This sounds like music from Metroid Prime.
Xenoblade X Eurogamer Preview: Maybe 2015's Most Impressive Open World
- Thread starter Malus
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This sounds like music from Metroid Prime.
I'm 30 hours in, might as well share some of my impressions (reviewing it for a Dutch site). Overall, it's a very weird game. Very ambitious and spectacular in some parts, almost archaic in others.
+ The scale of the world is amazing. Just running around the plains in the first area (Primordia) and seeing huge creatures all over the place made me feel like a wide-eyed kid visiting an alternative version of Jurassic Park. I've been running around all areas for hours and I'm still regularly impressed by the vistas, the creatures and the hugeness of it all.
+ Exploration is constantly encouraged and rewarded. The game has an extensive map that's always showcased on the GamePad. One of the main things that you do in this game is go out and plant probes on designated spots in the map. This gives you experience, it creates a quick-travel point and shows some points of interest in the surrounding area. Getting to the place where the probe can be planted is often quite a trip. It really feels like you're an adventurer, going into wild unexplored territory and slowly charting the place.
+ Movement is surprisingly good. Your character has a fast running animation and a cool astronaut jump that propels you forward with some momentum. It's one of the reasons exploring is so much fun.
+ The battle-system has evolved in some pretty meaningful ways. Overall I'd say it's way more active and fast-paced. It's still all about staggering and toppling enemies, but there is just so much more going on. Arts now all have secondary cooldowns that add some effects, forcing you to consider timing a bit more. Healing is now mainly done by using an Art-type one of your teammates call out (healing Arts are mostly gone). Your avatar can pick between multiple classes, there are mechs... there is just a lot going on.
+ Monolith have become masters at designing videogame landmasses. Mira has very interesting landforms on top of an incredible sense of verticality. There are huge waterfalls, trees and mountains. There are valleys, underground passages, lakes and so much more. It looks natural, which is a great achievement.
+ Skells are so fucking cool bro. Seriously, it's not just because you're piloting a mech. There are so many customization options and cool stuff to buy for it. It's easy to create the mech you've been dreaming off since watching Gundam Wing as a kid. Mine wields two light-sabers and also packs two cannons strapped to his back. It also adds yet another layer to the exploration.
+ I love the soundtrack. Yeah, it's totally Sawano, but even walking around town gets me hyped.
~ I can't really judge the story yet, I'm just a bit past the halfway mark. I can tell it's not going to be as good as the original Xenoblade though (which I consider to be fairly good). There are some typical Monolith twists though and it does enough to keep me interested. The real problem are the characters, which I'll get to later.
~ This game doesn't explain itself...at all. Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of the most hardcore games I've played. Seriously, I can't believe how newbie unfriendly this game is. I finished the original Xenoblade and I'm an avid fan of games like Dark Souls, but I still had trouble understanding the plethora of systems in Xenoblade X. The game only has a very basic tutorial, but it pretty much never explains some of the crucial mechanics. I actually had to read the manual to find out about lots of stuff (how to switch targets for example). Even now I'm still struggling with some of the details like the importance of attributes and what different Skell parts do. Why is there no in-game encyclopedia?! I'm sure this will become easier once online guides start coming out, but initially you'll have to dive in pretty deep yourself.
~ The online stuff so far seems kind of blah. There is some asynchronous stuff going on, but do I really need to have a constant feed of the achievements other people have unlocked? I don't think it adds much to the game, but I still need to test some modes out.
~ Unlike the rest of Mira New Los Angeles is kind of flat and bland. Having Skells walking around makes up for it a little.
- The quest design is horrendous. Before I explain why you should know there are 3 types of missions: main story missions, affinity quests and 'basic' missions. The basic missions are basically MMO-style quests that you grab from a board and mostly boil down to kill X or collect X. There are tons of these and I've completely ignored them. The affinity quests involve solving an issue for a particular character and have some (mostly silly) cutscenes. The main missions advance the story.
Here's the problem: affinity quests are also all boring fetch-quests. You are asked to just go to a place and kill a couple of monsters or to collect a rare material. There is never a cool twist to this, making them all very tedious in terms of gameplay. The other problem is that there is no narrative payoff either, but I'll get to that in the next bullet-point. The main story missions are mostly fine, because they just ask you to go to a certain place you haven't been deep into an area. They play on the strengths of exploration I mentioned earlier. But there are only(number) story missions in the game. There are dozens of affinity quests, which makes them the main meat of the game. You also can't completely ignore them, as you are required to do some to access the next story mission. The quest design in this game feels light-years behind something like Witcher 3.12
- The characters are plain bad. They seem to have come out of some Star Ocean game. It's like all the charm found in the original Xenoblade was completely sucked out. The silent avatar is a shame and makes some scenes awkward. Elma is fairly decent, but mostly bland. Lin is annoying. Most of the jokes revolve around her and this Nopon named Tetsu, but I was never even close to cracking a smile. This is a far cry from the amazing Riki. The rest of the cast is completely anonymous or just some tired cliché. You mostly get to know them through the affinity quests, but as I said the narrative payoff isn't there. Most scenes devolve into lame and predictable jokes. I don't care for any of the characters right now. A huge step back from the predecessor.
