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[Daria Morgendorffer]

Seeing that one unboxing made me wonder, does the PAL version have a reversible cover? I know the original game had one but I'm not sure about this game.
Please Nintendo, I don't want to see those ugly rating logos.

 

[Fandangox]

UGH, Amazon says my special edition won't be here until the 8th. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT 4 DAYS.

Well we've known about the game for 3 years, and depending on your work hours it may take you like 5 months to beat the game.

With that context, 4 days is nothing!

 

[GDGF]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first on world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

That is one hell of an endorsement!

 

[Chaos17]

Hey guys, just leaving this here since it may have been forgotten, but someone took the 32X24" poster of the cover art and made it into a digital image, so super high resolution.

WoW, thanks!
That second pic is just awesome for my deskopt wallpaper.

 

[threelights]

Hopefully the game is indeed as well received as these statements are suggesting, so more devs think about level design in their games =X

 

[foxuzamaki]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first open world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

Well damn

 

[KingSnake]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first open world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

I think the follow up statements are also interesting:

Though its Sandbox elements are lacking in comparison to, say, what Fallout does with its world. Has great slimdowns, time savers tho.
Like, where Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn't respect your time, Xenoblade CX makes exploring like picking up coins in Mario. Easy, fun, fast.
@Vyolynce Well that's back... big time. You get the awesome little points that upgrade yr Arts from exploring. (as an answer to "@JonBolds One of my most-loved features from the original XB was getting experience for exploring.")

 

[Lunar15]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first open world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

But what does that mean? Fallout and Witcher have different approaches to open world, and both are fairly different from what XBX does.

I'm excited for this game, but I fail to see what makes the open world in the game all that different from a really pretty MMO. No loading times is a really cool feature, and it is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and I'd even say arguably more gorgeous than F4 and W3. (Well, F4 for sure, Witcher is debatable, but I really like XBX's art design). For all intents and purposes, I've seen XBX as an MMO with a robust offline mode. It uses similar quest design, has a very thorough loot system, and it even locks you from having a mount until you reach a certain level. Now, it may be one of the best MMO's ever, but beyond being beautiful, I've yet to see what's so innovative in its world, other than size.

That said, W3's open world is actually its weakest element, it doesn't serve much purpose beyond being an incredible setting for a really good narrative adventure. I'm not saying the guy is wrong, but I guess I just need to read the review to see what that means beyond pointless hyperbole.

 

[-Horizon-]

Gurren Lagann with nopons, basically.

Yes. If the end game has you fight giant monsters the size of a galaxy in your own galaxy sized mech, it would be hands down amazing.

 

[Chaos17]

Is it planned that the game has a normal edition ?
Because all I see on my amazon.fr is the special edition...

 

[Richie]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first open world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

Bold claim to make, but regardless of hyperbole, I'm glad to see the game resonating so well with reviewers this side of the globe. Man, why the hell NoA doesn't have THIS out before Black Friday, opting for the massively lackluster Mario Tennis instead? The mind boggles....

 

[Astral Dog]

But what does that mean? Fallout and Witcher have different approaches to open world, and both are fairly different from what XBX does.

I'm excited for this game, but I fail to see what makes the open world in the game all that different from a really pretty MMO. No loading times is a really cool feature, and it is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and I'd even say arguably more gorgeous than F4 and W3. (Well, F4 for sure, Witcher is debatable, but I really like XBX's art design).

But really, W3's open world is actually its weakest element, it doesn't serve much purpose beyond being an incredible setting for a really good narrative adventure. I'm not saying the guy is wrong, but I guess I just need to read the review to see what that means beyond pointless hyperbole.

Sounds like just a sensationalist headline to me

 

[Lunar15]

Sounds like just a sensationalist headline to me

Basically. I mean, he follows it up with the genuinely intriguing comment about how it respects your time compared to Dragon Age: Inquisition.... but then why not mention Dragon Age instead of F4 and W3?

 

[brainchild]

But what does that mean? Fallout and Witcher have different approaches to open world, and both are fairly different from what XBX does.

I'm excited for this game, but I fail to see what makes the open world in the game all that different from a really pretty MMO. No loading times is a really cool feature, and it is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and I'd even say arguably more gorgeous than F4 and W3. (Well, F4 for sure, Witcher is debatable, but I really like XBX's art design). For all intents and purposes, I've seen XBX as an MMO with a robust offline mode. It uses similar quest design, has a very thorough loot system, and it even locks you from having a mount until you reach a certain level. Now, it may be one of the best MMO's ever, but beyond being beautiful, I've yet to see what's so innovative.

