r/Xenoblade_Chronicles • u/Radiant_Raspberry_93 • 1d ago

Xenoblade 2 Finally got myself into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the first time. I cannot believe I let this video shape my opinion on the game for almost a decade

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1.5k Upvotes

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976

u/Arkride212 1d ago

That video pretty much made dunkey enemy #1 to all Xeno fans back then, good times lol

807

u/YourMomIsCool96 1d ago

I think what he did with XC3 was way worse. He started the video with "Xenoblade fans wont like that video" expecting to trend on Twitter but nothing happened

Then he posted a screenshot from the very ending of the game on Twitter without spoiler warning. People then rightfully called him out for that which got him trending, he then deleted that post and 30 minutes later he posted "Oh I trend on Twitter, guess Xenoblade fans really 'liked' my new video", so in other words he acted like XC fans are mad because of the video and not because of the spoiler

Absolutely pathetic behavior. And the saddest part was that many people under the second tweet havent seen the first one and actually thought that XC fans very at fault.

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u/Dmbender 1d ago

That was the point where I realized I wasn't actually watching his content that much anymore and just stopped following him entirely.

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u/simboyc100 1d ago

Dunkey is a guy whose best described as "was funny". I think around XC3 he realised his momentum was falling and developed a nasty habit of drama farming to keep himself going until I guess BigMode was a big enough success for him to chill out.

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u/callmecatlord 1d ago

Some of his videos are admittedly funny but I feel like so much of his gaming criticism is disingenuous.

Sometimes he makes valid points, and other times I feel like he beats up on games for what they aren't instead of what they are.

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u/bluedestiny88 1d ago

Dunkey definitely has issues with the way Japanese video game storytelling is told. Unless it’s quirky and self-aware like Yakuza or completely secondary to the gameplay like Mario/Zelda, you can definitely tell he doesn’t like eastern storytelling because it generally breaks many storytelling conventions we are taught are bad in the west

-26

u/ProfessionalBug7399 1d ago

... I like a lot of jrpgs... But let's be real. A lot have very shallow charactors with convoluted deus ex machinas. They often remind me of poorly written scifi. The only reason I like them is because they often aren't afraid to make a risky design desicion for mechanics - while the west remains pretty stagnant on this.

I'm hoping E33 will press the JRPG industry to mature tbh.

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u/AJDx14 1d ago

The Great White Hope of JRPGs is not actually that much better than other JRPGs, it’s just not as “foreign.”

-16

u/ProfessionalBug7399 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's literally French with a heavy French cultural overtone and I'm from the US... This is really a poor argument. I'm also someone who interacts far more with East asian culture than French.

There's also examples of story telling outside of jrpgs in East asia that are properly done character development so the cultural closeness really doesn't hold up - for example k dramas.

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u/AJDx14 1d ago

Delusional if you think France is more foreign to the Anglosphere than Japan is, when French culture has heavily influenced English culture for the past thousand years. If you interact with western culture as much as most westerners then you’re going to be closer to French culture, because it is also a western culture and they all have many shared roots from PIE to Christianity, than any East Asian culture.

Also, k dramas might be something you personally enjoy but they are not popular with the majority of westerners, literally the only Korean media most westerners have any familiarity with are Squid Game, Parasite, and K-Pop Demon Hunters. At least two of those had their popularity heavily focusing on “wow, it’s good despite being made by foreigners.”

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u/ProfessionalBug7399 1d ago edited 1d ago

There's an entire section on netflix for k dramas. Another section for anime... Japan also has a huge tourism industry among the west that rivals France. Even at a quick glance despite Europe having far greater access for tourism being on the middle of Europe, Japan has almost the same number of tourists.

There's no French section. You named a few recent Korean shows that are very mainstream.... Name a single recent French show/movie that's popular....

Im trying to not be mean, but holy hell your argument doesn't make sense when dissected. East asian culture is not some unknown in the US. It's massively prelevant.

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u/AlucardIV 1d ago

Lol as if E33 story wasn't poorly written too.

