Devil May Cry 5: An Incredible Successor to a Classic

Disclaimer: I would recommend reading my Devil May Cry 3 review for some context before this one.

This game is exactly what I wanted. A new Devil May Cry that manages to push past the needless shortcomings of its predecessors to provide one of the most incredible gameplay experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing through.

The plot, of course is that a big demon called Urizen has come to wreak havoc on top of a giant cylindrical tree, the Qliphoth and now Dante and the gang from the previous four games have to beat him. Joining them this time is V, a strange fellow that likes reading William Blake poetry, hangs around nightmare demons and walks with a cane for seemingly no reason other than to look cool, so the standard affair really. Alongside this crazy team of demon hunters is Nico, a human character who doesn’t actually fight anyone and instead makes weapons for Dante and Nero, the protagonist from Devil May Cry 4 after he loses Yamato, Vergil’s sword and then has his once demonic arm chopped off by a mysterious man who is quite proficient with it (whoever could it be?) in the game’s opening.

The main conflict of the game is Nero’s desire to be seen to be a competent demon hunter through the eyes of Dante, who he clearly admires. This is set up in the very beginning of the game, with Nero caring more about being called dead weight by Dante than the giant demon that has just eradicated an entire city. This leads Nero to do various brash and stupid things throughout the game with his goal being to get to Urizen and beat him before Dante does so he can join the cool club with the rest of the crew. Devil May Cry 5 allows us to see more of Nero’s personality than we got to see in 4. With his short temper and narrow-mindedness staying the same, but this time Nero is a bit more playful and agitative with the demons he fights seeing as Kyrie (his love interest) isn’t in danger this time around. We see that admiration of Dante through the playful side of Nero as it nicely mirrors Dante’s carefree nature in Devil May Cry 3 in a subtle and natural way, without feeling forced, which is quite impressive considering how in your face the series can be. Dante, now much older than the previous games knows the truth about Urizen and Nero’s origins and we see his uncharacteristic coldness act as a way to protect Nero, but in actuality causes the opposite effect by getting him more involved. The tension between the two rises and rises throughout the game until it reaches a breaking point in the third act. All the while, V seemingly wants to help Nero get stronger, but there is an ever-present sense that he has his own plans for Urizen. The way the characters’ stories unravel throughout the non-linear narrative acts as the trigger for Nero and Dante’s emotional climax and how the rest of the game unfolds from there.

The supporting cast for the most part is … just there. I’m happy to see Lady and Trish back in this game, but they just sort of stand around and do little to nothing for the whole game. Morrison, a character from the Devil May Cry anime makes his game debut here, he gives Dante the job to beat Urizen and just leaves until the end of the game. I feel this then lets us get more attached to Nico, who appears throughout the game in her Devil May Cry branded van. She is fun, quirky and quippy, and she manages to act as a nice counter to Nero. It also helps that she acts as the game’s shop, requiring the characters to use payphones found in most levels to effectively summon her. These are some of my favourite parts of the game because of the strange hilarity of seeing characters who were tearing demons apart two seconds ago suddenly stopping and looking for money in their coats and then waiting for the van to show up. When it does, it is beautiful. The van could come from anywhere, smashing through walls, falling from the sky and even digging its way up from underground, the way that van flies into the scene adds a lot to the characters with the way it shows how they wait while at the same time it does so much for Nico as well by showing the player that she absolutely fits in with the rest of the crew with the insane things she pulls off. Urizen is less of a character and more of a plot device to drive Dante and Nero forward and I suppose in that way, he is more like Mundus from Devil May Cry 1 than Vergil from 3.

Which, I suppose in a roundabout way brings me to my next point; the game fits so well with its predecessors, well maybe not Devil May Cry 2. (I say that, but the city aesthetic makes me think otherwise), What I mean with this is that the game feels like a natural continuation of the series through its characters, its story, its gameplay and most importantly, its tone. The tone is especially important because the game trims the 2000s edge of the older games and adds more of the stuff that made people love the series. The cheesy melodrama is still there, the dialogue is as Devil May Cry as ever and the cutscenes couldn’t be more insane if they tried. With all of this, the game has a sense of self awareness, in that it manages to tread the fine line between utter insanity and a well told story, which I find to be one of its best aspects. I also appreciate the little references to the series’ history, like the inclusion of Morrison sprinkled throughout the game.

But of course, the best aspect of the game is its gameplay and Devil May Cry 5 exceeds every expectation I had. Each of the three playable characters, Nero, Dante and V, work completely differently, with different weapons, abilities, strengths and weaknesses.

Nero is the easiest of the bunch to get your head around, with one main weapon, his inseparable Red Queen, a sword that revs up like a motorbike (it is as cool as it sounds) and his gun, the Blue Rose, which is a double barrelled revolver. In Devil May Cry 4, Nero had a demon arm which he could use to fling enemies around or beat them into a pulp. In 5, he doesn’t have that arm anymore, so instead, he has Nico make robotic arms. These Devil Breakers each give Nero at least two extra moves on top of his already quite large moveset. These include simple actions like a lightning attack from Overture, the first Devil breaker you get, to some, like rawhide having their own bite sized moveset. My personal favourites have to be punchline, the rocket powered arm that Nero can ride as a sort of hoverboard and Mega man’s Mega buster that comes in the deluxe edition of the game. Part of the fun of the devil breakers is making a loadout that suits how you play, as you can’t switch between your selected devil breakers and they are all destroyed in a single hit if you use them at the wrong time. You can also destroy them if you actively choose to, which blows enemies away and they also break if you use their charge attacks, so planning how you want to use them gives Nero more depth thna he previously had. That’s not to say that his old weapons aren’t really fun too as the exceed system from 4 returns, rewarding players on their timing when revving the Red Queen up to allow for stronger attacks. He also has a grappling hook of sorts to pull enemies toward him so you can carry on pummelling them. Nero’s depth expands as the game continues, with each new devil breaker adding an extra layer of experimentation and strategy, so much so that by your second playthrough he feels like a completely different character. (this is helped by a certain other feature unlocked at the end of the game that I won’t spoil)

The second character you get to use is V, who plays completely differently to any other character in the series because he isn’t the one fighting the enemies and instead leaves that to his personal demonic familiars, Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare, all named after the bosses from the first game. To that extent, they function very similarly too, with Griffon and Shadow using the exact moves from the first game. Seeing as the familiars and V are all separate entities, you can use them all at the same time, which led to button mash a bit more than I should’ve when first getting to grips with V’s gameplay. Once you do master it, however the game becomes less chaotic and more about careful positioning of V and the familiars to constantly juggle enemies and keep them from damaging V. V and his familiars have their own health bars so you have to monitor each of them to carefully as V has to heal the familiars at the risk of getting attacked himself. After enemies are weakened, V uses his cane to finish them off in the most dramatic way possible. Unlike in previous games, V’s devil trigger doesn’t heal him, but it brings his familiars back to full health while also summoning Nightmare, who has his own complete moveset, but can move independently. V can also use some of his devil trigger meter to make the other two familiars stronger and put them on autopilot and he can walk around reading poetry to regain his devil trigger meter, which might just be the the best move in the game.

