u/Mindless-Shirt-8450

This post contains major spoilers for the entire game.

I'd also like to prefice, at the time of writing, this is my first XC game and I haven't played the DLC yet - so kindly don't spoil the others, or the DLC for me. I feel so blessed I got to experience this blind and would love to continue that. ❤️

I genuinely never expected to be writing this. Back in 2014, I was a teenager in sixth form playing Smash 4 on the 3DS. One of the big new characters was Shulk. My reaction was basically:

"Great. Another generic anime boy."

I hated anime growing up. I thought it was cringe, I didn't understand the appeal, and Xenoblade Chronicles was completely outside my radar. "I'm really feeling it!" became a huge meme among my friends, and I remember thinking:

"I don't know what Xenoblade Chronicles is, bruh, but I'm never playing that corny garbage."

Fast forward several years. I met my now-wife, who is heavily into Naruto, and she played a huge part in getting me into anime. Anime aesthetics also started appearing everywhere - League of Legends, other games, media in general - and eventually I stopped seeing it as this weird, alien thing I didn't understand.

Then Smash Ultimate came around. Pyra and Mythra were announced. "Who the fuck are these people?" Xenoblade Chronicles? "Isn't that the game with the corny 'I'm really feeling it' kid?"

But I couldn't deny that I really liked their designs, and playing them in Smash was ridiculously fun. So eventually I thought:

"Fine. I'll try Xenoblade Chronicles 2."

I went into it with basically no expectations. I didn't even know it was a romance story. Holy shit.

---

I have never experienced a game like this

I've played a lot of games that I consider masterpieces.

Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3. Final Fantasy IX. Persona 3 and 5. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. Resident Evil 4. Bloodborne.

I've cried at games before, plenty and often. But I have never cried as consistently throughout a game's cutscenes as I did with XC2. This game somehow hit me emotionally over and over again. There were scenes that made me unbelievably happy. Scenes that broke my heart. Scenes that made me sit there afterwards just thinking about what I'd watched.

I'm an emotional person anyway, but something about XC2's characters and the way it tells their stories just got underneath my skin. And Mythra in particular completely blindsided me.

I wasn't expecting her story to resonate with me as much as it did. The way she talks about herself, her guilt, her belief that the world would be better without her, and the way she struggles to accept that she deserves love... It was genuinely painful to watch.

And then Rex comes along and basically refuses to accept the premise that she needs to become somebody else to be worthy of love. He already loves Pyra by this point. Then he learns that Pyra and Mythra are inseparable. And instead of looking at Mythra and saying "I prefer Pyra, the nice version of you," he essentially says:

"Without you, Pyra doesn't exist. I love you too."

That completely destroyed me. Because Mythra's entire arc is, in part, about learning that the person she actually is deserves to be loved. And then she finally gets that.

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The combat

I also absolutely fell in love with the combat. Initially I found it confusing as hell. You know, auto attack cancelling like that one youtube guide recommends, but not feeling like I was really doing any damage.

It looks a bit like MMO combat at first glance, but that comparison only goes so far. There are so many layers built on top of that basic structure that eventually it becomes its own completely unique language.

It reminded me of Metal Gear Solid in a weird way.

MGS has controls and systems that are incredibly intuitive once you've learned them, but the knowledge doesn't necessarily transfer directly to another game. XC2 feels like that. At first you're thinking:

"What the fuck am I supposed to be doing?"

And then something clicks.

You understand Driver combos. You understand Blade combos. You understand elemental orbs. You understand Chain Attacks.

And suddenly you're not thinking about the individual mechanics anymore. You're just playing. One of my favourite gaming moments this year was the final fight against Aion. I had him down to around 40% health and started a Chain Attack. I put four orbs on him, basically thinking:

"Maybe this will be enough."

I had absolutely no idea I was about to trigger Full Burst. The most I'd ever done was 3 in a row. And then the massive finisher happened. I just sat there thinking:

"WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST DO?"

It felt incredible because I hadn't been told to do it. I had organically discovered something powerful through actually understanding the combat.

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The world

I think this is where XC2 really became special to me. Alrest feels like a real place. The game spends so much time making you travel through these enormous environments that you can sometimes genuinely think:

"Jesus Christ, there's a lot of walking."

And now I wouldn't change that for anything. Because the walking is part of the scale. Tantal is probably the best example.

There are moments where you're looking down from enormous heights and the game gives you that ridiculous sense of verticality. I actually got that weird jelly feeling in my legs looking down.

You're not just being told that this place is enormous. You're physically traversing it, and the Titans make the world even more memorable.