- It doesn't help that the cutscenes are incredibly stilted. Characters stand around like statues while yapping with the worst lip-syncing I've seen since Final Fantasy X. I don't understand why the scenes lack any dynamism or life. The only exception so far is the scene were you first get your mech, which is jaw-droppingly cool. The voice-acting is thankfully mostly good, but there is an alien species that exclusively talks with exaggerated chipmunk voices.
Damn, didnt think I was going to write this much. Even talking about this game is a big timesink.
Most of these problems were also in the original. Shame that Monolith didn't listen to the criticism.
i expected as much. sucks that the story isn't important, i really liked the story in xenoblade
like it really kept me at the edge of my seat especially when you get to prison island, meet janza plot twists etc ....disappointed i say, but alas exploration sounds nice, this game WILL get lower review scores than xenoblade 1, i'm fully expecting 7.0 - 8.0s lol will be entertaining to see how the review score thread will go down in flames for this much hyped game. any word on embargo date for review ?
thebisonxrc
Member
Wow, wicked track! It's the first song I've listened to from the game. I gotta say, it's a great first impression.
andrerobot
Member
I honestly don't understand the love for Riki. I guess I'm not into comic relief characters.
brainchild
Banned
i expected as much. sucks that the story isn't important, i really liked the story in xenoblade
disappointed i say, but alas exploration sounds nice, this game WILL get lower review scores than xenoblade 1, i'm fully expecting 7.0 - 8.0s lol will be entertaining to see how the review score thread will go down in flames for this much hyped game. any word on embargo date for review ?
You do realize that his opinion isn't fact, right? Not everyone agrees with him about the story and characters. Calm down.
Astral Dog
Member
I have not read much praise, really, only that the sidequest have some humor in them and the main story
remains unfinished
brainchild
Banned
The recently released previews have been glowing.
I think we should wait until most of them comment on the story before we start jumping to conclusions.
As for the import impressions, they have been mixed, but the sample size was also small. We need more input from more people before we can reach a consensus about the quality of the game's story and characters.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
I'm not even sure what to make of this game anymore. There's a sizable contingent that's all "this game's terrible", and then there are others that say it's as good as we hoped. >_< Ugh...I'll pick it up because mecha and because otherwise my Wii U's just a giant paperweight.
mrmickfran
Member
Because he kicks ass in battle.
Was looking forward to this, and am playing through XC3D and having a blast (story is solid, side quests are rough), but....
Reading about the quests being mostly fetch and kill quests sort of turns me away. I've played a lot of MMO's, and am fairly burned out on those two type of quests. Argh.
Reading about the quests being mostly fetch and kill quests sort of turns me away. I've played a lot of MMO's, and am fairly burned out on those two type of quests. Argh.
How frustrating are the "collect 10 rat heads from rats and only 10% of rats have heads" quests? I'm fine with a less focused story and generic MMO quests that I can do at my leisure, but nothing was more frustrating in the first game than running around a field over and over again searching for an item with a 1% spawn rate.
Dice//
Banned
Innocent race, but he's pretty adult, aloof, and goofy. He's ok. Nopon in general are kinda funny, they're cute, bubbly and sweet (your standard JRPG "cute thing")...but for all intents and purposes, they're hard workers with pretty human-like problems.
But more importantly, since Sharla is often considered a waste of space, Riki is pretty damn handy for healing and a great DoE-er with a ton of weirdly useful skills.
The more I look at this game the more I want to play it. I don't have time dammit!
Music has been fun to listen to, my personal fav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvgyGNS-6A
Only song I don't like is the main battle theme. Don't understand why they made that awful song one of the ones you hear the most.
Music has been fun to listen to, my personal fav https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXvgyGNS-6A
Only song I don't like is the main battle theme. Don't understand why they made that awful song one of the ones you hear the most.
You hurt Riki.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
It's a damn shame about the characters, story, and general cutscene direction.
The OG Xenoblade had many very memorable and well directed cutscenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzFS1DftRA
The OG Xenoblade had many very memorable and well directed cutscenes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzFS1DftRA
It also had a lot of static scenes where characters just stand and wave their hands around. I'm sure cutscenes like your example still exist in X.