Dante is a whole other can of worms. Wow. There are so many things he can do. Just on the surface, four weapons, four guns, four styles, a devil trigger that changes how some moves work and another moveset that you get near the end of the game that adds a layer of strategy as to how you use your devil trigger that I won’t spoil. He starts off with Rebellion, his classic sword, ebony and Ivory, his signature guns, Balrog, fire gauntlets that also have a kick based mode and Coyote A, a shotgun but over the course of the game you also get two other swords, Cavaliere, a demonic motorbike, king Cerberus, a new take on Devil May Cry 3’s Cerberus that now also has fire and lightning based moves on top of the old ice moves, Faust, a hat that uses your red orbs, the game’s currency, as its ammo and two different Kalina Anns, rocket launchers that are just like how they were in Devil may cry 3, but now there are two of them and even more moves. The same four styles, trickster for mobility, swordmaster for better devil arms, gunslinger for better guns and royalguard for defence are back and now you can switch between them in the middle of a fight, like Devil May Cry 4, but this time it is so much smoother. Speaking of which, there are so many moves for every single weapon, different modes, different charge attacks, there are three different swords, all with different reaches, attack powers and the third one even has its own mechanic. On top of all of that there are the moves you get from the styles, with swordmaster giving at least five extra moves to each devil arm and gunslinger giving 3 to each gun. Having so much choice allowed me to play around with more than I would’ve if the restrictions of Devil May Cry 3 were still there, acting as a testament to how far the series has come since then.

As with every Devil May Cry game, the goal isn’t just to beat the enemies, but to look incredible while doing it and the game wants you wants you to know that. The series trademark style meter is still here, rewarding players on variation and taunts rather than sheer brutality. The taunts this time around are the best they’ve ever been, the characters are much more expressive, and the inclusion of air taunts had me using the taunts more than I ever had before. I think the S rank taunts (V’s especially) helped too. SSS rankings are also encouraged by the dynamic music that changes as your style increases, a feature taken from the much loathed DmC: Devil May Cry. Essentially, this means that when you play the game better, you get the better parts of the music and a better overall ranking, which means you get more red orbs for more moves.

I think the sheer level of experimentation not only with Dante, but the whole cast is one of the key points that has kept the game’s community so strong over the last year. The game supports this experimentation through the void mode, which is like practice mode in a fighting game that allows you to choose your character and try different things out at your own pace against any enemy in the game. You get to see the amount of damage each move does and how extended combos affect the enemies, you can see your inputs as well, so it is just like a fighting game in that sense. Difficulty modes are the same as in previous entries, going from Human (easy) to devil hunter (normal) to Son of Sparda (Hard) to series mainstays like Dante must die, where the enemies also use devil triggers, Heaven or Hell, where you and the enemies die in one hit and finally Hell and Hell, where the enemies are as strong as Son of Sparda but you still die in one hit. The Bloody palace mode returns with over 100 floors of enemies and bosses that rewards you with a new taunt and plenty of red orbs, so as far as replayability goes, I’d say that Devil May Cry 5 may have the most in the series because there is always something to drive you forward and make you better at the game while it constantly rewards you with new things to use or difficulties to play through.

The levels, while linear, still slow down a tiny bit for “puzzles” ( by which I mean “find an obvious thing and put it in an obvious place”) occasionally without ever feeling like they detract from the game, as they make the levels feel much more explorable and the world more fleshed out. My only real gripe is that there were maybe a few too many levels in the often monotonous Qliphoth as opposed to the much more interesting Redgrave city. There aren’t any enemies I would call annoying like the previous games; they all serve a purpose and require different strategies without breaking the game’s flow.

The game looks amazing. the RE engine makes the characters look realistic without coming off as unnatural, which is a feat considering the things that happen in the game. Redgrave city is that perfect blend of gothic and modern that Devil May Cry’s art direction has always strived to be, with modern technology and cars being coupled with gothic architecture to make every character and enemy fit in perfectly. The Qliphoth, in contrast feels much more cosmic horror inspired, as it is a force of demonic power as opposed to a place, spreading its roots throughout the city and turning its people into morbid masses of dust and blood. This ash grey exterior and crimson interior is reflected in the Qliphoth itself, making it a nice contrast from the series norm.

The soundtrack is great, with the standout track of course being Devil Trigger, Nero’s battle theme that I’m sure you’ve probably heard already. It’s catchy, it’s fun and it works so well with Nero as a character. Crimson Cloud, V’s battle theme fits V’s hyperbolic edge perfectly but Subhuman, Dante’s battle theme fell flat for me. It’s not bad, but it’s nowhere near as good as the other two. The atmospheric tracks were okay, but the boss themes, especially King Cerberus’s are really good and fit the mood of the battles they represent. The voice acting is also fantastic, with Reuben Langdon and Jonny Yong Bosch reprising their roles as Dante and Nero respectively alongside knockout performances from Brian Hanford and Faye Kingslee as V and Nico respectively, alongside the silly, sarcastic portrayal of Griffon from Brad Venable that contrasts V’s melodramatic edge perfectly. I feel that an underrated part of the Devil May Cry series is its sound design. The sound of every sword slash, bullet, laser, punch and explosion is so satisfying to hear and distinct, making the whole experience just that much better.

Devil May Cry 5 does everything right, the story and characters are fun, the gameplay is the best it has ever been, it looks phenomenal, it sounds phenomenal and it all works together to create one of if not the best action experience video games have to offer that kept me smiling every second I played it.

Nier: Automata: Existential dread has never looked so cool (part 2)

Before we begin on the other aspects of the game, in the first part I mentioned the small plothole of the androids still making 9S models just to kill them, since then, after some research and the help of old Steam forums I can confirm that there is no explicit reason given, but there is inference through the way 9S’s operator speaks to him that he was supposed to be reformatted, but other than that, there seems to be nothing.

As for the other aspects of the game, I can safely say that the visuals, voice acting, music and UI are practically flawless, but the gameplay could’ve used a little tweaking.

Platinum games did a fantastic job with the game’s combat, adding their stylish flair for timing based, over the top action to Automata as a way to improve vastly on the original’s clunky mess that ruined its reviews when it came out. For the most part, it does as we see the weapon variety increased with four different types; small swords, greatswords, spears and fists, with each combination having different moves depending on whether you place the weapons on the light or heavy attacks. This results in a multitude of stylish moves, my favourite of which being where you set a greatsword to the light attack and fists to the heavy attack, making the greatsword into a baseball bat for one of the fists, which is so satisfying to pull off, even though it’s not particularly difficult. On top of this, you have different charge attacks for each weapon depending on where you put them, jumping attacks and aerial combos for the different combinations.

This is, however if you are playing as 2B or A2, with A2 changing the light charge attack for a taunt that increases enemies’ attack power while decreasing their defence. 9S gets rid of the heavy attack entirely in favour of a hack button, which when fully charged initiates a bullet hell minigame, which deals massive damage and if you win it, making up for the lack of a heavy attack and any light attacks beyond just forcing the weapon into the enemy. At first, this is really unique and interesting, but I agree with most in that after doing the same thing for the 2 trillionth time it gets quite stale, however what is cool is that when you hack an unsuspecting enemy, you get the choice to make them an AI friend or to become them. Becoming an enemy is completely useless, seeing as they all snap like twigs and hit like feathers (except for the guy with the arm cannon), but it is also a whole lot of fun. So much fun that I probably spent several hours playing as enemies whether it be just for the mobility of infinite backdashing or just seeing how far I can get with them.

