Xenoblade X Eurogamer Preview: Maybe 2015's Most Impressive Open World

Raven77 said:
Okay so you're saying the quests aren't that great and generic? Is the story pretty solid? Sorry I haven't been following the game very much but am always floored by how amazing it looks. Please don't take this as me trying to troll the game. It's just that the only impressions I can remember from that far back were always complaining about the lack of anything compelling or interesting to do in the game world besides admire the graphics.
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In the gamexplain preview they talk about different quest types. "Gathering quests" are of the generic variety, but Affinity quests involve story and character interaction that help flesh out the world. And then there's the monster battling quests and whether or not you enjoy those will depend on how you like the gameplay I guess. You can take on some monsters in online co-op missions.
 
I'm ten hours in and my only meaningful observation is I'm having a lot of trouble reading the text. And there's a lot of text on screen at all times.
 
Raven77 said:
Okay so you're saying the quests aren't that great and generic? Is the story pretty solid? Sorry I haven't been following the game very much but am always floored by how amazing it looks.
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Don't really know much about the overall story itself other than it's based around humanity needing to leave Earth due to an imminent war with aliens, and you play as a character that was on board one of the colony ships that crash landed on a planet called Mira.

If it's anything like the first game, there'll be a good amount of cool cutscenes, I just can't speak to the overall strength of the story as... well, I've not played it yet. The big appeal is the scale of the world and the Skells. (mechs) Gameplay isn't exactly traditional RPG gameplay either, it's like Final Fantasy XII in a way, but you have positional attacks that have different effects if you attack from say behind or the flank.
 
One of the ways that X sadly doesn't improve on its predecessor is its soundtrack - Hiroyuki Sawano's more rocky take is perfectly fine, though it's not quite the measure of Yasunori Mitsuda's soaring original score.
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Wow, still with this? If its not "Shimomura composed Xenoblade!", its "Mitsuda composed Xenoblade!". Lets break this down so people stop thinking Mitsuda or Shimomura composed this soundtrack alone.

http://vgmdb.net/album/18946
Composed by:
Yoko Shimomura, ACE+ (Tomori Kudo, CHiCO, Kenji Hiramatsu), Manami Kiyota, Yasunori Mitsuda

91 tracks:

Shimomura = 11
ACE+ = 29
Kiyota = 50
Mitsuda = 1

One track.
 
I have the feeling that this game is going to get a hell of mixed reviews, But i really love what i seen. A day 1 game for sure.
 
LordOcidax said:
I have the feeling that this game is going to get a hell of mixed reviews, But i really love what i seen. A day 1 game for sure.
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its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
 
wmlk said:
Also, kinda lame that it takes dozens of hours to get a Skell/Doll/mech. When that's easily the main draw of the game.
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Nah. Just Cause 2 had this issue of letting you do a bit to much in the onset of the game. It was a varied, interesting world but I felt that I had seen everything the world had to offer by the time I got to most of the story stuff. Gradually opening up provides better pacing in games like this.
 
Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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I think it's cool that they have big ambitions with their titles. Not being satisfied even after how much most people loved XC.
 
Hnnnnnnnnng - legit excited by these previews, Xenoblade Chronicles was magical to me, I have a strong feeling this game will capture me completely as well.
 
Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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The Paper Mario curse?


But at the same time, sometimes you kind of have to admire a developer or company that makes what they want to, even if they know a certain type of sequel would get universal praise.

sometimes.
 
Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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I think that this game is the natural evolution of Xenoblade in some way. Especially with the Dolls. Some reviewers are going to complain about the story... for what i seen. Other than that looks amazing for me.
 
Malus said:
I think it's cool that they have big ambitions with their titles. Not being satisfied even after how much most people loved XC.
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Yeah, I love how bold they are. I really liked the original Xenoblade, but I'm glad this one is a different beast. I'm not into sequels because they usually play too safe.
 
Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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Part of it could be since X might not have been originally planned as a Xenoblade title. From the January 2013 reveal until right before E3 2014 it was always referred to as "A New IP from Monolith Soft."
 
Mory Dunz said:
I'm expecting around a 83 metacritic
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kswiston said:
I don't know. The first game was a 92. I am expecting this to be lower, but I still think it will manage mid-high 80s.
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ehhh

I'm going with around 85, the original got a 92 and it will probably shed a few points but I don't think it will drop 10

or maybe every reviewer loves the game and it beats Super Mario 3D World for highest Wii U Metacritic score, who knows (would be great, but I doubt it)
 
Squishy3 said:
Don't really know much about the overall story itself other than it's based around humanity needing to leave Earth due to an imminent war with aliens, and you play as a character that was on board one of the colony ships that crash landed on a planet called Mira.

If it's anything like the first game, there'll be a good amount of cool cutscenes, I just can't speak to the overall strength of the story as... well, I've not played it yet. The big appeal is the scale of the world and the Skells. (mechs) Gameplay isn't exactly traditional RPG gameplay either, it's like Final Fantasy XII in a way, but you have positional attacks that have different effects if you attack from say behind or the flank.
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Thanks for the insight. Speaking of combat. How is the combat in this game? I liked the combat in FFXII although Grandia 2 on Dreamcast had some of my favorite combat in an RPG. If the combat is fun, I can overlook some issues with quests.
 
theprodigy said:
ehhh

I'm going with around 85, the original got a 92 and it will probably shed a few points but I don't think it will drop 10

or maybe every reviewer loves the game and it beats Super Mario 3D World for highest Wii U Metacritic score, who knows (would be great, but I doubt it)
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Still funny that that's true given GAFs reactions to it. I personally loved the game.

