I am with you on this. The quests were the worst aspect of the original Xenoblade to me, it is a shame they made the same kind of quest even more prevalent in Xenocross (supposedly).
I'm someone who loved the quests in Xenoblade, but it was more because I liked finding out people's patterns and routines and individual stories in each of the towns. The one town thing with nothing, npc wise, going on outside of it for this game kinda bothers me though.
Yeah, this is what worries me. I'm also worried now after playing the Witcher 3 I won't be able to tolerate this kind of gameplay with unrewarding quests and a story that is probably one big anime cliche.
Yeah, that kind of comparison to WRPGs is what I'm prepared for. Like, a few pages back, I mentioned how to me the first Xenoblade seemed like a JRPG that used Western ideas to improve JRPGs, but this game almost looks as a WRPG that brings JRPG ideas into it, and it may be that bringing JRPG ideas into a WRPG ends up making it seem as a deficient WRPG, especially compared to other developers who have made open world games for a long time. You're right that Xenoblade Chronicles, the first game, was a one time thing. They could have gone with the same "formula" to make it a two time thing, but with X, they've gone open world and brought in Xenoblade's gameplay, which results in a different experience that just so happens to have the Xenoblade name on it.
I've read posts in the Xenoblade 3D OT recommending that players don't do side quests but focus on the main story, so I understand that the side-quest aspect wasn't what some players enjoyed about the first game. I personally enjoyed the main story of the first game and how the setting and story permeated the experience, and so dabbled in the sidequests and eventually kept on doing them because I loved engrossing myself in that world. But if one is overleveled, there's no skill involved for quests meant to be taken early on because the enemies are much lower level, and collection quests just depend on luck and probability. And Xenoblade's mechanics don't allow for "minigame" style sidequests that one finds in open world games. Though as theSlacker says, one could find that testing their knowledge of where to find things in the world is a part of the fun.
That's what I meant about Xenoblade's mechanics in an open world game potentially being unrewarding, because "open world" is a word that carries different expectations. Who knows if the JRPG focus on battle systems and leveling things up will feel enough to span 120 hours, for some it will be, for others, they want a big main narrative to draw them through and a world full of lore. I love dicking around in open world games and gawking at the scenery and humorous stuff, and that may be the appeal of the game to those that it reaches due to being open world, so obviously I will have fun in this game in that regard, but I know some could want more "meaningful substance" than that. Whether the sidequest content has meaningful substance/story value is what I'm unsure of and have to play the game to find out for myself to see. Since it's a spoiler free discussion, there hasn't been anybody here to more directly vouch for their favorite characters or experiences that they've had and give concrete details.
What's good about open world WRPGs (I guess I'm thinking of Bethesda's games here since that's my experience, and that's who a Monolithsoft employee cited) is that there's a respect of the player to go out and find their own adventure and do things out of order, and players are given mechanics that let players feel they are in control, but I wonder if by focusing on NLA and putting requirements before getting on with story, that's from the JRPG side of things, where the developers want to retain control too. And "finding one's own adventure" may not be satisfied if players feel that finding story out in the world is what adventure means, rather than finding more monsters to kill and vistas to enjoy. So I'm patient in that I know that it's Monolithsoft's first open world and HD title and that going open world is how they want to make their game reach more players (God knows the prevalance of open world games is a controversial topic nowadays but I acknowledge they are appealing to lots of mainstream gamers), but there could be a lack of refinement due to that. This transition to HD is something that has been cited by Nintendo themselves as being more difficult than they planned. Some of us core Nintendo gamers are patient with it, but when it comes down to people spending their own hard earned money on a product, it's natural that they might rather pay for something that is made by those who have already perfected their skills instead of "subsidizing" a learning experience for developers trying something new, or rather not buy something to satisfy a curiosity if there's something else they know beforehand that they will enjoy. I'm more of a guy that buys a game if I see a fun or unique hook, otherwise I'd miss out on some cool stuff. Like, yeah, one could compare this game to WRPGs, but it has that Japanese made uniqueness that no WRPG will have.
I'm someone who loved the quests in Xenoblade, but it was more because I liked finding out people's patterns and routines and individual stories in each of the towns. The one town thing with nothing, npc wise, going on outside of it for this game kinda bothers me though.
Aw yeah, 100% complete. Even got a very dark CONGRATULATIONS picture, and 5000 tickets. Might just spend them on the materials I need for inner devices, for those last few Overed...