A shared feature of both playstyles is the pod, the all-purpose sat-navs I mentioned in the first part. In gameplay, the pod will act as a gun for your character, providing essential chip damage to your main attacks. There are three, two of which are hidden throughout the game; one is a basic gattling gun, one makes homing missiles and the last is a ghostbuster style laser. Alongside these pods are what are known as “pod programs” which, to put it simply are super moves that range from firing a large laser to making a giant hammer or making the pod into a rotating blade. Much like other weapons, these can be bought or found all over the game’s world.

All of this, with the exception of the pod programs can be upgraded with the various materials you find across the world or get from doing sidequests, killing enemies or even buying them from shops. This however, as with many things in the game, gets really tedious in the second half; this is mainly because of a few materials being ludicrously difficult to find, even after getting as many as possible from sidequests. The problem mainly arises when you can’t buy or even get the material from enemies, which led me to just google where the materials were. What I didn’t know was that it was only going to get worse from there. Too long is the only way I can describe the time it took me to go to the same place over and over again, looking for the same thing with little to no luck. It was just boring and to top it off, the upgrades, with the exception of a couple aren’t even that good. You may be asking; But Mazen, why on Earth would you waste all that time doing that? Well good reader, the answer is simple: it unlocks the superboss, which after beating it, I can safely say it isn’t worth the hassle, please just watch the fight on Youtube.

I also feel that the range of moves that you have in the game isn’t really explained beyond the simple tutorial at the beginning of the game. For example, there’s a move where you can use your pod to propel yourself forward, but there’s no way to find how to do it. the game doesn’t hint to it at all, there’s nothing you can find that tells you how to do it, it’s just there. The same goes for the more advanced moves, as in games with similar combat, like Devil May Cry, there would be a way to see how to use every single move you’ve gotten up to and including that point, but in Nier, there’s nothing to be found.

This is only accentuated by the overlevelling that you’ll probably experience if you do more than a few sidequests, like I did. I find the whole level system in the game completely usesless, seeing as when you don’t do any sidequests, the game gradually increases the enemies’ levels with you, but if you stray from the path even a little, you’ll end up annihilating everything the game throws at you, even on the higher difficulties. All of the interesting combat mechanics, such as the powerful move you can use after a perfect dodge or the extra damage on enemies that have fallen over are completely thrown out of the window for nothing, especially when the plugin chip system exists.

Alongside materials and money, you’ll be finding various plugin chips throughout the game. These give you a variety of stat boosts, like health, attack defence or speed, or they can provide more interesting upgrades like increasing the damage done by hacking, increasing the levels of hacked friendly machines or slowing down time after dodging attacks, similar to Bayonetta’s Witch Time mechanic. These eliminate the need for level-ups entirely, allowing you to build your characters the way you want to, so what I don’t get is why there’s still a levelling system in the first place if they already implemented a much more interesting alternative.

Another thing I don’t like about the game is the overabundance of money and how you can infinitely stock up on ludicrous amounts of needlessly effective consumable items. The prime example of this is the medium health recovery item. It’s cheap and restores half of your health. The problem isn’t that there are healing items, I find it’s more that there’s no penalty for using them. Take Devil May Cry or Bayonetta for example, when you use an item, your overall score for the level goes down and so regardless of how well you did, using that item would ruin your hard work, pushing you to get better at the game. Even Kingdom Hearts makes you time your healing with the risk of not having enough MP to heal again or cast any other spells. Thinking as far back as even the first Dragon Quest, healing in battle means that you’re using a turn that could be used to deal damage to an enemy and potentially end the battle to instead heal yourself with whatever item or spell you have. In Automata on the other hand, there just isn’t a penalty and you can heal as much as you want, completely killing the flow of the game. I feel it would’ve been better to have items only accessible through a menu in the same style as Kingdom Hearts or to have using the item take time, leaving you vulnerable to attacks.

On a more positive note, I enjoyed the bullet hell segments in the story missions. There are certain parts of the game where the characters get into flight units, which are mech suits that transform into jets, which is pretty cool on its own, but these two forms play in a different way to the rest of the game. When in the jet mode, it’s a pretty standard shoot ‘em up affair where waves of enemies come at you and you have to fight them with your guns and limited melee attacks for the different types of bullets they shoot at you. The main difference with the mech mode is that you have 360-degree rotation and more melee capabilities with the mech having a massive beam sword. These are fun little add-ons to the main game, and they had some cool set pieces, that’s about it though, not that I’m complaining.

There’s also a fishing mechanic. It may be the best part of the entire game.

The game’s overworld is interesting as it has all sorts of nooks and crannies, secret areas, strong enemies and what have you that are just littered with all sorts of goodies. I had a lot of fun enjoying the scenery, riding the local wildlife and finding all of the different shiny things all over the place. Sadly, the exploration isn’t perfect as for some reason, the developers decided that having you explore set piece areas that were once full of life and energy, but now empty and near un-navigable to find lot of the game’s lore and a few of the more interesting weapons was a good idea. The lack of save points in these areas made going through them even more tedious in the event that I died while exploring them, which is a shame, especially seeing the rest of the game’s world being quite easy to get around.

With the main gameplay over and done with, I can move on to the art direction, music and the rest of it.

The game looks incredible. The locations like the Yorha base with its fixed camera angles and monochromatic, clinical look brings a wariness about Yorha from the beginning, which I really like. This is especially apparent when contrasted with the bright colours of the rest of the world’s scenery, such as the lush greens and blues and weather that adapts to the game’s tone. I love the contrast between the artificiality of the androids and the almost organic nature of the machines, with a middle ground shown in the resistance members and A2, alongside 9S later in the game. The game’s art direction does its job outstandingly. This even extends to the UI, diegetically acting as the androids’ UI and as such fitting with the precision that we keep seeing in Yorha.

The music does a similar job, with the main city theme becoming livelier as the machines are humanised more and the Simone boss fight music reflecting what moves the boss uses. The game uses music brilliantly and in a way that is quite unique in the way that it reflects the game’s overall themes. The voice actors also did an incredible job, with the dialogue, although at times strange, never came across as too unnatural or cringy, a pitfall other JRPGs all too often fall into. The performances all round were solid if not perfect for the characters being portrayed.

After that exhaustive look at Nier: Automata, I can safely say that I am sorry if I bored you to tears, but more importantly, I do recommend the game as its biggest flaws, aside from the items and levelling issue, are mostly due to me being an inherent completionist and wanting to do everything it has to offer. I wouldn’t have been able to go into as much depth on the game without watching Clemps’ videos on youtube. if you ever happen to have a few hours spare, I’d recommend watching them as they go over the story in much more depth than I did, and they’re much more entertaining than this. If anything, I’m excited to see what Yoko Taro does with his next game now that Automata has finally given him some mainstream appeal.

Nier Automata: Existential dread has never looked so cool (part 1)

When I first played Nier: Automata, all I’d heard about it was that it was one of the best pieces of media ever written, and how it made you ponder the very nature of existence, plunging you into deeper and deeper thought until you’d just go insane from the inevitability of the cruelty of mankind leading to the world’s eventual ruin, or you’d just be too occupied looking at 2B’s rear to care about any of that. Joking aside, I really wanted to adore this game like so many others, but although I didn’t think it was bad by any means, I actually thought it was really good, but it just felt underdeveloped in areas. This will cover major spoilers for the entire game, so you have been warned.