But really, W3's open world is actually its weakest element, it doesn't serve much purpose beyond being an incredible setting for a really good narrative adventure. I'm not saying the guy is wrong, but I guess I just need to read the review to see what that means beyond pointless hyperbole.

For some people, exploration and sight seeing is the most important aspect of an open world game. That might be the case for this person.

 

[Qurupeke]

The game sounds so huge. I wonder if I'll be able to finish it on time...

 

[Lunar15]

For some people, exploration and sight seeing is the most important aspect of an open world game. That might be the case for this person.

Most likely. I'll have to read his review. The game reminds me of Banjo Kazooie meets an MMO, if that makes any sense. I think that's really appealing to a lot of people. It's going to score well.

 

[Riki]

Basically. I mean, he follows it up with the genuinely intriguing comment about how it respects your time compared to Dragon Age: Inquisition.... but then why not mention Dragon Age instead of F4 and W3?

I believe he's saying that X is more rewarding and fun to explore than other games.

 

[Chaos17]

Simple : it depends of what you enjoy from a game, some like the story, other like the gameplay and you can open a bottle of champagne when you've both.

Witcher 3 has good solid story to fill its open world.
Fallout 4... I didn't read enough about it.
Xenoblade has good exploration and who never wanted to kill behemoths while flying in a mecha ?!

Dragon Age ?...
Tedious exploration, sometime you need to become Mario to access a ressource but that's really not necessary since you can finish the game without crafting and kill 11th dragons without it too. So why trying to collect those ressources ? Dunmo. Also, most of people though that DA I should've been more story oriented like Witcher 3.

 

[ninjablade]

Simple : it depends of what you enjoy from a game, some like the story, other like the gameplay and you can open a bottle of champagne when you've both.

Witcher 3 has good solid story to fill its open world.
Fallout 4... I didn't read enough about it.
Xenoblade has good exploration and who never wanted to kill behemoths while flying in a mecha ?!

witchter 3 has an amazing world and exploration, i enjoyed the combat as well.

 

[Lunar15]

witchter 3 has an amazing world and exploration, i enjoyed the combat as well.

Witcher 3 has, by far, been my favorite game of the year, but I'm willing to say that, beyond being absolutely gorgeous, the open world doesn't exactly reward constant exploration. It's not really its main goal. There's some cool stuff you can find and I enjoyed seeing the sights, but it's nothing insane.

But personally, I'm not one for sightseeing. I like tighter, more narrative driven experiences and that's why I like Witcher. Personally, I get that there's different strokes for different folks, but it's also pretty lame to call out games for petty comparisons when different games have completely different goals.

I've seen a lot of XBX so far, and while that world is incredibly gorgeous and fun to see, there's not much to find other than really cool beasts. There are things I really like though that appeal to my personal tastes. I like how finding warp points work and how you can use them to mine for resources and all that. It's a cool breadcrumb that DOES encourage exploration. The game is smart, don't get me wrong.

 

[Parshias7]

I think the follow up statements are also interesting:

This is one of the things that makes the original Xenoblade's open world so great, and I'm glad to see it continue in the sequel. (although I guess Xenoblade technically isn't open world, just a bunch of large areas linked together)

At one point I tried thinking about what makes a good open world game, and one of the big things I ended up on was making traversal easy or fun. The areas are big, and you often need to get from one side of the map to the other, so if traversal is a chore the game loses its luster quickly. This was a problem I had with Assassin's Creed games, as I would enjoy moving around the world early on in my playthrough, but by the end I just wanted to get things over with so I didn't have to worry about my character getting hung up on every damn fence and ledge in the game. Whereas in games like Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 4, the movement across the map was so much fun (either with motorcycles or the superpowers) that I never wanted to use fast travel in those games. It also helped that those two titles are on the shorter end of the open world spectrum.

And that's what Xenoblade handled so well. There were waypoints all over each area, and moving from one to another was either instant within a single area, or accompanied by a 1-2 second load if changing areas. And I used this fast travel. A LOT. If this system had the minute+ load times that most AC games did, then the game would have been completely unbearable, but it was quick and easy and let you get shit done without any hassle.

 

[-Horizon-]

Western impressions from review sites seem to be pretty good so far. Maybe an 85+ meta isn't impossible.

 

[Chaos17]

I've finally pre-ordered it...
Damn it Amazon you know how to get me my giving me a discount of 18 euros on a special edition >_<
I'm a weak man...