If Mario Kart had all it's DLC when it launched, it might've beaten it. maybe...
Same with Smash...
 
84-86 metacritic

Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I may have read somewhere that Takahashi had a lot of ideas that weren't part of XC but he wanted to experiment further with them and this is the game that popped out.
 
Mory Dunz said:
Still funny that that's true given GAFs reactions to it. I personally loved the game.

If Mario Kart had all it's DLC when it launched, it might've beaten it. maybe...
Same with Smash...
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Heck it's still Metacritic's highest rated console game this gen. Tied with MGSV, which I was really expecting to get 95+.

Mistle said:
That's a shame, one of my favourite things about RPGs is visiting and finding new towns and having the game really feel like a world, instead of a hub.
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True, but it makes sense in the context of the story. You're on this dangerous and unexplored alien planet, trying to make settlement for the survival of mankind. In Xenoblade Wii oftentimes when you entered a new area the welcome wagon would arrive to introduce you to the village people and such. It had kind of a homey feel that this game isn't going for.
 
Sub Boss said:
One, but they say its as big as an entire area on Xenoblade.
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That's a shame, one of my favourite things about RPGs is visiting and finding new towns and having the game really feel like a world, instead of a hub.

My biggest worry about this game also is story. And the grating music, especially coming off XC.
 
Ha, I just checked my email and realized that I preordered the Xenoblade Chronicles X Special Edition months and months ago. Guess I AM getting this, lol.
 
nynt9 said:
Nice straw man there, but the only detractors of the game aren't "random nobodies". Several sites have posted import impressions and the 8-4 Play podcast has talked about it extensively, and those have all been middling.

It's nice to pigeonhole everyone you disagree with and cherry pick opinions you agree with though.
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Those have not all been middling, in fact t i'd argue that it's mostly been positive
 
Really hope it has a stronger narrative pull than Xenoblade. The last game felt too aimless at times and overly bloated with side missions.
 
Alcoholikaust said:
Every time I see this game-
OGrP5QK.gif
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Agreed and I 'm trying to convince mysef to buy it only at christmas Q_Q
 
I bought my WiiX for this game, man it's been a long time coming!

Question for anyone: what is the GamePad integration like? And does the game run the same audio through both the TV and GamePad, basically can you off-TV play and can you plug in headphones and mute the TV ?
 
Adam Prime said:
I bought my WiiX for this game, man it's been a long time coming!

Question for anyone: what is the GamePad integration like? And does the game run the same audio through both the TV and GamePad, basically can you off-TV play and can you plug in headphones and mute the TV ?
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NintendoWorldReport talks about it in their import review, as well as Ash at 6:40 in the First Impressions video listed in the OP.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/40799/xenoblade-chronicles-x-review

Don't know about the sound options.
 
TheGreatLugia said:
Part of it could be since X might not have been originally planned as a Xenoblade title. From the January 2013 reveal until right before E3 2014 it was always referred to as "A New IP from Monolith Soft."
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probably, but the game was always referred after Xenoblade on interviews, a sequel, they even had a main character so probably it changed a bit when they introduced online.
-Horizon- said:
84-86 metacritic



Correct me if I'm wrong but I may have read somewhere that Takahashi had a lot of ideas that weren't part of XC but he wanted to experiment further with them and this is the game that popped out.
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From Interviews, i think it would be a new open world, planet like, Online mode, sci fi, grittier plot, mechs with more exploration/combat possibilities, and more elaborated sidequests
 
dark10x said:
Really hope it has a stronger narrative pull than Xenoblade. The last game felt too aimless at times and overly bloated with side missions.
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I heard the main quest here only takes like 40 hours or something. Which is a plus to me because I feel the same as you about XC. No reason to spread that shallow story with 1 dimensional characters to 100 hours.
 
Raven77 said:
Am I remembering incorrectly about a bunch of people on Gaf complaining that the import version had terrible quests reminiscent of an MMO? I really want to get hyped, it seems like my kind of game.
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If it's like Xenoblade, and it sounds like it is, there is a large chunk of junk level quests like gathering X amount of something, killing a bunch of things, etc., but there are better more in depth quests as well. One big issue with Xenoblade was having to alog through a lot of bad quests before getting to better ones, but I'm not sure if that something they addressed in the sequel.

It's very much an MMO styled game.
 
Sub Boss said:
its just weird with the original Xenoblade so well recieved (critically) they felt the need to change many things on a sequel, im expecting 80-85 scores, but who knows.
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While true, these guys tend to change a lot between titles. Remember how different (and sometimes in really bad ways) Xenosaga 1, 2, and 3 were?
 
I show this trailer and FE trailer to a friend "retired gamer" and they buy a Wii U on amazon immediately. Lol this games are gems.
 
Eurogamer said:
I feel like I'm caught somewhere in the beautiful crossroads between Final Fantasy 12 and Phantasy Star Online, and I really couldn't be any happier.
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This is literally the exact thing I wanted rom this game, but with Xenogears' philosophical underpinnings.
 
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