I have been meaning to review this game for ages now. It came out at the end of last year but when ever I was coming up to a modern game to review, other things just seemed more appropriate at the time. because of that I have over 100 hours in this (just let that sink in as a recommendation).

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a JRPG (meaning Japanese Role Playing Game, which became a category after the majority of western rpgs all started using the exact same designs) and sequel to the cult classic Wii game Xenoblade Chronicles.  As it’s a JRPG the story is VERY long and to go into too much detail would cause massive spoilers so I’ll try and be brief.

Rex lives on the world of Alrest, a world coated by the cloud sea (which don’t worry you can easily swim in). People live on the backs of giant titans, some are the size of ships, others countries. However time has gone on and the titans start dying out. Rex is a salvager who dives deep into the cloud sea to pick  up scrap and treasure. One day he’s given a job by the OBVIOUSLY EVIL Bana a nanapon (which makes the fact that he’s evil hilarious as it’s impossible for nanapon to be threatening, you will see) and sent with the people who paid for the job –  a strange group of drivers and blades… prepare for info dump.

Takes a deep breath) In Alrest there are these things called core crystals, when used by someone deemed worthy they become sentient beings called Blades, some look human some not. A person deemed worthy is called a Driver. Blades come with weapons that their driver can use and the blade channel power into, So basically you get a good chance of getting a waifu that comes with a gun/sword/axe/insert weapon here.

On his mission Rex finds a strange blade and touches it, at which point Jin kills you (not a spoiler this was in the trailers) . The woman the blade came with shares her core crystal with Rex saving him and leading to him kicking the ass of one of the people who  tried to kill him.  The Welsh accented cat girl Nya (yes she’s a Welsh cat girl)that was on their side switches to yours since they are dicks.

Next up follows an adventure meeting Scottish accented Imperials (love the fact we have characters that aren’t dwarfs that have Scottish accents), a cute robot girl, a joke on the fantasy lead character, even more waifus (most of the rare blades were girls) and the completely unexpected twist in a JRPG of the pope turning out to be evil (this happens almost all the time in a JRPG, if there is a stand in for the pope, he’s evil).

The world in the game is huge. When you get to the first main explorable area Gormott (land of Welsh cat people that was recently conquered by Mor Ardain, land of the Scottish Imperials) you are presented with a large plane, full of amazing things… and a giant level 80 gorilla who will kill you if you get near him (and he runs about) so you know you will be coming back here over time to explore more. You have at max a party of 3 people, each with up to 3  blades assigned to them. You control one of these people while the other 2 are computer controlled in battle. The blade you are using at the time affects what abilities you have, you may have tanking, healing or damage dealing abilities. BUT you can switch between the 3 blades you have through the battle in fact as you get through the game you will have  to pull off combos to take down the stronger enemies.

New blades are acquired through getting core crystals. They come in 3 rarities plus special ones that drop from chest and enemies. Early on you can bond them to the main playable characters (except Tora the nanapon cause he gets the artificial blade Poppi). When you open one you get a random chance of it being a rare blade or a common blade. This chance is increased by the rarity of the core crystal Legendary being the most likely to get rares, but as you unlock more blades that chance drops. Special core crystals that you get through special means like quests always give a specific blade.

One of the things I love about this game is that people from different regions have actual accents, as mentioned Mor Ardain has Scottish accents and this is best expressed through my favourite character  Special Inquisitor Morag (who I use for tanking and  since that allowed me to position the bosses, often used as the player controlled one). So This means you have a game with very distinct characters, none the same, none even talking the same, going about in a diverse world to explore. Basically it’s the counter balance to the amount of games I see now a days on some consoles that all look the  same.

Watch: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Nintendo Switch Presentation 2017 Trailer

Rating:       and will keep you going for a very long time