His and Her Story

My love for Monolith Soft’s epic Xeno franchise is well known. Starting with Xenosaga on the PS2 and now Xenoblade on the Nintendo platforms, I’ve played through them all to completion and loved every single one of them- some more than others.

With their latest release Xenoblade Chronicles 2 exceeding expectations, I eventually bought into the expansion pass, and while I enjoyed the steady stream of content, I was really in it for the massive story DLC that was supposed to go back in time to shed light on the original conflict between the Aegises that passed into legend as a day of infamy.

You’re alright too, Addam.

MSRP: $39.99(physical, standalone), $29.99(digital, part of X2 expansion pass)
Platform: Switch Exclusive
Length: 25~ hours

Even though Torna~ The Golden Country can be purchased as a standalone title, it clearly feels designed to be a compliment to the original story more than anything else. With that in mind, if you are reading this review without first having played Xenoblade 2, I highly recommend that you do not read the rest of this review as I delve into some plot points that could be deemed a spoiler. Instead, why not go play Xenoblade 2? It’s an excellent RPG!

The story present in the Golden Country takes place during the time when the Aegis Malos is wreaking havoc across the world. To combat this devastating threat, the Price of Torna awakens the other Aegis, Mythra, and sets out to stop Malos once and for all.

The events that play out in this massive 25+ hour expansion details the story beats that were only hinted about in the original game. When I learned of the nation of “Torna” I was only aware that it was once a mighty nation that was brought down during the battle between the two Aegises. To see it first hand and actually take part in that battle brought new context and meaning to the events that sent shockwaves throughout the world.

More importantly, I was able to gain some insight on the relationships of characters like Mythra, Addam, Hugo, Haze, Jin and Lora. While all the main characters are explored in one way or another, the bond between Jin and Lora takes center stage and serves as a bittersweet reminder of the broken man Jin is destined to become after losing her. By exploring the shifting relationships and seeing into the past of Mythra and Jin, I feel I have a greater appreciation of the overarching narrative in Xenoblade 2 as a whole.

A grim reminder that nothing worthwhile lasts.

That is not to say that the game’s story is all doom and grim, as the cast is a likeable bunch that has a lot of fun interacting with each other. Special mentions to Haze, the low-key queen of throwing shade, who is somewhat of an expert in making people smile. Outside of the main characters, there is a large community of NPCs with a myriad of side quests to undertake and while the objectives of these quests aren’t anything special, the context in which they’re presented made them more interesting to do than your garden variety slog.

It’s just unfortunate that the game forces the player to take on a bunch of side quests in order to progress the game by raising the community level to a certain point. While I was doing every quest I ran into just for the sake of doing them, I don’t think making side quests mandatory as a stop-gap measure to pad out the length of the game is a wise decision. The length of the expansion felt meaty as is without this, and given the high production values in the various cinematics and new areas, I felt this was entirely unnecessary.

The revamped combat is better than ever.

As for the combat, it has been streamlined to work around the fact that now each of the drivers are designated two blades and nothing more. Now switching of the blades is done as a controlled character swap, and instead of simply standing there giving passive buffs every now and then, they also participate in the battle by attacking on a cooldown.

Switching over with the use of the D-Pad triggered an attack that rendered combos like break, topple and smash. As they also had their own independent HP pools that would regenerate over time when they were not in the lead, it added some more strategic elements to switching over to other characters to either continue a combo or to try and get some HP back. The elemental combos made a return and this time, I could connect level 1, 2, or 3 of any element into a combo with the caveat that certain specific combinations were still much more powerful.

While it certainly felt similar enough to the original game’s combat, the various changes made the combat feel more dynamic and exciting to look at, with more characters taking active part in the battle. It shows that they’ve learned from their experience of developing the original game, and I’m quite curious where they will take the combat system in their next title.

The exploration of the world was made more enjoyable as well now that I didn’t have to switch party members just to satisfy the need for some elemental perk on the world map. Given there aren’t any core crystals being opened, saying goodbye to the gatcha RNG element of the game felt welcome. I still breakout into a cold sweat remembering just how many legendary core crystals it took to open my final rare blade, and I was doing that before they even implemented the skip functionality on the core opening animation.

And of course, the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful.

Torna ~ The Golden Country marks a wonderful send off to the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 with its cast of likeable characters, compelling narrative and a revamped combat engine that feels even better than the original. Having spent more than 150~ hours in the world of Alrest combined through the two titles, I can’t help but feeling that I still want more- a desire that serves as undeniable proof to the excellence of this series.

Fun Tidbit – After completing the game, there are the same new game+ options as the original and there are some post game super bosses to challenge which took some effort to take down. Also, when’s Xenoblade 3 tho?

Review copy of game provided by publisher.