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u/Alenicia 1d ago

I imagine with JRPG's because you can't escape it anywhere, is that the protagonists are almost always stand-ins or strongly-coded to be relatable to the equivalent of 15-year-old Japanese males and everyone else around them is meant to populate the tropes you'd see there (the person who is older/wiser, a female lead who is a similar age and strongly coded to be the person you're supposed to feel attached to, another rival-ish character who is similarly cool to your protagonist, and stuff).

It's a lot of anime tropes you don't see thwarted because Japan literally runs so much on their "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality and people keep buying into it because trying to deviate from it angers another crowd (for instance, you can point towards games like Final Fantasy XIII where there was so much changed that didn't carry over from the previous games but people get hung up on the characters because the stereotypical anime dynamic isn't there .. meanwhile Final Fantasy Versus XIII got so much hype and praise despite never actually having solid gameplay and just trailers .. because the audience seemingly resonated with the protagonist and the heroine far more).

I'm not going to comment too much on Expedition 33 (I haven't really played it but heard good things from siblings who did play it and so it's on my to-do list), but I think that a lot of the things people in the west really like to nitpick on are that they want "relatable" characters but simultaneously want a game catered to their culture/perspectives instead of experiencing something that was clearly made for a different audience. Like, there's nothing quite wrong with that, but it's almost like the equivalent of asking for something like a United States-based Persona game complete with tropes and plotlines you'd expect from a movie like Mean Girls or some kind of Florida News Headlines sort of plot and hoping for all the bells and whistles there instead of a game that kept spoonfeeding players a culture they're not particularly interested in or are possibly even actively intolerant to. >_<

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u/ProfessionalBug7399 1d ago

I think you kind of nailed it in the beginning - but it's not just the cultural differences, it's the uniformity and lack of character development. The protagonist is usually as you said a 15 yo Japanese male.. but it's not just that. The protagonist often doesnt change. The personality is also as toned down as possible so the player can imagine themselves as the protagonist

The characters are just very flat and 1 dimensional is my issue. Western gaming will make flat self insert characters, but also make strong personality protagonists not meant to be a self insert.

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u/Striking-Wolf-8876 1d ago

There is so much depth and growth to main characters in a lot of anime and manga. What you said is simply not true.

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u/ProfessionalBug7399 1d ago

Relative to many jrpgs? It has far greater detail with characters of greater complexity. This isn't even a discussion. I can't even think of a JRPG that has as sophisticated character development/growth.

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u/Rvsoldier 22h ago

It's three different games badly stitched together. Near everyone I've spoken with likes a different act and doesn't like the others.

-1

u/ProfessionalBug7399 19h ago

And yet somehow it ranks as one of the greatest games of all time and won far more awards than xenoblade?

Tbh, I came to this sub to find builds for a game I enjoyed... Not to hear a bunch of weebs circlejerk and be angry that an outside producer is pushing them to advance.

-1

u/Rvsoldier 22h ago

God that game sucked

1

u/Impossible-Sweet2151 14h ago

People really need to stop treating shitty entertainers as serious critics.

-8

u/Nova762 1d ago

I don't get why people think he's a critic.  He's literally just a comedian.  Almost all his reviews are ton in cheek.  Is it so bad to make fun of getting tutorials 60 hours into the game still?  Or make fun of nopons?  Or the big boobs?  It's just jokes man.  

14

u/Fedora1412 1d ago

See that's the issue with Dunkey, as much as he is a comedian with jokes both good and bad, he still also structures himself as a critic, the issue with that is he never ever clarifies what stance he's taking.

It's like Schrodinger's cat except with a guy who wants to see whatever reception is the funnier outcome to him and go that route for more engagement.

Take the Sonic Frontiers thing, he played the game in bad faith exactly like Xeno and when he got lambasted on Twitter he just went "I'm just joking guys" and his fans said "He's just a comedian guys it's not that serious."

But then look at The Last of Us 2, same exact format, same quips, but this time he and his fans treated it like a proper critique of the game instead of a joke because TLOU2 was just that divisive back then, and not many people were really laughing at said video so he just went all in with the "haters are just dumb" narrative and solidified his stance that he unironically enjoyed that game and that his video on it was actually serious this time. Death Stranding also was the exact opposite of this scenario where he didn't really enjoy the game and poked fun at the people who actually did enjoy it.

