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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Side Quests Are Terrible

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests are terrible. There, I said it. Despite being my favourite JRPG series mainly due to the first one, Monolith Soft has somehow made the sidequest system even worse than the original game. Then again, the sidequests of the Xenoblade series have never been its strong point. The only game which does them better, but still not that great, is Xenoblade Chronicles X. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has made little to no improvement from the first game’s sidequest system. Actually, it is a step backwards due to some annoying design choices. The best improvement is the convenient ZR button which allows the player to quickly see the next objective for a sidequest without needing to open the menu. The original Xenoblade Chronicles was known for having countless MMORPG style sidequests. The game has more than 400 sidequests. The advice from those who have completed the game is to not feel obligated to do any sidequests. Stop when you feel you have had enough to prevent being overwhelmed. Many of the collection sidequests are automatically completed as soon as you start the sidequest. In such circumstances, the game conveniently tells the player the quest is completed without the need for the player to manually walk back to the NPC who gave you it. This was a small touch which rewarded the player for engaging with the NPCs in the game’s amazing towns and prevented unnecessary padding. Why Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests are terrible When entering Mor Ardain, one of the many diverse and interesting towns in XC 2, there is a sidequest called ”The Nopon Mural”. The first aim of this quest is to complete a mercenary mission which require a strict set of requirements. No problem, you complete this reasonably without hassle. The minimum hassle will be caused whether or not you have invested any time in the game’s mercenary system. Which is not that good either but that’s a discussion for another day…Anyway, after completing that, you then need to head back and speak to the individual, Alisdeigh , who gave you the quest. He then instructs the player to look and decode murals on the wall in the same village of the NPC. Cool. After decoding each of the Nopon Murals, the final section of the quest is when it gets unnecessarily bothersome. The task is to simply go to Yurna The Elderwood in Uraya’s Stomach. You will be able to find the treasure but of course, there is a catch. You need a field skill – Earth Mastery. Field skills in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are abilities that each of the game’s blade are associated with. As the name implies, they allow the player to implement actions whilst exploring and observing different environmental prompts. For example, for the Nopon Murals sidequest, you will come across Murals in the Nopon language. You will need a blade with the field skill Nopon Wisdom to interpret the Murals. Further, they need to be at least the minimum level when requested. For this particular quest you need Nopon Wisdom level 3 which is realistically obtainable at this point in the game. Field skills can be thought as the Hidden Machines (HMs) in Pokemon but they are more inclined towards being optional … sort of. This is just another artificial barrier that forces the player to grind or forget about the quest completely when they need to return later to complete it. The issue with either is that this Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sidequests leads to either one of the following scenarios: a) The player is over-powered by the time they obtain Earth Mastery Level 6. Level 6 is one of the highest field skills that are unlocked in the game. It would also require having a specific blade who is earth based. So, if you happen by chance to never unlock a blade who has the skill and even if you are close to the endgame, this artificial requirement is made even worse. The second issue is that if the player needs to return to it later, chances are they will completely forget about whatever story the quest is trying to care and are less inclined to care as a result. Finally, the reward for this mundane quest is 1280 exp. This may be a proportionate amount assuming the player completes the quest during the time they first receive it. However, most players will only be able to complete it after returning with the required field skill later obtained towards the end game. Therefore, the reward of 1280 exp in such circumstances ends up being a drop in the ocean. b) If the player attempts to try and obtain Earth Mastery Level 6 at the time the quest is given, this becomes nothing but a boring grind fest. The majority of level 6 skills are the last to be unlocked. Unlocking any of the final skills is very difficult and time consuming early on in the game. They are naturally unlocked as you head towards the end of the game. Forcing yourself to unlock them early on is not recommended nor even realistically possible as the amount of time you will consume for a minuscule reward is disproportionate.The end prize for all of this? 1280 exp. By the time the player has a blade which has the necessary level 6 skill, this reward is nothing but a drop in the ocean. This is a common trend for a lot of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests, unfortunately.There is a