Xenoblade Chronicles X - Review Thread

There were no bad impressions, just a balanced variety of opinions with the majority being positive. Really not sure where this "bad import impressions" fairy tale comes from. I hope you're not all referring to that Eisenbeis (who didn't like the previous Xenoblade game either for silly reasons) guy who wrote that one Kotaku article lol.

Well, there was something of a consensus at least that story/characters aren't as good as Xenoblade 1, so people are probably referring to that.
 
Well, there was something of a consensus at least that story/characters aren't as good as Xenoblade 1, so people are probably referring to that.

Were the characters in XBC considered anything special? I loved the game itself, but the story and characters weren't what kept me interested. The lush, robust world, and the fun gameplay were more important.
 
Were the characters in XBC considered anything special? I loved the game itself, but the story and characters weren't what kept me interested. The lush, robust world, and the fun gameplay were more important.

Not special, but they definitely had some charm. The XCX characers lack that charm imo.
 
There were no bad impressions, just a balanced variety of opinions with the majority being positive. Really not sure where this "bad import impressions" fairy tale comes from. I hope you're not all referring to that Eisenbeis (who didn't like the previous Xenoblade game either for silly reasons) guy who wrote that one Kotaku article lol.

I dunno, I too got a major disappointment vibe from the import thread. Seeing these higher scores isn't shocking, but they were definitely unexpected.

Can't wait for Friday. This week is already crawling!
 
Guys,do you think going back to the original XC will be possible? Both my sister and I want to play this game but we also want to play the original one on Wii.

Now I know the stories and everything are completely unrelated. I just mean the size/scope of the game. I'm worried the Wii one will feel.....dated.....if we play that after playing the new one :p
 
I dunno, I too got a major disappointment vibe from the import thread. Seeing these higher scores isn't shocking, but they were definitely unexpected.

Can't wait for Friday. This week is already crawling!

Have you maybe only seen the drawn out debate between the two guys towards the end of the thread? Because that was heavily negative while all the positive impressions were mostly restricted to one-off summaries.

Guys,do you think going back to the original XC will be possible? Both my sister and I want to play this game but we also want to play the original one on Wii.

Now I know the stories and everything are completely unrelated. I just mean the size/scope of the game. I'm worried the Wii one will feel.....dated.....if we play that after playing the new one :p

Of course, that game will be considered a classic in a few years. Oh and there's still plenty size/scope in the previous game. Walking on the bodies of two gigantic gods will never feel "dated." :)
 
8c2lbA9.jpg

Well in 5 years i'll get to review this. Should have downloaded the data packs in advance...
 
Were the characters in XBC considered anything special? I loved the game itself, but the story and characters weren't what kept me interested. The lush, robust world, and the fun gameplay were more important.

For me, they were very likeable, and I cared about each one of them. Can't say the same about X.
 
If you also like MMO quests, you'll love this. I don't really like playing online, but I solo some MMOs because I love their sense of exploration and quest structure. When I got the first Xenoblade, it felt like an MMO designed for JRPG fans like me. It was the best of both worlds, and I couldn't stop doing all those quests!

It seems like XenoX doubles down on the MMO elements, so I'm pretty sure we'll have lots of fun with it.
That's what I'm hoping this will be for me. Something I can get lost in and enjoy the beautiful world, monsters and quests.
 
Have they explained exactly what makes this insanely gigantic world so interesting to explore? I only watched GameXplain's review and no others yet. Which are some great reviews for a nice read?
 
Do the data packs install automatically? I started the download for all of them and put the system to sleep about a week ago without turning it back on. Do I need to turn it on to install them?
 
Do the data packs install automatically? I started the download for all of them and put the system to sleep about a week ago without turning it back on. Do I need to turn it on to install them?

The data packs are add on content so they don't download automatically. They probably do need to install when you turn it on, yeah.
 
Metacritic is not a bad tool to get a general view of how good a game is but I think we get into trouble when it's used for anything more than that.

I'm over here on metacritic now and when I see things like Xenoblade #6 best Wii U game of 2015 and then look up a bit and see Gunman Clive #4 best Wii U game of 2015 as if it's some objective truth because all the most important prestigious critics have placed their ballots. No disrespect to Gunman Clive. And I understand that it should be Metacritic's goal to paint people's opinion of what they put out as of utmost importance but it should be our goal to see through the facade.

And the facade is hard to see through because sure one review could be biased but how can you argue against the metascore which incorporates everybody?

