Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles X - OT

@Darknyht Except that the main character in Xenoblade X is................................................ MIRA !
I know it sounds stupid but after almost 500 hours in this game, let me tell you that it's clear for me !

@Cobalt Yeah, I know that the developers have even stated that, but even with that view it leaves you with nothing but questions. If there had been DLC to explain things better or answer some of the unknowns it would feel better. While XCX wins on World, XC1 wins on Story.

Too often XCX feels like a tech demo game (like Pilotwings for SNES/N64) for a console launch than the game that would be built with that tech (Breath of the Wild).

@Darknyht I don't share your point of view but I respect it.

The story in Xenoblade Wii is cool but kind of Low level "Shonenish" style !
With X, that's totally better, racism, politics, colonisation etc... Basically, you rebuild a puzzle that becomes more and more interesting with the time... Don't want to talk to much, don't wanna spoil but I swear, for me, the story of X is FFFAAAARRRRRR better than the one of Xeno 1 and 2 ! ^^

@Cobalt I am good with that. Life would be boring if everyone agreed on every little detail, especially one like this that really doesn't matter. As I get older I've realized that I actually know less and less (mostly because there is an ever increasing realization of the complexity of life in general); and there are far fewer hills I am willing to die on.

I enjoyed the story of Mira. But as I said before, you almost have to play the side quests to fully understand the story's very intricate plot. I just feel like it didn't stick the landing on trying use the open-ended sci-fi ending. When I say it is compared to Pilotwings, it isn't an insult to the game but a realization that XCX's underlying engine/tech appears to be intended (and probably still will be on the Switch) further tweaked and modified to drive other games on the platform.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is like a worse Mass Effect 2 but much bigger, with an actually worse Majora's Mask main story (main story, read: a few vaguely important subplots that sometimes come together-ish) and a less compelling reason or theme to tie together. If both of those games were follow-up games to games with fantastically put together stories (see: put together, I get why people would be meh about...at least some elements of it, but the way it's constructed as a linear storyline in a JRPG is mostly awesome).

...my point basically being that it's like 3/4 of the way there to a super compelling sidequest heavy game where the sidequests build to a greater whole, but the game will then do something stupid to make it more annoying and/or less compelling than it should be. (constant inconsistant enemy levels during certain quests, stupid non-cutscenes where everyone is too far away from the camera for no reason, somehow having even stiffer facial expressions and animations than the original and Tatsu's entire existence being common examples)

@kkslider5552000

My god !!! Just with your post, I know that you OR :

just tried the game

OR

never played the game

You clearly talk about things that you don't know... and it's sad... :/

Lol I defend X on many levels, but story and characters are not its strong suit compared to 1 or 2.

Yeah I think this had a really good story. The main difference is that XC1 just felt more epic because of its longer story and having it span a long series of different environments. It felt like going on a great journey.

You think investing 200 hours to get "everything" is an issue? Of the whole series?

Let me tell you that I wouldn't want it any other way. I only buy Xenoblade games because they are 200+ hours long. If they weren't that big I wouldn't be interested in the series. I want my RPGs long and epic!
And let me tell you that I see value in it, having such a long and content-rich game for a relatively small cost.

If you don't feel like playing for 200 hours why are you here? Go away man! You're totally wasting your time.

I recommend you to play visual novels. Or watch a movie. Or read a book. Then you have big stories that will be over in a couple of hours. Watch this game on YouTube and skip all the game(play) parts! Better yet, read the story (someone has posted a good summary somewhere). Do what you want but stay away from huge RPGs! Stay away from the Xenoblade series. It's the wrong game for you guys and you should spare us your ridiculous criticism. Don't sell it to me like it's valid. It's not the game's fault that you have no time or patience.

Of what I played of XCX, I liked the plot well enough, but the characters were... either obnoxious or forgettable. That's not a huge issue, though: the setting, and exploring said setting, was clearly more of a focus, and it mostly shines in that regard.

