Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Yeah, the Xenoblade games aren't really my style, they're pretty weeby indeed. Here's my unpopular opinion on them (considering most people like the first one) -
Xenoblade - A fairly typical linear JRPG with lots of melodrama. Wasn't really into it. Rewards you heavily for doing all the optional content, so as someone who wasn't into it enough to do optional content, I kept falling behind on levels and having to grind. The story is good and I like the characters, but all in all I found it very overrated. It was hurt by two things: A) Having nothing to do with the earlier Xeno games (Gears and Saga) and not even any functional similarities. B) Being on the then-outdated Wii instead of an actual HD system, so it looked meh despite the amazing art direction. The Switch version should fix the second thing at least.
Xenoblade X - Was significantly more into this one, since it has mechs/gears ala XG. Totally different from the others, you make your own character and are set loose to explore a giant open world. The mechs don't become a thing until fairly late in the game. Game feels kinda soulless compared to the others, but it also gives you tons of freedom.
Xenoblade 2 - My favorite of the series thus far, I actually got a lot out of this one. The music and story and general vibe all reminded me quite a bit of Xenogears, only without the mechs. There's some really annoying shit in the lategame like how your characters get Pokemon-esque HMs and they become a requirement at some point, meaning the game grinds to a halt if you missed something that leveled an ability enough to open a door or something. However that's the game's only real weakness. Game is also the sexiest in the series, with lots of bobs and legs on display with the various hot-ass outfits the women wear. However be warned that there's also a lot of anime bullshit like hostile women and weebyness.
Torna the Golden Country - XB2's DLC is basically its own game, and had every opportunity to be fantastic. I actually liked it more than XB2 for the first ten hours or so. However they completely fuck it up at the end by locking off the final chapter behind doing basically all of the sidequests. Have to do like 48 of them total, and the sidequests themselves are gated off into these blocks. The whole thing is a massive pain in the ass to deal with and kills all of the game's momentum in the 11th hour. Went from being my favorite thing in the Blade series to my least-favorite thing.
Xenoblade 3 - Haven't played it yet. The characters and their outfits all seem bland and generic, like they decided to make everyone look the same rather than stand out, and I think the outfits might all be genderless weirdness (after how much XB2 got blasted for having sexy women in it).
Anyway those are my unpopular opinions. Xenoblade 2 is worth playing if one likes Xenogears a lot. Xenoblade X is worth playing if one specifically likes the mech element of Xenogears a lot. Xenoblade 1 is worth playing if one wants to just start at the beginning. Torna they just kinda fucked up. Xenoblade X is totally different from the rest, has no real bearing on anything, and is a bit of an odd man out, so playing XB 1/2/3 makes sense if someone doesn't have all the time in the world and just wants to get to the point.
If anyone's got any advice on Xenoblade 3 feel free to post it, since it's at the top of my "still need to play" shortlist with Breath of the Wild and I'm sure I'll get to it sooner or later. Would be sooner if it excited me, which it didn't from what little I played of it.
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