Gotdatmoney
Member
The main battle theme in Xenoblade is pretty boring too. Mechanical Rhythm on the other hand. Gawd tier.
New preview: whoops, I guess it's banned lol. Nintendo Enthusiast if you wanna look it up. I won't add it to the op.
Talks a bit about how well the game runs. They didn't download the data packs and say "there hasn't been a reason to use them" with how infrequent the loading is. Imma still download them though, even if they only help a little.
Yeah that's what I've heard. They also apparently make changing equipment and deploying dolls faster. I wonder if there are any comparisons out there.
Talks a bit about how well the game runs. They didn't download the data packs and say "there hasn't been a reason to use them" with how infrequent the loading is. Imma still download them though, even if they only help a little.
Yeah that's what I've heard. They also apparently make changing equipment and deploying dolls faster. I wonder if there are any comparisons out there.
skLaFarebear
Member
Couldnt agree more. That battle theme got boring so quick. I wish Bionis's main battle theme was half as good as Mechanical Rhythm.
I don't think a single person that's played this game thinks its terrible.
Pokemaniac
Member
I think they kinda missed the point of the data packs. They're mainly there to reduce pop-in.
Vampirolol
Member
Very strange the lack of dinamism in cutscenes, Monolith are very good at directing.
Newtype-001
Member
ooh we talking XCX OST in here!
The best ive heard from the ost
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST - Sylvalum Field [Night Ver.] (46-:ri9)
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST Codename Z
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST -Disc 03 -Track 05 -亡KEI却KOKU心
part of me wishes the OST was more like Gundam Unicorn
The best ive heard from the ost
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST - Sylvalum Field [Night Ver.] (46-:ri9)
My favourite
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST Codename Z
Xenoblade Chronicles X OST -Disc 03 -Track 05 -亡KEI却KOKU心
part of me wishes the OST was more like Gundam Unicorn
I did turn off the controls on-screen, because the screen is busy enough without it. I didn't know it showed different controls during fights. The manual explains a lot, but leaves behind some of the finer details. Do you know, for example, what stacking staggers does exactly? Is using an attribute the enemy is weak against just more damaging or is there more? That kind of stuff. Tales of Zestiria is a recent example of a game with an in-game encyclopedia that explains every last detail of the mechanics.
How do you turn off the asynchronous achievement stuff?
I'd argue the question mark quests are basically the same as affinity quests. You have to talk to someone or collect something and then you get some dialogue or a cutscene. It's just tied to an NPC instead of a recruitable character. I don't mind the board quests. The problem is that the affinity quests are pretty much the same in terms of gameplay as those board quests. It's especially annoying when they ask you to get a rare drop from a monster that only appears at certain times.
I'd like to illustrate why I think it's bad with an example. (Chapter 6 sidequest spoilers)
After the intelligent chipmunk race joins New LA you can do a quest in the commercial district that concerns a racial conflict. It's about a shopkeeper not wanting to let a Xeno in because she thinks their race is disgusting. This instantly caught my attention, because there are a lot of interesting things that can be done with this.
The shopkeeper is convinced other people in New LA feel the same way. So you end up running around town and asking other people for their opinions. They give you some simple two-line responses that boil down to them being happy with the new Xenos. You tell the shopkeeper and then she just says she has seen the light and that she'll let the Xenos in her shop. This is bizarre, because just moments before she was saying some really terrible stuff about them.
The shopkeeper is convinced other people in New LA feel the same way. So you end up running around town and asking other people for their opinions. They give you some simple two-line responses that boil down to them being happy with the new Xenos. You tell the shopkeeper and then she just says she has seen the light and that she'll let the Xenos in her shop. This is bizarre, because just moments before she was saying some really terrible stuff about them.
In the end it all comes off as a joke, just like most sidequest. Maybe it's a little unfair to compare, but when you look at similar quests in games like Dragon Age and Witcher the difference is staggering. Not only in depth, but the dialogue choices in those games do end up changing the result. All the dialogue options you get in Xenoblade don't matter, the result is the same. Dialogue options only affect the little hearts that appear above the heads of your party members.
thebisonxrc
Member
Looks like the data packs actually make a significant difference, especially when it comes to fast travel. I'll be keeping those installed!
Tom Nook Sawyer
Member
Particularly given how often you'll probably fast travel in this game!
thebisonxrc
Member
Absolutely. I'm excited about exploring every nook and cranny of the world, but sometimes you just gotta fast travel, especially considering the size of the map.
It's great to know that the data packs are worth the 10gb of space!
To be fair Nintendo Enthusiast didn't say that they don't make a difference, only that they were happy with the base performance of the game.
That said my Wii U is gonna be filled with nothing but Xenoblade and Splatoon data once December rolls around.