Aw yeah, 100% complete. Even got a very dark CONGRATULATIONS picture, and 5000 tickets. Might just spend them on the materials I need for inner devices, for those last few Overed...
I don't think I've ever seen anyone police their own thread as severely as you. Detailed OPs are great and all, but I've seen plenty of cases where the moderation staff have frowned upon people demanding that they are required reading to everyone who happens to pop into the discussion.
I totally get your perspective, too. You put work into making the post and don't feel like the information in it needs repeating. I think it's important to understand that everyone isn't approaching the thread with that in mind, though.
That's all I saw, and it wasn't clear to me.
Maybe it's detailed later, but I don't have the time to read all the OP which was very long. Thought it was faster to ask, so thanks for answering
Your OP doesn't specifically say that there is no local co-op, so people are going to ask to make sure if that's something they care about.
In short, I think it would be cool if you chilled with the thread policing (as well as guiding people to posts and impressions that you happen to agree with).
That's all I saw, and it wasn't clear to me.
Maybe it's detailed later, but I don't have the time to read all the OP which was very long. Thought it was faster to ask, so thanks for answering
Uh...my ingame timer says ~413 hours, but the last hundred or so were mainly spent hunting holofigures from Overed, and I'm sure a few dozen hours were spent idling after I passed out or forgot to turn the game off.
Going to try to finish the DLC kizuna quests tonight. Already have most of my impressions/thoughts typed up to post later.
Then I can complete my transformation from kid, to squid.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone police their own thread as severely as you. Detailed OPs are great and all, but I've seen plenty of cases where the moderation staff have frowned upon people demanding that they are required reading to everyone who happens to pop into the discussion.
I totally get your perspective, too. You put work into making the post and don't feel like the information in it needs repeating. I think it's important to understand that everyone isn't approaching the thread with that in mind, though.
And this.
Your OP doesn't specifically say that there is no local co-op, so people are going to ask to make sure if that's something they care about.
In short, I think it would be cool if you chilled with the thread policing (as well as guiding people to posts and impressions that you happen to agree with).
Fair enough, it doesn't specifically say there is no local element. And yes, I've heard this before about pointing to the OP a lot. I still see nothing wrong with it though. If that's where the info is, that's where I'll direct people towards.
And I'm not linking people necessarily to impressions because I agree with them, I'm linking them to impressions that provide counter arguments/alternate impressions to the ones currently being focused on here since the last few pages have been fairly negative and if you come in here looking for impressions and all you see is your guys' stuff, it gives an unbalanced view of things when people have typed up some opinions veering in the other direction earlier.
Fair enough, it doesn't specifically say there is no local element. And yes, I've heard this before about pointing to the OP a lot. I still see nothing wrong with it though. If that's where the info is, that's where I'll direct people towards.
And I'm not linking people necessarily to impressions because I agree with them, I'm linking them to impressions that provide counter arguments/alternate impressions to the ones currently being focused on here since the last few pages have been fairly negative and if you come in here looking for impressions and all you see is your guys' stuff, it gives an unbalanced view of things when people have typed up some opinions veering in the other direction earlier.
Understandable. It may have just been my personal impression, but when you have a few posts on one page and people are responding to them, then out of left field a guy chimes in encouraging people to look at another set of posts (that are all very much in agreement with each other), it certainly looks like that person is trying to discount the posts originally being discussed in favor of the others.
Maybe it wouldn't have looked like such a wholesale dismissal of the more negative impressions if specific points were addressed and responded to instead of just taking the approach of guiding people to more glowing impressions. It all came across as a bit of hand waving to me, but of course I'm not unbiased on the matter.
Thanks for the extra impressions about the sidequests! That does sound rather intriguing, you're right that there hasn't been much discussion about the type of content that's in the side stories, so I appreciate it. I think StreetsAhead mentioned before that there's more of the kind where the choices you make lead to different outcomes. So even though the world isn't rich in lore about its past, is it a fair impression to say that the side stories focus more on the "here and now," like, the events in the characters' lives as they are happening in the present?
^Well, there's also that certain players finished the whole game first weeks ago (probably since they became addictied and engrossed )then posted impressions in one mega-post that balanced positives and negatives, instead of giving bit by bit updates with mostly negative impressions that bring the thread up to the front, so I understand why theMoon feels the need to direct to those other impressions too. You've been helpful in being here to answer questions, as an ongoing player, while those who made mega-posts seem to have moved on and aren't as available to answer questions, so you're definitely appreciated.
