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Back at Gamescom, I got the chance to play around an hour of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Nintendo's big role-playing game exclusive pencilled in for launch on Switch this Christmas. I'm told I was the first person at the show - and apparently the first outside of Nintendo - to go hands-on. Surprisingly little has been seen so far, bearing in mind the game's impending launch, so I'm a little lost when I find myself dropped a dozen or so hours into the game's campaign. I'll be learning its many battle systems on the fly - and I do definitely spend my entire time with the game learning, as layer upon layer of gameplay unfurls itself and things slowly, mostly start to make sense.It's a feeling that'll be familiar to many, I'm sure. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is designed to be an entry point to the series for the large number of Nintendo owners yet to try its predecessors. I played a chunk of the original, impressive Chronicles way back on Wii but its late arrival in Europe and even later showing in North America meant it was sadly overlooked by many. Wii U spin-off Chronicles X found a slimmer audience still. Chronicles 2 tells its own story with fresh characters in new lands, and with its own take on the series' deep battle design.
Combat takes up a significant portion of my time, and encompasses the vast majority of systems you'll need to master. Battles are a mix of positioning and timing of your character, and a constant, dizzying balancing act of keeping your eyes on all the information available to you. There are numbers to track in each corner of the gameplay screen, making battles a stat-filled spaghetti of bars and meters, with the actual action taking place behind all that, in the middle. You control your party members' blades, the sort-of alive creatures which fight for you, which auto-attack when left near enemies. Moving your blade means they'll stop attacking, so you'll stop doing damage, but the trade-off is you can dart around to pick up potions and heal, or get in a better place to attack from. Auto-attacks come in groups of three, and when paired with an elemental ability (more on them in a moment) with the right timing can be used to knock back an enemy or pause their own assault.
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