I saw a sentiment earlier in this thread that I agree with and I think the exact metascore that a game receives is a victim to it. Because how good a game is is so subjective and most reviewers feel that they have to pin a number on it, it turns into a game of what seems like such and such game starts with a score of a hundred. Now lets find everything that's annoying and deduct points. I don't hate this idea because I can't think of a better way to pin a number on a game than to do it this way. It just becomes my job to take this into consideration when I see all the numbers. Gunman Clive a game that could be a mini game in Xenoblade might objectively be one metapoint better than Xenoblade and thus the number 4 best Wii U game of 2015 but when I (me, not you, me) take into consideration everything it's not even close.

So is a game with a metascore of 95 better than a game with a metascore of 85? It depends on how important the flaws that drug the score down are. Can whatever else the game offers overcome those flaws in your eyes? Yes, in your eyes, the only eyes that should matter.

There would be a lot less rage if we could get away from all these numbers and scales, this 8.0 to 10 shenanigans and just keep it to talk about why we're really feeling it.
 
8c2lbA9.jpg

Well in 5 years i'll get to review this. Should have downloaded the data packs in advance...

You don't need the data packs for the download version (which is what your top download is, I assume?)

Well poo. Only the main game is downloading at the moment so i'll just cancel those... Is there no benefit at all?

Zero. None. The eShop page even tells you explicitly that they are only for the disc version before you hit the download button.
 
Any good, almost spoiler free video reviews any of you would reccomend?
There are not many video reviews in general by GameXplain is a good 27 minutes.

Gamespot seems okay too but has bits of story cutscenes and also mentioned what they found flaws from the outset so is slightly more negative than the very positive GameXplain review.

They provide a good contrast in some places. In some respects GameXplain says you're never wasting time but Gamespot say you'll find yourself doing thing other than what you want to do. Story is also another point of disagreement.

If you have not I'd also suggest watching the survival guides NOA made just to get a head-start on gameplay mechanics and stuff.
 
Well poo. Only the main game is downloading at the moment so i'll just cancel those... Is there no benefit at all?

Indeed it is and i've cancelled the data packs after being informed by a couple of people aha. There's no benefit to having the data packs at all?

The benefit for disc users is that the data is now accessible by reading it off a hard drive rather than a slowly spinning optical disc. This may shock you, but if you buy the game digitally, all that data's already on your hard drive :)
 
Have you maybe only seen the drawn out debate between the two guys towards the end of the thread? Because that was heavily negative while all the positive impressions were mostly restricted to one-off summaries.

Yeah, perhaps. Still thrilled to have whatever initial interpreted impressions negated, however they came about. It was either going to come from the review thread or simply playing the game myself.
 
If you have not I'd also suggest watching the survival guides NOA made just to get a head-start on gameplay mechanics and stuff.

I haven't seen those, as I am still more or less blind except for a few screenshots and the E3 announcement trailer (and the Multiplayer Reddit Post). I really want to go in as blind as possible, but how, well, "necessary" would you say those guides are? From the looks of it, the game could do a better job of explaining some things.
 
Indeed it is and i've cancelled the data packs after being informed by a couple of people aha. There's no benefit to having the data packs at all?
The data packs are just data that's already in the game. They are useful only for the disc version, since with them the data is read from the internal memory / hdd instead of the disc. It's a cheap workaround to get around the fact that the Wii U doesn't support installing physical games.
 
If you have the data packs installed, does the disc stop spinning? I'd like to buy the physical version, but the noise of the Wii U's disc drive would drive me crazy in a game like this.
 
I wasn't going to, but amazon had that deal where you could get the hard cover for $15.31, so i bit


I don't know why he thought being in his skell would circumvent the 20 lvl difference between him and the baddie...

Nice to see mostly positive reviews. Though I have to wait until Tuesday for Amazon to ship my special edition. I'll try to contact Amazon CS to see if I can get it earlier.

Could you let me know what they say? I only preordered on Amazon bc I had gift cards accumulated from doing surveys lol
 
Sölf;187408089 said:
I haven't seen those, as I am still more or less blind except for a few screenshots and the E3 announcement trailer (and the Multiplayer Reddit Post). I really want to go in as blind as possible, but how, well, "necessary" would you say those guides are? From the looks of it, the game could do a better job of explaining some things.
Apparently there is a lot of in-game documentation and some mechanics are held back until later on in the game. Reviews are saying that the game expects you to read the documentation and doesn't hold your hand explaining every little thing.
 
Have they explained exactly what makes this insanely gigantic world so interesting to explore? I only watched GameXplain's review and no others yet. Which are some great reviews for a nice read?

Based on what people are saying, exploring is interesting because the world is big, very well designed and filled with amazing vistas and beasts. It feels like you're exploring a real world.