Understandable. It may have just been my personal impression, but when you have a few posts on one page and people are responding to them, then out of left field a guy chimes in encouraging people to look at another set of posts (that are all very much in agreement with each other), it certainly looks like that person is trying to discount the posts originally being discussed in favor of the others.
Maybe it wouldn't have looked like such a wholesale dismissal of the more negative impressions if specific points were addressed and responded to instead of just taking the approach of guiding people to more glowing impressions. It all came across as a bit of hand waving to me, but of course I'm not unbiased on the matter.
I don't feel like looking through all my recent posts here to verify but I can at least remember one occasion where I plainly presented an excerpt from one of the alternate takes as just that: an alternate take on the issue (it was about the value of quests iirc) as opposed to saying "here, this opinion is better."
Like I said, when I bring up those other opinions, I want those who seem worried by the recent tone of negativity to see that there are other viewpoints so they don't get the wrong impression that there is a general negative consensus on the matter. Both viewpoints are valid obviously but it's no use if the current topic scares off potentially interested players because that topic seems to center on negative impressions of a few select but active posters.
Thanks for the extra impressions about the sidequests! That does sound rather intriguing, you're right that there hasn't been much discussion about the type of content that's in the side stories, so I appreciate it. I think StreetsAhead mentioned before that there's more of the kind where the choices you make lead to different outcomes. So even though the world isn't rich in lore about its past, is it a fair impression to say that the side stories focus more on the "here and now," like, the events in the characters' lives as they are happening in the present?
^Well, there's also that certain players finished the whole game first weeks ago (probably since they became addictied and engrossed )then posted impressions in one mega-post that balanced positives and negatives, instead of giving bit by bit updates with mostly negative impressions that bring the thread up to the front, so I understand why theMoon feels the need to direct to those other impressions too. You've been helpful in being here to answer questions, as an ongoing player, while those who made mega-posts seem to have moved on and aren't as available to answer questions, so you're definitely appreciated.
Sometimes people tend to ignore or skip the story in side quests (maybe because many are not native Japanese speaker ). When I play the some open world rpg like witcher 3 recently, I found myself didn't pay too much attention to the dialog when I doing some side quests, then the game just became "Go position A do B". In XBX, they really pour a lot of thoughts in some side quests story,
of cause you still need to do someting like collect 5 material X or kill 5 monster Y , but If people think main story is the game over, they just miss about 80% good story in XBX
Thanks for the extra impressions about the sidequests! That does sound rather intriguing, you're right that there hasn't been much discussion about the type of content that's in the side stories, so I appreciate it. I think StreetsAhead mentioned before that there's more of the kind where the choices you make lead to different outcomes. So even though the world isn't rich in lore about its past, is it a fair impression to say that the side stories focus more on the "here and now," like, the events in the characters' lives as they are happening in the present?
^Well, there's also that certain players finished the whole game first weeks ago (probably since they became addictied and engrossed )then posted impressions in one mega-post that balanced positives and negatives, instead of giving bit by bit updates with mostly negative impressions that bring the thread up to the front, so I understand why theMoon feels the need to direct to those other impressions too. You've been helpful in being here to answer questions, as an ongoing player, while those who made mega-posts seem to have moved on and aren't as available to answer questions, so you're definitely appreciated.
I also want to talk more about what's not doing well about side quests in XBX.
a lot of side quests don't have voice acting and cutscenes, just your characters stand there talk with other npc. You may feel you're not fully involved and ignore the dialog naturally and thought it's not important.
Some side quests are actually connected but you don't know, the collection requirements will not give you actual area(you better check wiki for help).
IMO, producer actually want to add more voice acting and cutscenes to those interesting side quests, but due to lack of money or time and wiiu limitation, they can't do it. It may end up being 50GB game.
I also want to talk more about what's not doing well about side quests in XBX.
a lot of side quests don't have voice acting and cutscenes, just your characters stand there talk with other npc. You may feel you're not fully involved and ignore the dialog naturally and thought it's not important.
Some side quests are actually connected but you don't know, the collection requirements will not give you actual area(you better check wiki for help).
IMO, producer actually want to add more voice acting and cutscenes to those interesting side quests, but due to lack of money or time and wiiu limitation, they can't do it. It may end up being 50GB game.
Some of the non-voiced side quests are better than the voiced ones, so they should have chose better. Doctor B is the best. And
the ones involving alien races
.
