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    Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

    Game » consists of 3 releases. Released Sep 21, 2018

    A standalone release of the Torna: The Golden Country DLC for Xenoblade 2 that tells the story of the war that took place 500 years before the main game.

    yyninja's Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country (Nintendo Switch) review

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    An expansion that usurps the main game in almost every aspect

    Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country is proof that Monolithsoft listens to their player base and is willing to make changes to produce better games. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was a game of incredible ambition laden with too many problems to count. The game soured my experience with the over-the-top anime tropes, a Gatcha-style system of unlocking rare Blades and a general absence of quality of life features, like the lack of reviewable tutorials.

    To my delight, Torna the Golden Country is better than the core game in almost every aspect. The combat is more engaging. The tone is more serious. The characters, my god the characters, are interesting and have depth to them! Torna the Golden Country is all of this and only a sixth as long as the main game. This bite-sized JRPG experience exceeded my expectations. My experience was so positive that after completing Torna the Golden Country I felt an urge to revisit Xenoblade Chronicles 2 so that I can see some characters from a different perspective.

    Torna the Golden Country is part of the Expansion Pass to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 but can also be purchased separately. While it is technically a standalone game, I strongly recommend playing the base game before playing Torna the Golden Country or ideally be played right after Chapter 7 in XC2 since the game was originally intended to be content set after that chapter until Monolithsoft spun it off as a separate game. Torna the Golden Country assumes players are familiar with XC2's principal characters and their significance to the overall plot.

    The game strikes a more somber tone compared to the main game
    The game strikes a more somber tone compared to the main game

    The game is set 500 years prior to the main game during the Aegis War. The Aegis War is when Mythra and Malos waged a series of intense battles that almost destroyed the world of Alrest. Golden Country helps resolve the mysteries in the base game like explaining the legend of Addam and how Jin became a villain. You play as Lora, Jin’s driver, who is searching for her mother. She is also a criminal on the run for resonating with Jin who was a Core Crystal stolen from a Tornan castle.

    Lora and Jin visit a town ravaged by Malos’s wrath and encounter Addam and Mythra. Addam being the prince of Torna recognizes Jin immediately and fights them to take Lora into custody. During the battle, Addam and Mythra can barely keep up with Lora and Jin due to their unconventional fighting style. The battle ends in a stalemate but Addam is left so impressed by the duo that instead of reporting them, recruits Lora and Jin to help fight Malos.

    Torna the Golden Country is visually and technically the same game as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 but with smart changes and additions.The combat is more fast paced where both Driver and Blade actively participate in battles. There’s a tag-team like gameplay loop where the vanguard engages in auto attacks to build the Art and Special meters while the backline character supports the vanguard with various buffs, debuffs and damaging moves. The vanguard takes damage which can be partially recovered by swapping with the backline character. In addition, swapping between Driver and Blade activates a Switch Art that often builds toward a Blade combo. For example, you can use Lora’s Hungry Snake Art to inflict Break then swap to Jin to cause an enemy to be Toppled.

    The gameplay changes are welcome and makes the combat more exciting
    The gameplay changes are welcome and makes the combat more exciting

    One of the main qualms with the base game was that battles took forever. Enemies were meat sponges and even when you are several levels higher than a foe, it would still take minutes to take them down especially for bosses and unique monsters. In Golden Country, enemies have more reasonable HP amounts and it is much easier to add elemental orbs to them. Which makes it faster to do massive damage when doing a Chain Attack. Ironically the balance changes are tuned so heavily that there is little opportunity to fully engage with the combat mechanics. I found myself struggling to pull off a Fusion Combo to complete a side quest because monsters were dying too fast.

    If I could pick one thing that I disliked the most in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it is the tone. The dialog, character designs and the jokes all scream anime for prepubescent boys. In Torna the Golden Country, things could not be more different. The writing is more somber, serious and nuanced, similar to the tone in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. There are no distracting shots of a character’s breasts or ass. Female characters like Lora and Mythra are treated more equitably instead of being the target of cliche anime jokes about their figure. There is also no excessive screaming from the main protagonist, unlike Rex who seems to bawl out every other minute.

    The Community System is a new feature in Torna the Golden Country. Each NPC Lora meets is added to the system which helps track available side quests. The Community System is similar to the Affinity Chart in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 in that both feel wholly unnecessary and only added to pad the game’s length. There are two points in the game where the game forces you to reach a certain Community Level before you can progress with the main story. The only way to increase the Community Level is to complete dozens of side quests. The fact that side quests are mandatory ruins the game’s momentum and is a sour point in an otherwise great experience.

    The Community System is an interesting idea but does a disservice and pads out the game's length
    The Community System is an interesting idea but does a disservice and pads out the game's length

    Torna the Golden Country continues Monolithsoft’s track record for great world building and presentation. The game has an upbeat, jazzy soundtrack that is joyful to listen to. There are two explorable titans in the game, Torigoth and Torna. The Torigoth titan is recycled from the base game but has several tweaks in its’ geography to keep it feeling fresh. Torna is somewhat of a let down because it mostly consists of linear levels with the exception of one area. The performance on the Switch is slightly better than the base game as it utilizes bokeh effects to improve the framerate in cutscenes. However the performance is still unacceptable as even the more climatic battles suffer from framerate issues when the Switch is docked.

    The game carries flaws from the original game. Navigation continues to be confusing but is somewhat remedied due to the linearity of the levels in Torna. There is a constant need to check the Blades’ Affinity Chart to update their skills. There are still several moments of ludonarrative dissonance where the actions you take as a player don’t correlate to the events in the plot. An example of this is how foes are completely trounced in battle only for a cutscene to depict them unfazed and unharmed.

    I also have some more nitpicks about Torna the Golden Country. There are very few shopkeepers in the game and most items are crafted in campsites which makes money practically useless. It is strange how there is no place to craft items in the Tornan Capital and you have to Quick Travel to a campsite elsewhere to craft. The game has a noticeably lower budget with recycled character assets and a lack of voice acting outside of major cutscenes. With the exception of Lora, Jin and Mythra, the other characters feel like stand-in companions who don’t contribute anything to the story. I also was disappointed that Addam did not get more screen time and his story is barely fleshed out. The ending doesn’t tie up all the loose ends that I was hoping for but instead relies on the player to make assumptions of what happens between the events after the Aegis War and the start of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

    All in all, Torna the Golden Country is an improvement from the base game but not an exceptional experience. The tweaks to the gameplay make the combat more engaging and enjoyable. The shift from an anime to a serious tone works wonders as it is easier to connect with the characters especially with Lora and her struggle to find her mother. The numerous quality of life changes are welcome, like reviewable tutorials, but these features are expected from any game and are not worthy of praise. The game is also unnecessarily padded out because of the Community System and the story doesn’t completely fulfill the ambition of the opening premise. Torna the Golden Country is a textbook example of a game heading in the right direction and is what Monolithsoft should build upon if there is ever a sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

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