Xenoblade Chronicles X

I'm saying that even how good FFVII is / was, shouldn't a game made in 2015 should be better and more engaging then a game from 18 years ago.

I have enjoyed what I've played of XCX and much more so than XC but it's nothing to shout about as there's better JRPGs out there maybe not on Wii U if ya Nintendo only then it's your only option.

masofdas wrote:

I'm saying that even how good FFVII is / was, shouldn't a game made in 2015 should be better and more engaging then a game from 18 years ago.

I'm going to say "No" to that. I'd rather play Lylat Wars ahead of Kirby And The Rainbow Paintbrush, for example. There are some absolute classics in gaming's back catalogue that are likely to trump most of what's more modern... I reckon you're playing one of them!

masofdas wrote:

I'm saying that even how good FFVII is / was, shouldn't a game made in 2015 should be better and more engaging then a game from 18 years ago.

Pretty flawed logic there Mas - it's like saying "I saw Battlefield Earth, and I don't like it as much as Star Wars - shouldn't a movie made in 2000 be better written and more engaging than a film made in the late 70s?"

Newer doesn't necessarily equal better.

Yeah I worded it totally wrong, I shouldn't reply whilst in the chiller at work and I've said like you two have before to Andy about games mainly.

It's lacking that je ne sais quoi FFVII for instance has would of been better.

The je ne sais quoi - now you're talking my language! If developers knew how to capture the magic of the very best games, we'd all be spellbound by every game we played. Instead, Typoman.

Glossing over the talk of the most overrated game of the most overrated RPG series of all time, Xenoblade X continues to astonish.  After 40 (yes, FORTY) hours I finally have the most epic thing to ever appear in an RPG at my disposal!  




Best bit?  World still feels absolutely massive.  Other neat things include how large enemies that took no notice of a mere human get agro if you waltz around with one of these babies.  Learned that the hard way when one of those dragon things you see in the promotional artwork decided to butt in on a battle between me and some Grexes, almost wrecking my Skell and my survival being purely down to it deciding to off the rest of the team while I fled.     

Sylavlum is especially dangerous, with a giant enemy mech that prowls around killing on sight.  

And just so the sense of scale is clear. . .

Chapter 8 was soooooo epic.  So so epic.  Nice that the badguy bosses are finally catching up with Skells too.  

Nopon are SUPER ADORABLE!  Dontcha just wanna scoop them up and hug them!

Guess who got this for Christmas! After God knows how much difficulty trying to use the external HD... Had a clear-out and saved everything to internal memory in the end. The green-haired soldier-girl Belidé is ready for action! Don't see Andy's objection to the music thus far, apart from the stupid rap track that plays during battles.

How did you have difficultly, all you have to do is plug it in.

I think there's some setting that has external usb devices go to sleep or something that needs to be deactivated or something, if I had to guess.

I CAN FLY!!  It's absolutely astounding how the games world keeps getting more epic.  First on foot, it feels so massive and alien, then you get skells and it transforms.  Get flight and it transforms again!  




The skies are veeery scary too, those parts of Primordia that can only be accessed by flight? I've almost had my skell wrecked three times by the monsters that lurk up there. It really gives you this feeling of man going where they shouldn't! Absolutely fantastic design!

While I managed to disable that, the Wii U also doesn't provide enough power for some USB devices to run, apparently.

Okay, I've hit the story, and yes I get what Andy says about the characters.  I actually think Elma's alright, but the other people I've met are bad to meh.  (Special mention to Elma's colleagues, who are not only badly written but have really creepy eyes.)  As for the music, the NLA soundtrack reminds me a fair bit of TWEWY, which isn't my thing but isn't awful.

The music that plays when you're out and about is still fine though.  Not great, but fine.  And it all pales in comparison to the world, although it's a real shame you no longer get EXP for finding new areas.


EDIT: Skell fan fiction!? I take it all back, Lin = Best Character.

Lin and Tatsu >>>>>> Everyone from Xenoblade besides Melia  

Don't really like Elma personally, although that's entirely because she's blatantly keeping secrets.  Which makes for a more interesting protagonist, but definitely doesn't make her even remotely likeable.  Still, her not cluing in the cast on things does at least make for a realistic leader and a breath of fresh air.

Personally I prefer Tatsu and Lin and their constant bantering.  The intro cutscene to Oblivia had me in stitches!  

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How big is the world?  This big.









I'm now at 78 hours, still between chapters 9 and 10, and still feeling no real need to stop exploring and trying out new things.  Between the side quests which are genuinely entertaining mini-stories (well, cept for one, that one was soul crushing ), the affinity story missions that I'm slowly unlocking, and general exploration, I've not progressed the main story for eight hours.  

It's just as well the main story is episodic rather than continuous, because this game would otherwise be doing its damnedest to try and upset a flow if it were in a normal jrpg!

I think we need to be told which side-quest was crushing, Athers (in spoiler tags natch).

I've clocked up 6h so far, lots of running around and smacking things around.  Took a couple of pasting from Sirene the Lost: later, it seems, later.  Also got overwhelmed by a bunch of domestic pigs.  Huh.

Does anyone not battle as their MC?  I'm currently going down the ranged healer route.

Can't spoil it I'm afraid, I'd have to spoil main story chapters for context sake and I'm just not going to do that.  