A lot of the quest dialogue is pretty boring though. For a simple non-voiced sidequest story there may be lines and lines of dialogue every time you talk to an NPC in the quest line. While it adds some flavor, it also badly needs an editor (kizuna quests as well).
Uh...my ingame timer says ~413 hours, but the last hundred or so were mainly spent hunting holofigures from Overed, and I'm sure a few dozen hours were spent idling after I passed out or forgot to turn the game off.
Going to try to finish the DLC kizuna quests tonight. Already have most of my impressions/thoughts typed up to post later.
Then I can complete my transformation from kid, to squid.
Some of the non-voiced side quests are better than the voiced ones, so they should have chose better. Doctor B is the best. And
the ones involving alien races
.
A lot of the quest dialogue is pretty boring though. For a simple non-voiced sidequest story there may be lines and lines of dialogue every time you talk to an NPC in the quest line. While it adds some flavor, it also badly needs an editor (kizuna quests as well).
The Doctor B quest line is awesome. I really wish we got more of that stuff.
All of the most memorable quests for me have been the non-voiced "Normal" quests. A lot of them have some really interesting scenarios, but it's a damn shame they have very low production values.
I do agree with you about some of the dialogue. So much of it seems oddly extraneous, like it wasn't really edited at all. This applies to the voiced scenes, too, which makes it even more odd.
Aw yeah, 100% complete. Even got a very dark CONGRATULATIONS picture, and 5000 tickets. Might just spend them on the materials I need for inner devices, for those last few Overed...
Since there are more people who have completed the game now... So as someone whose absolute favorite part of the first game was exploration, who spent hours trying to climb up trees in Makna Forest because why not, who gleefully jumped off every single landmark because again why not, who did every single quest (and loved reading the quest descriptions and the commentary) and pretty much remembered the locations of like 75% of the NPCs because the world and its people were so fascinating, who could spend entire play sessions doing nothing but running around the world... Am I gonna like this more than the first game?
Because the complaints so far sound like they stem more from the story/quest design than anything else and the quest design doesn't sound too different from the first game's? I love world building though and it seems like most of the cast are adults so as long as most everyone acts like adults I don't care how short the "main" story is haha.
For the record I also greatly enjoyed tinkering with the various customization systems and didn't mind reloading for rare collectables and materials. And there's no way grinding for Kizuna quests is worse than grinding for supports in FE6/7/9 haha. Now THERE'S a case where most people would never see a huge chunk of character development and world building because of the requirements to get them.
Since there are more people who have completed the game now... So as someone whose absolute favorite part of the first game was exploration, who spent hours trying to climb up trees in Makna Forest because why not, who gleefully jumped off every single landmark because again why not, who did every single quest (and loved reading the quest descriptions and the commentary) and pretty much remembered the locations of like 75% of the NPCs because the world and its people were so fascinating, who could spend entire play sessions doing nothing but running around the world... Am I gonna like this more than the first game?
Because the complaints so far sound like they stem more from the story/quest design than anything else and the quest design doesn't sound too different from the first game's? I love world building though and it seems like most of the cast are adults so as long as most everyone acts like adults I don't care how short the "main" story is haha.
For the record I also greatly enjoyed tinkering with the various customization systems and didn't mind reloading for rare collectables and materials. And there's no way grinding for Kizuna quests is worse than grinding for supports in FE6/7/9 haha. Now THERE'S a case where most people would never see a huge chunk of character development and world building because of the requirements to get them.
I also want to talk more about what's not doing well about side quests in XBX.
a lot of side quests don't have voice acting and cutscenes, just your characters stand there talk with other npc. You may feel you're not fully involved and ignore the dialog naturally and thought it's not important.
Some side quests are actually connected but you don't know, the collection requirements will not give you actual area(you better check wiki for help).
IMO, producer actually want to add more voice acting and cutscenes to those interesting side quests, but due to lack of money or time and wiiu limitation, they can't do it. It may end up being 50GB game.
I'm glad to hear that there's quests that do have multiple outcomes, it should help to make a player feel they have some "ownership" of the world, which is vital to a good open world experience. I'm also glad you broke the ice about "lack of budget" That's really what I was getting at about comparing to other open worlds, players may feel it doesn't live up to what they expect if they are uncomfortable with a huge world filled with "low budget" content, or even, a beautiful world that is yet filled in a way limited by what Xenoblade's mechanics can allow (monsters to battle, janky platforming, occasional A button presses... ). I know that nowadays, gamers have been accused of driving costs upwards at the expense of unique content, so I wasn't comfortable to come out and express that so bluntly, haha. Coupled with being their first HD title as well, that kind of thing works into my expectations so I won't go overboard with wishing for more and more.