For those who don’t know, game’s story revolves around two androids called 2B and 9S, who are sent to a post-apocalyptic Earth from a space bunker by Yorha, which is essentially the android military to defeat a race of machines who drove humanity to the moon. Over the course of the story the two learn through various events that there is more to the machines than meets the eye, and unfortunately, I don’t mean that they transform into cars, although that would be pretty great. As the game goes on, we see the androids and the machines joined by a desire to become human in any way they can. In the androids’ case, we see them become more emotional as the game progresses and we see the machines try to become human in their actions, such as creating a religion, learning philosophy and attempting to form a nation. This goes horribly wrong every time as we see the religion turn into a suicide cult, philosophy turning machines insane and the nation losing all purpose and devolving into anarchy after the loss of its king. We see the repercussions for the androids through 9S, who in an act of pure rage and heartbreak, goes on a genocidal rampage in the game’s third playthrough, known as route C.

Nier: Automata is split into three parts, called routes A, B and C. In route A, you play as 2B with 9S acting as an AI partner, in route B, you play the same story, but as 9S, with various extra titbits to stop it from becoming completely monotonous. Finally, there’s route C, which opens up a new chunk of the story where you alternate between playing as 9S and A2, another android who betrayed Yorha and now lives in exile on Earth

Route A opens with this statement: “Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle…and wonder if we’ll ever get the chance to kill him.”. This instantly sets up the plight of the androids, struggling to find a purpose beyond “life and death” and provides a hint that they are sick of all the fighting that they are forced to go through all the time and so sets up the game’s key theme of purpose. After fighting through several rooms full of machines, we are introduced to 9S and the two fight through machines until they are outnumbered and forced to kill themselves to stop the oncoming hordes. This then brings us to another key theme of the game being the androids’ mass production and memory loss from any point before they last backed the memories up in the event of death, which is nicely tied to gameplay as saving your game acts as your character backing up their memories. 2B and 9S then go back to Earth and find machines attempting to imitate humans in various ways until they come across 2 humanoid machines that name themselves Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve act as personifications of the machine network, which in essence keeps the machines under a hive mind and prevents them from having from the free will that the androids have. After various encounters, the two kill Adam and Eve and routes A and B end with a sense of new hope for the world.

I see Adam and Eve as a last attempt of a peace treaty with the androids by the machines as their appearances mimic those of the androids and they attempt to learn the differences between the two through their battles with 2B and 9S. We see a curiosity in Adam as he battles 2B knowing well that it would kill him and that he shouldn’t do it, (just like a certain forbidden fruit) just so he can experience what death feels like and to see the raw emotion of 2B when seeing 9S suffering at his hands. After Adam’s death, the once calm and collected Eve becomes completely blinded by pure rage at the loss of his brother, as he now understands the concept of death and anger from Adam’s encounter being put onto the machine network and thus transferring to every living machine. Eve’s death then kills the machine network and provides more machines with free will, with his death essentially fulfilling the goal of the machines in their attempt to become as human as possible.

The main difference within route B is that while playing as 9S, you learn from the leader of Yorha that humanity is dead and that the androids, just like the machines, have no reason to keep going on doing the same thing, but we see the Yorha commander ask 9S to keep humanity’s death a secret as she expresses her fear that the androids of Yorha would have no purpose if they found out the truth.

Most people say that route C is where the game goes from good to phenomenal, but I don’t know if I could say the same. I think routes A and B were brilliantly executed as the story was spaced out by a multitude of side quests that allow the characters to grow on you by acting as a way to build the world, develop the characters and set you up for the twists in route C. The side quests themselves portray Yorha to be extremely secretive with special assassination troops and sending orders to kill with no explanation as to why the targets need to be killed. On the other hand, we see a more light-hearted side to Yorha through the quests given by the operators, who are guides to 2B and 9S in routes A and B and their quests involving their hobbies. We also see the machines humanised further through Pascal, a peace-seeking machine and his pacifistic village and the quests of its inhabitants, most of which being fun adventures but with the underlying purpose of showing the machines to be more human than the androids. Then route C comes along and immediately drops you into a huge battle between the machines and the androids now that the machine network’s loss has sent many of the machines insane. The battle entails swapping between 2B and 9S for various tasks, emphasising the battle’s spontaneous nature and keeping players engaged.

The Yorha bunker and every mass-produced android body is then destroyed by what is known as “the logic virus” which sends androids insane and bloodthirsty. 2B upon returning to Earth then becomes afflicted with the virus. This is tied excellently to gameplay, as we see 2B start by still having some fight left in her, allowing you to battle some machines, but as the virus takes hold of 2B more, you start losing abilities to the point where by the time you get to where you need to go, you can barely move, the screen glitches and blurs and any attacks or even the ability to jump have been completely lost. She is then attacked by more machines, but saved by A2 who then at 2B’s request, kills her and uploads her memories to her sword. 9S just so happens to come along at the worst possible point and thinks 2B has been murdered by A2 and thus begins his rampage. This beginning is brilliant as just prior to it, you get a preview of route C showing A2 with shorter hair like 2B’s, leading people to think that she would live only to increase the shock when she actually dies, leaving the player in awe and curiosity toward what will happen next.

You are then provided the choice between playing as 9S or A2, which doesn’t change anything as you end up playing as both anyway. In 9S’ story, he goes around several spires in an attempt to enter a large tower that appeared after 2B’s death, thinking that destroying the tower will kill all of the machines. What’s important here is that 9S goes completely insane here and all that is left in his mind is 2B’s death to the point where he “kills” all of his happy memories after he finds his operator with the logic virus and has to kill her too. A2’s story is where things get a little more interesting as A2 starts off like 9S, wanting to kill all of the machines, but through meeting Pascal and his villagers she reluctantly starts to accept them. This culminates in an attack on the village where Pascal and the remaining few villagers have to find refuge elsewhere. The villagers end up killing themselves out of fear and Pascal asks to be killed by A2. What I didn’t realise at the time was that you could actually just leave him to face the consequences of his actions, leading to a heart-wrenching scene where he begs A2 not to leave him and at least to erase his memories while A2 just walks off into the distance.

With the tower finally opened, A2 and 9S fight through more machines until they finally meet at the top. This is after the final big twists of the game, being that the androids were made from machine cores, that the bunker was designed to be destroyed alongside all of Yorha, linking very nicely to the “Everything that lives is designed to end” monologue and that 2B was actually 2E, “E” standing for executioner. This means that 2B was made to kill 9S whenever he found out too much about the truth of humanity’s fate. These revelations kill any positivity left in 9S as he finally accepts that everything he has done throughout the entire game has been for nothing and he then allows the logic virus to take him.

Depending on who you choose to play as at the top of the tower, one will kill the other. In A2’s case, she destroys the tower and herself with it and 9S after killing A2 could accept his fate and die or get accepted into the tower’s true purpose, being a backup network for the machines by none other than Adam and Eve. If you get both endings, the pods, which are the characters’ guns, communication devices, sat-navs and whatever else they need to be now attempt to change fate in what is in my opinion one of the best ending sequences video games have ever produced. You now have to fight your way through the credits to change the androids’ fates. Just when it seems impossible to finish, you get help from other players who literally deleted their save files just to help other people out in a truly heart-warming sequence. After you’ve blasted through the credits and left an inspiring message or an illegible bunch of words to others who have beaten the game, the pods rebuild 2B, 9S and A2 with the hopes of a better outcome for the three, thus ending the story on a high, if uncertain note.

