Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country

Genre: JRPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna is a fairly curious entry in the Nintendo Switch library, for multiple reasons. This game is offered in two different forms – either as expansion content for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, or as a separate, self-contained title in its own right. It can technically be played on its own, without having played any of the previous games in the Xenoblade series, but that’s probably inadvisable – while players need not have played any other game to enjoy Torna in its own right, much of this game’s plot will likely not have the same impact if players have not first played Xenoblade Chronicles 2. In addition, players playing this game before Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will find some of that game’s plot points spoiled by what happens in this game, and fairly early on too. As such, I am going to be very careful about describing this game’s plot so as not to reveal those plot details.

Torna takes place hundreds of years before the main events of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which itself is only remotely connected to the plot of the original Xenoblade Chronicles, and none of these games is connected to the plot of Xenoblade Chronicles X. In other words, most games in this series are only loosely connected to one another (aside from X, which isn’t connected at all), though Torna is a direct prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Ah, but I digress…

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna is a prequel to the second game that takes place long before its human characters were born. However, that is not to say that players won’t see any familiar faces. Titans, the giant dragons that the people of this world live on, and Blades, the personified forms of magical weapons that form a bond with human Drivers, are both extremely long-lived in this universe, and as such many of these characters are seen in their younger days, or for the Blades, in their earlier incarnations. Without giving too much away, the story of this game depicts what led up to a fateful event described in the backstory of the characters in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and fans of that game will get to see how these events unfolded.

Is that vague enough for you? Well, that’s just about all you’re going to get, save for that this game follows the story of Drivers Lora and Prince Addam, along with their allies and Blades, as they seek to hunt down the genocidal Malos. While Lora and Addam are new characters, their relationships with the Blades we’re familiar with from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 serves a lot to fill in the details of what made those characters into who they are in that game. Without giving too much away, I will say that overall I liked the new characters much more than the non-Blade characters from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Lora in particular is far more likable than that game’s protagonist, Rex), and the returning characters here are far more than wasted cameos, as we get to see a completely new side to them here.

The gameplay, visuals, and world of Torna are pretty similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, so I won’t waste your time describing them again in great detail here – if you played that game already, you already know, and if not, go ahead and read my review. This game still has the same good qualities – the great story, the great characters, the same epic scope, the same imaginative world begging to be explored… and it has many of that game’s same flaws too.

In terms of presentation, this game is re-using the engine and many of the art assets from the first game, so expect it to be comparable graphically, which is to say vast and impressive-looking, but also a game with performance issues as the Nintendo Switch struggles to keep up with it. For the music, Yasunori Mitsuda returns to provide an excellent orchestral score (though a limited one, due to the game’s short length), with some nice songs like Auresco, Royal Capital, though the game oddly starts out pretty upbeat in its musical tone given how dour much of its plot and characters are. And as with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, this game’s UK voice cast lends the game a ton of personality you don’t often see in anime-esque media.

Regarding the gameplay, I will give this game’s designers some credit in fixing a few of the issues that plagued Xenoblade Chronicles 2, at least. Quests are more clearly marked on your map, and some elements of the game’s confusing battle system have been streamlined and made more user-friendly. That’s not to say that things have been dumbed down though – if anything, this game adds more complexities by allowing players to swap between their Driver of choice and that Driver’s two Blades on the fly during combat. I feel like this works much better than the first game’s system of simply swapping out the Blades as support characters, as it makes them take a much more active role in combat. This game also doesn’t make the mistake of starting with a slow couple of hours before letting players get to the more interesting parts of the game – things get pretty interesting fairly early on, and players are given free reign to explore this game’s wondrous world far earlier than Xenoblade Chronicles 2 loosened the reins.

However, multiple downsides from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are still fully present here. The game’s tutorial is still atrociously terrible, and does a poor job of making sure the player understands a concept before moving on to introduce other concepts. While the combat is definitely improved here in ways that both make it more exciting and more intelligible, it is nevertheless still far too convoluted and confusing for its own good. High-level enemies still stand far too close to the path leading to your next destination and will demolish you if you don’t give them a wide berth.

Then of course there’s the additional considerations this release brings to the forefront – namely, that being a prequel of this nature limits its intended audience largely to those players who already played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to completion, who don’t mind spending $40 on a smaller experience that’s only 20-30 hours or so and re-uses assets from the previous game.

All told, I wholeheartedly recommend this game to everyone who enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles 2… and honestly, probably not to anyone else. If you never played Xenoblade Chronicles 2, you’re far better off playing that game first. If you played the first game and hated it, this game is improved, but I would say it’s not improved so much that you’re likely to feel differently about this one. However, if you both played and enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Torna is a great additional chapter that gives a wonderful look into the past events that shaped the characters of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and you absolutely should not miss it.

tl;dr – Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna, sold both as an expansion to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and as a separate, self-contained game, is a prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 set hundreds of years before the events of that game. You probably shouldn’t play this game without playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 first though – you won’t get as much of an impact from the plot of this game, and you’ll spoil the story of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. You also shouldn’t play this game if you hated Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – there are improvements here, but not enough to fix all the issues that game had. However, if you played and liked that game, Torna is a no-brainer for you, as it gives a wonderful insight into an eventful part of that game’s story, gives you more of that world to explore, and adds some good changes to the combat and quest mechanics.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Lee, Andy Miller, Stov, u/wonderponder, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, and KC. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}