This game has some of the most perplexing design decisions I have ever encountered.
- You would think that with such an amazing world that the game would promote and reward exploration whenever it could. Instead, treasures and way points are locked behind a meaningless BLADE leveling system. Not to mention, if you wander into an area with aggressive high level enemies, there is a good chance you could be on the receiving end of a one hit mortal blow and sent back to your last discovered area.
- The hex map is absolute shit. It feels like the fast travel and map systems were developed by a team that has never played a western rpg. The map being locked to the Wii U tablet is also moronic.
- The story. Sweet Jesus, the story. There are some really interesting things about the story in XCX, but every time I start to get invested in the characters or what is happening, I am forced to go on a stupid fucking fetch quest. Many of these require that I have a drop/location guide pulled up so that I can figure out where the damn thing is. By the time I am ready to continue the storyline, I am pissed about the waste of time and have forgotten about the last story element that had me saying, Holy shit, that's awesome.
- And then there are the Skells. I love the Skells. I actually felt like I was playing a sequel to Xenogears for a moment while cruising across the desert, my team clad in their sweet tech. But Monolithsoft decided it was too wonderful and decided to pair the Skells with things like salvage costs/tickets when your Skell is defeated in battle. The prior costing nearly half as much as the incredibly expensive Skell. So again you have to worry about traversing the beautiful world map, fearful of encountering an aggressive monster bad ass because if you, heaven forbid, loose your Skell, it means hours of replenishing the cash you lost.
I am sure that some of these things are relived if you are over-leveled/in post game but what is the point? You have to slog for 100+ hours in poorly thought out systems before things fall into place?
Sorry - rant over. I am such a huge fan of the Xeno games, it upsets me when the team, by a hair, misses greatness. Their games are so different than your typical JRPG, its a shame that they don't get the polish that they often need.