You're not simply visiting a desert. You're standing on a gigantic living creature. You're not simply climbing a mountain. You're traversing an enormous Titan while the Cloud Sea stretches out beneath you. You're not just going to the World Tree. You spend a huge amount of the game actually getting there.

And I initially complained about that too. But eventually I realised that was the point. The game wants you to understand the magnitude of what you're doing.

By the time you're climbing the World Tree, you've spent so long travelling through Alrest that reaching the top actually feels like a monumental journey.

And then you reach Elysium and it's a fucking desert. It genuinely broke my heart.

Rex and Mythra had spent so long dreaming about reaching this beautiful paradise, and when they finally got there... there was nothing. It felt like their dream had shattered.

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The music

I think the soundtrack is a massive part of why Alrest became so memorable to me. The music doesn't just accompany the locations. It makes them feel like places.

Gormott has a feeling. Uraya has a feeling. Mor Ardain has a feeling. Tantal has a feeling. Leftheria has a feeling. The World Tree has a feeling. The soundtrack gives each of these places an identity that sticks in your head.

It reminds me a little of Ratchet & Clank in that completely different worlds can feel like distinct places you're actually travelling through, rather than just another level.

And this is probably why the ending affected me as much as it did - because I didn't just feel like I was finishing a game, I felt like I was leaving somewhere.

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The ending

I genuinely thought Mythra was dead. And I was fucking devastated. When Pneuma sacrifices herself and Rex says goodbye, I was crying my eyes out. And the thing that really hurt wasn't just losing a fictional character.

It brought up that horrible thought of eventually losing the people you love in real life. I remember thinking about my wife. I remember thinking about how one day you can lose someone you love, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

And then Mythra says goodbye to Rex. And I thought:

"She's really gone."

That destroyed me. I actually shouted "No" at the television, when she was telling him he had to leave her, as sad as that sounds.

Then she comes back. And obviously I was overjoyed. But that moment of believing she was gone still hurt. And then there's the fact that the entire world gets destroyed. The Alrest I had spent the entire game travelling through was gone. Yes, the people survived. Yes, the future was still there.

But that specific world I'd spent 60 hours inhabiting was gone. That left me with this bizarre feeling after finishing the game. I wasn't just satisfied. I was sad that it was over.

---

I've never wanted a game to continue this badly.

Normally when I finish a game I love, I think "that was fucking incredible." Then I move on. When I finished Resident Evil 4, I remember thinking:

"Yep. That was perfect. It ended just when it needed to. Perfect pacing."

But XC2 was completely different. I started feeling sad that it was ending before it had even ended. By Chapter 9, I was already thinking:

"Aw man... it's nearly over."

The only other game that ever gave me that feeling was Bloodborne, around Micolash's tower. I remember thinking:

"Aw, it's nearly over. I don't want this to end."

But XC2 took that feeling and multiplied it because I'd spent around 60 hours living alongside these characters. I actually found myself wishing I could experience it for the first time again. When I finished it, I felt like I had an XC2-shaped hole in my heart. So I came back immediately.

I finished the game and immediately started Torna because I wasn't ready to leave the world yet - but it wasn't the same. The combat isn't as flawless. But most importantly, Rex and Mythra arent together there. ;( So I went back to my save file and im clearing up missed content, filling in affinity charts and stuff.

And I'll do NG+ once I've actually gotten round to finishing Torna, as I do want to experience what it has to offer. It sounds silly, but it actually feels like a bit too much for me right now to experience the trauma that Mythra holds close to her heart for the entire story in real time. Even things like having the group shout at her for being reckless in the first quests, where I left off, make me sad.

I'm deliberately going to take my time this time. I'm not rushing through the story. I'm just going to live in Alrest, whilst it still exists. :'(

Right now, in the postgame, I'll stand in Torigoth with my party while the music plays and suddenly feel emotional because I remember being there the first time.

Those early scenes that happened only a week ago somehow feel like they happened a lifetime ago. That's something I think games rarely accomplish - it certainly isn't something that happens for me.

XC2 created such a strong sense of place, time and companionship that I actually developed nostalgia for a fictional world while I was still playing it.

I've never played another game that made me feel like I lived somewhere. I've never been this attached to a game's characters. I've never been this sad to leave a fictional world.

I've never cried this consistently over a game's story. I've also never finished a game and immediately wanted to go back simply because I missed being there.

So yeah. Maybe it's recency bias. But I experience recency bias a lot, and this feels different. I'm usually over it by now.

Maybe I've officially become the exact Xenoblade fan my younger self would have made fun of in Smash lobbies. But right now, boys...?

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the best game I've ever played.

And I'm really fucking glad Pyra and Mythra got added to Smash.

Concerns with Xenoblade X's Story

Cant Believe I Cried

Hot take: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the best game I've ever played.