Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Easy Allies Review 

I've put in 17 hours in only 3 days WHILE studying for my finals and I must say that, despite its many flaws, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a hell of a game. The combat itself is truly engaging, nothing is more satisfying than hitting that Level 3 Special Combo. As always great review Ben! Would love to hear you debate the more intricate details of the game in a Frame Trap.

Slow start, but man. Once it grabs you, it never lets go. Loving it!

150+ hours in. Story beat, starting Torna DLC. I'm so glad I took a chance on this one!

Nice review. Can't believe some of the comments here questioning Ben's integrity or whether the review is genuine, when the score pretty much mirrors the overall score from other outlets.....

11h in and minor gripes aside (blurry graphics in handheld, etc) it's a game worth playing for any switch owner that enjoys JRPGs

I'm 15 hours into this game at a point where I should rightfully be at only 10. The soundtrack is glorious and despite the negativity the english voicework is making me grin from ear to ear. Every game won't be for everyone, but I'm glad I get to mindlessly love it. L & R Ben, Great Review

Hey another pretty good review, EZA usually have a pretty positive, civil comment section too. Let me go see what they have to say. "WOW, GAEM SUKS" "HOLY SHIIT VOICE ACTING" "FUCKING WEEB GAMEW FOR WEEBS GA:SEGIHN:LDIKHG:ILEW" ...Alright, nvm, looks like I shouldn't have done that to myself. Nice review though.

I've played this game for 26 hours so far. In 3 days. It is simply phenomenal.

Man, Nintendo has just been killing it this year with the Switch. So many good titles.

This and Xenoblade Definitive Edition make an amazing Duo! The Switch has so many great games now it's hilarious!

That moment when the little anime girl sounds like a middle-aged Scottish woman

This is such a deep, engrossing and emotional game. Love it to bits :)

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has been getting some amazing review scores. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Review Scores: RPGamer- Perfect 5 Exceptional Famitsu- 35/40 NintendoLife- 9 out of 10 DualShockers- 9.5 out of 10 GBAtemp- 9.2 out of 10 RPG Fan- 90% GameXplain- Loves it! MyNintendoNews- 8.5 out of 10 SA Gamer- 8.5 out of 10 OpenCritic- 86% Mighty! RPG Site- 9 out of 10 TheSixthAxis- 9 out of 10 Trusted Reviews- 4.5 Stars out of 5 Eurogamer- Recommended! Digitally Downloaded- 4 Stars out of 5 Metacritic- 85% NintendoWorldReport- 9.5 out of 10 WeGotThisCovered- 4 Stars out of 5 USgamer- 4.5 out of 5 EPNdotTV (RU-vid)- 9 out of 10 GameRevolution- 4.5 out of 5 Attack of the Fanboy- 4.5 out of 5 Loves it! GamingBoulevard- 9 out of 10 Nintendo Insider- 9 out of 10 WCCFtech- 8.8 out of 10 Gaming Nexus- 8.8 out of 10

one of the best rpg i've ever played

This game does have some flaws that frustrate, but in my opinion the good parts outshine those flaws and in the end i think this is a good game.

I absolutely loved this game. Owned it since launch, but finally got to play it during the lock down. 139 hours later, I am so amazed. This is one of the greatest games of the decade. The story and characters and environments and world building combines to something that far surpasses most rpgs. A+ game. It has it's flaws... a lot of annoying stuff like field skills and poor maps/waypoints due to elevation, but if you get past that. everything else is just awesome. I feel really connected to this game, the world, the characters. Some of the cutscenes are tear-jerkers. Other than one set of cutscenes at the end, I thought the cutscenes were all pretty great. I was truly gripped to the edge of my seat the entire time.

Played it for the first time this month- without having played XC1 or X- and I must say, it's now become one of my favorite games of all time. Probably my top 5, for sure. That's all; have a good day :)

I can't imagine it's easy for Ian to edit together game footage that matches what's being said, especially for a game as deep and intricate as this looks, props to Ian. Or Ryan Thompson. Whichever she's known for behind the computer.

I don't get why people say the game starts off slow. The pace is perfect. I did not feel like the first ten hours were just the tutorial at all. Sure, you don't have all the features right away, but that's for the better. You don't want to get overwhelmed by everything like in X.

Great review, i'm less than 10 hours into the game and i like how it explains everything step-by-step.

OMG!!! I missed that voice reviewing games 😭😭😭 Glad I found y’all after GameTrailers! *subscribed* :3

First Xeno game i have played, glad i got it.

