Xenoblade Chronicles X

[Niahak]

I picked up this one over the weekend. Haven't had a ton of time to play, but I've gotten four or five hours in... and I'm pretty impressed.

It's probably the first open-world game where I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by how much there is to do. Do I search for new areas and landmarks? Look for the super-enemies? Follow the storyline?

Good so far:
-Voices are a little less obnoxious, I liked the accents in the original better though
-Elma is a pretty good first party member, and Lin is less obnoxious than I thought she'd be
-Love the atmosphere focused on survival on an uncharted planet, hoping the game stays "space-y"
-Combat and exploration both 'feel' better (more intuitive, snappier)
-When I can figure out what I'm doing, it's usually pretty darn fun!
-Being just 'some competent dude' is pretty darn cool.

Not as good:
-The game sucks at explaining mechanics, and there are a lot of them. I got a quest to mine some materials, but even the extensive manual doesn't explain how it works properly.
-Everyone seemed impressed by the character creator, but it's pretty limited compared to Dragon's Dogma (where every NPC in the game could be designed in it) or Monster Hunter
-With open-world comes open-world paralysis. Already a few levels higher than the story-quest enemies.
-Music isn't as good as XC. Too many vocals and rap sections.

Overall pretty good for sure! Looking forward to running my way across Mira.

[Kong Wen]

My copy has shipped but hasn't arrived yet.

I want to give Xenoblade another serious run-through before I start, though... maybe over Christmas. Maybe.

Sad to hear about the vocals in the soundtrack. That was one of my top peeves about the Final Fantasy XIII series, and that's saying something, since those games are riddled with peeves.

[The Shoemaker]

Mine has shipped as well, have yet to play it. The good thing with this game and Xenoblade is that there are always enemies stronger than you, even if you feel like you might be overleveled. The world definitely looks massive.

I'm coming right off a Xenoblade Chronicles run through - I believe I'm at the final part of the game. I'll probably finish that before playing this. It's such a huge game, but I just bought a PS4, so it will be hard to determine what to play :p

I heard the actual voce acting is pretty good, though that's up to opinion I suppose.

[Niahak]

Mine has shipped as well, have yet to play it. The good thing with this game and Xenoblade is that there are always enemies stronger than you, even if you feel like you might be overleveled. The world definitely looks massive.

I'm coming right off a Xenoblade Chronicles run through - I believe I'm at the final part of the game. I'll probably finish that before playing this. It's such a huge game, but I just bought a PS4, so it will be hard to determine what to play :p

I heard the actual voce acting is pretty good, though that's up to opinion I suppose.

The world is seriously huge! And there are a ton of named NPCs too (only the one town as far as I know, but it's easily three times the size of Colony 9). I'm overleveled for my section of the plot, but there are still several directions I fear to tread!

One hint if/when you start playing - the game isn't clear about this, but you can change classes when you hit Level 10 in your base class.

I actually do like the VA in Xenoblade 1, but the problem I have with it is that it's so frequent in battles that it just sounds like an endless blather and it's hard to track what's going on. X does have the same problem, but you also have visual indicators to help out.

Also, my wife only watched about an hour of Xenoblade 1 and still calls it the "what a bunch of jokahs" game. X doesn't have any lines on that level yet.

[The Shoemaker]

Also, my wife only watched about an hour of Xenoblade 1 and still calls it the "what a bunch of jokahs" game. X doesn't have any lines on that level yet.

Heh, that's too bad, I loved those lines!
Are you feeling it Shulk?
I'm really feeling it!

[Drauks]

I seriously, SERIOUSLY considered making this a system-buyer today, after watching videos of gameplay in Gamestop. If I hadn't been shopping for gifts for other people, I'd be back in the Nintendo fold.

[Jordan]

This is the game that might finally convince me to buy a Wii U. It will have to wait till after this semester is over, but it looks really rad. I've heard universally that the music blows but the world is really well done, featuring tons of sidequests and a lot of lore. It sounds like it's a lot like the last xenoblade game barring the supposedly crappy music. I LOVED Xenoblade on Wii so X looks right up my alley

-With open-world comes open-world paralysis. Already a few levels higher than the story-quest enemies.

Beyond scaling or in-game adjustable difficulty, I'm not sure there is a solution to this. Most games I've played like this have this problem. It was an issue in Xenoblade as well imo.

[The Shoemaker]

-With open-world comes open-world paralysis. Already a few levels higher than the story-quest enemies.

Beyond scaling or in-game adjustable difficulty, I'm not sure there is a solution to this. Most games I've played like this have this problem. It was an issue in Xenoblade as well imo.

Yeah, kind of comes down to how much you want to do quests. But I mean that's your reward for doing them - getting stronger. With Xenoblade at least, I found that if I stuck with the story the difficulty would ramp up again until I did some more side quests, so it's kind of like this never ending tipping scale, just depends what direction you go in. This game has a bigger focus on the things to do in the world over the story though, so I don't see it as a big issue.

I seriously, SERIOUSLY considered making this a system-buyer today, after watching videos of gameplay in Gamestop. If I hadn't been shopping for gifts for other people, I'd be back in the Nintendo fold.

Wait for Boxing Day sales! (not sure if that's a thing in the states...)

[Niahak]

Beyond scaling or in-game adjustable difficulty, I'm not sure there is a solution to this. Most games I've played like this have this problem. It was an issue in Xenoblade as well imo.

I think it's a worse problem in X than it was in Xenoblade. Xenoblade is still divided into sub-areas which are gated by story progress, and each one tends to have a kind of V-curve when it comes to difficulty (e.g. Gaur Plains has some monsters in the teens and some in the 80s range, Satorl Marsh has some in the 20s and some in the 50s) which means there's still an upper limit to how much you can sidequest and level before needing to continue the story. I haven't reached the second area in X yet, but it looks like the monsters in the first area span a wider range of levels.

I agree there is no solution in an open-world game, and it's arguably a good thing since it means you have a great deal of freedom. I'll certainly take picking my direction and being too powerful for the main storyline over hamfisted level scaling or rigid linearity!

Glad to hear a lot of people are excited for this one! Xenoblade didn't fare too well in BGE so I wasn't sure how much of an audience it had here

[Drauks]

I seriously, SERIOUSLY considered making this a system-buyer today, after watching videos of gameplay in Gamestop. If I hadn't been shopping for gifts for other people, I'd be back in the Nintendo fold.

Wait for Boxing Day sales! (not sure if that's a thing in the states...)

I just can't justify it, and I've never seen a boxing day sale here. It would be the only game I would get for the system, and the NX is right around the corner...