If you're still not sure if this is for you, Kotaku has a good review (bear in mind I haven't played the game yet, so I can't say how accurate it is, but it seems to me they nailed it). Quoting:

Kotaku said:
If you’re the kind of player that’s happy to spend hours at a time not really getting anywhere, but just luxuriating in a vast and vivid world, then there is a lot of game for you here. Others might find the lack of narrative drive and abundance of fetch quests an impediment to enjoyment. As a general rule of thumb, if you tend to bounce off MMOs, I think you might struggle with XCX. If they’re very much your cup of tea, then you should probably start getting excited.

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/11/30/xenoblade-chronicles-x-the-kotaku-uk-review
 
Still undecided.

No, not on whether to get it. That's a given. The question is when to play it? Over Christmas, where I'll have limited online-ness, or after Christmas in Jan, when the initial rush of online people has happened.
 
Not special, but they definitely had some charm. The XCX characers lack that charm imo.

I actually kinda disliked many of the main characters (Shulk, Fiora, Reyn and Sharla particularly) of XB either because they were annoying (first three) or just incredibly boring (Sharla) so I'm okay with XBX's characters lacking their charm lol

I'm going in expecting a party of less personal characters anyway. Since the story is more about the whole of humanity and survival, it's reasonable to expect that the game is, unlike many JRPGs, far less main party focused and more about everyone. NPCs and their stories etc.

Which is fine, Witcher 3 showed me that even if the main plot is boring, the side quests and their small, contained stories can be enough to keep me interested for dozens of hours. Not expecting the same level of writing from XBX, obviously, but I hope the side quests (well, the affinity ones at least) are these cool, contained stories.
 
Apparently there is a lot of in-game documentation and some mechanics are held back until later on in the game. Reviews are saying that the game expects you to read the documentation and doesn't hold your hand explaining every little thing.

Eh, I can still watch them later or bug GAF about stuff. :P
 
Guys,do you think going back to the original XC will be possible? Both my sister and I want to play this game but we also want to play the original one on Wii.

Now I know the stories and everything are completely unrelated. I just mean the size/scope of the game. I'm worried the Wii one will feel.....dated.....if we play that after playing the new one :p

I definitely think going back to the original XC will be possible. Personally, I'm still expecting to prefer the original over X (although I think it'll be a great game, too). Xenoblade is a charming game with very likable characters and an interesting setting/story. I don't know how well X does in that department yet (minus the world supposedly being good).


Were the characters in XBC considered anything special? I loved the game itself, but the story and characters weren't what kept me interested. The lush, robust world, and the fun gameplay were more important.

I wouldn't say the characters in Xenoblade were "special" or all that unique in the genre, but as I said above, they were very charming and likable. I actually liked the story quite a bit, too - I still think it has the best/most original setting for any game. It'd be hard to top that one for me.

I'm really hoping I feel differently about the story in Xenoblade X than what I'm expecting from it (and all the complaints about the story itself from people who have played the game already). I want some good twists and a great ending.
 
Oh shit, there's a day 1 update? How big it is? I only made room for some data packs, there's almost no space left… They put the DLC but couldn't fit the update on the disc? X_X

I'll let you know when the main game finishes downloading. Hopefully someone else knows cause i'll be a little while still!
 
I actually kinda disliked many of the main characters (Shulk, Fiora, Reyn and Sharla particularly) of XB either because they were annoying (first three) or just incredibly boring (Sharla) so I'm okay with XBX's characters lacking their charm lol

I'm going in expecting a party of less personal characters anyway. Since the story is more about the whole of humanity and survival, it's reasonable to expect that the game is, unlike many JRPGs, far less main party focused and more about everyone. NPCs and their stories etc.

Which is fine, Witcher 3 showed me that even if the main plot is boring, the side quests and their small, contained stories can be enough to keep me interested for dozens of hours. Not expecting the same level of writing from XBX, obviously, but I hope the side quests (well, the affinity ones at least) are these cool, contained stories.

Well, Elma, Lin and Tatsu are as present in this game as those characters you mention are present in their game. I feel they are almost literally worse versions of the OG Xeno characters. Elma is like a duller Dunban, Lin is like a sillier Fiora and Tatsu is a more annoying Riki haha.

I didn't like the sidequests (affinity or otherwise) at all. Almost all of them are intended to be light and humorous, always ending with some sort of joke. Your mileage may vary, but I didn't find them funny at all. In terms of gameplay they are almost universally fetch quests or materail grind, which I also didn't like. Felt light years behind the stuff you find in Witcher 3.

Not trying to kill your hype, but maybe going in with the right expectations might help. All the other stuff in reviews about the world being amazing is definitely true.
 
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