This is the game that for me made the switch ultimately worth the purchase. I am hooked.

After beating the game and going back over some reviews, the party speaking during combat went over a lot of the reviewers heads lol. Most of it isn’t random and helps point out key things like a new enemy joining the battle or specials being ready

The man liked the game and he scored it accordingly. He also took into account what he found as issues into the score (why he gave it an 8 and not a 9 or 10). I don't see a problem w/ the review at all.

The negativity around this game is crazy to me. I've read a lot of the (relevant) forum discussions and it paints the game in an very bad light. Not that the game has no flaws but there's just so much nagging. The RU-vid comments for this are something else. People are basically calling Ben's competence into question, as if he doesn't know what he wrote or what he truly feels. If you don't like the game, fine but don't do that. At least nice to see that Ben can find value and fun in it. Good review.

I think Pyra looks great. I love her design and outfit. Come at me.

This my absolute favorite game om the Switch. Must play

Ben, I bought this game prior to this review based on your feedback before and I am enjoying it so far. I think your review is nicely balanced and there is no disparity between the content and the score which I think is super important. It's obvious you really took your time to evaluate the systems, the world, characters, etc. and you tried to find a sweetspot between all the things you could have written about and the things that you absolutely needed to write about. Thank you for all the work you put in this review (this of course also goes to Ian and Brandon), I think it paid off! L&R

Re-watching this after finishing the game and I think it's hilarious they found Nia to be very blunt and makes other not hide things. Lol I mean she is, but it makes the *spoiler* all the more better.

I didn't even notice the spoiler, if anything all the comments drew my attention to it.

This game is a masterpiece, warts and all. One of the best games I've ever played. If only I could play it again for the first time...

Why is it the only people who are bitching are the ones who never played the game and the ones who did play it are saying it's good? It really makes you think doesn't it?

Super slow start but it gets better around the 20 hour mark. I'm not a JRPG fan but trust me it's worth playing

Throwing some positivity in here. Ben's points are well discussed and come from a place of experience with the genre. Nothing wrong with disagreeing, but it's a video game review not a political treatise. Remember, someone disagreeing with your opinion doesn't mean they don't like you. Thanks for the review, Ben! Great work as always. I was already sold because I'm a huge Xeno fan, but it's always cool to see what others think.

This game is seriously excellent imo. There are obvious flaws here and there mostly when it comes to UI, but it's so fun to play it's hardly a problem.

Why can't we as people come together and just appreciate scottish cat-girls?

I dont understand why there is so much shitposting about this game and review "I haven't played the game but it doesn't deserve a good score" "how dare a person who likes jrpgs review a jrpg it only gets a 4/5 cause he's biased" Get over it, the game is good.

So happy that Ben liked the game, after seeing Damiani's tweet, I thought the whole crew didn't liked it, oh well, different opinions, so far I love the game, don't really understand the people that say this is inferior to the original Xenoblade, this definitely carries the essence and love of the first one, unlike X , which tried for a more Sci-Fi and Serious/Edgy feeling, this definitely puts a lot of emphasis on character, you can tell just from their designs and personalities, also, the voice acting is soooooo great in English, this alongside, the other two Xenoblade, are those kind of games that sounds as good both Japanese or English, specially Nia's voice.

The localisation and voiceover sounds fantastic, which is a far cry from Breath of the Wild's English effort. Getting a real Ni No Kuni vibe and that's no bad thing. This game looks like a must-have!

I like Ben. He gave Persona 5 a 5/5. He gave this game a 4/5 and Nier Automata a 4.5/5. I subbed. This guy has the same ratings I gave each individual game. I know who my go to is now for reviews :)

The only problem I had in this game was the start, the first chapter is a "I never played an JRPG" tutorial with a ton of cutscenes, but once you get pass of that and the mechanics start to expand the game feels BIG.

I swear, for as good a game as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is, the division in the camps is ridiculous. Camp 1: Xenoblade Chronicles 1 die-hards who believe the first game was so perfect any changes in 2 just destroy the fun of the game making it a horrible mess. Camp 2: The idiots who haven't played or studied the game who just say that the game is generic Waifu anime crap, with horrible voice acting and a bland and uninteresting cast of characters. A lot of these people likely do not own a Nintendo console, have never played any game in the series, and are just hating on the fact that Nintendo got a new and massive RPG. Camp 3: The Xenoblade fans who are saying they like it, not as much as the first one but way more than X and consider it a great game. Camp 4: The camp I find myself in, this group may or may not be veterans to the series but were interested in a new JRPG for the Switch and view the game to be great (Not Perfect) on its own merits when you divorce it from the firestorm of controversy.