 

[Fishlake]

Its really good to hear you still get exp for exploring. It means I can enjoy they world and become a high level at the same time. The art style or the levels in those backgrounds are pretty breathtaking as well. I wish more franchises would take up a style like Xenoblade and Dark Souls rather than going for a Lord of the Rings look.

If only I didn't have exams I would preorder this but I will join you all a week later.

 

[Ridley327]

Bold claim to make, but regardless of hyperbole, I'm glad to see the game resonating so well with reviewers this side of the globe. Man, why the hell NoA doesn't have THIS out before Black Friday, opting for the massively lackluster Mario Tennis instead? The mind boggles....

NOA likes going for what would have the best mainstream appeal for the pre-Black Friday slot. Unfortunately for them this year, their hands were kinda tied, and people would have probably thrown vegetables at them if they delayed Yoshi's Woolly World even further.

 

[Shadow Broker]

NOA likes going for what would have the best mainstream appeal for the pre-Black Friday slot. Unfortunately for them this year, their hands were kinda tied, and people would have probably thrown vegetables at them if they delayed Yoshi's Woolly World even further.

This is off topic.

Does NOA have their own development team? I know alot of their stuff comes from the Japanese devs. Does NOA do anything of their own and it get translated over to Japanese for Japan?

I legit don't know.

 

[Riki]

This is off topic.

Does NOA have their own development team? I know alot of their stuff comes from the Japanese devs. Does NOA do anything of their own and it get translated over to Japanese for Japan?

I legit don't know.

First party: Retro Studios and NST
Second Party: Next Level Games

 

[alvis.exe]

This is off topic.

Does NOA have their own development team? I know alot of their stuff comes from the Japanese devs. Does NOA do anything of their own and it get translated over to Japanese for Japan?

I legit don't know.

Well Retro is in the US and that's a first party developer. Plus there's NLG and Monster Games who work closely with Nintendo. And there's NST though they haven't really put out any software recently AFAIK.

 

[jj984jj]

Well Retro is in the US and that's a first party developer. Plus there's NLG and Monster Games who work closely with Nintendo. And there's NST though they haven't really put out any software recently AFAIK.

They have, but they've also become the Mario vs Donkey Kong factory. Their games always use that brand now regardless of the gameplay. The last one came out in March.

 

[The Elite]

The game sounds so huge. I wonder if I'll be able to finish it on time...

There is no deadline for completion. You have all the time in the world.

 

[Vital Tundra]

This is off topic.

Does NOA have their own development team? I know alot of their stuff comes from the Japanese devs. Does NOA do anything of their own and it get translated over to Japanese for Japan?

I legit don't know.

Yeah they have Retro and a few other devs they are close to. One of the flaws Nintendo could have fixed during the Wii's success. They need more devs from countries outside of Japan.

 

[alvis.exe]

They have, but they've also become the Mario vs Donkey Kong factory. Their games always use that brand now regardless of the gameplay. The last one came out in March.

Ohh yeahhh. Totally forgot about that.

 

[Majestad]

Listening to the latest 8-4, there's more glowing impressions. The combat was described as fantastic, which is really good to hear.

 

[Takuan]

Gonna give this a chance. I don't know if I can last the 40 hrs it takes to get to mech action, but by Guwadge I'll try.

 

[jwj442]

This is a strange year for Nintendo software. On the one hand, you have putting out some really ambitious new things they've never done before, including a mostly-online third-person shooter and a huge complex open-world RPG, one of which is a new IP and the other is only on its second game. On the other hand, you also have a lot of low-effort and in some cases downright bad spinoffs that look bad even compared to other Nintendo spinoffs, such as Mario Tennis Ultra Smash.

Hopefully the NX will have more of the former category.

 

[Kureransu]

They have, but they've also become the Mario vs Donkey Kong factory. Their games always use that brand now regardless of the gameplay. The last one came out in March.

Yeah. The rumor is nintendo took them off of console development after the porject HAMMER debacle. Quite sad, because NST handled Wave race Blue storm and 1080 Avalanche. Would love to see those franchises return.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Gamexplain 3 hour livestream just started here https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab-uRDnwILo

 

[Starwolf_UK]

Gamexplain 3 hour livestream just started here https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab-uRDnwILo

They had a start of running into a load of enemies and then getting wiped. Good start.

Played for

Spoiler

47 hours

survey rate of

Spoiler

22.90%

 

[Aaronrules380]

They had a start of running into a load of enemies and then getting wiped. Good start.

