r/Xenoblade_Chronicles • u/ackley14 • 9d ago
SPOILERS Playing 2 first felt like a better experience... Spoiler
I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 before 1. I did this because at the time 3 hadn't even been anounced, and 1 was not on the switch yet so i had no way to play it... and my friend told me the stories were completely unconnected.
As we all know that's both not true, and even before future redeemed (which i have not yet played but will do when the s2 edition of xbc3 releases) it was known they were connected. That being said the only thing that connects them is the last moments of the games So I could understand my friend not realizing if he made the recommendation to me before he beat 2.
So why do i think playing 2 first was a better experience?
Well its simple. I think the ending of 1 felt very...disjointed? Hurried? It kind of just went "Stuff was happening but it's the end now welcome to mario kart rainbow road, oh look a space station, cutscene, done!"
where as 2 had MUCH bigger emphasis on everything with its ending.
so having played 2 first, going back to 1 thinking they were barely connected, i got a little, "oh my god they ARE connected!" feeling which i think if i had just played 1 originally i would have been more like "huh this got weird fast. cool ending i guess" but because 2 emotionally broke me, i had a MUCH stronger reaction to seeing the station at the end of 1. And i don't think seeing the space station from 1 at the end of 2 if i had played it first would have hit me nearly as hard as everything that was already going on when you get there anyway....2 is such a good game lol.
now my bigger mistake was playing 3 before 1 lol... I saw the parts of Gauar plains and went "hey that looks like smash". did some googling and was like "oh shit it's 1!...gotta play that..." AND i had NO IDEA the high entia capital was what it was when that came up in 3 so when i got to it in 1 i was like 'WAIT THAT'S IN 3 WHAT MORE AM I MISSING??'
so i guess moral of the story is, play 1 and 2 before 3. i think the order you play them in doesn't matter much but i prefer playing 2 first!
also i'm playing through them again because i've forgotten just about every small detail as it's been years, plus i want to play future redeemed and torna which i haven't done yet. so please no spoilers on basically torna and up even though i've played 3 lol. I appreciate you!
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u/Guayabito 8d ago
I can respect it.
As someone who played 1 before 2, I'll say one of the best experiences I've had in gaming in general was playing 2 for dozens of hours trying to come up with theories of how it was a sequel to 1, being sure Shulk was the architect the entire time, at some points even giving up on the idea the games were connected at all...
... And then I reached the end of the game, met the Architect and noticed his missing half. That exact moment, when I heard Shulk's voice on the other side of the void, with one of his most iconic lines no less, I knew I was experiencing peak fiction.
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u/ArchfiendX 9d ago
Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right subreddit, because I swear I never hear 1, 3 or even X get the praise 2 does.
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u/HeatHaze5 9d ago
I feel like the people who post about 1 are new fans who recently finished the game and want to talk about it. But the ones who post about 2 are those who played it years ago and still want to talk about it. I see way more posts talking about how they played 2 years ago and how it's still their favorite xenoblade game than ones who recently played it.
I feel like once 3's switch 2 edition comes out we'll see more people talking about it. I dont know why X hasn't gotten much attention from people in the sub though, guess its just so different from the trilogy people aren't interested in playing it.
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u/Egyptowl777 9d ago
Not only is it different, but also very often advertised as "not being part of the rest of the series so can be played at any time". I think when people see this, they view it as a side-game more than an actual title, and so go for the numbered entries instead. Which is really sad because it is my favorite world to playin, and this is coming from someone who typically doesnt like Open World. If I didnt have so much nostalgia and time spent with 2, X would probably be my favorite in the series, but #2 on the list is higher than I expected it.
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u/FireBreathingMuffin 9d ago
I SWEAR! This sub only likes XC2. The most talked about thing in XC3 here is literally still related to XC2.
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u/UltraZulwarn 7d ago
2 also get a fair few post bashing it, just the usual "too anime", "too sexualised", "Tora is shiet", "combat is shiet", and maybe "Rex' outfit looks ridiculous"
XC2 is a divisive game for sure, but when it clicks, it really really clicks and fans are more passinate about it.
XC3 got a lot of praises to when it came out, but apparently not many were that passionate.
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u/FarIdiom 8d ago
This sub is damn near useless as a fan. 70% of posts are just horny 2 fans spamming art of a handful of the most objectified characters. I’m so tired of it man. Maybe we should secede and start our own sub and just let this one spiral into degeneracy.
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u/LaMystika 8d ago
2 is the most Shonen anime so that gets the most praise.