I finished the game a hour ago, i love it!

I'm curious as to what the difference in opinion is that Ben is willing to give this 4/5 stars and yet Damiani thinks of it as a "massive disappointment"

Excellent review. Although it would've been good to comment on the dub, and mention the free Japanese voice patch you can download. I'm also surprised that the undocked mode being ugly wasn't mentioned.

Holy spoilers batman! Look away now, or just keep the audio playing in the background, if you don't want to get spoiled with some of the later party members you'll get in the game. @Easy Allies: Great review, but *please* at the very least put spoiler warnings when showing major things that are not in the official trailers.

This comment section really doesn't embody the love and respect mantra. Come on people - we can do better. As for the game itself, I like the characters(albeit a few odd design choices), the story is very engaging and the soundtrack is god like. The combat is just decent so far but it keeps getting better the more I play. Overall the game does have problems in terms of presentation - certain areas look great and run fine, other places have resolution and fps drops which takes you out of the game a bit. I also think the game looks a lot worse in hand held mode in certain areas in the game. Overall I think it is a flawed game with a lot of great stuff in it which totally salvages it in the end. Good review Ben.

I wish I would’ve known easy allies existed sooner. I didn’t know Brandon Jones was still reviewing after GameTrailers. Missed those reviews, as well as The Final Bosman. It’s great to know you guys are still doing this.

Just came around to playing this. Awesome sense of scale. Godlike worldbuiling and soundtrack. Great and unique mixture of exploration, combat, dungeon crawling, collecting / card game elements and story-driven quests. Complex levelling systems and party customization. Takes some time to really get into all of the complex combat mechanics, but once it *clicks* with you, it is really captivating. Same goes for the story. First half is driven by the great atmosphere and wonder to find out more about the world, second half is driven by plot and really unfolds the overarching narrative. Underrated game. 9/10 all day long.

I like Nia's design, it reminds me of the Mime from FF Tactics

Just picked this up, it’s gonna be my first Xenoblade title, I’m 100% using the Japanese audio though. I hate the English voices.

Guys, why are you so tied up on presentation over gameplay? That's a Nintendo Exclusive game, that not how they roll. And more, most people who played are having fun, how is the opinion of those who didn't play more important?

Great review Ben, and great edit too Ian (aside from the spoiler I guess, but really, I think it was very well paced)

Played 24 hours of this since Friday, the combat system becomes more engaging the more you play, and the story+characters become more interesting the more they get fleshed out. The game could've stayed in the oven for a couple months tho, technically it's still a bit lackin. A Spring 2018 release would have been perfect

Dude I love this guy's voice. I'm so glad I found this channel

"Cant have a rainbow without Reyn Baby!"

Just beat chapter 3 and dam. That boss was bad ads and the ending cut since for that chapter. I can't to home from work tommrow to find out what happens next.

I fucking love this game. I'm only a few hours in but it's so good.

Hello! Just a friendly tip: You don't always target the inner circle on the quick time prompts. You target whichever is light blue and it'll vary between activities.

It's really refreshing to see main characters with British Accents that aren't using Received Pronunciation, but the actual performance, of the main character sounds really weird to me. He's from where I live, Lancashire, but he's trying to go a bit more Northern than he actually is. It sounds a bit odd. Edit: Or maybe it's Welsh he's going for, but he's not Tapping his Rs, which is a really significant characteristic of Welsh accents. Like I said, it's odd.

People going on and on about a number at the end of the review. He gives great arguments on the good and bad throughout the video, giving people more than enough reason to be interested or not. The star at the end is always up to the reviewer's general impressions so obviously if the person likes it it'll be high, read/hear the actual content and language (to filter out the opinion if you will) for the actual recommendation on whether or not this is your kind of game.

9:45 "Seem like the enemy got THE POINT"

A Welsh accent in a JRPG? Well I never.

Okey time to get this

DON'T FORGET ME

Ok I'm confused. People who hate JRPG's are mad because you rated what is a REALLY good(we can all probably agree not all time great) JRPG 4 stars? I will probably never buy another Call of Duty like ever......so why would I care if a game I don't like or enjoy gets a good review. These products are marketed to wide demographics, and i would imagine 90% of the people who put out Destiny reviews probably liked Destiny. That game is about as deep as a puddle in comparison but if it gets scored an 8 I doubt anyone would care.