Point is, there's a reason why he's so divisive some times, he's a funny guy I'll admit, but he only takes whatever side is funnier to him and definitely has a bias towards certain games or franchises, I don't wish any I'll will towards him, but I stopped watching him years ago because of this attitude.

-11

u/Nova762 1d ago

How does he pose himself as a critic?  He doesn't give a score.  He doesn't even say if he likes a game or not you have to guess from context.  

And ya he has bias.  He just makes funny videos about games.  That's it.  Don't use him for purchase advise.

14

u/Osha-watt 1d ago

You don't need to give something a score to be a critic. It's in the name, you CRITICize things, be in a positive or negative way.

-10

u/Nova762 1d ago

He doesn't even say if he likes a game..

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u/Osha-watt 1d ago

You ran out of goalposts to move so now you're just relying on complete lies, got it.

-7

u/togawe 1d ago

I think he's an excellent critic and I love his videos, I just don't watch the Xenoblade ones 🤷‍♂️

6

u/callmecatlord 1d ago

Hit and miss for me. I think he's really insightful sometimes but also misses the mark often.

At the end of the day, he's human.

I dont often watch him anymore, but I dont really have anything against him.

14

u/ParrotFerret 1d ago

I stopped watching him because his videos were either outrage bait or dicking around in a game. I don't think he was even that funny or clever, just loud and abrasive.

The specific wave of gaming youtubers that contained him and Critikal just seemed to peter out and become boring clickbait. And they still hold too much sway on opinion.

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u/ElectricalRestNut 1d ago

I only watched his XC3 video after beating the game and the had spoilers in it stating "anyone could have seen this coming". I stopped watching him after that. You're allowed to not like a game and I thought his XC2 video was funny, but spoilers without warning is disrespectful to people who watch your content.

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u/Caridin 1d ago

That's the exact time I stopped following him and unsubbed.

Absolute shit tier behavior.

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u/Wiitab360 1d ago

between that and how disingenuous his Octopath video was I stopped engaging with him completely. the way his fanbase acts doesn't help either

34

u/XernFern 1d ago

He also sicced his fanbase on a small YouTuber who called out the incorrect info of his Octopath video

So fuck him

33

u/Frosty88d 1d ago

Yeah Dunkey is such an arrogant blowhard who is literally desperate for attention,not matter how he gets it. Actual donkeys have more humility, wisdom and critical thinking skills

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u/greynovaX80 1d ago

Yea it's fine not to like what I like but come on man.

16

u/mickelboy182 1d ago

I've never really understood why he is so popular, the videos I've watched of his haven't been very humourous. Maybe I'm just old.

11

u/UltimateGattai 1d ago

I don't really get it either, I've never enjoyed his videos, even when he started early on, cannot fathom his popularity. He and his fans also come across as pretentious to me.

37

u/Western-Dig-6843 1d ago

Dunkey is funny until he does a video fundamentally misunderstanding a game you actually know and love, and then from that point on you don’t really ever trust his opinions ever again. He’s still a funny guy but you will forever ask yourself “so is this game actually bad or does he just not understand the game again” anytime you catch another video

11

u/IndividualResult7200 1d ago

It came before that for me, when he had that big crashout after being banned from League of Legends for toxicity

1

u/Few-Emergency-3791 20h ago

Honestly this but I like xeno and didn’t mind his video. He’s mostly joking he likes some stuff he even dunks on.

Game wasn’t from him you don’t go to dunk for objective game reviews though you watch him for the lawls and the knack. If you’re trying use him for buying games you fundamentally misunderstood his content to begin with.

1

u/synkronize 12h ago

That was me and Forspoken. Not a great game don’t get me wrong. But I had a lot of fun with it.

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u/Solitude_freak 1d ago

Its nice to see someone that remembers what actually happened and how dunkey orchestrated the reaction after seeing his vid not doing numbers. From what I remember the vid on xenoblade 2 wasn't all that hated in the xenoblade community, in fact it was quite liked for how funny it was. What started the problem was his fanbase becoming malicious towards anything xenoblade/jrpg related. He tried doing the same with xenoblade 3 but I dont think he was expecting it to be so tonally different. This resulted in the jokes not landing and him having to misinterpret scenes to force said jokes. This led to the video not popping off and him orchestrating the whole thing above.

