1) I feel like you're leaving out a whole bunch of context. Does the game show a tutorial everytime you to something, or does it disappear after the first time you do it? Cause see if Xenoblade 2 is anything like Breath of the Wild with its tutorials, I feel like you may be blowing everything out of proportion. Also tutorials should not be a mark against the game. Cause the game is Nintendo it could very well be someone's first game, meaning they wouldn't know anything about the mechanics in the game. Every game is someone's first game, and with a genre as big and complicated as the open world RPG that has a lot of different mechanics that would need to be learned. Knocking off points just because of tutorials is very petty, and we all know how IGN got slammed for pettiness, 7.8/10 Too much water. Now I not saying you can't be annoyed by this, and mean I'd like it if they could've make it so tutorials can be optional, but saying points should be taken off is stupid.

2&3) okay I haven't played the game so I can't really say anything about the sound but even then your reasoning for hating this game sounds really petty

I probably am leaving out context so lemme go a bit more in-depth. The tutorials are less like BoTW and more like Fi in Skyward Sword, but amped up to 11. For the first few hours of the game, you're either A) Watching a cutscene with too much exposition, B) Getting directions from NPCs, or C) Having your progress impeded by a pop-up tutorial. There's 4 separate tutorials for the beginning fight, 1 of which explains what a health potion is and why you should pick it up (Is there anyone who wouldn't? It's an inviting green color - kids are curious and teens/adults already know that it'll probably restore health). The following tutorials explain: The waypoint system (fine), the HUD (not really needed), how to control the camera (??), how to manage quests and telling you they are separated by main quests and side quests (BoTW does this by simply labeling quest names with "side objective" and "main objective" without a prompt), how to equip items (this should be intuitive enough to not need a tutorial), how to salvage for new items (fine), how to level up at inns (could easily be learned through gameplay), a non-tutorial text box that just tells you there's a lot of shops and that you should stock up (very unnecessary; the game seems afraid to let you explore without being your nanny first because it doesn't trust you to play it right), how to manage your party (hardly necessary but fine), how to lure enemies (something BoTW notably did not need to tell you because it encourages experimentation), how the enemy Rage system works (they glow with aura when raging, but the game doesn't seem to trust visual cues enough), how to use your Specials, how to use Blade Arts (we've already had 6 combat tutorials before this. Why were combat mechanics not streamlined?), how to use Blade Combos, explaining the 2 types of points you earn for battles, and how to make your Blade stronger.

That's 20 tutorials all in the first 2-3 hours of the game (about 50 minutes of which are cutscenes), which are strung together by even more in the form of NPCs telling you where to go. I didn't even get to the climbing tutorial I mentioned in my journal, which I feel best represents the game's lack of confidence in both itself and the players. There is a plainly visible ladder icon above a wall of vines, yet when you step closer to the wall, the game gives you a prompt to tell you you can climb this wall. Why? What's the point of the ladder icon, then? What's the point of Rage aura for enemies? This game tries to have visual cues but then immediately uses text to convey the information instead, because it doesn't seem to think you're smart enough to figure things out through gameplay. Instead of thinking "Oh, something new; let me check it out," the game turns that innate sense of curiosity against you and makes you think "Oh god, something new. I hope the tutorial for it is short."

During those first 2-3 hours of the game, you're actually, genuinely playing the game for maybe 15-20 minutes. Unhindered by dialogue and prompts, you're running around and fighting for that short amount of time. To compare, BoTW lets you start exploring 4 or 5 minutes into the game. Leaving the Great Plateau takes about 20 or 30 minutes if you're rushing through, but even still, you're free to play the game during what is essentially it's only tutorial area. After that, you're completely on your own. You learn how to gather weapons, items, food, how to fight, cook, jump, climb, and shield through gameplay. Yes, all these mechanics are simpler and more streamlined than Xenoblade Chronicles 2's. And yes, XC2 is linear while BoTW is open-world, but my point is that games don't have to rely so heavily on text-based information, especially text-based information that interrupts what you're doing. There's plenty of non-intrusive teaching methods even if you don't want to stick with simple visual cues. To resort to a pop-up tutorial every single time you want the player to learn a piece of information is just lazy on the dev's part. It's the same principal issue people have with Fi, or with the old man who teaches you how to catch pokemon every generation. These kinds of info-dumps not only interrupt the player from playing your game, but when the interruption isn't even worth the information, it makes players frustrated because what was the point? You took a minute of my time to tell me something I already knew, or could figure out in half the time. And in the case of figuring things out for yourself, it's almost always going to be more satisfying than simply doing what the game told you to do.

Though I should've done a better job conveying my frustrations with the game in my journal, they aren't just "Tutorial bad". It's instead: "For the 20th time, you're interrupting me from doing what I want to do, to tell me something I already know, or could easily know. You're stopping me from playing your game to tell me how to play your game". It breaks immersion, it creates frustration, and it's a crutch for people who don't want to think of more creative or enjoyable methods of teaching.

Bad sound design and character dialogue is not an invalid criticism. Cutscenes take up a lot of this game, so a lot of your time will be spent with these issues. I highlighted the "Nothing personal" line because it's a meme, but the game is littered with hamfisted exposition that butchers any sense of organic conversation, parrot exposition, and tropes you can see coming from a mile away, whether it be character or story-related. The lack of background noise is amateurish at best and inexcusable for a big production like this. From an audio standpoint, the game sounds like it's still in beta.

Every word in this comment is a source link for all those tutorials I mentioned by the way. Wait, two more.

Dude, don't put words in my mouth. I never ever said your points about the audio and character design were invalid, I said I can't comment on them cause I haven't played the game. Though look back on my comment I should've separated them so that's on me. Reading your original journal entry it did sound like you were complaining about the tutorials like how IGN complained about the water when Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire .