162 hours, 24 minutes and 44 seconds. I was right when I said
last that there was
not much left to do and that the end of my run was nigh. After having maxed out
all my Rare Blades' affinity charts, I went back to the story and quickly found
myself facing the last boss. It turned out that my crew towered a good 30 levels
over said last boss, which made that ultimate showdown a complete cinch of a
fight. I was a trifle disappointed by that easy victory, so I tried again in
Normal Mode; that didn't make the fight any harder, just considerably longer.
I'm glad I played the whole game in Easy Mode and saved myself copious amounts
of fighting; had I played in Normal, I would probably still be stuck in Mor
Ardain.
That being said, I'm a bit saddened by this abrupt ending; because the truth is
that I wanted to play more. I wanted to fulfill more sidequests, grind more
Rare Blades, explore more dungeons and areas, kill more Unique Monsters. Of
course, I could still tackle a New Game +, which comes with heaps of benefits
and lets you carry over pretty much everything you've gained over the course of
your first run; but with the game being still so incredibly fresh in my mind, I
just don't feel like restarting right now — all the less so as I already restarted
the game a couple of weeks ago. So I'll just leave it at that for the time
being, and carefully preserve my save file for a future playthrough on
steroids.
My, what a fine playthrough this was. I love everything about that game,
from the thrilling fighting system to the enchanting atmosphere, without
forgetting the sidequests, Rare Blade management and dungeon crawling. I only
have three real beefs with XC2, and I'll mention them quickly for
fairness' sake:
- The soundtrack: Yeah, I know everybody raves about that game's OST, and even I have to admit that we're dealing with high-class music there; however, that stellar soundtrack didn't make me feel anything. I cannot even think of a track that I genuinely liked from beginning to end. But hey, that's just me, not the music itself; it's similar to the way Mozart leaves me cold while Bach makes me feel all mushy inside.
- The graphics: It's no secret that I'm a retro whore and that I abhor photorealism in video games. Monolith Soft's attempt at photorealism in XC2 obviously doesn't sit well with me: not only does it make the game boring to look at, but it also interferes with the gameplay. It's much less pleasant and cathartic to kill realistic-looking foes than highly pixelated ones: it ruins that sweet, sweet RPG immersion and leaves you soon wandering why the heck you're slaughtering the whole fauna of the world you're supposed to care for.
- The story (SPOILERS): Too much nonsensical fluff, too many deus ex machina, too many cheesy lines, too much telling instead of showing, too much eye-rolling emotional porn, too many ideas lifted straight from Gunnm (up to the orbital station connected to the planet by an elevator). That story was bloated beyond belief and could have used some serious shearing. Just drop the whole Torna shebang, Jin and his shitty crew, the war from 500 years ago that no one cares about and Pyra's useless alter egos; the search for Elysium in order to save humanity from a certain death, spearheaded by a Pyra who just wanted to go back home, would have been more than enough to carry that game all the way through. All the sparing and political intrigues between regions would have provided ample amounts of bosses (cue Bana's scheming and the Tirkin 'conspiracy'), and the story would have been much more mature and elegant. And we could have had an touching reunion between Pyra and Rex at the end, instead of seeing him fidget and ponder which girl he should hug and kiss first. (END OF SPOILERS)
But make no mistake, dear fellow gamers: XC2's pros largely outweight
its cons in my book. I could rave on endlessly about the things I love in that
gem of a game: the icy, etheral landscape of Tantal and its high-level monsters
that only appear when the land is shrouded in fog, the auroras in Leftheria,
the dusty grittiness of Mor Ardain, the way huge weapons feel genuinely heavy
when your MC swings them, the flexibility of the fighting system that lets you
mix and match fighting options and play it your way (I was all about Driver
Combos during my first run, and rolled solely with Blade Combos during my
second run), the highly adjustable difficulty level, my sidekicks' stellar
intelligence in battle (my jaw dropped when I first realized that they could switch
Blades on their own — I didn't even think that was possible!), the
mouth-watering names of all the food on offer, the mellow vibe at night, the
fact that I could fight the last boss with Morag instead of Rex — and many,
many more things. It's safe to assume that I'll replay XC2 at some
point, all the more so as my Switch library is shaping up to be quite tiny
indeed. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
162 hours...
How do people rack up so many hours when I had to struggle to crack the
100-hour mark? The rare blade quests were just too much work for me, that's
probably what the problem was.
Will you be getting the "Torna - The Golden Country" expansion? I
welcome more XC2 content but didn't care about Torna AT ALL so I can't decide.
For me, it was
most definitely the sidequests. And the fighting. I loved the fighting system
so much that I went out of my way to kill stuff pretty much all the time.
"Hey, that Ardainian soldier gave me a side look-let's kick his ass!"
"Oh, that wolf stood in my way-let's destroy it and its whole brood!"
You get the idea. ^^
Although I would have taken more XC2 content gladly, I certainly won't buy the
Torna expansion. Not only do I despise DLC, season packs and the like, but the
Torna part of the story was one I would have loved to see excised. There's no
way I'm spending one more second with Jin and his emo crew. :P
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