Now that behemoth of a task is done for those who wanted to know or needed refreshing, I can reflect my thoughts a bit more. Another factor of the story I like is the similarities between the machine network and Yorha. Where the network is designed to be a forced hive mind for an entire species, the Yorha androids are themselves forced to comply with their orders or die and lose precious memories. I liked this because, as with the big three final plot twists it was subtle in its execution but also very apparent once you realised it.

My biggest problem with the entire game is A2 and her, in my opinion poor execution. She starts off very enigmatic; having betrayed Yorha and having a long history with Anemone, the leader of the android resistance on Earth whilst also being quite sarcastic and charismatic when talking with her pod, but her past is never explored past one interaction you will likely miss out on entirely as if you by chance happen to talk to Anemone only immediately after she tells you to go to Pascal’s village, she gives you files on what happened between the two. These files recount the events of, and I kid you not, a STAGE PLAY that gives us the background of A2, but even then, the things you get don’t really amount to much. The reason for this is that Yoko Taro’s games were very much unknown to the general public until Automata, so it does make sense that he would expect his fans, who were at the time his only audience to keep up with all of his work.

This problem of prior knowledge of Taro’s work comes back with the characters of Devola and Popola, two characters who also appeared in the original Nier that have a very minor role in Automata that sacrifice themselves for 9S at the end which is shown to be quite a dramatic, emotional moment, but when playing the game, I didn’t get why. We then get a backstory for the two showing that they are modelled after the Devola and Popola in the original Nier who were partly the cause for humanity’s extinction, so their sacrifice in Automata meant a lot as they died to save life rather than to end it, but you would never know that unless you played the original. On the other hand is Emil, the franchise’s mascot and a character that was in the original Nier, who shows up and acts as a shop for various stat boosting items, weapons and equipment. He has a couple of sidequests where you help him remember the evens of the first Nier, but unlike Devola and Popola, it didn’t feel like I needed more context for its importance although I knew it would make the quests better. He also acts as a secret superboss if you fully upgrade all of the weapons in the game where you have to put him to rest after his immensely long life. The emotional impact of this is still very much present because Emil throughout the game had been a beacon of positivity in the game’s bleak world with his goofy song that you’d hear whenever he was around and his general giddiness all round, so it was immensely sad to see his last moments, regardless of context.

The end of Pascal’s story also has its impact lowered by playing as A2, who has no real connection to him beyond a couple of interactions. I feel having 9S at this point would further cement his anger against the machines and fuel his genocide further seeing as the only good machines he knew were killed for no real reason, giving him reason to believe that machines truly are worthless.

Another nit-pick I have with the game is that I don’t see the reason why they keep making 9S models if they just keep requiring to be killed for the integrity of Yorha. While the 2E twist puts a whole new perspective on every word 2B says throughout the game and makes a lot of what would’ve been gaping plot holes, like how all of the Yorha androids are immensely emotional, completely contradicting 2B’s initial statement of “emotion is prohibited” make a lot more sense and cemented this as an incredible and interesting twist that helped provide replayability to the game, but it just resulted in that tiny problem and I feel that it could’ve easily been fixed with a simple explanation, which as far as I’m aware, isn’t there.

All of the problems I have with the story stem from the decision of sending 9S immediately bloodthirsty as I feel that if there was perhaps a slower progression from initially being heartbroken and spiteful to becoming vengeful and infuriated over the course of events in the route. A few more sidequests would’ve helped to see the real effect of the loss of the machine network and given 9S more to do in the story beyond just going up spires, which would strengthen the impact of the ending. It would’ve also allowed more time for A2 to grow, perhaps exploring a conflict between herself and the memories that 2B leaves her. But other than that, I would call Nier Automata’s story a solid one, if a little convoluted as far as these things go. Its themes of the nature of being human and a corrupt humanity are classic themes of sci-fi where, in this instance, of course Blade Runner immediately comes to mind, with the androids having blood, an expiry date and being designed to do the humans’ dirty work, but Taro does it with such a unique style with the post-apocalyptic war setting and the visuals that you have to stick through it to the end.

I will continue this article in a second part that will cover gameplay, music, visuals and any other details I missed in this one.

Persona 5: the Royal and my view on JRPG re-releases

I realise that Persona 5 has taken over my life after I have now finished my second playthrough once I finally got around to playing it in October . It has gotten to the point where my cat now meows at me to go to bed if I stay up too late. As if that wasn’t enough, Joker’s incredible appearance in Super Smash Bros has made Persona 5 completely inescapable to me, not that I wanted to escape it in the first place. The recent gameplay reveal of Persona 5: the Royal, an upcoming re-release of the game packed with new content has me both very excited and very worried.

Just to be clear, when referencing re-releases, I’m talking about re-releases on the same console, like Pokemon Platinum as opposed to remakes, remasters or ports like Pokemon Yellow or Persona 4: Golden that came out years after their original release on different consoles.

the idea of the enhanced JRPG re-release is nothing new as we’ve seen as far back as 1997 with Final Fantasy VII: international; a Japan only release that added the extra superboss fights that were only available in the US and Europe at the time. An early western re-release that comes to mind is Pokemon Crystal, adding the option to play as a girl as well as providing the ability to catch almost every Pokemon ever up to that point. This isn’t limited to the JRPG genre either, as other games such as the original Resident Evil were re-released under new subtitles like “director’s cut” with new content.

the 6th console generation was also no stranger to re-releases in the genre, with Final Fantasy X, X-2 and XII getting international versions in japan and Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 getting Final Mix re-releases. It wasn’t only Square Enix making re-releases as other franchises such as the Persona series itself were getting re-releases such as Persona 3 FES, which added new story content.

back in the time before online gaming and DLC really hit the mainstream, there was no other way to provide enhancements to a pre-existing game and so, a re-release was the only way to do it and feasibly make any money which I completely understand.

Nowadays however, JRPG re-releases feel much more like cash-grabs to me with a prime example being the release of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where what was essentially the same game was released for the same price with only a couple of extra hours of gameplay added, which is admittedly the same if not slightly more than Pokemon Crystal added, but it came out barely a year after the original Sun and Moon. You can even see this in the originals as there were a few areas with very little, if anything at all to do, but lo and behold, in the re-releases they are now new areas to explore. Would it have been that difficult to add as a much cheaper DLC expansion, which so many other games such as Sonic Mania did with its Plus expansion or Shovel Knight with its free annual expansions? Square Enix have recently started to do this with World of Final Fantasy’s Maxima edition and Final Fantasy XV’s Royal edition, but then went all the way back with Dragon Quest XI, making their S edition that fixes most problems that people had with the original release Switch exclusive with no way as of the writing of this article to upgrade for PS4 players who own the base game.

This now brings me to my worries with Persona 5: the Royal as I don’t want to be paying another £50 for a game I’ve already played through twice when I could just as easily be paying 20 for the boatload of additions the new version adds in the form of DLC for the game. It’s not as if the series is a stranger to DLC either as Persona 5 has a ton of it in the form of new personas and costumes for the game, so I hope the Royal is offered as an upgrade as well as a standalone product for those who haven’t played the original.

