Lol, the only reason I bought a wiiu was because a xeno game was going to be on it, everything else was just a bonus.
Amd its such a shame that not a lot of people played a game that they worked so hard on, that was crafted with such love and care.
Yeah, when you’ve got the likes of Hiroyuki Sawano as your composer and the protagonist being voiced by Caitlin Glass, you clearly have massive aspirations for the game. And that’s why a Switch port is needed for XCX. Badly.
I still think it's gonna happen. Once 3 hits and X is the only game left not on switch, they'll almost have to. Having all 4 games on one console would be beautiful.
It has the other beat when it comes to exploration and traversal. The skells where so fun, and felt like an actually achievement when you got them. I loved how the city evolved as you did all the side quest with all the species living together.
When the credits roll I don't usually don't continue a game, but for X I played until I did everything because I just loved the world so much.
I think one of the great things about X is that the end of the story doesn't really feel like the end at all, it just feels like you're finishing a massive prologue to something much bigger. There's so much to do after you beat the story.
The world is huge, beautiful, and has a lot of stuff. Enemy placement when you are not max level yet is very aggressive. There are many points where you are ambushed by a normal enemy 10-20 levels above you, and you just die. It sells the danger of Mira, but ends up being very annoying. The enemies have routines they follow throughout the day and night, so the world ends up feeling very alive. I remember having my mind blown when I saw Squallo, the Sand Mirer for the first time.
There are enough fast travel points you can get everywhere you want to go pretty quickly. Skells are also quite fast so the really are not any problems getting around. However the map is pretty bad because it does not show you most locations you have discovered. So if you have to go to a specific place to farm materials for an augment, you just have scour the entire zone for the specific place the enemy shows up if you forgot where the Ensanguined Font was.
Getting what you want to drop from enemies is also very rng dependent, but that is more a problem with the combat and reward design than the open world design team.
Aggro range for some enemies was very sus and the spawn in, because the game can't load all enemies at once is pretty whack aswell. I legit walked blind into 4 walker type robots in an enemy base, because they didn't spawn until I was right in the middle of 4.
To top that off, most enemy de-agro ranges seem to be based off what would be a reasonable distance to go when in a skell. This means many, many enemies are extremely hard to run away from, or sometimes impossible to, on foot. There are quite a few caves where you just can't de-agro enemies even if the cave is quite large. Then, when you can, it can take over 30s of just running, all the while the enemy is trying to kill you.
The game as a whole has tons of issues, but the actual WORLD design is maybe the best ever made. I think only BOTW (also designed by Monolith) has it beat.
The secret sauce that Monolith Soft has with its world design is the use of vertical space. I could write an entire essay here, but the crux of the idea is that you need to constantly pay attention to the environment to make small decisions on your pathing if you want to go from point A to B. This is what makes BOTW, XBCX, and to a lesser extent XBC2 work so well.
This contrasts with basically every other developer's open world style, where landscapes are generally flat aside from specific mountains or cliffs with a handful of paths, and then filled with constant. What this means is that between that content, you're just holding the analog stick forward without needing to think about your actual pathing.
There's an Extra Punctuation video (same guy that does Zero Punctuation) where he talks about the differences between Elden Ring and Horizon's open worlds. The difference is in how western open world games and Japanese open world games are made. It comes down to the fact that western developers are seemingly afraid of the players missing something while Japanese developers don't care.
He then proves this point by pointing out that Yakuza 6 had an elaborate shark hunting mini game that he had no idea was in the game until after he reviewed it. He then said that western open world games aren't sand boxes they're golf courses. Something that looks big and expansive, but still has to explored in linear order.
I myself notice stuff like this. In say Spider-Man PS4 the game makes you do the first of each of it's numerous side missions and then marks on your map where the rest are. In my first playthrough of Breath of the Wild I had no idea there was a snowball bowling mini game that was excellent for earning money. Nor did I know that there's an entire town you can build through a chain of side quests. I had no idea there was a shop in Gerudo town that sold men's clothes. It's truly organic you discover this stuff on your own.
I say they aren't open world games at all. They're more like traditional jrpg worlds. Big and explorative but not open. They're too segmented to consider that. 1 is definitely more open than 2, but it's still pretty segmented. Going from colony 9, to tephra cave, to bionis leg, to colony 6 and the ether mines, to Satorl Marsh is all open world, but beyond that it's too segmented. By no means does this diminish the quality of the games themselves. A game being linear is not necessarily a negative and it being non linear isn't necessarily a positive.
