Xenoblade Chronicles 2 gameplay from Gamescom 2017

[Armagon]

So we got a look at a new area in the game, as well as learning more about the battle system. Here's what we know

• Arts are now more streamlined. Instead of having to scroll through a bar just to select an Art, they are now available at the touch of a fingertip. Each Art will correspond to a button on the right Joy-Con.
• At first glance, a character has only four Arts. But that changes when the Blades come in. Each Blade comes with three normal Arts and one Elemental Art (so four Arts in total). Each character can have up to three Blades equipped and can switch between them during battle. If each Blade has four Arts and a character can have three Blades, then that's 12 Arts in total for each character.
• The Break and Topple system from the original game has been expanded upon. Now, there are four stages: Break, Topple, Launch, and Smash. Break and Topple work the same as they did in the original. Launch sends the opponent into the air and Smash sends them smashing back down into the ground. I don't know if Daze is still a thing or not. I'm leaning towards no, since Launch and Smash probably replaced it.
• There's an Element system.
• Chain Attacks are back.
• You can no longer see which enemies attack at sight and which don't. This was a conscious decision by the developers to make the world feel more alive. They want you to learn about these creatures as you explore.
• You can't attack while moving.
• Arts buildup every time you auto-attack. Then, whenever you use an Art, the Elemental Art charges up. It sounds slow but the Arts charge up pretty fast.
• Having certain Blades on you will let you do specific things on the field. They didn't show it but they used an example of how because Rex had Pyra with him, they were able to burn away logs that were blocking the water flow, allowing them to access new areas of the map.
• Fall damage is back. How wonderful.
• It seems there are no healing Arts. However, when attacking an enemy, they will occasionally drop healing potions that you can pick up. Picking one up instantly restores HP. Oh, and the enemy drops multiple of them. Still confused as to how this works exactly tho.
• Just like how you and your party consists of Drivers and Blades, there are enemy Drivers and Blades as well. And they can do the things you can do. There are even unique variants of these Drivers; the commentators noted how that Driver would've wiped them out in three hits.
• Environment and music is looking and sounding as amazing as ever.
• Heard some voice acting but i couldn't really judge it because the commentators talked over it.
• The battle system seems to have an emphasis on trade-offs, at least when it comes to more powerful attacks. This was noticeable in a battle with a Unique Monster. What happened was, a powerful elemental attack was used against the monster. It did a lot of damage but the monster than gained a resistance to it. So it comes down to using these powerful attacks at the right time. Oh btw, Chain Attacks will reset a monster's elemental resistance.

I may have missed some stuff so be sure to watch the video when you can. Btw, if you notice any framerate drops, take note that the stream's quality was a bit bad. Of course, most framerate drops that are in the game will likely be gone by the time it releases (i say most because i'm sure there'll be a few rare ones in the final product. A game this big can't run smoothly 100% of the time Just look at Breath of the Wild).

[LucarioGamer812]

Sounds great (besides fall damage)

[Armagon]

17 minutes ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

Sounds great (besides fall damage)

Yeah, i'm a bit disappointed fall damage is back, especially considering that it was removed in Xenoblade Chronicles X. I never really liked fall damage Xenoblade, given how grand the areas are.

[Interdimensional Observer]

33 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Yeah, i'm a bit disappointed fall damage is back, especially considering that it was removed in Xenoblade Chronicles X. I never really liked fall damage Xenoblade, given how grand the areas are.

The nightmares of Frontier Village return! But to be fair without fall damage, I could end the misery of the Ether Mines by just jumping to the bottom (though Monolith could have done something to stop that).

 

Interesting info overall. 

I dislike the removal of enemy detection method indicators, but I'll bear with it.

Outside of Sharla, healing arts were always rather secondary to the combat of the two XC games- a fast offense is the best defense. Not having them at all would be hardly worse than XCX. This said, if there are none, I'm concerned about how frequent these healing potions drop- luck rhymes for a reason.

Being able to interact more the environment is a good thing. XC and XCX were pretty, but a lack of interactivity dulled the immersion a little and was a shame.

I wonder how many Blades will be obtainable and how many Drivers. Will you be able to swap Blades among the Drivers, or does each get their own personal fixed set? Or will it be a mix of the two?

[Armagon]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm concerned about how frequent these healing potions drop- luck rhymes for a reason.

Same. On one hand, i don't want them to be too rare, because then it might get stressful on tougher battles. On the other hand, if they drop too frequently, then there's no risk of losing a battle (unless an enemy has an insta-kill Spike, assuming Spike damage is back).

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I wonder how many Blades will be obtainable and how many Drivers. Will you be able to swap Blades among the Drivers, or does each get their own personal fixed set? Or will it be a mix of the two?

I think it's a mix of the two. It seems very likely that each Driver will have one Blade tied to them (so for example, Rex and Pyra) and the other "secondary" Blades can be equipped by anyone. I think the way it works is, based off the E3 Treehouse livestream, anyone can equip a "secondary" Blade when you get one, but whoever equips it becomes locked to them (as in, if Rex gets Blade A, then Nia can't use Blade A). Then, that character can switch between that Blade and any other Blades it has gotten.

Here's an image for reference

Spoiler

There are 21 Blade slots. I don't know if that limit can be increased. I also don't know if Blades are unique or if it's possible to get duplicates.

As for how many Drivers, there's this image that may give of us a clue.

Spoiler

Here we see Rex, Nia, and a dark-clothed individual we haven't seen yet. We know Tora (the Nopon) is a Driver as well. My guess is that these four Drivers will be the only playable characters. Which at first looks like a downgrade from the original Xenoblade's 7 playable characters and Xenoblade X's 19 playable characters. And while it is at first, you have to factor in the Blades. Blades basically act as extra party members. Given that each Driver can have 3 Blades equipped, and they can have a total of 21 Blades, that's a lot.

