Board 8 > Xenoblade Chronicles Torna topic (Unmarked spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Didn't think I was going to be starting this with Elden Ring, but I'll have time where I can play but don't have PS5 access, so I'm sliding this in.

I have so far done just the tutorial fight. IMMEDIATE notes.

-Being able to switch between the Driver and Blade is VERY welcome. Can't wait to get to the meat of this.

-Cutscenes are already clearly better directed. Same with the voice acting. I think I'll actually stick with the dub for the moment.

-Game seems to be slightly better looking than XB2, can't speak for performance yet obviously. It's cheating with this big dirt jpeg on the ground though, even if it still looks pretty good under the grass lol

Looking into the menu now, I'm assuming read guard arts are automatic?

Torna battle theme tho

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Looking into the menu now, I'm assuming read guard arts are automatic?

i think so

Oh right I forgot to mention that even though it was the first thing that hit me.

The battle theme is so good???

The main battle theme for the two main games are totally forgettable within their soundtracks. This one is JAMMIN'

Yesss I don't have to refine Blade Accessories.

Xenoblade Expansion Story battle themes are so jazzy, same goes for Future Connected

Adam's voice is.....unexpected!

Mythra's VA is doing a MUCH better job here already though.

Isn't it the same voice? He had a few lines in the main game.

It may be, but they never show what he looks like in XB2.

Thank you glorious Nopan who gives me the Mythra tights costume right at the start.

You are the true Heropon.

5 hours in, wild.

Already this game is just slamming all over XB2 proper. A lot of it has to do with how much more appealing the structure is to me. Knowing I'm not long to have dozens gacha blades and hundreds of affinities to worry about means I'm actually super invested in the charts and quests. The more limited scope is doing a much better job sucking me in. With XB2 I just could not bring myself to care because there was too much shit.

Combat is insanely fun with the red health system, and knowing when to switch. Being able to do a 3 blade combo with any path helps, though I do wish there was some indicator of the "true" paths still.

And the remixed Gormott music is so good. If the soundtrack continues this level of quality its easily going to be the best of the bunch.

Torna has another field theme that's absolutely an absolute favourite of mine, pretty far in

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Already this game is just slamming all over XB2 proper. A lot of it has to do with how much more appealing the structure is to me. Knowing I'm not long to have dozens gacha blades and hundreds of affinities to worry about means I'm actually super invested in the charts and quests.

I feel this 100% - it's truly insane how enormously the game is improved immediately by removing gacha. That's not even the extent of Torna's improvements, of course, but man the decision to have gacha in a single player game is still one of the most baffling design decisions I've ever seen.

So these topics have inspired me to finally go back and finish XBC1. I've quit twice now at the Fallen Arm so now I'm gonna finish it up.

Gacha the best, better than all the rest

I agree with the rest of it however

Never use gacha blades and it's never a problem!

I haven't played Future Connected, but the battle music in it is very good too.

But yeah, combat in Torna swoops you in fast and lack of options really helps refine the experience. And still, it ends up being a pretty long game by itself.

Torna is great. There's one problem with it (hope you like sidequests) but otherwise really solid.

XBC2 was full of dumb stuff, but I really liked the blade/driver stuff. At times I feel like it was a 9/10 game, other times I feel like I'm being generous at 7/10. I think about it very favorably, at the same time some of my stronger memories are the bad parts of the game.

I'm playing Future Connected, it's really nice.

I've been meaning to replay Torna, just haven't gotten around to it. If it wasn't for Forbidden West this topic would've prompted me to do it right now lol

The smaller scale makes it so I don't mind sidequests as well. Again, having more focused content makes all the difference in the world.

XB2 was a total bait and switch on the sidequests, too. XB1 had 400 quests and XB2 has around 120 or so. Obviously way lower right? However, most XB1 sidequests take a couple of minutes, and they didn't chain as a single quest either: when you finish a stage of a quest, you start a whole new quest on that 400 count. Once you get out of the starting areas of XB2, some quests can take half an hour plus, or you have to continue them throughout the whole game. They also may have several stages, meaning a single quest in XB2 may cover the same amount of content as 5 quests in XB1 did.

Yeah XB2 has bad side quests just like XB1 but the blade quests are actually good for people who care about doing side quests. They have actual stories with voice acted resolution cut scenes.

I mean they're nothing groundbreaking but they're miles above any of the quests in XB1.

I enjoyed XB2 and bought Torna but I was so burnt out after XB2 that I gave up after a few hours. I sold XB2 but apparently you can still play Torna? I already read all of the plot spoilers but maybe I'll actually play it one day.

Oh man they're using the same VA work from the flashback in XB2 for the same scene in Torna and it's so obvious.

Everyone sounds worse!

Lora is so good.

I hope nothing bad ever happens to her.

Lora for Smash!

Bump

Sorry yeah, I've had it on the back burner. I beat Elden Ring today though so it's back on the menu.

....I have to get the community to level 4?

Uhhhh.

Hmmm.

yeahhhh that's the part that a lot of people complain about and where I felt Torna would hit you unfortunately

for me personally I didn't even know it was a thing because I was doing all sidequests anyways

Can you get to level 4 before that check? I think I did all the quests that were available and still ran into that check.

I think so but am not 100% since it's been a while. I think I recall immediately triggering the cutscene and worrying if I'd be missing NPC dialogue from before it or something silly like that.

I have done every single sidequests in the game until this point except for the ones that just opened up and I JUST hit level 2.

Like I don't even see how getting to 4 is possible.

xp1337 posted...

I think so but am not 100% since it's been a while. I think I recall immediately triggering the cutscene and worrying if I'd be missing NPC dialogue from before it or something silly like that.

Maybe you are thinking of the first Community level check. That one you can clear before it comes up which leads to one scene directly feeding into a second scene without a break and it's a bit awkward.

Definitely possible.

I'm about to start a 5 day vacation so it's not like this is going to be a major problem logistically, but what a baffling decision.

You were warned!

At least the side quests are generally of better quality than the abreast from xbc2

Done.

Wow, what a hard nut to crack.

I don't think I've ever played a game that was such a tight, compact RPG that appealed to me so much, only to completely drop the ball in an unforgivable way. Right before the end they force 3 hours of pain right down your throat. It killed all drive I had to be completionist about the skill tree, and a few quests in to that chunk I realized I was going to have to skip every sidequests cutscene or I was going to quit and finish the game on Youtube.

Its a fantastic piece of content and the best XB thing, but it went from a 9.5/10 to maybe an 8/10 because of that terrible decision.

The force side quests thing is an unfortunate misstep. But, I'm glad to hear you had a glowing opinion about the rest.

Yes, as I get further away from finishing and get over how I had to drawl through busy work with the sound off while watching Law & Order for 3 hours, I think I'll be able to stick to just the positive thoughts. It really was VERY good besides that part.

I love the final bit of content, as just before the boss fight you climb up that set of stairs to one of my favourite lookout locations of the series where you can see the full Torna titan / continent and I love it - even more after my first thought getting there: "... I wonder if you can just jump down...."

and then the ending which is just really emotionally devastating particularly with Mythra's freakout and seeing Milton, then bringing in Pyra in the next scene

I will though say after it finished I did still have some frustration for what felt like many loose ends between both games, and also Amalthus is still really unsatisfying.

I did really like the quick bit of Amalthus putting all those deaths in motion. I don't recall anything about that King's brother every being mentioned in XB2 though. There were definitely some loose ends including that.