The first game had that "use your imagination" charm that I love about reading, so I'm comfortable with that kind of thing.
I even read out loud when there's no voice acting in games sometimes, but that's a dark secret of mine
The value of the first game, for some players, was through a rich main-story, and this game proposes that players derive story value from the side content. That could mean certain players will be subjected to a large volume of "low budget" story content when they'd rather have had a budget focused on a, perhaps, lower volume overall in world size and story, but a visually rich story presentation full of action, epic twists and turns, and a strong setting that permeates the experience.
But, as you confirmed about what I saw on Miiverse, memorable moments can be made even with a "limited budget" presentation, I did think "No way, they put that kind of thing in this game?!?"
Aw yeah, 100% complete. Even got a very dark CONGRATULATIONS picture, and 5000 tickets. Might just spend them on the materials I need for inner devices, for those last few Overed...
Hey, you're gessenkou, right? I watched your two youtube videos that you captured of your time in the Twiluminous Forest, they were really good at showing what a typical experience going out into the world is like, so thank you!
Yeah, looking forward to that. Really hope it keeps the same setup for npcs that the first game had where they each have their own schedule and you can only get quests at certain times. The only thing that makes me a sad panda about that aspect of the game is how it's just one town. The differences in the towns were great in the first, and I got to know each intimately through how I played. Only one that wasn't that great was Alcamoth, and that's because it was effectively just one big courtyard.
Incoming enormous post. I tried to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
Area design was pretty good, especially when there were multiple levels to an area. Makes things harder to find on the minimap, but they're more interesting to explore and figure out what goes where and how everything is connected. Some of the more open areas, like the valley(Oblivia) and whiteland(Sylvalum?) are kind of lame. I liked that a lot of areas were accessible by climbing up rocky sections/mountains, not just through normal paths. I spent a lot of time jumping up mountain ranges to explore the first few continents, and once I got my Doll I was able to jump around and explore even more.
There are a few places you absolutely cannot get to without the flight pack in each continent, to leave something 'interesting' for later, I guess. Only one or two of them are really interesting though, and the rest are kind of just there. I have similar feelings about the 'caves'/unexplored regions. Most of them are just random "hidden" areas with some treasure or Overeds in them, and occasionally quest objectives. Very few were interesting aesthetically, and even fewer were interesting to explore at all. Kind of felt like they dropped the ball there, but I guess the first game didn't really have much in terms of 'secret caves'. Instead of having a few dungeons in this game, it was more like they just designed some dungeony aspects into the areas themselves. Dungeons can be fun if designed well, but their absence isn't really a dealbreaker.
The gamepad map was useful for getting around without having to stop and select a landmark through a pause menu constantly, but it was still a liiiittle slow for my taste. You also have to tap the data probe just to see what its stats are, and the menus to switch probes around are slightly annoying. Makes things difficult if you want to get a view of everything collectively, or decide to completely overhaul your probe network for no reason >_>. Segments and the "topics" they wanted you to complete were alright I guess. I'm fairly certain nothing is missable, at least in regards to the completion rate.
Battles were very fun, and so much faster/more engaging than the first game. The wide variety of customization options(for the MC at least) made it fun to mess around with things too. I liked dashing around the enemies to make use of the FM Jaguar line's positional bonus arts, stringing together tons of Melee arts with all of Galaxy Knight's speed/damage boosts, and racking up huge OC Gear combos. I haven't tried out everything yet, but I'm sure I could find even more entertaining combinations of arts and skills.
Dolls were nice too, for the extra damage and ability to fight the ridiculously huge monsters. I'm sure some are still doable on foot, but not without some crazy setup with tons of Evasion/resistances/Ghost Walker. They felt different enough from fighting on foot to keep things interesting, but they might have been a bit too interesting. There isn't much reason to fight outside of them unless you're trying to break an awkward part on an enemy that you can't target in the Doll, and it's too rare to farm without breaking it. Or you have to do stuff in a small cave, or Doll-less Squad Quest or something. Of course, different stuff will aggro you while you're in the Doll, and a lot of them are giant angry things that will wreck you immediately if you walk into the wrong neighborhood, so they aren't quite the "win everything" button.