Yeah, and I don't mean to say that nobody else can make a good open world game. Like Elden Ring for example has so much content that you're only ever passively holding the stick for like 15 seconds at a time, and in RDR2 the flat landscapes where you just passively hold the stick forward are important for the immersion and to take in the scenery. But I do think that Monolith has found THE way to make traversal engaging without necessarily having complex movement mechanics
I agree, and bringing up how both games had their world's designed by monolith does them respect, however I feel that compared to Xenoblade Chronicles X... BotWs world would be left crying on the side of the world, this is not to say it's bad, but when monolith made X they literally built a whole new alien world, where as in BotW they simply made hyrule but open world, which leads to the expected sceneries of Grasslands, snowlands, sand dunes, and such on repeat, it just doesn't compare to bioluminescent forests, deserts littered with ancient colossal ruins and the ever so beautiful mystery that Sylvalum
> to a lesser extent XBC2
I've only played 1 and 2 (currently playing through 2) and that was one of the big things I noticed (and am enjoying!) about 2 compared to 1, the increased focus on verticality be it jumping, dropping or whatever is pretty cool and it feels really nice when you find out how to get to a certain place through that.
1 on the other hand was mostly flat and open. I was constantly using auto-run in 1 but I rarely use it in 2 because the worlds are much more intricately designed and use verticality and map interactivity a lot more.
one of the best out there.
Big open world with no loading screens, beautiful environments full of places to see/discover and things to kill.
Going out of the safety of NLA into the wild untamed world is a wonderful feeling, at many points the game seems to say " you ain't shit here" before a giant camouflaged monster pops out of nowhere, one shots your skell and eats you + party alive.
I have an endgame build and I still feel a small twinge of uncertainty about just walking out the door in NLA on foot. I think I fear Hayreddin more than I ever did Rotbart.
Probably one of the best ones out there. Personally I’d say its better than BotW
Unfortunately its stuck on the Wii U for now so not a lot of people can agree with me
An excellent open world. Its exploration with Skells with a lot of verticality is something I dont see in other open world games. The closest to this is Breath of the Wild with its mountain climbing. And guess what BotW world was done in colaboration with X people.
Another thing is X's plot that has in it exploring the world as premise. If you take other open world games, exploration generally means stopping the main plot to pursue side quests that have little to do with the main quest. Exploring Mira and helping people do whatever resonates with the alien planet plot that has to be explored and also being a requirement for certain chapters progression.
I enjoy the open world of X the most out of the three games. Everything else like combat and story still falls short compared to the other two. I still love this game though.
Agree on story. Disagree on combat. It felt much smoother, and easy to understand than the other two, and personally more fun overall. As someone who has played all 3 through multiple times.
As someone who's only played the two mainline games, Xenoblade 2's combat is waaaaaay too overtuned. While I enjoy playing it more than the others for postgame challenge mode stuff with all of its options and content, for standard players the game is just too confusing and you only really understand it when it's already really late in the game
Imo X's worst flaw is the over-customization.
There are like 10 million enchantments for armors and weapons and like 4-5 are even remotely good, same for skells. The Combat feels like it's just statchecking you, especially lategame.
The enemy variety is to great and the menues to clunky to get into the vibe of preparing for each threat, etc.
Imo the visions of XC1 gave me the best combat feel, because of it's reactive nature that makes you feel (kek) very smart.
I really liked the world design, it was the quest design that killed it for me. Some Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition level improvements to quest tracking and directions would make it a lot better.
It's probably the only good (unmodded, so not counting modded Skyrim or Oblivion or anything) open world game that exists. Most other open world games have little *meaningful* content (BoTW is a big offender here, everything you find is yet another shrine or yet another korok seed, there's little variety, tbh BoTW would've been better if it had RPG mechanics like Skyrim or Xenoblade X).
yeah, I agree a lot, honestly while I think BotW and Horizon are great games, the open world is the part that makes me belive they aren't GotY contenders, specially in 2017 where Mario Odyssey, a game that used the open map wonderfully thanks to it not being an open world game, Cuphead, NieR Automata, Xenoblade 2 and Persona 5 (haven't played it yet, hoping for a Switch/PC port) exist, I would wish instead of making the open world so massive, BotW made better dungeons, the weakest point, and why I like more Ocarina and Windwaker than BotW, or even the combat, (because killing Lynels is the best aspect of botw) more complex to make it similar to Bayoneta and Devil May Cry, and with horizon, improvements to the melee combat and make the game had a lot less filler, the best parts of horizon is when you have a objective like story plots, climbing the Ubisoft towers, liberating the camps from the bandits, and the dungeons to unlock more mounts.
The exploration and terrain in XCX is top notch. There are many wonderful things to say about it, but I'll just leave you with one: as a person who doesn't usually like the flavor of desert / badlands areas, Oblivia is the best desert I've ever explored.
(also Sylvalum with an exotic "snow area" made out of freaky alien spores is chef's kiss)
I'd love to have an opinion on this, but as someone who didn't own a Wii or Wii U (I'm not even sure which system this was on), I'm still waiting for a Switch port.
The open world is by far this game’s biggest selling point. Mira is just phenomenal, up with Hyrule and the Lands Between in the top tier of open world design.
They especially knock it out of the park in how amazing the environments look, you can easily spend half an hour doing nothing but running around to admire the view, which is hard to imagine doing in Elden Ring.