That is if they take the Persona 3 FES or Persona 4 Golden route in the first place, as it looks like the Royal could be a complete re-imagining of Persona 5 with several new areas within the old palaces and features such as the grappling hook. With more new information coming next month, we can only wait and see how this new version turns out.

Fist of the North Star: Bloody, Bonkers, Brilliant

Fist of the North Star is an absolute blast, from its Mad Max post-apocalyptic setting, ridiculous martial arts, stupid but lovable characters and incredible soundtrack, The film will keep you glued to your seat just to see how it tops itself next.

The film opens by describing the two main martial arts featured in the film, the Fist of the North Star and the Fist of the South Star, and how they would only bring terrible ruin if they ever fought against each other. This is followed by a montage of lovely scenery coupled with Katsuhisa Hattori’s phenomenal soundtrack, only for it to be interrupted by a haunting nuclear apocalypse scene that makes Terminator 2’s apocalypse look pathetic. The film gets no less intense from there as we are then introduced to our protagonist, Kenshiro, a master of the north star style being stabbed by another, equally ridiculously muscular man called Shin, who is a master of the south star style (Gasp!), then having his fiancée Yuria kidnapped. After this, and I kid you not, he is thrown down a massive canyon with a giant boulder being thrown onto him afterwards just to make sure he was dead, and he somehow survives. After his recovery, Kenshiro saves two children; Lyn, a mute girl and Bat, a budding engineer from a wasteland gang. The two children then accompany him as he now roams the wasteland looking for revenge; fighting increasingly ridiculous enemies along the way.

What makes this different from any other post-apocalyptic setting is the film’s emphasis on martial arts such as the titular Fist of the North Star. What makes that different from most if not (hopefully) all martial arts is that it makes people explode. The emphasis on fighting means that there isn’t really a commodity other than food and water that we see fought over seeing as we see armies of uniformed soldiers in convoys of massive muscle cars. This, as you’d imagine puts a whole new spin on the genre, mostly because it makes it somehow even more insane.

On the topic of stupidity, the film’s characters are all complete psychopaths living in a melodramatic soap opera and that’s where it shines. whether we’re talking about the somewhat more deranged villains such as Raoh, another north star user who wants to become stronger than any god ever could and builds his own massive army due to his sheer strength or Shin, who forces Yuria, who is perhaps the only somewhat sane character to try and genuinely love him by trapping her in a room in his fortress for what is implied to be several years. The protagonists are no less weird with Kenshiro going around murdering hundreds of admittedly horrible people while barely saying a word, or Rei, who uses the south star style that slices people into nothing and acts as a sort of sidekick to Kenshiro. Just to give you a vague idea of his, shall I say “quirks”, Rei is introduced by disguising himself as a woman just to kill someone with the miniscule chance to potentially find his sister Airi’s whereabouts. The only reason I sympathise with the protagonists at all here is because they have somewhat better motivation as to why they’re murdering all of these people as opposed to just killing them for the sake of killing them. I wouldn’t say any of them really develop throughout the film and sympathy for the villains is somewhat forced upon you, but in a way, that’s what makes it so great as they all create this charm in their excessive melodrama that genuinely keeps you engaged throughout the film.

The aforementioned soundtrack is incredible, where on the one hand, the film features Morricone style trumpet use in the opening or when Kenshiro is alone walking through a seemingly endless desert alongside the electric guitar used in Rei’s theme and the unforgettable chase scene. On the other, there are the more orchestral sounds of Yuria and Raoh’s themes that in culmination show an incredible range of emotions portrayed by Hattori’s music. Also, within the film are two brilliant, but abrupt vocal tracks, namely “Heart of Madness” and “Purple Eyes” that just come out of nowhere at the end of the film and completely steal the show. As far as voice acting is concerned, at least for the Japanese dub it’s ridiculously exaggerative, but that makes it so much better. As a taster, a little thing I like just because it’s so ridiculous is when Kenshiro says Yuria’s or Rei says Airi’s name, they’ll really emphasise it and I just love it for how abrupt it is in their sentences. That aside, if you take nothing else from this review, please just listen to the music.

All of this coupled with the awe-inspiring visuals make you end up fully invested in it by the end because, at least with me, the time you spend in the world that is surprisingly well built considering the film’s focus makes you more accustomed to its eccentricities. The visuals themselves are just as amazing as the soundtrack due to the various editing techniques used either for style or censorship when people explode or fall apart. They vary from speeding the footage up to lowering the resolution or turning the people into silhouettes and their copious amounts of blood neon white. No matter the purpose, it looks unique and gives the film just that much more character than it already had, even though it may not be to everyone’s tastes. All of the different armies and gangs in the film (trust me, there’s a lot) are easily distinguishable even though most of them are similar in their actions. The Film’s animation isn’t ground breaking by any means, but that’s not to say that it isn’t as brilliant as the rest of the film as it is just so distinctly Fist of the North Star from the neon blood, repeated animation for Kenshiro’s rapid attacks and the immensely detailed, albeit similar backgrounds where different places are distinguishable, as opposed to looking like the same place with a few different things as it so easily could’ve been. For example, the film’s locales include dilapidated megacities like Southern cross that contrast with small villages that the regular survivors build. The character designs all feel unique, from the already big, muscular protagonists like Kenshiro to the massive villains such as Heart, the character literally too fat to beat. Their designs show a clear division between the two that isn’t the vastly different costume choice. The leather jackets, shoulder pads and ridiculous cars alongside gang dress codes and battle armour make this the classic 80s apocalypse with the perfect sprinkling of Japanese absurdity.

Overall, I completely recommend Fist of the North Star to anyone who wants to have a lot of fun with a film for its insane premise and characters alongside its over-the-top violence and extremely 80s stylised visuals. It’s well worth your time, so I hope you enjoy the film as much as I did while watching it.

Devil May Cry 3: A Legend Stuck in its Time

Devil May Cry 3 is a masterclass in gameplay, style and characters, but its edgy, “cool” music, certain gameplay choices and some of its dialogue are massive shows of its time and an attempt to make something that was already cool cooler that just falls flat today. With Devil May Cry 5 coming out tomorrow, I thought now would be a good time to look back at the series best entry to see where it falls and how the new game could fix these issues.

For those who haven’t played any games in the series yet, the main plot is that Dante, our protagonist is the half human son of Sparda, a demon who saved the world by sealing away hell. Dante starts his own business, the titular Devil May Cry after his mother’s death and becomes a demon hunter for a living. Devil May Cry 3 is a perfect place for newcomers as the game is a prequel to the first game in the series.

The game’s main plot is similar to the series’ other entries: Dante gets a job from a mysterious, definitely not in any way evil customer, Dante goes to the place after jaw dropping opening cutscene, Dante kills the bad guys that may or may not include the aforementioned customer. While the plot itself is nothing special it doesn’t need to be as its characters are its main strength. In this case, when Dante finds out his long-lost brother Vergil is involved with the sudden eruption of a demonic tower, a whole new personal layer to an otherwise throwaway plot is created. The evolution of the two brothers, the different ways they use their half-demonic heritage and their “two sides of the same coin” dynamic make them stand out as two of the most iconic characters gaming has ever produced.