The upgrade to level 50 frames is pretty significant, and almost felt wrong with the amount of fights I could get away with after just buying one for my own character. With a full team of them, you can walk over everything but the >60 enemies, and even some of those are doable. Level 60 frames are pretty ridiculous, but the last one(two?) in particular has some crazy stats. It can oneshot most enemies in the game, aside from ~5 or 6 Overeds in the 90+ range. Good for farming drops from tough single enemies, not good for keeping the game balanced and challenging. Especially since you can just buy all the parts with reward tickets, which aren't all that difficult to come by if you can handle helping with Squad stuff, or beating the level 35 world enemy. I did prefer my Lailah.QUEEN in the end, though, especially once I got my Arts.GP devices. Easily activated infinite OC Gear and customizable parts were much more attractive to me. It also looked less stupid.
Some minor delay annoyances were present in battle too, unfortunately. If there's a Soul Challenge happening(B prompt), your inputs to switch weapons or targets aren't registered, and I don't think you can activate the OC Gear either. The input negation lasts until shortly after the prompt disappears. Hitting B when the prompt isn't around will make you 'sheath' your weapons, which will stop any Gears active and make you stop doing whatever attacks you might have been doing. Probably wasn't the best idea to make those the same button. Switching targets needs you to hold R, then hit Y or A, but it doesn't seem to loop the cycle through all available ones, so if you keep hitting A it'll stop at some point, and you have to hit Y to go "back" on the list to target something standing right next to it. There's also that annoying delay after holding R before you can actually switch with the two buttons, so you might accidentally start a battle with something you wanted to switch the target away from. Kind of annoying considering the number of enemies that can show up onscreen, and the general confusion when everything starts exploding.
I liked most of the music in the game. They had pretty good production values and whatnot, but they weren't always employed in the game to the best effect. Some quests had really weird moments where a track would play and totally not feel like it should be playing. The music would often be way off balance compared to the rest of the scene for story chapters, and drown out the actual dialogue. Certain choices they made for looping the tracks, and moments where they're activated could have been handled better as well. If they added some delays with the jumping for playing Don't Worry, I think I might have been less annoyed with it resetting continent music all the time.
The story itself was...probably weirder than it needed to be. The main story does what it needs to, I guess, but the way they implemented it into the game just felt bizarre. I spent a lot of time exploring, and found certain things throughout the world that, despite being super important to the story, would be completely inert, and required me to do quests later in the story to actually get some closure/anything at all out of them. I know they did a lot of what they did so as to not lock people out of content forever by making things 'missable,' but instead you've got the old "WE HAVE TO DO THIS THING RIGHT NOW BECAUSE TIME IS RUNNING OUT," and then you can run around for a hundred hours before actually going to do that thing. If they wanted to make things less linear, they should have gone a bit further in that direction, and made it much more organic(?) in the way it's presented. Don't ask me to do a few specific things before I can even get some orders to go somewhere I've already been multiple times. Let me discover things out in the world, and then contact me while I'm out there and say something like "hey go do thing now."
Not to mention the complete weirdness of some of the story chapters themselves, and the contradictions oozing out of several characters. It felt a bit like when I played Xenogears(which I disliked immensely), and everyone just acted like complete idiots. iYakku described some of the characters as 'childish', and I have to agree. He also mentioned that one of the staff members from the first game that checked over the script and pointed out inconsistencies/weirdness didn't work on this game. Maybe Nintendo gave Takahashi a bit too much freedom, and he went back to being beyond weird? I'd also like to blame the particularly stupid normal/kizuna quests on Hyodo, because I'm pretty sure he was at fault for many of them.
There were good parts to the story, and most of the nonmainchapters were interesting to experience. But the weird parts stick out as being reeeally weird, and for the last third/fourth of the main story I had a constant "why" for everything.
I'm pretty sure they'll include some story chapter DLC at some point, just to tie up the countless loose ends they left when they dropped that yarnball of an ending in our laps. The yarnball that had been ravaged by Elma's synthetic cats.
I was particularly disappointed at the lack of amazing cutscenes where people did absurd things, both in and out of their giant robots. Like, most of XS2's scenes, or several of Blade's. Instead I got maybe two or three "awesome" scenes, and then a bunch of the same robot or squid showing up to fight me right before a battle 300 times. I was beyond sick of the PULL OUT YOUR RANGED WEAPONS pose everyone would do right before a fight by the time I finished my last normal quest.