Side quests are so much better in this game, actual storylines, and the game makes it blatantly obvious what side content does what.  Some are lame, like fixing coffee machines, but then some are awesome.  Plus with my modes of transport between the Skell which flies really fast (how fast you ask?  Takes about two minutes to fly from NLA to another continent, that's how fast) makes pretty much all of them quick if I find them boring.  That and the Follow Ball which has made locating items boring a thing of the past.  


As for playing other characters, nah.  Playing a Galactic Knight that busts out actual combos is too fun to play!  I even often ditch the Skell in a ground fight and combo instead, just because it's so fun to roll through a bunch of Melee arts as a combo.  Plus the damage if I wait for the secondary cooldown on all the arts is insane.  Simply going through the Stardust trio is a 9 hit combo where every hit is about 3000 damage, with the final art hitting 8 x 2000.  Not many enemies live that.  And if I'm in overdrive, well, I've not actually had the chance to fully offload the combo in overdrive on anything.  

Can't wait till I master Overdrive so I basically never exit it.  Then the fun with level 40 Tyrants begins.  




I got some tips for new players I'll just throw out to the ether right now

Not actual spoilers:

I can't be bothered with augments and Soul Voices at this early stage. Maybe later if I'm taking a hammering.

Also I have now met Tatsu and have the Follow Ball! I look forward to collecting stuff being a thing of the past, but I do have an urge to collect every blue crystal in sight. Come to "mommy" little gemsies!

Have I missed something that makes collecting stuff a thing of the past? I couldn't help but feel the game was ALL collecting stuff.

I never played with the Soul Voices, standard stuff seemed to be what I'd choose anyway.

Well, locating stuff being a thing of the past.

Suddenly, affinity missions everywhere! Do people complete them all?

I only bother with the ones about characters I like though outside the mandatory ones.  I'll probably do most of them at some point though, they're what makes one have any emotional investment in the cast.  You also get special Arts from some of them (Monado Buster Galactic Cataclysm from Doug for example) so they're worth doing for that alone.

As for augments, they're not necessary for a while but they're very useful later on and outright mandatory late-game/post-game. There's no need to specifically forge any, but keeping an eye on what you happen to pick up and what augments a piece of gear has when you're making purchases is always worth the while.

Also some gear you get from killing enemies have augments you can't buy, so it's always worth keeping an eye on that stuff.



Finally something I forgot to say yesterday: if you see any enemies you can kill with a nifty looking S above their head I'd advise taking the time to kill them. Completing scout tasks gets you Reward tickets (kill one enemy and you get two for that alone for example). Simply killing one marked enemy will mean as long as you don't idle you'll get Reward tickets for any monsters other players slay during that session.

As for why you'd want Reward Tickets, reward tickets can be exchanged for enemy loot, which makes forging augments and gear a lot less of a chore than it might otherwise be. It's really handy for when you've got all but one material needed to forge a specific weapon, or have a mission that wants specific enemy drops and you don't want to be fussed with hunting them down and farming them.

Oh I can't be bothered with the online stuff, not at the moment anyway.  I'm trying to turn it off as much as possible.  I want a one-player game, damn it.

Ploughing through affinity missions now.  Shortly after thinking I'd met one of the most irritating creatures in the game (stupid monkey - Megaton Punch, nuff said), it was put to shame by the man known as HB.  What a stereotypical anime twerp.

Holy **** chapter 10 was epic!  That boss fight was so damn amazing.  

And thus with chapter 10 done it's back to enjoying the slow progress of side quests and affinity missions.  

As for the online stuff it's completely passive yet the benefits it brings are very big ones.  Need a specific enemy drop to finish an Affinity mission?  Need one final drop for that weapon you need to forge but find the enemy is out of your league?  Reward Tickets have it covered.  It just seriously helps keep the game ticking over and stop things from getting monotonous, and you can literally ignore the online stuff and reap all the benefits by just killing a single Squad Task target each time they come up.  

It's like the augments and small things like that, they just ultimately add up to a smoother experience in the end.  It's entirely up to you though, I just want to make it clear what you'll be missing out on from them is all.  


Also they get worse than HB.  He's just a prick, another guy I ran in to?  Outright racist.  So racist I'm honestly tempted to not continue his affinity missions, but I'll stick L in instead. Haven't been as angry at someone since Tony Abbott held office.

Ah, L. I've just met him. What a character. I'm starting to warm to XCX's motley bunch, HB (and this bloke you mention) aside.

Yeah L's great!  I'm currently doing side missions and getting his affinity up so I can do his affinity mission.  The aliens aside from Prone / Ganglion in this game all round are great stuff, eccentric the lot of them. Nopon have to be my favourite race, the stuff they come out with and situations they get themselves in to as merchants is hilarious!

Speaking of the side quests, ye gods some of these are dark.  For every time I get sent to find a cat I get punched in the feels by another.  

Speaking of the side quests, if I meet another placid duogill I'll shove its hard-to-target blue electric tentacles right down its throat. Also I've just met the other Nopons. at Tatsu's "frenemy". Also at Elma using the word "frenemy".

I'll admit it, I'm liking the cast now. With the exception of Irina, Gwin, and Doug, who are all a bit blank slatey. Although it's a shame we didn't get to see Irina go to town on the thugs.

This game has its hooks well into me now. I can barely stop playing once I've started. Just one more part of the quest, ooh I wonder what happens next, hang on what's over there...

What if I told you I can one shot Placid Dougills?

Chapter eleven was just... Wow.  I can't honestly even put my thoughts down because it is super spoiler heavy, another really good chapter.

I'd say you've got some levels on me if you're on chapter 11. It was targeting them in the right place I found hardest!