The title is explicit enough, I guess: although I really wanted to enjoy a glorious, once-in-a-lifetime summer binge of XC3, that dream scenario won’t become reality.
I could have dealt with the dreary opening area, especially knowing that prettier, more colourful places waited ahead. I could also have dealt with the (infamously) bad narrative and clumsy storytelling, because cutscenes can be skipped and I (famously) only care about the gameplay in my RPG.
One thing I cannot deal with, on the other hand, is combat — which thus becomes a deal-breaker. Automatic attacks — which are the base of the series’ fighting system and are used to fill up gauges giving access to harder and flashier attacks — don’t feel satisfying. They are neither fast nor aggressive enough for my taste, and I don't get a kick out of watching them. There isn’t much missing, mind you — but that little bit of missing dynamism changes everything as far as I’m concerned.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had this perfectly nailed. Automatic attacks boasted an ideal tempo and intensity, to the point where you could nearly believe they were not automatic — because they unfolded exactly the way manually-input attacks would. Do you know where this is headed, dear fellow gamers? Do you know how I’m gonna solve that quandary? I’d rather die than replay XC2, but I can play something else; something that reprises the XC2 fighting system, only on a much smaller scale. Heck, you guessed it: it’s Torna – The Golden Country — a game of reasonable size that doesn’t require XC2 to be played, and can be bought physical to boot. Not only can it satiate my current Xenoblade craving, but it can also satiate any such craving I may experience in the future. Goodbye XC3 — here I come, Torna!
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