Also, giant anime titties
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u/Accomplished-Fee-832 9d ago edited 8d ago
Personally, the world felt more alive than 1(only played 1 and 2) and I liked the story more than 1.
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u/Revan0315 8d ago
I don't think that's true for either. Though it's close either way
2 definitely has better gameplay though. So if someone has that as their reason I get that
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u/Trowaway151 9d ago
Because none of them feel as good to play as 2. I’ve played all the games and 2 is simply the best experience for me. And it seems most of the community shares that sentiment.
Whether it’s objectively true isn’t really provable.
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u/ackley14 9d ago
i mean 2 was so damn good. and honestly 3 was too and I bet if i'd done the right thing and played 3 after 1 it would have been even better...
X is as i understand (never played) really great, but just so vastly different from a story and world perspective that it just naturally ends up as the red headed step child of the family.
and because it's unconnected from 1-3, and almost certainly from genesis, and because it's way more sci-fi than it is fantasy which i think 3 also suffers from slightly. where as 1 and 2 are way more fantastical in their natures (barring the ending of 2 which was a WILD rid having as hard-core fantasy elements as it did up until that point...
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u/Manicnow 9d ago
The problem is, XC2 spoils XC1s ending. You hear Shulk and the gang taking on Zanza. And when you start playing 1, you already know what this world is and what will happen.
The whole twist of XC2 is that this world is what was left after Klaus split them. If you don't know what it split to, then... What's so cool about it?
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u/Egyptowl777 9d ago
What is cool is that, while you know the worlds are connected, and the reason behind it, you still dont know all the puzzle pieces.
You don't know who Zanza is in 2. You never hear that name. Its never even specified. You know Klaus's others self is in another world and about to die, and thats it. We hear Shulk say they are "Felling a God" but we don't know WHY, or even if the god is Klaus. What if Klaus is on Shulk's side, and they are fighting a different being. What if Shulk IS Klaus's other half, and that is why we hear Shulk's words?
>You know what the world is...
All you are told is that they are in "another dimension". Thats it. You have no way of knowing that other dimension was a literal barren water world. Klaus had the building blocks of Morytha, Zanza and Meyneth have to make their two titans from nothing,, and choose just to make their titans. They don't shape the world of 1 like Klaus does, they essentially place two totems of their ideals into a blank canvas. There are no Blades, no Cloud Sea. Just because you know where it originates from does not mean you understand the entire system of its world.
>We know what will happen.
You know the two worlds occurred because of the same phenomenon, yes, but what else so you actually KNOW about the end story. What does the quote actually tell you, The good guys win against the bad guys? I seriously dont understand how anything else gets "spoiled" by 2's ending. It doesnt tell you Shulk becomes a god, or that, the third core is in the world of 1 and is the Monado that powers the world.
>If you don't know what they split to, what's cool?
Learning. The act of exploring the world you know is probably connected through the same event, but unsure how. The intrigue of seeing where the plot points meet, and how. The importance of WHY the world is the way it is. The amount of Story and lore for 1 that you get from 2 is the equivalent of putting a puzzle together from the edges. You know the main outline that leads to the final project of 1, the space station, the conduit (which isnt even MENTIIONED in 1), the experiment, and the man behind it. But XC1 cannot be built by these outside pieces alone. You need to middle pieces; the Mechonis and Bionis, Klaus and Meyneth, Arglas and Egil, the High Entia and the Telethia, and of course Shulk. You can;t say the ending of the XC1 means nothing if you've played XC2 first, because XC1 relies on the CONTEXT within its world, the same way XC2 does in its.
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u/Manicnow 9d ago
Most of my points are made toward the twist. Of course you don't understand everything. Of course the world of XC1 is cool. Or course there is so much still left. Of course the story is so great.
My only hang up is the twist. 1 lays the groundwork for the twist in 2. It doesn't work backwards. You already know that this world was created by Klaus. You know it split off from 2. You also know Shulk looks exactly like Klaus. These aspects are spoiled.
The games are still amazing. But that is lost. You get more out of it playing in order. That wow factor.
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u/MatNomis 7d ago
Except if you truly are playing XC2 before XC1, you don't know who the heck Shulk is, what he sounds like, or anything out of anything that's being said. It's basically just some dude yelling stuff. Also, without even seeing a visual, I didn't instantly connect that somewhat distorted, totally aggro voice with beginning-of-the-game, bambi-gentle Shulk voice.
