Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country
European box art
Developer	Monolith Soft
Publisher	Nintendo
Platform	Nintendo Switch
Release date	Digital: 14 September 2018 Physical: 21 September 2018 30 November 2018 29 March 2019 17 January 2020

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country (ゼノブレイド2　黄金 (おうごん)の国 (くに)イーラ) is a role-playing video game developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo. It is part of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Expansion Pass, though it was also released as a physical game.

Playable characters

Team Lora

Lora	Jin	Haze

Team Addam

Addam	Mythra	Minoth

Team Hugo

Hugo	Brighid	Aegaeon

Development

Around 2015, as the script for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 neared completion, the story arc that would later become Torna ~ The Golden Country was originally positioned between Chapters 7 and 8. More specifically, it was considered one of several potential "candidate" storylines for inclusion in the main plot. However, this particular arc proved to be too large and complex. Its inclusion would have exceeded the project's budget and delayed the game's release. As a result, Tetsuya Takahashi decided to remove the storyline and save it on his computer. Around the middle of Xenoblade Chronicles 2's development, the team began discussing ways to keep players engaged after release. This led to the decision to create an Expansion Pass that would deliver post-launch content. Shortly after, they agreed that the Expansion Pass should include a new story scenario. Takahashi saw this as the perfect opportunity to revisit the unused Torna arc and develop it into a full-fledged prequel, Torna ~ The Golden Country.

Torna ~ The Golden Country utilizes a newly enhanced rendering engine, offering subtle graphical improvements over the base game. These include refined lighting and texture work — for example, more detailed grass and foliage — giving the visuals a cleaner, sharper appearance. Character models originally used in Xenoblade Chronicles 2's cutscenes were also upgraded for the expansion. The development team took advantage of this period to apply their accumulated experience, implementing various graphical and interface improvements without relying on major hardware enhancements. The main focus remained on delivering a strong narrative experience.

Takahashi and the design team aimed to ensure that the combat system felt familiar to returning players while also introducing a few new gameplay mechanics that reflected the state of the world during the Torna era. Since the bond between Blades and Drivers wasn't that refined compared to what is seen in the main game, the developers wanted to reflect this in the battle system. The team also considered feedback from newcomers who found Xenoblade Chronicles 2's combat system intimidating. In response, Torna ~ The Golden Country was designed to be more accessible, with smoother battle pacing and additional tutorials to ease players into its mechanics. According to Takahashi, as someone who is used to working on 80-hour-long games, the greatest challenge was balancing the progression chart and flow into a 20-hour-long game.

The development cycle of Torna ~ The Golden Country is unknown; there is no information on the date when the development started. The only known fact is that after Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was finished, a major part of the developer team was moved to develop Torna ~ The Golden Country and it was finished on August 2018. Said team was then divided into 3 groups, one that worked on Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, one that worked on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and one that gave support on both teams.

The game was revealed on June 12th, 2018 in the E3, and was promoted with tweets and trailers across all summer, including a 30-minute demonstration at gamescom in August. Lastly, on September 13th, one day before its release, it received a short trailer during a Nintendo Direct.

Music

Main article: Music of Torna ~ The Golden Country

The music written for Torna ~ The Golden Country was composed by the same team of the base game's music, and the game reuses many tracks from the base game; however, it is partially distinct. It draws particularly heavy inspiration from jazz music, with several tracks including chord progressions and instrumentation of a style often found in jazz, and some featuring sequences of improvisation. According to Tetsuya Takahashi in Xenoblade Chronicles Original Soundtrack Trinity Box, the reason behind the selection of jazz was because he was inspired by the film Whiplash. All tracks were released on its own album called Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Kingdom of Torna Original Soundtrack.

Plot

Main article: Plot summary of Torna ~ The Golden Country

Torna ~ The Golden Country takes place 500 years before the events of the base game in the Kingdom of Torna. The plot follows Lora, a Driver bounded with her Blades Jin and Haze. While Lora and Jin are searching for Haze in order to depart to the village of Torigoth so Lora can find her mother, they find an stray kid named Mikhail, so they decide he should join them. Shortly after, they are attacked by Addam, the prince of the Tornan royal family and his Blade Mythra. Since Jin's Core Crystal was stolen from the Tornan royal family long ago, Addam assumes Lora is the thief. After the battle caused by this misunderstanding, Addam shows admiration for Lora's and Jin's battle tactics, so Addam, instead of breaking Lora's and Jin's established bound, he decides they should join him in his mission to stop Malos.

