, so you can't say mark a spot you want to go to and have it guide you.  I get why but sometimes, especially in Gormott, I would get completely lost trying to get back to a place I had previously been to but couldn't remember where the tiny little opening was.  

The last complaint is also a minor one.  I won't spoil who but the last boss fight needed some tweaking.  Despite being a good level and having a good team setup, I lost twice.  The first time was due to the fact that I couldn't figure out how to hit the boss.  See, the arena is set up in a way that if you move to the logic point, the center right in front, you can't actually hit the boss for most of the fight.  If you take too long, it uses an attack that wipes you.  Once I learned that I had to move to the side of the arena, which looks farther away, I was able to consistently attack the boss.  

The second time I died was completely frustrating though.  At a certain point, the last boss summons some giant additional enemies.  These, while annoying, were mostly ignorable.  At least that's what I thought until I had almost finished off the boss and one of these enemies blew me into the air.  Then I came down outside the arena and it was instant game over. Both of these events really soured the game, right at the pivotal ending.  I had put 80 hours into this game, only to be insulted with a final boss fight that was tedious and frustrating for reasons it shouldn't have been.  

At this point in my life, I have so little time anymore to pour close to 100 hours into a game but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 kept bringing me back.  Just one more blade to get.  Just one more quest to finish.  Just one more place to discover.  It really scratched an itch I had and up until the end, I was really enjoying the game.  I even bought the DLC and will take on Torna - The Golden Country after a break.  With Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in the very near future, as of writing this, I can almost say that if they stick with the same great story and exploration, it is a surefire hit.  Monolith Soft has been putting out great games and I hold them up with giants like Falcom and Square Enix at this point.  Each game has been better than the last.  This is definitely a must play for any RPG fan. 

Mind≒0 (PSVita)

 Do you want to play a game that starts out mediocre and ends terribly?  Do you enjoy slogging through dungeons with the same enemies that are palette swapped after the first dungeon?  Do you enjoy having to cure status ailments, after each and every fight?  Then this is the game for you.

I've played a lot of RPGs but this is by far one of the most memorably bad that I've had in a very long time.  It starts with the absolutely boring story.  It starts out pretty typically but ends up just completely falling flat.  The developers obviously had plans for a sequel but that will never happen.  Which is all the same because the main character is completely unlikeable.  By the end, I just wanted to see it all end so I wouldn't have to play the game anymore.

The story and characters aren't the only terrible parts. The enemy design quickly gets re-used.  It is almost as if they gave up making new enemy models at the very start.  Get used to the enemies you see in the first couple of dungeons, because you will see slight variations of them for the rest of the game.  None of the bosses really stand out and I honestly can't remember any of them.  The dungeons are also just bland mazes that often times hide absolutely nothing in the hard to read reaches.  To make matters worse, traversing dungeons takes far too long because the encounter rate is absurdly high in some dungeons.  

The combat system is the only thing that kind of has some sense to it.  Each character has a MIND and they act as your special abilities.  When the MIND is active, it allows the character to use skills and MINDs have their own health bars or the MP bar.  When attacked, the MINDs MP bar will decrease instead of the health bar of the character.  For 90% of the game, there is no reason to not have your MIND active.  In hindsight, it is kind of short-sighted and really drags out some fights when you fight MIND-resistant enemies.  

Skills range from elemental attacks, which the game never explains which elements are weak to what.  Not that it really matters, most enemies you fight can be killed with normal attacks.  You save your big skills for bosses.  There are other support skills like buffs/debuffs, healing, etc. but for the most part, you won't use them much.  The biggest problem is that you are supposed to use skill points (SP) and duplicate cards to power up the cards you want to.  This really leads to picking a select few skills to keep leveling up until they max out and then upgrading them to the next tier and repeating.  I don't know why they felt the need to have the played use other cards and SP to level up skills, it just makes things more tedious as you will often run out of cards before maxing out the card you want.  They could have just had you spend SP, which is also decently hard to get, to level them up.  It wasn't well thought out.

I rarely call a game mediocre and in this case, I feel mediocre is too nice to call this game.  It wasn't fun after a certain point because every enemy would cause status ailments.  Sure, there are items/skills you can equip to negate these but you need every equipment slot and skill slot filled with stat boosting items to survive.  I kept count and throughout one dungeon, I was poisoned over 20 times often after every encounter.  It was really unnecessary and just made the game all the more tedious.  Do yourself a favor and don't pay this game any MIND.  I also never end things with a pun because I don't like puns but I'm going to do it here.  I dislike it that much.