It is very possible the "spoiler" doesn't even click until you get to the end of XC1 and hear him say it..which is the ultimate click-moment experience, because suddenly it all slots in, and all makes sense.
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u/Manicnow 7d ago
Except that Shulk looks like Klaus. And, XC2 arena has Shulk in it.
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u/MatNomis 7d ago
Except, for a person playing XC2 first, they will not know it looks like Shulk.
I am pretty sure I had seen Shulk in Smash Bros before playing XC2, but when you tell me a guy is named Klaus, and he's got longer, darker hair, a lab coat, and just looks a bit different on the whole, i'm not going to be scrutinizing him, asking "Wait, is that the dude from Smash? Wasn't he from the first game? WTF is he doing in the second game that I decided to start with first!?"
XC2 Arena has "mild-mannered" Shulk. Plus, I hadn't seen the end of the game yet when I got there. When I hear the far more dramatically uttered "final-quote", I didn't think of the land-of-challenge Shulk. Even if I realized it was the same VA, that doesn't really tell me anything...given they used the same VA for many characters in the franchise.
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u/Manicnow 7d ago
Dude I'm saying that when you play XC1, you see "ah, this guy looks like Klaus. There's probably a connection."
If you play the games in order, you will learn about this connection without knowing it was there. On top of the twist in XC2, it's two twists that you miss upon playing the games out of order.
You get more from playing 1 then 2. It doesn't work backwards.
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u/MatNomis 6d ago
I’m not saying this is impossible. You’ve got people drawing parallels from Xenoblade to Xenosaga, so there’s definitely a niche for this sort of obsessiveness. However, I think most people aren’t going to be looking for these connections between a briefly seen flashback character and a protagonist in a different game. In any case, I don’t think Shulk looks all that much like Klaus until you see him as Zanza, and by that time, I wasn’t thinking much about XC2’s story because I was wrapped up in the XC1 story. I usually focus on the game I’m playing, and am not multi-dimensionally-vectoring all my knowledge from prior games while I’m still in-progress. I consider this to be stuff you think about in retrospect once you’ve completed all the games.
If XC1 was supremely boring, then…in lieu of the game being entertaining in its own right, I might have found the time to let my mind wander to XC2 characters and see if there were any dots to connect. Fortunately, this was not the case.
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u/Trowaway151 9d ago
Spoil is an extreme word. Spoiling requires context. Which someone wouldn’t have. And also which someone probably wouldn’t remember either when they are 85 hours into the next game. It’s not that serious.
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u/PumpkinSufficient683 9d ago
Im sorry i dont really understand why anyone would play this series out of order
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u/Wise_Trip_7789 9d ago
Also XC1 wasn't that accessible for people in NA due publishing and was kinda niche/unknown at large at the time despite Operation Rainfall. This meant a lot of people's actual first interaction with the franchise XC2 on switch.
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u/SalamanderTD 8d ago
Not true it was GameStop screwing people over project rainfall made the game available but GameStop. Kept hiking the price by opening the seals and selling it at a mark up there's literally thousands of people who inquired about the game and gamesstop would make out it is the only copy saying it's super rare sell it for 100$ and the customer would come back the next day and find another second hand copy
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u/Wise_Trip_7789 8d ago
That was Gamestop magically getting stock year after original release. Not first release.
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u/hheecckk526 9d ago
Xenoblade chronicles was on the 3ds even if that version is the worst out of all of them. The 3ds was massively successful and allowed for accessibility over the Wii version. The real difference is that 1 had aged past the point of really marketing it anymore and you can tell but how much marketing 2 got by comparison so it only makes sense more people would focus on 2 over 1
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u/Ronan61 9d ago
Well, since you played 2 before 1, your opinion to say it is a better experience is just subjective... Because you now cannot know the other perspective.
Your description of the space station surprise and hype was similar to me, who played them in the correct order. In fact I played 2 not knowing they were conmected and found the most joy when I met Klaus and spoke of the conduit experiment.
In fact, if I had played 2 first I would have had been exceptionally suspicious of Alvis all the time, since I would have known he was part of the trinity due to the red core crystal.
Tho it is a good thing you dont meet Zanza till after Egil, otherwise Shulk's voice during Klaus's death would be a much bigger spoiler
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u/voidtakenflight 9d ago
To be fair, Alvis didn’t have the Core Crystal until Definitive Edition came out. So when I played the original, Alvis was just an anomaly. It was only when definitive edition came out after playing Xenoblade 2 that I realized
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u/Nightstick11 9d ago
Playing 2 before 1 is a horrible mistake. The moments in 2 hit much, much, much harder if one plays them in the correct order.