NHarmonic.
Member
Better than the witcher's? Hard to believe.
KennyLinder
Member
The data packs aren't on the UK store yet, had a look for them yesterday. Maybe they'll get released next week.
Newtype-001
Member
are the data packs available on the eu store?
thebisonxrc
Member
Yes, after seeing the video without the data packs installed, I would agree that the base performance is just fine. It's nice that they give the option to improve it, though, because it does make a big difference.
And yeah, my Wii U will be in a similar state of affairs come December!
KratosEnergyDrink
Member
Never had those quests in Xenoblade. Even if some people claim there are "mmo" style quest in Xenoblade its not really true... the quests in Xenoblade are never as boring or frustrating as in World of Warcraft or FF14 or other MMORPGs. In fact even the "go and kill 10 of something quest" are fun most times, because they let you explore new areas, find new creatures or really demands some play strength, unlike in WoW & Co. where these quests are 99% of the time simple boring "work".
There were quests with rare drops. They were totally optional but some cool stuff was locked behind them, like the Colony 6 restoration.
I second this. I don't even remember his as a comic relief character, mostly some small creature with an annoying high-pitched voice that was embarassing.
But I never really used him in battle unless I had to.
That said, I'm really excited for this game. I expected the missions to be pretty similar to Xenoblade's but hopefully improved with quest markers (i wouldn't be surprised if they aren't there though) and the story was already something I knew would be taking a hit with the silent protagonist, but it's all about the exploration and combat to me. Xenoblade was fun enough in that regard, AND we get to use them mech-thingies AND it's even bigger than before? Xenoblade had some crazy hidden platformer style areas, hopefully we see something cool like that snow area in Xenoblade with that ramp that sent your characters flying!
Astral Dog
Member
I only downloaded two data packs😓
mobilesworking
Member
My y-cabled ext. HD is hungry for data! 1TB capacity = fill 'er up.
I appreciate you taking time to put your thoughts out there; our tastes seem like they differ and so there are some things you've said that actually sound somewhat pleasing to me like needing to pay attention to and discover the little intricacies of the battle system versus having it all laid out before you and the brevity of character dialogue.
As to the quote above, though, I personally think it really is a bit unfair to claim this as a negative toward the game when there has been no push by the developers or publisher to point out the dialogue choices as meaningful decisions that change the course of gameplay like the Dragon Age or Witcher games might. As such, my take is that the dialogue options are just there for fun, a little bonus of a different cutscene depending on your assessment of the situation. I mean if you really think about it those choices do tend to produce different results, they're just immediate and fleeting rather than deep and meaningful in the long run. However, for me, deep meaningful choices are not why I'm really into this game and those will work as intended -- a neat little bonus.
I just wanted to put this out there, because I know these criticisms help manage expectations of those who probably just came off of playing big titles like Witcher 3 and possibly having the bar raised in certain aspects of an RPG such as impact of choices.
*rocks back and forth in a corner* just.... 19 more days...
Riki was half comic relif, half bad ass grounded hero.
He had moments of being funny, but he also had some of the deepest and wisest lines.
Add to the fact that he was an absolute beast in battles and there's plenty of reason he was loved.
pinkurocket
Member
I thought Riki would be an annoying comic relief character,
That's why Riki is so loved and a real good character.
^Some Xenoblade Chronicles spoilers.
but his backstory is really charming, a father trying to provide for his family. He has age and wisdom, he may appear dumb and foolish, but he had some really deep moments. I also like how Nopon look to be designed to be cute mascots, however in the later part of the game they fight alongside homs and high entia bringing their own strength and power. They aren't just weak mascots, they are a legit race.
^Some Xenoblade Chronicles spoilers.
Agent Unknown
Member
Game looks incredible and impressions have me hyped, could be the perfect title to keep me busy the rest of the year until NX pre-launch starts ramping up. Just need to make sure I have time in my schedule because it sounds massive....
Has this been confirmed at all?
Has this been confirmed at all?
Yeah, in terms of square kilometers it's roughly twice as big as the three combined.
I don't know how much of the 400 km^2 in XCX is water, though, but I hear that W3 also has a significant amount of water.
I mean, that's not true. The fetch quests in Xenoblade X become increasingly frustrating since they're not a guaranteed drop. It's one of the worst things about this game.
Also, World of Warcraft has a lot more quest variety than Xenoblade X, so yeah, the two games aren't all that comparable because one is vastly superior to the other in this regard.
ShockingAlberto
Member
The thing with Riki is you were supposed to think he was this joke character comic relief and he was actually a father who has lived a long life and knows his shit, he just doesn't show his hand very often.
Also he could be real useful in battle, especially against UMs.
Also he could be real useful in battle, especially against UMs.