Armagon Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (Copying this from Twitlonger) Xenoblade Chronicles X is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, for a long time, i did not have a Wii U. I've played some Wii U games and even beaten them thanks to my good friends but one game i've wanted to play most on the system was Xenoblade Chronicles X. None of my friends had it and i eventually resigned myself to accepting i'll probably not get to play it. Then comes the Switch, which starts getting port after port of Wii U games that sold well and didn't sell well. Mario Kart 8, Tropical Freeze, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, etc. But despite all these ports, Xenoblade Chronicles X was nowhere in sight and with Tetsuya Takahashi admitting it'd be kinda hard to port, as much as i wanted it, it did feel like it wasn't gonna happen. So i bought a Wii U in 2020. Xenoblade Chronicles X wasn't the only reason i bought a Wii U. Nintendo's strange decision to not put Super Mario Galaxy 2, the best 3D platformer of all time, in Super Mario 3D All-Stars was pretty baffling so me buying a Wii U served as both a way to play Xenoblade X and Mario Galaxy 2. But the primary reason was to play Xenoblade X. And after 88 hours of gameplay and one month of real time (the Wii U arrived on October 2nd), i am now ready to release my full thoughts on the game. I'm gonna start with arguably the biggest selling point of this game: Planet Mira. The Xenoblade games all have very open areas but Xenoblade X is the only game in the series that's truly open world. Though a few parts aren't explorable until later, the rest of Planet Mira is always within reach from the moment the game sets you free from the tutorial. This game has the second least number of regions out of the Xenoblade games, at only five, six if you count NLA. Torna ~ The Golden Country only has two but that is excusable and if you don't consider Torna to be it's own game, then yeah, Xenoblade X has the least amount of explorable regions. And yet, that was never an issue because Monolith Soft is king of world design. Each region is distinct, teeming with wildlife and you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by exploring. No fall damage means you're able to explore to your hearts content and virtually no loading screens outside of fast travel means travelling the world is seamless. But you are quite literally an invasive species on this planet which means *everything* is out to get you. Before playing the game, i would always say that Xenoblade X is the most hostile game in the series and now that i've actually played it, i can say that for certain. Which is what made the exploration all the more satisfying. Planning out your jumps to climb steep paths and such to avoid dangerous enemies is so good and adds an extra layer of exploration. The enemies in this game really don't follow level rules and while that is common in Xenoblade games, in the other games, all the high-level enemies usually stay off the beaten path, with the exception of the occasional Unique Monster. In Xenoblade X, there can be Lv.60 enemies roaming outside of the gates of NLA at night. The game does everything right to drive home the point that you don't belong on this planet and i love it. This world is so good that after i got my Skell and later the Flight Module, i would choose to get to my destinations the long way by zooming around in vehicle mode for flying there instead of fast travelling. But it's not just the main regions that make the world of Xenoblade X so great. The hub area of New Los Angeles is quite possibly my favorite hub area in any game. Seeing it slowly grow from being just a city of humans to a city of all sorts of races was very nice to see. As more races come into NLA, more quests open up, exploring more parts about each race and how they interact with the other races. And even when you aren't doing quests, simply walking around NLA can show just how lived-in it feels. I'm legitimately reminded of Star Wars with how all these vastly different races can gather together in one place and feel normal. (Pictured: the citizens of NLA enjoying an afternoon pizza) Even the Ma-non ship that's hovering over the city fits in so well. What sets it apart from Star Wars is the context of humanity. In Star Wars, humans are just another race. The main characters in the movies and shows tend to be humans mostly but in an alternate timeline, Luke Skywalker could be an alien and it wouldn't have changed anything. In Xenoblade X, the humans are from not that far in the future. The game takes place in 2054, which means that most of the characters could be the kids and grandkids of millennials and zoomers. Hell, a few of the characters *are* millenials and zoomers. All of this is thanks to Xenoblade X being a God at sidequest writing. Early on, it may not seem to impressive but as you play through the game, pretty much every sidequest is part of a chain. A good chunk of these sidequests also have different outcomes depending on what you did during them and some sidequests can even affect whether a later one or not would trigger. There's one sidequest where i'm tasked to kill a group of indigens hiding in a cave and when i get there, i find out they are just kids and i'm given the option to take them out or to spare them. I chose the latter. Later on, i get another quest from the same client who gave me that first quest with the piglets and it's revealed that the piglets have grown into wild boars that are attacking everyone in sight and now you have to go take down those same boars and the client mentions how kindness can get you killed before he dies of his wounds. There's another sidequest that's basically just Alien meets The Waters of Mars where the people running the water purification plant outside the city walls are attacked by a parasitic creature that takes control of it's host when the host comes into contact with water. The sole survivor of that quest will either live or die depending on if you let her take a shower before finding out the secret of the parasite. And