Even if there is a hidden second half of the game where the story gets good, uh...it strikes me as really poor design to, y’know, hide it.

And even if it were true... an entire second half of a game that’s “easy to miss” is atrocious game design.

I really liked Xenoblade 2, (not as much as the first, by a long shot), but this... I couldn’t even make it through the demo. The battle system was pretty good, and the graphics and music were nice, but the rest of the trappings were just sooo dull.

Actually, most other reviews are more or less the same. The gameplay is great, but the lack of party interactivity hampers the story a lot.

Did you miss the context on purpose?

Jason’s point was that the grinding *felt* like grinding because the game’s narrative wasn’t picking up the slack and making him want to do it.

In his defense, his priority on narrative quality aligns with mine, and his negative points on the Xenoblade games line up with my experience - their stories are boring cliches, their characters are flat, and they have a complete disrespect for the player’s time. From what I’ve read / heard so far, the complaints…

They didn’t say the game was terrible. They said that it was awful that that the other characters you bring along don’t interact with the actual story in any way, and I agree with that sentiment. One my favorite aspects of RPGs is seeing how the characters interact with each other. It never had to be novels or…

so...you complete each of the 8 individual stories and then the game just ends? there’s nothing after that? that does sound incredibly bizarre. I pre-ordered the game, and i’m gonna play it cuz i loved the demo, but these articles do make me concerned that they messed up any sense of an actual primary plot.

This would be a deal breaker for me too. Squeenix has us in a bit of a catch-22 at this point, in my opinion. They’re releasing these “old-school” games now. The world runs on capitalism, so they expect us to vote with our wallets. If we don’t buy the games, they will be less inclined to make more. The question is,…

wow that is ...awful.... 

Yeah, which is a damn shame. It was about time for Square Enix to redeem themselves with an awesome retro-style RPG. The fact that it was on the Switch was the icing on the cake. I was almost ready to forgive them for FFXIII.

I know this is an extremely common worry/complaint, but I really worry about the lack of interaction between characters as the game goes on. I thought for sure this would just be a problem at the beginning, but the more I play the demo and the more I read, it’s looking like it’s 8 almost completely separate games in…

See this is what will ultimately make me decide to not pick up the game, and what some games journalism outlets (not this one) were incorrectly assuming about the game. I definitely read in multiple places - again, not on kotaku - that the characters’ storylines would converge and collectively become part of a larger…

Sounds like a chore more than fluid storytelling.

LABO cardboard BFG PLZ

your ignorance is showing

Nah, gyro aiming is way more accurate than straight twin-sticks.

Shitposts like yours are so much more obnoxious than any port begging.

Yeah I know. Shame it doesn’t auto translate the game to English too.

So give us XX.