We see Dante, our carefree protagonist who actively embraces how powerful he is in some of the most insane, brilliant cutscenes ever whilst also remaining true to his human side and Vergil, our stoic, almost melancholic antagonist uses his demonic heritage in order to become the most powerful being in existence. He does this to prevent losing what he loves after his mother’s death, although at this point he only wants revenge. Each time the two interact, they come closer to the sides of themselves they reject. For example, after the first Vergil boss fight, Dante gains the ability to use his devil trigger, which is essentially a demonic transformation that makes him stronger after being brutally stabbed by Vergil, where Vergil, on the other hand becomes more human and compassionate in each meeting between the two, culminating in an unforgettable final scene that is worth playing the whole game for.

This difference between the two even goes as far as their designs as Dante wears modern clothes with a red coat with his hair down and uses guns alongside a rougher looking great sword, whereas Vergil sees guns as dishonourable and uses a much more refined and traditional katana alongside magic. he wears a blue long coat with upright hair, immediately separating the two. The phenomenal voice performances of Reuben Langdon and Daniel Southworth playing Dante and Vergil respectively make you love the two from their first interaction as the two bounce off each other so well that they truly feel like brothers. This makes possibly the best final boss fight ever as it is a massive challenge, especially in your first playthrough, but the narrative purpose and the surprisingly sad outcome make it truly special as far as finales in games go.

Of course, what would a game be without a supporting cast, and Devil May Cry 3’s is of course not as strong as the two main characters, but strong nonetheless. This may be because of Dante’s interactions with them but every character in the game is memorable for different reasons. The supporting protagonist, Lady (yes, that is her name. There’s a reason for it… sort of) acts as a contrasting personality to both Dante and Vergil as she has a much more serious outlook as opposed to Dante and Vergil’s “another day at the office” approach to the whole demon tower and her father, Arkham (the aforementioned mysterious customer)’s involvement in the events of the game.

Arkham acts as a driving force for the rekindling of Dante and Vergil’s relationship as (Spoilers, but quite predictable) he manipulates the two of them for his own personal goals throughout the game. This leads to one of the best boss fights in the game that you’ll have to see for yourselves.

The game’s aesthetic is contrasting, but that makes it so unique as it is done so well. The blend of modern clothes and weapons in this massive, gothic tower is unforgettable as far as video game locales go. I personally believe that this is because the characters and the environments blend together so well despite their contrasts to create a style that is undeniably Devil May Cry.

The various bosses in the game all have their own personalities and interactions with Dante that makes each of them unique and memorable. Perhaps they are so memorable because you use get a new weapon after each fight. The weapons are all extremely different from your starting great sword, from Cerberus, which manifests as ice infused nunchaku, Agni and Rudra, who become two smaller swords or Nevan, the literally electric guitar all provide the player with so much choice as to how to play the game. This all comes back to the plot as one of the most iconic moments of the game is where (spoilers again, somewhat major, but I couldn’t resist) Vergil steals the weapon from a surprisingly hard boss you just beat, only to use it against you in a boss battle, really allowing the player to connect with Dante rather than just taking him through the story.

The weapons are just one part of what makes the gameplay so special. The ridiculously large amount of customisation for Dante comes with not only the weapons, which all play completely differently where you can carry two at a time, but the various guns you find throughout the game that also work completely differently and the styles. These will place your strength in a particular area. There is trickster for speed and mobility, sword master for a plethora of extra moves for your melee weapons, gunslinger for more gun moves and royal guard for precise defence. There are two unlockable styles you can gain from bosses; quicksilver, which replaces extra moves for the ability to stop time for your enemies and doppelganger, which creates a clone of Dante for double the damage. You can upgrade weapons, devil trigger gauge and health with the numerous red orbs you get from defeating enemies, finishing levels and destroying things in the environment. These can also be used to buy healing items and a damaging item. The way you utilise styles, melee weapons and guns can completely change your experience the game and provide bucketloads to its replayability.

On that topic, the hardest difficulty you have to start with is normal, so completing the game gives you access to hard, very hard, Dante Must Die and ultimately, Heaven or hell, where you kill every enemy in one hit, but they can kill you in one hit too. Each playthrough on the same save file acts as a new game +, so there’s no need to worry about losing your upgrades and weapons. Not to mention that with the special edition, which comes with the more recent HD collections, you unlock Vergil as a playable character and the bloody palace mode after you finish the game as Dante. Vergil has three weapons to switch between, being Yamato, his katana, Force Edge, the first weapon from the first game that he uses alongside Yamato and Beowulf, the weapon he steals. He also has the ability to summon swords that hone in on enemies and a unique style that is somewhat like trickster, but with more aerial capabilities. The bloody palace mode is a continual gauntlet of enemies that rewards players with large sums of red orbs and a special costume for finishing it.

The combat itself is the main attraction of the game and at first, and probably throughout your first playthrough, you’ll most likely be mostly button mashing whilst learning a few moves, but at least with me, through just playing the game, the intricacies just clicked at one point and suddenly I saw myself go from D ranks overall to Bs and even As at times, just missing the S rank because I often take too much time to finish levels in the game. My personal favourite part about the combat is that you never feel like you’re missing out on the crazy stuff that happens in the cutscenes as the gameplay always makes sure that you feel as powerful as possible with ridiculous moves like surfing on your enemies, even if you are getting completely annihilated half of the time.

Now onto the few negatives of the game, because nothing’s perfect and Devil May Cry 3 is unfortunately no exception. The game has some awkward, out of place and what can only be described as really PS2 era platforming sections that just hurt to see in a game as good as this. Sometimes, the game is very vague as to where you need to go or what you need to get at certain points. Furthermore, and this is probably a much more personal peeve with the game, the “2006-ness” of some of the game’s dialogue the game even from the opening violence warning just makes me groan and aside from Devils Never Cry and the atmospheric tracks, the soundtrack just doesn’t do it for me. This is likely because I’ve spoiled myself with subsequent games like Bayonetta’s catchy, insanely stylish soundtrack but looking back at Devil May Cry 3 just makes me want more from its music. Devil May Cry 5 looks to remedy this with the categorically terrible but irresistibly lovable and oh so catchy Devil Trigger. That being said, there are some undeniably charming, yet so 2000s moments in the game that you’d never see in much nowadays, especially in that quantity.

To conclude, Devil May Cry 3 is just legendary and manages to push far past its dated and unnecessary aspects of gameplay and to an extent style, to provide a genuinely gripping story with iconic characters, an amazing aesthetic and deep, yet understandable combat that makes it the undisputed legend of gaming that it is.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: One Year on

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 gripped me instantly when I first played it one year ago, not only because I adored the original Xenoblade and put days into its spinoff, Xenoblade Chronicles X, but 2’s interesting changes and improvements to the well-established gameplay make it entirely unique as far as JRPGs go.

An integral part to any JRPG is the plot and Xenoblade 2 eases players in before gradually developing over several hours of gameplay. The plot itself starts with our protagonist, Rex aiming to go to Elysium, a fabled paradise in the game’s world of Alrest, in order to stop what is essentially a housing crisis of titanic proportions, as Titans, which are giant living creatures that act as the landmasses which the world’s inhabitants live on, are dying of old age. We soon learn of the world and its two most important groups of inhabitants: Blades, which are in a sense, people bound to weapons and their users, known as drivers who act as your playable characters. Rex unknowingly becomes the driver of the most powerful blade known to Alrest: The Aegis, or Pyra as she calls herself. From here, the two set out to find Elysium, meeting a colourful cast of characters through a story that keeps you hooked from beginning to end, yet unfortunately I felt its resolution had much more added onto it than it needed and undervalued the message of the game.