Customizable MC was whatevs. I like customization, but I didn't like the way they added in the 'choice' stuff into quests. Yes, being able to influence outcomes can be nice. No, I don't want to have the music constantly pause and the game BLEBEBLBLEEP at me to pick some choice about what color pants someone should wear. PINK GODDAMNIT. Most choices are just kizuna boosts, but then
some will randomly get people killed. Like, a lot of people. So, so many people...
This was another thing where I felt like they should have gone all the way, instead of stopping with only half of their hand in the cake batter.
Online stuff depends on how excited you are for doing the same shit over and over for questionable rewards. The squad missions/quests could have been interesting, if they made them less static, and banned Dolls for more of them. BLADE Reports are alright, but people either used them to chat or just お疲れ様 for quests, or just never used them at all. They should have had a squad chat thing, and maybe had some kind of global bulletin board where people could upvote the useful information. There have been plenty of useful things in the reports that were made global, but then there's a bunch that have nothing to do with anything, and only serve to block your view when you're trying to change your equipment around. I did enjoy seeing other players make progress in the story or accomplish a thing with the play award notifications though. I want more stuff like that, and less repetitive and uninteresting challenges. Also scouting is kind of stupid and people only use it for cheap and easy tickets.
Did I enjoy the game? Yes, enough to sink a few hundred hours into it, and probably another hundred or so still to come. Would I recommend it to other people? I guess, if they want to experience all the fun exploration and giant robots and side stories and stuff. Is it better than the first game? Hard to say. The battle system in this was definitely more entertaining, and the exploration felt more satisfying. But X didn't feel quite as cohesive or complete as Blade. Like stuff was missing, that they either didn't have time for or decided to release later. And that stuff would have been the most amazing syrup on a fat stack of buttered pancakes. Or maybe they gave us a few of those tiny syrup containers they have at restaurants, but my Japanese literacy wasn't good enough to spot them inside the massive sea of NPC dialogue.
The localization has the opportunity to fix a lot of the things that weren't very good about the writing, and they'll undoubtedly patch some things for balancing issues or legitimate bugs/stupid things. So, it can improve. But the extent of any improvements will depend on NoA's writing skills and Monolith's remaining motivation/budget.
Also, for anyone interested my final quest counts were about
40 kizuna, 187 normals, 353 simples.
Not counting DLC things. A few dozen normals were "do all of these individual quests" extensions for some other quests. I have no way of knowing if I've missed anything and I didn't feel like sifting through the incomplete lists on wikis/blogs to compare mine. New simples stopped showing up and I've re-re-re-traveled the world pretty extensively, so I shouldn't be missing much, if anything. The only things I have left to do are fill in the rest of my enemy encyclopedia/get the rest of the holofigures(only Overed drops left), and make one of every craftable weapon/piece of armor/superweapon/Doll. Except nobody's ever going to do that second bit so all I care about is my enemy book.
Oh, and play awards. I'm missing at least ~90 of those(743? total), mostly the "kill 10/30/100 of X enemy" things.
Hey, you're gessenkou, right? I watched your two youtube videos that you captured of your time in the Twiluminous Forest, they were really good at showing what a typical experience going out into the world is like, so thank you!
I'm moving along at a snail's pace (about 30 hours in, just finished Chapter 5), but I feel mostly the same way as you do.
Haven't unlocked the ability to use Dolls yet, and I do expect that to make a fairly major difference, but so far I'm finding the entire experience underwhelming to say the least.
I'm trying to do as many Normal and Kizuna quests as I can, but I've already given up on the Simple quests, because they're just too grindy and not worth the bother (rewards in general are just really disappointing in this game).
I'm simultaneously playing through Xeno 1 on 3DS and it really is striking how much better it is at pretty much everything. Better writing, more likable characters, better music (although X's soundtrack isn't nearly as bad as I feared. Far from it, in fact. But still.), more fun to explore, more rewarding, better story, better cut scenes.
That said, the world in X is damn impressive visually. There's lots of verticality, which I'm a big fan of, and it easily blows the generic medieval setting you get in most WRPGs out of the water, but I just wish it was more fun to explore.
I'm not digging the combat as much as Xeno 1 either, mainly because I do not really feel there is enough difference between classes and characters. Like, if you look at Xeno 1, characters like Melia and Sharla REALLY change the way you have to approach combat, and I'm finding this missing from X so far, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
The friction in combat doesn't feel as good as in the first game either, if that makes sense.