Gonna start by saying X is my favorite of the three, but it's due to the world and gameplay. Story? Well it's very unfinished. The sidequests help, but the big ones are haphazardly spread across different characters. Affinity missions are kinda decent, but they don't do enough for me to REALLY care about any character, and I really just have a lot of indifference to all the characters. Although Tatsu sucks.

I still like the characters enough but the affinity missions aren't enough tbh.

X is really only greatly saved due to the fantastic world and combat that's the best of the entire series.

Hahahaha oh wow calling me out as if I didn't play the game.

Wow. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Bold choice there, Cotton, let's see how it plays out!

That would be insulting if it wasn't so hilarious. First of all, if you want to actually notice the egg on your face, you might want to look at the very first post of this very thread.

But more importantly, I put 140 hours or so into the game. Which is more than I put into the original Xenoblade, and at the very least is in my top 20 most played games because of that. While I did play it quite a bit when it came out, most of that time was played in 2017, trying to do as much of the game as possible before I got into BOTW. And there were just so many times where all the amazing things the game did were undercut by some unnecessary bs. The game has some of the best combat and world of the entire genre, bar-none, and some great sidequests. But there are also so many times where the difficulty curve sucked (level numbers have never felt more useless as an indicator of difficulty) or an unfairly difficult enemy or group of enemies will ruin everything. Item management was a nightmare. The game sucked at teaching you a good chunk of borderline necessary info. It fixed some elements of side content in the original and inexplicably made other parts worse (AFFINITY!!!!!). Huge chunks of my playtime was just a slow crawl, for various reasons. The original game was smart enough to focus on an actual story, because for as enjoyable as the rest of the game was, there were still moments of frustration when trying to do certain side content. So even though X had better sidequests, they also had more bs to deal with while making them the entire real focus.

Also I haaaaaaaaaaaaaate how many areas you visit just to fill a quota for "amount of area completed" because that's the only way to unlock certain main story quests (which they themselves unlock sidequests for the area). There are so many areas on the continents that are amazing but you are introduced to them just because you need to fill a quota for a nothing quest, instead of using the better sidequests to highlight the amazing look of everything. It's so backwards and baffling. And you can do that to some degree in the original, but it doesn't actively encourage you like in X.

@kkslider5552000

I'm gonna answer only one word to you :

ANALYZE...

My friend let me borrow this game. Haven't played it much yet, but I'm disappointed at how combat is done automatically, you don't get to manually fire your gun. The graphics are nice though.

@SuperLuigi111

Have you ever played a Xenoblade game ? o_O

@Cobalt No.

@SuperLuigi111 That's why ! Trust me, take your time to understand how it works and how fantastic the system is... and then you'll get an awesome experience...

@SuperLuigi111 Xenoblade Chronicles X handles combat like most MMOs in that you auto-attack and your control is over the management of special arts (and their cool downs) that inflict Melee/Range Damage, Buff, Debuff, and Special Auras. The challenge of the game is in timing the Arts to chain together either with yourself or your teammates to increase their effectiveness, and building a party of three that effectively works together in the roles of Tank/Crowd Control, Striker/DPS, and Buffer/De-buffer (there really isn't an effective healer unless you are volunteering for the role, the NPCs stink at it).

A very early example of solo chaining Assault Hammer (to inflict Topple) & Flame Grenade (which inflicts additional damage on Toppled enemies. Group chaining is responding to teammates color requests with an appropriate Art, which is more or less the primary method of healing.

That's what my friend told me (that it's MMO gameplay). I guess I've never played a game like that before. I'm not sure if I'll like it, but I'll give it a try.

@SuperLuigi111 Just understand that is only scratching the surface of the depth of the game. However, the game does a good job of easing you into the systems that make up combat and a lot of other things if you pay attention to the tutorials. Also Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of those rare game where reading the manual, or at least watching the survival guide videos (http://xenobladechroniclesx.nintendo.com/media/) is something I would recommend.