Started it, but it’s slow and I put it down. I’ll get back to it soon, still dipping into Persona 5... The side quests I did were abut disappointing, not just because they were typical fetch quests, but because the map marker leads you to your destination, making them feel even more pointless.

Haven't played many traditional turn based RPGs in a long time, I've become more into Action RPGs like Monster Hunter and Dark Souls. Not sure this is the right one either for me to jump back-in, as it looks heavy on menus and very long conversations. However, looks like it's a must for those that want a very good game in this beloved genre. So long as you like menus, a lot of plot, and quirky characters.

Love Ben's reviews so much!

There are also some issues with the game being in handheld mode or tabletop mode as some people call it. For one it's more prone to crash for some reason. Two the game just doesn't look that good in handheld mode. I haven't really run into anything else that hindered my overal experience, this game is fantastic. I'm already 30+ hours in and I love it.

This undoubtedly sets up an exemplar on how a professional review should be. In essence, this is exquisite writing with attention to wording and to thoughts that support the well-enunciated expression. I don't like to name them because that would sound ill-intentioned, but the reviews from certain media outlets sound very unorganized, and hence, seemingly written by uneducated people who don't have the foggiest how to appreciate games. So they fail in a stark contrast against Easy Allies' reviews, which are often the best imo in the circle.

imagine if this comes to pc how many copies will it sell holy shit

12 minutes. SETTLE IN BOYS

Thanks for a great review Ben

Am I the only one who doesn't care about the anime artstyle and is enthralled about almost everything this game has to offer?

I doubted this could match the quality of the first game which is to this day, one of the best jrpgs ever made. But I'm sure this will be fun in its own limited way... I'll probably pick it up sometime next year.

EZA says that the repeating phrases during combat becomes annoying and repetitive. I say, you can easily go into the volume settings and turn down the volume on those settings so it really is not an issue.

Thank you for writing this review. I now have even more reason to buy this game for my birthday/summer vacation.

Amazing game

Will be buying the Collector's edition tomorrow even though I don't have a Switch yet and won't buy it for a couple of months the least. Still have time to enjoy the original and try out X as well.

My one problem with Xenoblade series is that there are too many asinine side quests. Rather just have a focus on the story and any side quests be more meaningful/well developed instead of a TON of stupid fetch/kill quests like an MMO and that the side quests be more toward the end of the game or so.

Was looking forward to hearing your guys' thoughts. Thanks, gents!

I found this review helpful and enlightening. It helped me realize that this is not the game for me, but that's a review's job! Good work, Ben.

Don't watch the review if you care that much about spoilers. I think it's fine allies. If you are that sensitive then just skip to the end to see final score.

People bitch and moan about XC2's character designs but probably praised the everloving shit out of Final Fantasy X when it came out, with its lederhosen-donning protagonist and a mage wearing nothing but belts.

This is easily in my top 5 of the year and may beat Mario Rabbids as my favorite Switch game. Party spoilers are bogus but I half suspected that character would be a party member anyway. Glad they are to be honest.

Is this what happened to gametrailers?! So glad theyre not dead!

This sounds like the most intriguing RPG since The Witcher 3.....and Octopath Traveler is just to come....I need a Switch. NOW!

I'm more in shock that Nintendo managed to get this out in 2017 with no delays.....wtf

Great and fair review,I love this game

If 5 stars is your highest rating this game deserves a solid 6.

Ben kun has spoken

Great review, Ben! So detailed and comprehensive. Love it!

I did not find this review with any spoils. People complain way too much

Kudos for the breadth and depth of the review, but I wish you were more critical of the amateurish character animations. It's not as bad as Sun and Moon, but it's noticeably inconsistent. (I'm not talking about mouth animations)

After 3 I might come to play this game eventually. Not sure I'll have the time though. Just wish the character design wasn't so bad for Rex and there was less cringe comedy. Just doesn't seem like it's for me. Also, I have seen too much "friendship and love will save the day" anime tropes.

Great review Ben, you are one of the best review writers in the industry imo. I really wanted to pick up this game for the world and story, but sadly the combat looks slow, and I’m afraid it will make me quit the game. I hope you will stream the game one of the coming days and maybe convince the last part of me, I don’t think Damiani’s streams did the game justice.

Super bummed about that party spoiler.