I like the jokes in the trophy list, tbh.
Half of the time when I'm in a battle and I'm using a bunch of offensive people, I wish I had the chance to tag someone like Elise in like I did in Xillia 1 for extra support. It feels like a huge step backwards. Swapping on the fly was incredibly beneficial to the player because it allowed you to change the dynamic of the party at any time you wanted, and it allowed you to switch up whether or not you wanted to go in an all-out-offensive attack or if you wanted to be defensive and rely on support. That is what I liked a lot about Xillia 1's system. Taking that away in Xillia 2 feels limiting.
At least Link Arte chains are way easier to pull off because you can just keep switching people and using the R stick in any direction to keep the chain going until the gauge depletes.
Shouta said:
Some areas are recycled but since I didn't just run through them, it doesn't hurt as much.
I feel the opposite. I explored every nook and cranny and Xillia 1 (and Xillia 1's EX dungeon certainly does not help because you're going through the maps
yet again, and you have to do it
three times to completely beat the EX Dungeon), and here I am doing it yet again for cats, E. Cores, random junk I can use for Custom Orders, trying to fill in the map for quick travel with R3, etc. It gets... boring.
When I compare this to something like FFX-2, sure, I can criticize the recycled areas in that game. FFX-2 wasn't all recycled areas, though. There were a bunch of new dungeons (ex: Bevelle Underground, that Trema dungeon which was cool, the LM stuff, part of the Mt. Gagazet extension, that Vermin dungeon, the chocobo dungeon, etc.), and you weren't told "go through these areas first before you're able to Quick-Travel to them" because they knew you'd already gone through those areas in the first game, so why bother making the player do something he/she did in the previous game? It's repetitive. The general design (ie: the part where they let you loose at the end of the chapter to accrue money) at that point in Xillia 2 is kind of baffling when you take that perspective into consideration. We can certainly play devil's advocate here and say that trudging through those areas again is also optional, but it doesn't feel that way sometimes when you have to make a minimum payment for the debt in order to progress.
The issue with the debt system isn't necessarily not being able to clear the debt because 20 M spacebucks is a hell of a lot of money, it's that you need to deliver a minimum payment in order to progress to the next chapter. Instead of giving the player the minimum payment at the beginning of the chapter so he/she will know that they need to accrue that money to progress, they give you the objective at the end, which breaks up the pacing entirely. It's like it was an afterthought and used for padding the game out rather than weaving it into the game's chapters seamlessly.
*realizes she should say something nice* Oh. I do think Custom Orders are better executed here than they were in Abyss. They're easier to handle and because sparklies/bags replenish themselves on the fields often, you can easily get a bunch of supplies to make better weapons. I barely ever used Din's Shop in Abyss because I felt like it was a waste of time.
'. And everyone's fine with that. Really? I ended up feeling sympathetic towards Bisley, much as I hated what he did using Elle it was amazing how little anyone else seemed bothered by what all the Crusniks had to go through (you've collected them all? Congratulations, now go kill someone, just because.) because of how the whole thing was set up. Ludger just didn't get a break, not one.
13 more Friend Link S and the trophy is mine.
At least I'd be able to in the future IF I happen to change my mind again.