Played for

Spoiler

47 hours

survey rate of

Spoiler

22.90%

It was even funnier because the enemies he wanted to fight he pretty much cleared out, but two stronger enemies were impossible to escape (But couldn't get into the enclosed area where he fought the rest), so it seemed like he was done and then NOPE

 

[BlackJace]

I feel silly for kinda writing off this game's OST. It's awesome besides Black Tar (and BT even grows on you after a while)

 

[GDGF]

Gamexplain 3 hour livestream just started here https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab-uRDnwILo

Maybe I'll just watch a little bit

 

[Aaronrules380]

Maybe I'll just watch a little bit

He's staying away from NLA to avoid any spoilers as an FYI

 

[thebisonxrc]

Gamexplain 3 hour livestream just started here https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab-uRDnwILo

Checked it out for a few minutes but had to shut it off so as to keep everything a surprise, but man, this game looks stunning. I'm really excited to explore the heck out of it.

 

[Malus]

Jon Bolding (Escapist Magazine): "Xenoblade X makes Witcher and Fallout look like baby's first open world game"
https://twitter.com/JonBolds/status/667377245154123776?s=09

I'm so fucking excited lol.

But what does that mean? Fallout and Witcher have different approaches to open world, and both are fairly different from what XBX does.

I'm excited for this game, but I fail to see what makes the open world in the game all that different from a really pretty MMO. No loading times is a really cool feature, and it is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and I'd even say arguably more gorgeous than F4 and W3. (Well, F4 for sure, Witcher is debatable, but I really like XBX's art design). For all intents and purposes, I've seen XBX as an MMO with a robust offline mode. It uses similar quest design, has a very thorough loot system, and it even locks you from having a mount until you reach a certain level. Now, it may be one of the best MMO's ever, but beyond being beautiful, I've yet to see what's so innovative in its world, other than size.

That said, W3's open world is actually its weakest element, it doesn't serve much purpose beyond being an incredible setting for a really good narrative adventure. I'm not saying the guy is wrong, but I guess I just need to read the review to see what that means beyond pointless hyperbole.

Well he never said it was innovative. He could just be talking about size and spectacle for all we know.

 

[Chaos17]

This is a strange year for Nintendo software. On the one hand, you have putting out some really ambitious new things they've never done before, including a mostly-online third-person shooter and a huge complex open-world RPG, one of which is a new IP and the other is only on its second game. On the other hand, you also have a lot of low-effort and in some cases downright bad spinoffs that look bad even compared to other Nintendo spinoffs, such as Mario Tennis Ultra Smash.

Hopefully the NX will have more of the former category.

I know it's wrong to say that as a gamer but they need money while making big IP.
Yeah, me too I would like the former but I can understand them, also some game can became a big surpirise like how Tomodachi life became successful world wide (Gaf, just doesn't like it, lol)

Back then, Nintendo didn't really advertised Tomodachi life and still made 3 millions sales! http://nintendonews.com/2014/10/tomodachi-life-sales-3-million/

 

[jwj442]

I know it's wrong to say that as a gamer but they need money while making big IP.
Yeah, me too I would like the former but I can understand them, also some game can became a big surpirise like how Tomodachi life became successful world wide (Gaf, just doesn't like it, lol)

Back then, Nintendo didn't really advertised Tomodachi life and still made 3 millions sales! http://nintendonews.com/2014/10/tomodachi-life-sales-3-million/

I don't have anything against casual games or spinoffs per se. But there's a difference between something like Wii Fit or Tomodachi and something like Amiibo Festival. Like I said, Ultra Smash stacks up really poorly compared to most other Mario sports games. They're probably winding down for the NX and have to push some stuff out to pad the lineup. But it's still unlike them.

 

[Sölf]

Screw this thread, I just pre ordered the Steelbook Edition. My poor wallet. ;__;

 

[Malus]

More glowing impressions, this time from gamesradar.

http://www.gamesradar.com/xenoblade-chronicles-x-wants-you-get-lost/

 

[Aostia]

Playing the game...gorgeous. ..
Just scratched its surf ace.
Any other reviewer here?
I got error message for the online mode...

 

[Majestad]

Fuck, right now I'm conflicted. I don't know if I should finish Fallout 4 first and then buy Xenoblade sometime early next year. Or play both at the same time. Problem is I have finals next week so that could potentially fuck up my grades. Hmmmm.

#firstworldproblems