A large plot point is that of blades’ loss of memory when their driver dies, where they then return to their core crystal, where they originate from only to be reawakened as if being born anew. This cycle provides an interesting psychology to the blade characters in the game. For example, we see Pyra struggle because she retains her fond memories of 500 years prior to the events of the game and having to adapt and live in this new world she awakens in. The core party members, as expected in the Xenoblade series really do stand out with their rich personalities. For example, Morag, a driver from the militaristic titan of Mor Ardain, struggles in finding her identity within the party, although I feel she has little reason to stay with the other characters, as a spoiler-filled, major point that would give her motivation gets immediately undone. This weakens her resolve overall.

We see Morag’s ancient blade Brighid try to recapture her older selves within her current life through a diary kept over centuries of her long dead drivers. This shared desire for individuality links the two together in a simple yet effective way. We see the cast’s rich personalities through the implementation of character development through heart to hearts that I find the series excels in. while most are just simple fun, some bring new light to characters and develop them in interesting, unexpected ways.

Rex, I felt was a little bland compared to his predecessor, Shulk with very little motivation for his actions and no reason to be in the game other than to be Pyra’s driver until around 2 thirds of the way through the game, whereas we see in the original Xenoblade that Shulk, although in a somewhat similar situation to Rex has a clear motivation that drives and shapes his character throughout the game that I feel Rex was unfortunately lacking in.

Our main antagonists on the other hand, the group of Torna are an extremely interesting bunch of surprisingly deep characters. Jin, the group’s leader might be my favourite character in the entire game as his execution and evolution throughout the game was so well done that your view of him changes entirely from the beginning of the game to the end. On the other hand, I feel Akhos and Patroka, other members of the group weren’t developed enough and what little we did eventually get was unfortunately too little too late for me to genuinely care about them.

I started off hating Tora, the quirky Nopon (the series’ mascot) character, yet his arc that involved taking down the nopon black market to uncover a conspiracy and save his father, which has a direct impact on the end of the story actually made me appreciate him. He then immediately reminded me of why I hated him in the first place as I feel his dialogue got on my nerves a bit too much alongside his immensely annoying voice acting.

On that note, the voice acting itself is a little hit and miss in today’s golden age of voice performance

I really liked the idea of the people of various titans within the game having different British accents (with the somewhat strange exception of the Australian accent of the titan Uraya), whereas blades had an American accent to emphasise the differences between places and species within the game. This, however falls flat when Rex, who is meant to be a 15-year-old boy is voiced by Al Weaver, a 37-year-old man with a Yorkshire accent which unfortunately results in awkward and laughable dialogue in serious scenes. This, ultimately makes me feel like I’m playing the original Resident Evil instead of a modern RPG. Nia unfortunately suffers from a different problem as while her voice acting by Catrin-Mai Huw isn’t awkward like Rex’s, it is sadly tonally unfitting for a character as visually expressive as Nia. Otherwise, the voice acting is great, with the strong Scottish accent of Morag, Zeke’s over the top flamboyant voice adding to his often ridiculous lines and the members of Torna stealing the show for the most part.

As a side note, having 6 characters shouting things at the top of their voices at the same time during battles got so annoying that I turned off battle voices entirely to avoid a headache.

While the voice acting has never been perfect in Monolithsoft’s English dubs over the years, Xenoblade 2 acts as both a high and a low point for me due to its contrasting performances. The visuals of the game face a similar issue of contrast but in a much different way.

The world’s visuals are awe inspiring. From the Argentum trade guild to the world tree, the locales are stunning. Seeing parts of the titans, such as Gormott’s head move coupled with the fantastic, atmospheric music really makes the world feel alive, both figuratively and literally. The character designs are unique and representative of the characters themselves even if some female characters are needlessly… oversized in… areas which ends up looking ridiculous in battles and cutscenes.

My only other complaint as far as character designs go is that although it is a sweet idea to have several different artists design the different blades, some styles don’t blend well with Masatsugu Saito’s primary character designs which themselves don’t blend particularly well with the world, but the designs themselves are really unique to each blade and character, making me really appreciate the individuality shown through them.

The music as usual with the Xenoblade series is brilliant. Some of my favourite tracks being the theme of Giga Rosa, a sweet homage to 70s Mecha anime through its instrumentation and context within the game. Praetor Amalthus- The Acting God, a really good use of a once calm, serene character’s theme under immensely different circumstances, making it intense and much faster. Another stand-out track is Mor Ardain- roaming the wastes, a great reflection of the titan’s atmosphere with militaristic instrumentation with an intense mood but a genuine sense of adventure. I also appreciate the series’ continued tradition of the music changing entirely to a much more sombre style at night when roaming the various titans throughout the game to present an entirely different mood to the same place.

The gameplay is unique, even among the similarly original battle systems of the series so far. where before there was a list of arts, which are special attacks combined with even stronger arts, such as Shulk’s Monado arts from the original or Xenoblade X’s overdrive that refilled over time.

Xenoblade 2 simplifies this down from the 8 arts seen in previous titles to just three per blade. a new feature to Xenoblade 2’s gameplay is the Blade system, that allows for multiple movesets based on the aforementioned blades’ weapons and elements. Blades come from core crystals that you find throughout the game, a mechanic where you choose a core of varying rarity and use it to get a random blade, similar to a blind box system. This feature kept me playing the game long after the credits rolled because certain blades, unlike most have unique designs and in a way, act as extra party members with their own special, character developing quests really act as a drive to continue playing the game, not to mention the seemingly endless other side quests that can lead to unlocking even more blades, unique boss fights and equipment.

The union of blades and drivers is a key theme of the game which is complimented by the gameplay, such as the need to get both drivers and blades new equipment and strengthening the bond between the two to get new, stronger abilities for the blades whilst strengthening your drivers through combat. Blades are split into subclasses and elements which come into play with their special abilities that are earned by using arts. Of course, it only gets more complicated from there, but the game explains it all through a myriad of tutorials, so this mouthful of systems becomes much easier over time. Admittedly, it does take some getting used to for new players as I presume the difficulty hasn’t applied to me as much due to my past experience with the series. Similarly, the difficulty of certain enemies in the starting area of Gormott is rather unforgiving for new players as they can easily annihilate your weak party, potentially killing lots of progress.

The UI is simplistic and does its job. Explanations aren’t long winded, and menus are easy to navigate. A particular part I like is the addition of the different titans you visit throughout the game to the pause menu as I feel it gives something simple like the pause menu a feeling of progression for playing through the story.

Overall, I find Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a more than worthy successor to the original as it excels in its story and characters, whilst providing deep gameplay, stunning visuals and an excellent soundtrack which manage to keep it entertaining even through its few, yet unfortunately large shortcomings. It has hours upon hours of postgame content with rare blades, several superbosses and its continued support over the year since its release has been brilliant with a new game plus being added alongside brand new blades, brilliant DLC and simple quality improving patches which have kept many players, such as myself coming back to the game for so long.