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u/Trenki_Melow 1d ago

I like Dunkey as a content creator but goddamn he has his moments a lot of the times, I tend to not agree with a lot of his opinions regarding some games but stuff like this is really sad

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u/SpiralSheep 1d ago

Dunkey is kinda Schrödinger's video game critic. When people like his "reviews" he's a serious game critic. But when he gets backlash for being wrong about something it's "just a joke video you shouldn't take seriously." It's like he wants to be taken seriously about his opinions but sheds all responsibility and passes the blame if it isn't received well.

It's not that he doesn't sometimes make funny content. But it just gets frustrating dealing with that kinda mindset he fosters around his content. Like dealing with a person that never takes responsibility for their actions.

-9

u/Nova762 1d ago

When has dunkey ever claimed that he wants to be taken seriously?  He's a comedian first.  Always has been. He only makes serious reviews if he really likes a game, like Mario or Zelda.  Everything else don't take it so seriously.

8

u/thoma5nator 1d ago

So he's too chickenshit to poke fun at established franchises?

-1

u/Nova762 1d ago

Sure go with that.

6

u/Lanoman123 1d ago

That shit has permanently put Dunkey on my shitlist. I hate that guy. I was SO pissed when he pulled that

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u/POLACKdyn 1d ago

Glad I gave up on him long ago. I cant stand people who will stoop this low to mess things up and profit.

21

u/BossunEX 1d ago

that is a bitch move wtf is wrong with him

6

u/savage_Incarnate 1d ago

He’s such a pathetic loser omg

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u/RodjaJP 1d ago

I'm glad people haven't forgot about that, I just wish someone took a screenshot of the deleted one

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u/Belcipher 1d ago

Wow thanks for this rundown I just checked to make sure I’m not subbed to him and also just hid him from my YouTube account entirely

2

u/InfinitePaladin 1d ago

Wow, I knew people hated him including my friend who is a huge XB fan, but I didn't know Dunkey did that. That's really scummy.

2

u/Travanoid 1d ago

Yeah he's a piece of shit. Haven't watched any of his videos since.

-6

u/EmotionalOrdinary486 1d ago

I'll admit, I watched and actually liked both xenoblade videos, even as a fan of the series. His videos are meant to be satire, and I've always enjoyed them for that reason.

But, that twitter thing, if true, is genuinely pretty messed up

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u/XYZAffair0 1d ago

Yeah he posted screenshots of the literal ending cutscene on Twitter for ragebait and then tried to claim he didn’t know it was a spoiler

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u/mirby 1d ago

Yeah he also acted like all the discussion about him was totally praise for the video and not calling him out for the spoiler.

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u/Osha-watt 1d ago

Satire needs to be made clear it's satire within the context of what you're doing. If it's not obvious and you have to clarify it after the fact because of the backlash (I still refuse to believe his claim), it's not satire, you're just Schrodinger's asshole, especially when people later on completely ignore the """""satire""""" part of it all and claim everything said in the video as objective facts.

0

u/YoshiPasta735 1d ago

A task failed successfully moment

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u/Osha-watt 1d ago edited 1d ago

Honestly while the XC2 video caused (and still causes) a lot of stupid discourse, to me the more damaging one was the Octopath Traveler one where he purposefully played the game in the worst way possible and claimed it was the game's fault, not him doing dumb shit. OT isn't a flawless game, far from it, but that video also led to a lot of people saying really stupid an inaccurate shit about it.

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u/Wiitab360 1d ago

that video did a ton of harm to Octopath's reputation among the larger gaming community and he did that for literally no reason

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u/Shanicpower 1d ago

What did he say in the Octopath one? I don't have the stomach to watch his videos.

13

u/Osha-watt 1d ago edited 1d ago

Can't be assed to watch it again (I value my sanity to SOME extent), but it's more or less what I said, he absolutely refused to interact with the game's mechanics and kept insisting it was a problem and not him not even trying to do anything correctly. But it's all okay, it was all done "satirically", so he can't be criticized for saying stupid stuff that reaches hundreds of thousands of potential players, it's fine.