Even though there's only four characters (probably) to play as, it gets a lot more complicated when you factor in the Blades. There could be more characters than the ones shown, but i think Monolith Soft doesn't want to overwhelm the player with the amount of Blades they can get. More characters means more management between the Blades. 

 

[The DanMan]

Most of this stuff we learned from the Treehouse footage.

[kingddd]

Well looks like Launch is back from Xenoblade X so I guess they put it as a pretty big mechanic in this one now.  Well little arts utilized Launch I think skyhigh was a tiny variation of it.

I am worried that the entire game might become another Break, Topple and a variation of daze since now with launch and smash style of game again because it was the few viable tactics that made the game really easy if you're equivalent level to the enemy.  And I'm probably gonna miss the mechanics of auto attacking while moving.  But I'll reserve judgement when i get the full game.

[Interdimensional Observer]

20 hours ago, Armagon said:

Here we see Rex, Nia, and a dark-clothed individual we haven't seen yet. We know Tora (the Nopon) is a Driver as well. My guess is that these four Drivers will be the only playable characters. Which at first looks like a downgrade from the original Xenoblade's 7 playable characters and Xenoblade X's 19 playable characters. And while it is at first, you have to factor in the Blades. Blades basically act as extra party members. Given that each Driver can have 3 Blades equipped, and they can have a total of 21 Blades, that's a lot.

Even though there's only four characters (probably) to play as, it gets a lot more complicated when you factor in the Blades. There could be more characters than the ones shown, but i think Monolith Soft doesn't want to overwhelm the player with the amount of Blades they can get. More characters means more management between the Blades. 

Slashing the character count to 4 might just mean the four Drivers are bettered developed characters than if we had more. But there are plenty of games that show that it doesn't have to be that way. (By the way, what is with the Nopon name reuse? Tora is the name of a Nopon that appears in a couple Affinity Missions in XCX.)

I'm now envisioning Blades as mini-classes. Each Driver has access to a slew of Blades, and then can mix and match them the way one would mix and match jobs, sub-jobs, and passive abilities in certain Final Fantasy games. As a fan of the Bravely duo, I could certainly enjoy it if that's the case. The creative juices will flow as I try to decide what to make my team like.

On that note- I notice how in the screenshot you provided, Pyra has "Role   Atk". Presumably this means different Blades have artsets that tend towards different roles. What other "Roles" could there be? Defender/Aggro tank? Buffer? Debuffer?

Also, has anything been shown of upgrading arts? Or have they dumped that? I don't think upgrading is needed- to reference Bravely again, its physical damage multipliers remain consistent from beginning to end and its no problem (though magic multipliers and its base values do increase). If arts upgrading does exist again- well with so many Drivers, you'll certainly have strategize AP investments.

[Armagon]

10 hours ago, kingddd said:

I'm probably gonna miss the mechanics of auto attacking while moving.

Same, though i'm sure i'll get used to it after a bit.

40 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

(By the way, what is with the Nopon name reuse? Tora is the name of a Nopon that appears in a couple Affinity Missions in XCX.)

I honestly don't know either. In the beginning, i would've said it's a placeholder name but the game's too far into development for that to be the case. Then again, in the E3 footage, we saw a Blade named Fudor, but in the Gamescome footage, Fudor had been renamed to Kaibyaku. Not only that, but the assoicated weapon changed from an axe to a spear.

Unless Kaibyaku is a variant of Fudor. That possibility may exist.

45 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm now envisioning Blades as mini-classes. Each Driver has access to a slew of Blades, and then can mix and match them the way one would mix and match jobs, sub-jobs, and passive abilities in certain Final Fantasy games. As a fan of the Bravely duo, I could certainly enjoy it if that's the case. The creative juices will flow as I try to decide what to make my team like.

I think that may be the case actually, seeing as how each Blade we've seen has a corresponding weapon. Adding on to this, some Blades may even be used for transportation, such as how we've seen footage of Nia riding Dromarch.

Oh btw, i rewatched a bit of the E3 Treehouse livestream, it turns out that the game autosaves whenever a Core Crystal are activated (Core Crystals are what you use to get Blades). So you may have to really choose carefully who gets it, because there's no turning back later. But then afterwards, it asks "set this Blade" so who knows, maybe you can activate it with one Driver and then give it to another. Though i feel that may contradict the lore of this game. We'll have to wait and see. It also seems you can hold up to 99 Core Crystals and the way the menu is displayed makes it seem like duplicate Blades will be a thing.

55 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

On that note- I notice how in the screenshot you provided, Pyra has "Role   Atk". Presumably this means different Blades have artsets that tend towards different roles. What other "Roles" could there be? Defender/Aggro tank? Buffer? Debuffer?

Probably. We haven't seen any other Roles besides "Atk" but it's very likely there will be Blades with different Roles. 

56 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Also, has anything been shown of upgrading arts? Or have they dumped that?

I don't know but i'm leaning towards them not being in the game. Main reason being that those Elemental Arts that each Blades has "upgrades" as the battle goes on. As you use regular Arts to fill up the gauge, the Elemental Art level increases to I, then II, then III, and finally IV. You can't use an Elemental Art if it's below Lv.I, obviously. Of course, i suppose regular Arts could be upgradable but for now, i'm gonna lean towards upgrading Arts not being a thing in this game. Besides, i think the Blades themselves will level up, whether it be through battles or in a way similar to upgrading Arts in the previous games. In the screenshot i posted, there is an option that is just ???. Maybe it has to do with that. Or perhaps Blades' levels are tied to their Driver.