Gameplay

See also: Xenoblade Chronicles 2 § Gameplay

Battle

Main article: Combat (XC2) § In Torna ~ The Golden Country

Each of the three playable Drivers have two Blades assigned to them. Unlike the base game, both Drivers and Blades can be directly controlled and switched out. Switching out a Driver with a Blade or vice versa performs a Switch Art. In addition, each character has an additional Talent Art, an Art unique to each character. Another notable change is that the element from each step of a Blade Combo creates an element orb rather than only the third special.

Field

When talking to an NPC, they are registered in the Community menu. Community is similar to development levels from the base game or area affinity from the first game. It is awarded for completing quests or sometimes simply speaking to NPCs. At campsites, each character can craft pouch Items and even a few key items with similar effects as deeds. They also serve as places where Bonus EXP can be converted into actual experience. Unlike previous games, this game has no Heart-to-Hearts, but after each story point reached, a new chat can be watched at campfires. Another major change compared to the main game is the ability to change the controlled team outside the menu, in Torna ~ The Golden Country, one can simply press the button ZL, compared to the base game where the player has to open the menu.

Update History

Ver. 1.0.1 (Released 18 October 2018)

• Fixed an issue with the Affinity Chart, in which completing it did not cause Trust to become S rank, and the completion reward item was subsequently not earned.
  • After downloading the update, checking the Affinity Chart again will cause Trust to increase to S rank and give the player the completion reward item.
• Fixed an issue with the third requirement to "Meet characters from the Community List" for receiving Jin's Affinity Reward, Mineralogy. This issue prevented characters that had been met in event scenes or cut scenes to not be counted as met unless the player talked to them outside of those scenes.
  • This applied to the characters Popolo, Onyx, Kaleena, and Leo.
  • After downloading the update, if you have already viewed the necessary event or cut scenes, these characters will automatically be counted as met.
• Added a help message to the quest A Rare Sense of Justice that will appear when conditions to advance the quest have not been met.
• Fixed an issue when performing a Chain Attack temporarily preventing character selection after a round of attacks had been completed.
• Fixed an issue causing a character switch to take too long when selecting Brighid for a Chain Attack after she had used her Confining Flames ability.

Ver. 1.0.2 (Released 2 December 2018)

• A Nopon called the Nameless Wanderpon has been added to the Feltley Village Camp. Speak to him to receive the Massive Melee Mythra, an Aux Core that slightly alters the look of Mythra's outfit.
  • The Aux Core will be automatically sold if you speak to the Nameless Wanderpon with a full inventory.
  • If sold in this way, the Aux Core can be acquired by speaking to the Nameless Wanderpon again.
• Members of the same team will now exchange voiced comments with each other when a battle concludes.

Ver. 1.1.0 (Released 2 September 2020)

• Korean text is now supported.
  • The text can be changed to Korean by setting the Nintendo Switch language setting to Korean. (Korean voices are not supported).

In other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
English	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country	—
Japanese	ゼノブレイド2　黄金 (おうごん)の国 (くに)イーラ	Xenoblade 2: The Golden Country Torna
French	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country	—
German	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country	—
Spanish	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country	—
Italian	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country	—
Chinese (simplified)	异度神剑2 黄金之国伊拉
Chinese (traditional)	異度神劍2 黃金之國伊拉
Korean	제노블레이드 크로니클스 2 황금의 나라 이라

Internally, Torna ~ The Golden Country is considered an extra chapter of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, with its name being "Torna ~ The Golden Country". As the 10 chapters of the base game are translated, this extra chapter is no exception.

Language	Name	Meaning
English	Torna - The Golden Country	—
Japanese	黄金 (おうごん)の国 (くに)イーラ	The Golden Country Torna
French	Torna, le pays doré	Torna, the golden country
German	Torna - Das Goldene Königreich	Torna - The golden kingdom
Spanish	Torna, la nación dorada	Torna, the golden nation
Italian	Torna - La terra dorata	Torna - The golden land
Chinese (simplified)	黄金之国伊拉
Chinese (traditional)	黃金之國伊拉
Korean	황금의 나라 이라

Gallery

On other wikis

NWiki

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country

Wikipedia

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country

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  The game's title screen on first startup

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  The game's title screen after beating the game

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  English Logo

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