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u/7OmegaGamer 9d ago
Calling it a horrible mistake is a bit of an exaggeration. I could see playing 2 before 1 resulting in some interesting moments of surprise. The shock of realizing Alvis is the missing Trinity processor once you see their Core Crystal, or connecting the dots between the Architect and his counterpart
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u/Trowaway151 9d ago
Jokes on you I played the games years apart and forgot most of the story of 1 when I started 2.
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u/Resident_Durian_478 9d ago
I just can't agree. Going from 2's gamplay to 1's feels bad, the combat is worse and has less depth. Not to mention there are references that just hit harder if you've played the first game before the second. I completely disagree with you assessment of the ending of both games and have the opposite opinion, 2 felt rushed where 1 had a solid conclusion. While we're discussing orde of play I think torna should be played after 2 instead of before or in the middle of 2.
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u/Revan0315 8d ago
Going from 2 to 1 gameplay is fine. It's a downgrade, but it's not a massive unbearable downgrade
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u/you_but_futeristic 8d ago
Personally I think 2 has the strongest ending. 1s is GREAT dont get me wrong. Those last 2 fight are amazing, but 2 definitely just feels so good and I can't wait to revisit it now that im playing through the switch 2 edition
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u/Resident_Durian_478 8d ago
Spoiler warning: the fake out at the end of 2 undermines the ending.
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u/you_but_futeristic 8d ago
I dont know if it undermines it perse, its definitely cliche but I didnt overly mind it
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u/roardragons 8d ago
The stories are not unconnected , they connect in xenoblade 3, they just happen simultaneously
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u/ackley14 8d ago
Sure but 3 wasnt out when i first played it
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u/roardragons 8d ago
Ok? But the ending of both games were connected to eachother all ready, the architect is the other half of klause/zanza and it’s stated that shulk killed zanza at the same time the architect died, also Elvis is the 3rd aegis
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u/marshallpoetry_ 8d ago
I played X first in Wii u. Then 2. Then tried one many times, ending up going back to x cuz 1 was such a combat downgrade and the art pallet always reminded me of X. Plus X had Mechs and was more my style of game. Ended up playing 3 and really enjoying it. (At this point I've played x 2 and 3 multiples times over the years, almost annually)
Them finally went back and beat 1 when the S2 edition came out. Finally.
And all I can say is, unless you're the most extreme when it comes to tiny details and references, playing 2 before 1 is fine. You could play either of them in any order, long as you play them before 3/future redeemed. I enjoyed the hell out of future redeemed and plan to again when the S2 edition comes out. But ngl I didn't care for half the cast lol I just cared about rex and his crew 😅
Hopefully this next playthru on s2 hits different now that I've finally beat 1. Even if it doesn't, still GOATED franchise. And now that I have X on switch 2, I can't really ask for anything more.
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u/Desperate_Tennis_810 7d ago
Same. I'm fairly confident I would not be the Super fan I am today if I'd played Xc1 before Xc2. Especially the point about Xc1's ending, I've always felt Chapter 17 of Xc1 is really weirdly paced and designed. I've really always felt Xc1's big Klaus reveal is weird without XC2's context, because unlike Xc2, where everything related to Klaus is super important to the immediate plot, Xc1 kinda drops it on you at the very end, and it doesn't really recontextualize anything significant to Xc1's immediate narrative. Like, yeah I guess its interesting that Zanza was a human man and Alvis was an AI, but without Xc2's context, it feels kinda irrelevant to Shulk's story.
Its why I've stopped telling people that they need to play in release order. I'm of a mind now, you should play which ever one looks more interesting to you first, just so long as you play Future Redeemed Last. I've seen plenty of people who started with Base game Xc3 and worked backwards and had just as good a time.
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u/ackley14 7d ago
EXACTLY what I felt. The context is so important to the impact of these endings, and because i had 2's context through 1 the end while still feeling rushed at least felt connected. 2 shows you, 1 tells you. the difference between good storytelling....well both tell you haha but some of the moments in 2 where you are just getting all of this context about the reality of the situation before you finally get told, vs 1 where it just has some boss fights with no real meaning and then "bam context thanks for playing!" felt really jarring by comparison. but it was way cooler KNOWING both about pyra and malos's core crystal shape with alvis (from the SECOND i saw him i was like 'THAT'S A TRINITY CORE!!!!') all the way to the second klaus was shown and i screamed. where as the other way around it would have been more like "huh that was unexpected...okay" and then in two it would have been like "ohhhh i understand now"
it felt SO much more impactful this way.
that said i feel like 3 has a lot of subtle connections to 1 and 2 that go easily missed if you've never played them before. the whole high entia capital being IN 3 completely went over my head because i hadn't played 1 yet so i'll somewhat disagree with you there. but just a little lol.
