Hello friends!
I got Xenoblade Chronicles X, among other things, for Christmas, and would like to share some of my first impressions. I'm about 4 hours in, by the way, just finished Chapter 3 (or was it 4? I just got the talking vegetable guy).
The game is incredibly obtuse and new user unfriendly. It's relentless in not sharing basic information and to catch up to speed I called my best friend (who has played the game for 80 hours and still doesn't know a lot of the basic stuff) and watched all of Nintendo's Survival Guide videos (which explained a fair amount but still reflects poor onboarding design). What mildly irks me is that the game often says "Don't forget to do X!" when I hadn't known that X existed in the first place or needed to be tweaked. For example, before the first Tyrant, the game told me to not forget about leveling up arts and to not forget about equipping my best weapons, the former which I didn't know I could do and the latter I didn't know I had picked up anything of the sort. Online guides say "it's not well explained but do X,Y,Z" which just reflects how obtuse the game is. Not to mention how loose and arbitrary the combat system feels. It takes some a lot of adjustment. As someone who feels that intuitive design and new user friendliness are some of the most important qualities for a game to focus on, it isn't a good look.
Even with all of this, the game is strangely very compelling and every time I'm away from it, I look forward to playing it some more. I like the world and how natural and varied the enemies feel in the environment. It feels very dynamic and fluid, and entering an area I shouldn't isn't met with arbitrary restrictions, I just get eaten alive by a bunch of monsters saying "You've stepped in the wrong neighborhood". It's exciting and I don't ever feel like I'm lost, which is great because I look forward to exploring the world and getting lost is possibly my least favorite aspect of gaming (which is why Metroid is by far my least favorite Nintendo franchise). I also really really like the methods of surveying the land, it reminds me of the cell towers in Watch Dogs, which I also really like. There's a ton of flexibility in how I operate and as someone who loves playing a game my way, it's awesome stuff.
I'm also marginally intrigued by the story (even though it's completely drowned by its own exposition, but to be fair there's a LOT of ground to cover) and find the characters endearing (even though they're poorly animated and voice acted). I want to know more about the world and the situation itself, and I look forward to playing a small role in making the planet a better place (which is why I picked Mediators). Unhappy at the tease of negotiating with aliens just for the aliens to be like THERE WILL BE NO NEGOTIATIONS WE KILL HUMANS NOW. I was excited about diplomacy, oh well. Lastly one minor thing I really love is that the game tells me my progress in the Chapter so far. I like knowing how far I'm trucking and the game telling me "You are X/5 done with this chapter" is always a nice thing to see.
Overall, I'm enjoying myself even though the game is very flawed. I look forward to playing it some more!