Most of all though, what I loved about Xeno 1 was that enemies just constantly dropped cool loot, and in X, I seem to get nothing but old crap that's of no use to me because the store sells better stuff (the exact opposite of Xeno 1).
What I DO really like about X is the whole segment/topic system though. I like how each map is divided into segments that all have this little (or big) task you have to complete. I'm a huge OCD freak when it comes to filling in maps, and X is very rewarding in that regard.
And god damn it looks beautiful. Did I mention that already?
The monsters look much more lively and ferocious in this game compared to the previous game. They just love to jump out and ambush! And they even have a humorous side to them, haha
Finding caves and hidden places is fun in itself, but inside, there looked to be maybe some enemies, some blue item crystals, a treasure box to tap A on. I did have fun with the very same exploration mechanics and rewards in the first Xenoblade, so it could be deliberate to a degree, to let exploration itself be the fun, but you do get the sense that there could be a more rewarding open world if it were filled with more types of content and things to do than that, right? I know "things to do" is given context by story, so when you mention wanting "closure" about what you find in the world, you mean that you wish there was story content to enjoy out in the world instead of waiting for some quest given in NLA to use that stuff you found in your exploration.
^Hey, you're totally describing what happens when there's the jump to HD, the very stuff that Nintendo warned about "Graphics look better...but resources drawn thin might make the overall experience feel as if it doesn't reach the heights of a more focused and carefully crafted one." Makes me wonder how Zelda will turn out, they may have boldly proclaimed they'd make an open world, before knowing what they were getting themselves into.
I'm usually not a fan of the lyric/singing songs on the OST, but I gotta say, this one isn't bad. I also like that one song they had in the story trailer a while back. I think I mostly just dislike the songs that have rap in them.
also, is The way the ending theme? What song plays during the credits or final parts of the ending? (ie: does this game have a Beyond the Sky)
I'm usually not a fan of the lyric/singing songs on the OST, but I gotta say, this one isn't bad. I also like that one song they had in the story trailer a while back. I think I mostly just dislike the songs that have rap in them.
I agree, though I dont mind the rap at all, and I love the both NLA themes (Day version is slightly better).
Mika, Cyua, Sayulee and Blackschleger are all amazing singers, and Sawano knows how to get the best of them ^^
Black Tar made sense to me when I saw a battle where the player's party members were dying one by one and the Linkin Park moment kicked in as the player desperately kept on fighting, it became like an anthem for the player instead of typical "fighting against monsters" music
One nitpick I have with the soundtrack is that annoying habit Sawano has in putting 2 tracks together as one, it makes searching for specific tracks quite a pain
Could some please explain unions to me in practical terms? I joined pathfinder but I don't really understand how it effects my game or what would be different if I joined a different union.
Currently at 96.27% complete if I refer to my Gamepad. Almost there!
Cheesecakebobby, the only (on the top of my head) differences for you will be :
- How much guild points you earn with each action you take. In your case you'll mostly gain points by finding things in the world such as zones and the like. If you pick Interceptor like me for example, you'll get less with finding zones but more with quests completed.
Each union has preferred actions.
- What you'll get each day as reward depending on your union's rank. If you want choice, pick Interceptor as they come first almost every day for now.
However for other people, if they enlist you aid, you'll give them different bonuses based on the union you chose.
Currently at 96.27% complete if I refer to my Gamepad. Almost there!
Cheesecakebobby, the only (on the top of my head) differences for you will be :
- How much guild points you earn with each action you take. In your case you'll mostly gain points by finding things in the world such as zones and the like. If you pick Interceptor like me for example, you'll get less with finding zones but more with quests completed.
Each union has preferred actions.
- What you'll get each day as reward depending on your union's rank. If you want choice, pick Interceptor as they come first almost every day for now.
However for other people, if they enlist you aid, you'll give them different bonuses based on the union you chose.
Aww, thanks for sharing your final thoughts and whatnot.
It kinda sounds like the sum of all my fears, so I'm glad I stayed cautious. But there's obviously a lot to love in there... but a lot of it isn't really what I was hyped about.
Then again, Xenogears is my favorite game, so "idk lol." It sure is a weird one though.
In the story she stays in her original alien form. But you have the choice of her appearance in the options once you're in "NG+". I chose the superior alien of course
In the story she stays in her original alien form. But you have the choice of her appearance in the options once you're in "NG+". I chose the superior alien of course
