1.5/5 ★ – NiondeFelet's review of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I have spent 177 hours playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2; it's my third most played game on the Switch. That is genuinely insane, and something I struggle to fully grasp. I really liked the first game and count X as one of my all time favourites. And I suppose I really wanted to like 2. But at some point, I've had to come to terms with the fact that I spent many, many hours hate-playing this game, a well and truly wasteful activity. It's difficult to reflect on, I mean it happened, but I'm still not quite sure how. I should note that I'm unsure whether or not the Torna DLC, a much more positive experience, is counted among those 177 hours. And the main game is a fairly lengthy affair on it's own, but even then that's a lot of extra hours poured into optional side content for a game I have very little positive to say about. I suppose I like some of the presentational elements. The music is fantastic, the world design has a lot going for it, and there are plenty of good performances by the voice actors, both serious and hammy. Morag is also a standout design, and a pretty good character overall. She is, however, the only member of the cast I like. The rest are either constantly undermined by the script and camera framing, don't really mature properly throughout the game in a way that matches the tone of the story, or just don't leaving any lasting impact. The main character Rex is your typical shonen well intentioned hot-head, which is fine, but he becomes a narrative black hole anytime the game wants to do a big emotional moment. This is all enough to sink the game on it's own, but what really scrunches up any joy that the game had left are the gacha mechanics. Combat and exploring are tied to gathering "Blades" - party members that also serve as your weapons. These are rewarded randomly, with some having a very low drop rate. To properly explore the overworld you need certain Blades with certain skills, and you have no control over getting these specifically. What's more, is that more special Blades all come with their own special side quests meaning a lot of content is locked behind these random drops. I guess this was meant to make each players playthrough feel unique, but all it successfully accomplishes is an inescapable sense of padding for a game that's long enough as it is. I'm sure some might find enough in this game to forgive it's flaws, but to me this was a regrettable experience. It's an emotionally immature wet fart of a story that fancies itself an epic, and no amount of cool world building ideas can save it.