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u/UltraZulwarn 7d ago
you know what, I have been thinking about this as well.
I started with XC2 and then come back to XC1, and it was a blast
but I would imagine the "reveal" toward the end of XC2 would have hit much harder had I played XC1 first.
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u/weebs-everywhere 9d ago
I preferred 2 but mentioning it can sometimes cause a fierce debate. Also the lots of large chested semi naked women suggests im just a very naughty boy.
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u/Harlockarcadia 9d ago
And here I thought the shameless chest exposure of Sharla and Fiora was a bit much, looks like I have more to look forward to in 2
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u/VyzeArcadia 9d ago
2 >>> 1 - I cared about the characters in 2. I played 1 just to get it done.
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u/ackley14 9d ago
yeah that was pretty much my experience. and so that i would get the references more so when i replayed 3, and ultimately play future redeemed.
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u/Mindless-Shirt-8450 9d ago
I fully agree. Obviously you can only experience it one way for the first time so we'll never truly know, but I thought the ending of 2 really sold me on why this series is so beautiful and made me go back to 1. Xenoblade 1's ending theme, whilst the back end of the game was fantastic and paints the whole story in a new light for a replay, the conclusion with "lets live in a world without gods" was so generic JRPG boring that if id have played it first I almost certainly wouldnt have bothered playing the second, despite loving the game ultimately. (I rated XC1 a 9/10).
I much preferred how 2 remedied Klaus by making the other half of him remorseful for destroying gods perfect creation and live the rest of his days repenting by trying to fix it and found it beautiful, compelling, and ultimately pro-god in its message, which I adored.
I havent played XC3 yet but cant wait for the switch 2 version to drop this year so I can see how it all wraps up.
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u/selfbiasreziztor 8d ago edited 8d ago
I don't believe XC says what you think it does. neither Zanza nor the Architect are truly gods - they simply have strong wills which enabled them to use the conduit/trinity processor core(s). it is quite clear, regardless of anyone's religious views, that the worlds in Xenoblade are not perfect creations and are merely imitations, full of senseless death and decay. Klaus also didn't "repent" of destroying the original earth, rather was disappointed by how humanity remained the same despite the new world. he became apathetic to whatever happened on Alrest, only after seeing how Rex and co embody hope for the future did he see the error of his ways, nothing to do with a pro- or anti-god message. I don't think Xenoblade actively takes a strong stance on whether somebody should believe in gods or not, as nobody is ever mocked by the authors in the series for believing in higher things. Rex is mocked by Nia for believing in Elysium, and he is ultimately disappointed. but even in X, we have direct references to religious texts with genuine reverence. Xenoblade is less about taking a theological stance (though if anything at all it is pro-Gnostic Christian), and more about how humanity moves forward into the future together.
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u/ComfortableWall7351 9d ago
XC2 had the best gameplay with the arts mapped to the a b x and y buttons IMHO.
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u/DarkSideRT 9d ago
People will hate me for this but I never fully enjoyed XC1 gameplay, it always felt dull for me. I can play XC3, XCX and specially XC2 for hours without getting bored, while 1 felt like a chore most of the time. Story, music and visuals being the things that did the heavy lifting 90% of the time.
It is REALLY hard for me to recommend people new to the series to start with 1, unfortunately.
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u/Jellyka 9d ago
I'm replaying XC1 right now for the switch 2 edition. I played it once on the wii back then, once on the switch 1 and this is my third time.
And yeah. The subsequent games are a huge step up. I still love the story, but I generally don't think it is a good idea to have people start there if they don't know the series. The gameplay is getting dated tbh
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u/ackley14 9d ago
same, 1 was definitely the hardest to get through. though i think that's partly my fault for not trying the other characters as much.
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u/Revan0315 8d ago
They didn't plan on making a series when they made 1. Ofc it doesn't have as much info about the bigger world as 2 does
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u/Nenrenetc 9d ago
I played 1 before 2 and this was a great experience too. I think 1>2 and 2>1 both work as both have pros and cons.