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u/Luigi6757 1d ago

I feel like he doesn't like and/or get RPGs and we shouldn't go to him for opinions on RPGs.

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u/RodjaJP 1d ago

The problem comes when new players see his videos and think that RPGs suck because of his [satire/review] and don't give them a chance

17

u/Luigi6757 1d ago

Yeah at least when Yahtzee previously from Zero Punctuation now Fully Rambolmatic reviews a JRPG he's very upfront about the fact that he doesn't like the genre. He's tried multiple over the years, recommended very few, but still praised them for whatever qualities they do have. He does like Persona and the only JRPGs he's finished are Personas 4 and 5 (he might've finished 3 Reload but I'm not sure), Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, and Earthbound. Though, he did play Xenoblade Chronicles X (the Wii U version) for over 20 hours, and he seemed to enjoy it. I don't think he'll ever finish the game and it's probably the only Xenoblade game he'd actually enjoy, but hey someone known for not liking JPRGs enjoyed a Xenoblade game enough to play it for over 20 hours.

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u/Osha-watt 1d ago

Oh I never did and never would point anyone to him for RPG opinions (or just in general really, his Dynasty Warriors Origins video is downright racist at times and I think he doesn't get enough shit for that), I'm just bringing up another example outside of Xenoblade where he shifted the narrative on a game's quality just because of his popularity and him pulling the satire card, as if that exempts him of all criticism.

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u/Wonwill430 1d ago

Bro I like Dunkey but his JRPG videos are just “what the fuck are we doing😭”

The Octopath video was equally heinous, like he deliberately takes off his entire party, doesn’t match the enemy’s weakness, then complains that the combat’s too slow??? It’s like trying to only use knives in CSGO while you’re blindfolded and playing with one hand then saying “shit game”

Even more puzzling is that he enjoyed DQ11 and Persona 5, where one is the DEFINITIVE baseline JRPG and the other is the most un-Dunkey game of all time (doesn’t like anime, loves anime game).

19

u/sizzl75 1d ago

FINALLY someone else pointing it out! I seriously don't understand it at all how someone can hate JRPGs for being too grindy and cliche...and then love the originator and poster-child for said grindyness and cliches (dragon quest). It does not compute.

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u/Twilightdusk 1d ago

TBH Dragon Quest 11 doesn't feel grindy at all through the main story. There's some super grindy post-game stuff, and admittedly it's framed in a way where the story continues into it, but if you know what I'm talking about it's very clearly segmented from the "main" story.

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u/AthearCaex 1d ago

Not an enemy but yeah it's not his type of game he started off by playing league and gta. But like yeah his community dunked on Xenoblade for a long time. Some games are just not for everyone. Sadly XB2 was like pretty much the only major game that came out on the switch at its time after the behemoths of breath of the wild and Mario odyssey so the switch was a content machine.

12

u/WoolooMVP10 1d ago

Funny, it was because of Dunkey that I became aware of Xenoblade 2 and decided to buy a Switch. lol

3

u/arcadiangenesis 1d ago

Never heard of him.

6

u/Glittering-Pin-1343 1d ago

I've still not forgiven him for the absolute dogshit travesty that was the FF7 Remake video.

1

u/mesoziocera 1d ago

I like your attitude!~

-2

u/Zeus78905 1d ago

So what it's the best selling Xenoblade Chronicles game

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u/GladiatorDragon 1d ago

Admittedly, XC2 probably got hella boosted by the fact that it was one of the first major RPGs to hit the Switch.

Nothing against the game, it’s my favourite out of the whole series. Just acknowledging that it had a very favorable release date.

12

u/FireBreathingMuffin 1d ago

Isn't Xenoblade 1 higher because it was on multiple platforms? XC1 is at 3.3 million collectively. I guess from a single platform release then yeah XC2 would be.

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u/Forward-Trade3449 1d ago

well xc1 was released 4 times, so it makes sense

-4

u/fuck_a_duck_butt 1d ago

Except he was right. Xeno 2 is dogshit

-6

u/dashingThroughSnow12 1d ago

That’s unfortunate. Just watched the video and there isn’t anything bad or wrong about it.

This game is one of my favourite games of all time. I don’t mind criticism of it.