that's the thing with some of these quests. For some of them, you don't know if the people you're trying to help will make it out alive. Of course, not every sidequest results in someone dying. In a general sense, a lot of them are exploring the daily lives of the various residents of NLA and not once does a sidequest feel the same as one you did before. Some of the sidequests can be pretty funny. There's one where a Zaruboggan, aliens that can absorb pollution, willingly gives his supply of toxic material to a criminal who intended to poison the water supply. The criminal releases the toxic material into the water only for that same Zaruboggan to comes along, goes "ooh, free pollution", absorbs it all and leaves the criminal completely dumbfounded. And since we're still on the subject of sidequests, i'm gonna talk about Affinity Missions. Affinity Missions are the main source of character development and interactions for anyone not named Elma or Lin. Each character has a set of three, sometimes two characters can share an Affinity Mission. Some non-playables also have an Affinity Mission. I always love it when characters get their own little stories devoted to them and while i won't say that every Affinity Mission sticks the landing, they are all worth it in the end. Heart-to-Hearts are also still around but they don't matter and it's great that Affinity builds up a lot faster. All of this is helped by Xenoblade X having a very decent quest tracking system. XenoblaDE still probably has the best one in principle but lol, imagine doing XenoblaDE sidequests. Anyways, Xenoblade X tells you what locations you need to go to and if you ever get lost, you can always turn on the Follow Ball, an orb of light that guides you to your destination. When it comes to collecting items, the game can tell you what enemy to kill or what region it's in but you're on your own there. But what about the rest of the game. How's the combat. Well, the combat is basically perfect. It is the combat system of Xenoblade 1 taken to the next level and made far more engaging. This is the game where Monolith Soft began to weave healing into the combat itself without interrupting the flow of combat. Soul Voices are pretty fun to trigger, probably because they add a bit of a rhythmic feel to the combat. It's also the main way to heal as actual healing Arts are very rare though i will say that healing via Soul Voice isn't as reliable as i'd hoped, at least not on-foot. I would like for the sequel to at least give one healing AoE for every character. Or maybe that's too much haha. At least buff the amount of HP restored from Soul Voices. At any rate, there's never any downtime during the combat. Skell combat is really fun too although i do wish Overdrive wasn't as RNG reliant. There should be guaranteed conditions that you can meet like the Alrest games' Chain Attacks. And speaking of Alrest, i will say that in the end, i do prefer the combat of Xenoblade 2 and Torna, due to hit-based auto-attacks, auto-attack cancelling and Art cancelling but it's basically preference at this point. I absolutely see why many fans do consider X to have the best combat in the series. The soundtrack bangs. It's very different from the rest of the series and i can sorta get why some people got turned off but trust me, if you play the game, you'll like it. I used to hate the NLA theme but after playing the game, the NLA theme has rightfully earned it's spot in my mind......NLA Night still sucks tho. Honestly, there's a very few amount of songs i don't like but Xenoblade X's soundtrack is still a certified banger by all accounts. Thank you Sawano. All that said, there are a few things in Xenoblade X i'm not a fan. For starters, sometimes the game can be unintuitive. Whether it be the requirements for Heart-to-Hearts, some secret objective in a quest that can help you save a life, the fact that probes are not single use, or the fact that Augments don't show up in the terminal at all unless you got the first required item on the list, which you won't know what it is unless you look it up because there's no way of seeing in-game before you find it. None of this plagues the game, it's just inconvenient. I'm also not a fan of how gear and EXP is handled. Thankfully, there's no level penalties like in Xenoblade 1 but your level does determine what gear you're able to equip. This is made more of a problem by the fact that inactive party members do not gain EXP so characters you don't use *will* fall behind and, at least for a good while, it can be a pain to catch them up. There are easy EXP strats but that doesn't come until later. Level-restricted gear would've been fine if inactive party members gained EXP. Skell Insurance is stinky. Some things just don't belong in a video game and insurance is one of them. I hope the sequel treats Skells like the pre-Blade Xeno games treated their mechs: if a Skell's HP drops to zero, you just can't use it for the rest of the battle. Because honestly, losing your Skell in combat is like the one time a Xenoblade game can punish you for losing. And let's get to the elephant in the room: the main story. It's.....there, i guess. The end of Ch.7, all of Ch.8, Ch.10, 11 and 12 all range from decent to good but honestly, the story is basically one glorified prologue. The character relevancy is weird in this game because if your name isn't Elma or Lin, you basically don't exist in the plot but with the way everything is structured, it's not as big of a deal. It's still not as bad as the character relevancy problems in Xenogears and Xenoblade 1. I'm not mentioning Cross here because Cross is an avatar and unlike in some games (*cough* Modern Fire Emblem *cough*), Cross is literally just a person. There's nothing special about them and whenever they get praised, it's because they've earned it. Anyways, easily the worst part of the plot is the villains. There's five main ones, only one of them is actually decent, three of them are terrible and killed off so unceremoniously and the big bad honestly has like no presence. They aren't the worst Xeno villains but they are definitely down there. At the end of the day though, the story is not that important. This is a JRPG that purposefully puts the main story in the backseat because the side content is the real main content. If you play this game and you only do the minimal side content needed to advance the mains story, you will be left disappointed. Ultimately, despite the problems it has, i find them to be overall not that much of an issue in the long run. The good of this game extremely outweighs the bad and the amount of fun this game brought to me makes me confident in saying it's a masterpiece. It's not my favorite game of all time, that title still belongs to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but i'm glad to say that my favorite video game series of all time put out two masterpieces in a row. Here is the definitive Xeno series tierlist, ranked by their overall package. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 @Armagon you have Xenosaga Episode II in the wrong tier, it should be switched around! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codename Shrimp Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) Hmmmm Gotta say i like the combat in that game I also think it has perma death. I think. Not sure Edited October 31, 2020 by Shrimperor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 I just got Inigo’s B support with his father and wow... looks like he’s staying on the team. I mean, his wife is absolutely broken (Chrom!Cynthia) so gotta keep that S support around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottservia Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 1 minute ago, Sooks1016 said: I just got Inigo’s B support with his father and wow... looks like he’s staying on the team. Yeah most parent child supports are really good. Inigo’s father support probably being his best support and that’s including his fates supports. Another good one has got to be Severa’s father support. That one is probably my favorite support in the franchise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Chapter 7 of Berwick... doesnt look fun. Fog chapter.... ewwww. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codename Shrimp Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 1 minute ago, lightcosmo said: Chapter 7 of Berwick... doesnt look fun. Fog chapter.... ewwww. It's ez dw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 2 minutes ago, lightcosmo said: Chapter 7 of Berwick... doesnt look fun. Fog chapter.... ewwww. The sound of Battle Cry happening somewhere in the darkness... *shudder* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spara Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Chapter 7's pretty easy, though there are a few enemies that can be a bit scary. Once they're dead, it's smooth sailing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, Armagon said: Well the first step will be optimizing my storage probes to let me have 100,000 Miranium. Having all the necessary materials means nothing if the cost exceeds my limit. And just to remind you, the Support Missions are now available at the Network Console in the BLADE Barracks. You've three easy mission sets, one that provides all at once EXP, Class EXP & BP, a second for credits & Miranium, and a third for Division Points and Affinity (though it ain't XC2 Love Source fast). They can be fairly mindlessly done in Skells if you want. 2 hours ago, Armagon said: (Copying this from Twitlonger) Xenoblade Chronicles X is a masterpiece. Passionately written! I like it.😃 Oh, and, since you're emulating Berwick now, why not make a quick dabble into Namco X Capcom? Another 2D PS2 game, with three XS characters tossed into the crossover. It's the predecessor of Project X Zone and the gameplay of Endless Frontier (minus the SRPG grid of its predecessor and successors) as well. Dunno how good it is myself of course, but you can always drop it after the trio who know the mostest about the Gnosis debut. 2 hours ago, Sooks1016 said: Why couldn’t the Awakening devs have put a warp staff?? God... You best alternative is to make a unit with high Magic into a Valkyrie, or better a Falcoknight (or you pair an infantry staff to a flier). Have them move as far you can/want, and then use a Rescue staff on the unit you want relocated. It does mean putting the staffer in danger, but it'll have to do. And you could always have a second Rescue user on standby to Rescue the first Rescue user back to safety. Edited October 31, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 8 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said: You best alternative is to make a unit with high Magic into a Valkyrie, or better a Falcoknight (or you pair an infantry staff to a flier). Have them move as far you can/want, and then use a Rescue staff on the unit you want relocated. It does mean putting the staffer in danger, but it'll have to do. And you could always have a second Rescue user on standby to Rescue the first Rescue user back to safety. The problem is the place I want to go is the other side of a wall that is right next to where we spawn that I have to traverse the whole map for when as long as someone with like 8 magic had a warp staff I could win turn one instead of dealing with the bs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 36 minutes ago, Ottservia said: Yeah most parent child supports are really good. Inigo’s father support probably being his best support and that’s including his fates supports. Another good one has got to be Severa’s father support. That one is probably my favorite support in the franchise. Ooh I’ll get that one as well! The only chance Libra has to get a good support xD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Hey I got Gerome! The only children left are Nah, Brady, Severa (<3), and Morgan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 HOW THE HECK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAVE ALL THREE VILLAGERS IN PARALOGUE THREE I NEED THAT LOG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
null Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Sooks1016 said: Severa (<3) man_of_culture.png 3 minutes ago, Benice said: HOW THE HECK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAVE ALL THREE VILLAGERS IN PARALOGUE THREE I NEED THAT LOG You don't. It's impossible. Serious answer though...I really don't know how you go about doing it. I never tried, personally. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Edited October 31, 2020 by twilitfalchion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) Oh J can definitely see why people call Gerome Batman! Lon’qu should have been his father... (coincidentally, isn’t that Twilit’s favorite pairing for them both?) 5 minutes ago, Benice said: HOW THE HECK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SAVE ALL THREE VILLAGERS IN PARALOGUE THREE I NEED THAT LOG Rescue staves are your best friend. Take your best unit, whoever that may be, and pair them up with their highest support partner and have them rush in range of the Pegasus knights (if their partner has higher movement you can pair up with them instead and then switch before waiting). Pair up is broken so they should be fine. Have everyone else deal with the enemies around where you spawn with a few units focusing on the direction of the villagers specifically, and if you have any left over fliers sending them (paired up with a strong guy for the fighter is possible) the villagers way should save them. That’s how I did it. And don’t forget the rescue staff/staves. Their AI is programmed for them to kamikazi into the left corner. Seriously, if you get them that far, they will stand as far left and south as possible and just wait there til the map ends. The problem is that there are enemies everywhere there. It’s odd. Edited October 31, 2020 by Sooks1016 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 I need a break from Awakening...Thracia time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
null Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Just now, Benice said: I need a break from Awakening...Thracia time! So, you'd say you need A-break-ening? I'll see myself out now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benice Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Just now, twilitfalchion said: So, you'd say you need A-break-ening? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 Or go try out SRW already... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
null Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Benice said: Edited October 31, 2020 by twilitfalchion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armagon Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 2 hours ago, lightcosmo said: @Armagon you have Xenosaga Episode II in the wrong tier, it should be switched around! No, it's right where it belongs haha. 1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said: And just to remind you, the Support Missions are now available at the Network Console in the BLADE Barracks. You've three easy mission sets, one that provides all at once EXP, Class EXP & BP, a second for credits & Miranium, and a third for Division Points and Affinity (though it ain't XC2 Love Source fast). They can be fairly mindlessly done in Skells if you want. This is the part where I'm able to give other classes a try. I forgot to mention it in my post but for as long as you take to do the main campaign, you should pick one class line and stick to it. But if Class EXP is easily farmable now, I can totally give other classes a try. Bring me that lightsaber. 1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said: Oh, and, since you're emulating Berwick now, why not make a quick dabble into Namco X Capcom? That's a good idea. Might do so after I finish or drop Berwick, whichever happens first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sooks Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 23 minutes ago, Benice said: You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 *Sigh* Every year for the last 3-4 years I've always set myself on writing a fanfic around Day of the Dead for these dates... and I never do it... Well, 2020 ain't gonna be any different... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Interdimensional Observer Posted October 31, 2020 Share Posted October 31, 2020 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Armagon said: This is the part where I'm able to give other classes a try. I forgot to mention it in my post but for as long as you take to do the main campaign, you should pick one class line and stick to it. But if Class EXP is easily farmable now, I can totally give other classes a try. Bring me that lightsaber. Maybe it was just me, but I was fine deviating later. Somewhere in this topic should be logs of when during my recent second run I mastered various classes, and stopping before Chapter 10. I had already finished both Mastermind and Galactic Knight- the end classes of the bottom third of the class tree, and was either in Winged Viper or Full Metal Jaguar. Chances are, if I got back to finishing that run, I could master FMJ and then end the story either in Partisan Eagle or Astral Crusader (the Sniper Rifle-Javelin offshoots of Commando). That would've meant I would've had 1/2 or 2/3rds of the classes mastered before the game was over. I wasn't worried about lacking Arts in my new class, because as long as you pick one line to master first, you can always equip its weapons again after you swap to your new class and just use your old setup until your Class Rank has gone up enough to get enough Arts in the new one. Or, you could mix and match a weapon of your old class and one of the new, if the old carries enough good Arts to make up for it. So yeah, my advice to anyone trying XCX first time would be to beeline mastery of a particular weapon setup you'd be comfortable with, and then you'll be free to experiment. You wouldn't have to wait until the very end. Also, Joker farming was great for CP too! Not like your foot Arts matter when you're in a hulking Skell! Edited October 31, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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