very important side quest late game that has too much spoilers to disclose. You unlock it in Chapter 8 I believe. Those who have done it will know what I mean ; all you do is collect item X, Y and Z. You then return to the place where the sidequest was given. Guess what happens next? You are instructed to collect A, B and C next. Rinse and repeat. I am not even exaggerating. This is not the only quest where the issue persists. Another example would be the quest encountered in Temperantia. The name of the quest is Judicium’s Legacy. Here, the player must find four Black Steel Circles in the nearby area. Cool. Upon finding three of them, you will see that you need to have the field skill Ancient Wisdom at level 3. However, upon finding the final one you now all of a sudden need the same previous skill not at level 3 but at level 4. Why? This does not really give the player an enjoyable incentive to do this quest. Having a random increase in the skill needed to complete one section when the other three sections require a lower skill level does not make sense from a good design point of view. It is like opening a door then finding another door right behind it but the catch is, this time you need a key. Why have the initial door there in the first place? The quest should have been designed to stick to the same level throughout as otherwise, the sense of progression and pacing is completely broken. The player would be left wasting time in travelling to the specific area only to find out that the previous skill they were using suddenly needs a higher level now despite it being used for the exact same purpose. The best types of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests are arguably the blade quests. These are character focused side quests which explore the characters of the many diverse optional blades obtained in the game. They are also fully voiced making them, ultimately, worth doing. However, the issue with blocking the player’s progress through the artificial barriers does not do them any favors. You may enjoy the stories going on behind these blade quests but then hit a dead end because you lack a certain field skill. Therefore, by the time you return to these optional stories, the player has most likely lost with the immersion of the stories themselves. This is particular true for Azami’s blade quest called All’s Fair. You can enjoy the context and story of the quest then all of a sudden, run into a field skill of level 7 and no longer progress it. By the time you come back to the quest with the required field skill, there is little chance that the player will even know what is going on. That is the main problem.Xenoblade Chronicle’s 1 side quests were not impressive either but, at least the majority of them did not feel such drawn-out. One of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests seems to equal the length of four quests in the original game as a rough guide. However, the rewards are not necessarily proportionate to the amount of effort needed to complete them.They do consist of fetch quests such as finding items but some of the monster hunter style kill this monster quests were decent because they, obviously, focused around combat which was one of the game’s strongest points. Now that I mention it, I have yet* to come across a quest in XC2 that is simply to hunt down a specific monster, such as a unique monster, which is rather strange.Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests are basically checklists of fetch-tasks which are very tedious to complete. The rewards do not stack up at all to the effort required to complete them. Further, the character development between the NPCs is minimal and not very interesting so that weakens the reason to do them further. To conclude, Xenoblade Chronicle 2’s field skill system impedes and ruins the flow of the game’s sidequests. I hope the developers use a better system for sidequests in a sequel. The need to come back to the quests after the development of blades and field skills simply breaks the flow of the quest and increases the chances of the player forgetting (or even caring ) about what is going on. However, most importantly, the process in completing the sidequests is simply not fun. Side quests in general are difficult to implement but that’s for another Good Games Post. Side quests definitely do not belong in the best elements of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and you know what? That’s okay. The game has a lot more to offer and should be tried by anyone who owns a Nintendo Switch. Look forward to our review of XC 2 very soon, it will be our first! What is your opinion on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 side quests? Do you think they are better than the original game or Wii U’s Xenoblade Chronicles X? What ”model game” should the next Xenoblade game follow in terms of side quest designs? Let us know in the comments below!* This post was made whilst I was 75 hours into the game on chapter 8 having completed 81 sidequests.Disclaimer: The Xenoblade series is one of my favourite gaming series. It currently is my favourite JRPG series. One particular negative use of ”terrible” to describe one element does not make me think that the entire game is terrible. Stay positive!GG The post Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Side Quests Are Terrible appeared first on Good Game Posts. http://dlvr.it/QLCKqb #gg #gaming #wpugamers

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