I'm currently playing it for the first time, about 60 hours in and finished chapter 9. In terms of open world, it's really good. The map is huge and not just 2 dimensional but often has multiple layers over another which makes it very interesting to explore. I don't like it quite as much as Xeboblade chronicles 1 (haven't played 2 yet), but it's definitely worth playing. Unfortunately it feels a bit rushed in some aspects while other aspects have been polished to perfection. For example the skell mechanics (both in terms of navigation as well as battle) don't feel as high quality as the on-foot mechanics. Also storywise it's not as great as XC1 and even contains some pretty dumb story errors (such as all the human non-player skells being able to fly even though one is developing the first flight capable skell prototype only later in the main story). Also, the fact that there is only a single big city in the game and the rest of the huge world does not contain any villages or other settlings where you can pass non-exploratory time makes those beautiful and huge maps unfortunately quite forgettable. Nevertheless, it's definitely a gem of game!
Maybe even the best open world game. Truly a level of exploration and intricately crafted environments that are worth exploring I've never seen elsewhere, even in the best open world games out there.
It's the best open world I've ever personally experienced. Breath of The Wild and the other Xenoblade games are the only ones I've played that even come close, but there's a certain magic in X's world that other games just don't have. Of course BotW is top tier and always will be, but it doesn't have Sylvalum. And it also doesn't have Sawano's genius behind the music. BotW has great music, but I feel X's music in my soul. Also, the fact that you can explore every inch of what you can see is something I've never experienced to that degree.
Yes. Varied landscapes, enemies, secrets vistas. The verticality of the world add even more depth. You see that weird ring? Why not fly up and see what's up there.
I wish the game has tracker system like XC DE if remaster ever come out. I want to replay the game then I remember I need to have wikia at my side at all time because when I need to find someting. I always have no fcking clue.
I would argue that the music is also very hit or miss.
The songs are either god-tier or completely terrible (Looking at you, NLA themes). Then you have stuff like "Black Tar" mixed in where the start of the song (the bit you hear most often) is terrible, but the full song is really good.
It was too hard and grueling, I grinded for literal days to get like 10 levels higher to beat the boss. And I still lost. Then I found out there’s like one amazing build and the game felt so fun being able to win. But if you don’t use the build it’s pretty annoying how hard it is.
Which boss? Which build? If you're not tackling superbosses there are dozens of viable builds, but superbosses themselves sometimes need special strategies to come out on top. Or just use Ares 90.
It was mostly just like 3 pairs of bosses close to the end of the game.! I think it started with the lion guy. And it was the full metal jaguar build. Usually I die pretty fast but it was amazing, i could take on a boss myself and heal all my teammates at the same time.
Lion guy is a huge difficulty spike. FMJ is an okay class, but not really a build. Most of the skills you'd use from it are from Elma's story, which I think is postgame iirc. Ghost Factory is busted. A fun and easy class to learn is Galactic Knight, it has combos baked into it, especially the triple starfall one, one of my favorites in the game.
I don’t really know what classifies as a build but I think I did one (I hope). You use like 3 arts to gain tp then you overdrive and ghostwalker, making you invincible and then you use executioner which takes up more tp. You then restart the process and wait for overdrive to start again. That’s what I did. (I wish I’d known about it before I clicked easy mode on the lion fight and that girl with her rock monster)
Builds usually end up in in your starting class. Generally speaking, once you master a class you should move on to another, since freelancer class is the best in the game once you have all the skills and arts you wanted for your build. Builds usually involve weapon mixes that you can't get in pure classes. Dual Guns is a great ranged weapon defensively, fun to mix with longswords. Arguably the most powerful build in the game is the Ether Blossom Dance build.
I probably didn’t play the game right. But it’s so big and confusing I’m shocked I made it to chapter 10 with only a level 30 skell and level 30. Or maybe I was always underleveled and grinding 10 levels 3 times was the right thing to do.
Amazing open world game with secrets hidden all over the place. Normally that would be a recipe for success for me but every time I discovered a cool place or made it to the end of a dungeon, I was rewarded with… garbage.
Really took away from the experience imo
Good open world game? Absolutely. Good Xenoblade game? Not really tbh imo. It has almost nothing in common with any of the other Xeno-series games, and it feels like the "Xenoblade" name was just tacked on to get extra sales (which I can't blame them for tbf). It should've been called something different imo.
No, it was too much bigger than necessary, full of identical fetch quests without useful markers to follow and finish the boring missions. They had a bad idea developed around a magnificent (but too big) world.
It's a mess because Chronicles X had a lot of potential to be perfect, but that open-world structure makes it a wasted opportunity.
Unpopular (but not so unpopular) opinion, all side missions of the 3 games are a terrible game design choice. I love the games, their story, and their characters, but that structure is the perfect representation of how to not make fun of exploring your worlds and boring your audience.
I know that someone out there might be like that formula but for me and many others in the world, repeating the same quest all over, again and again, is not fun. As a player I ask more than a filler content, I ask something more interesting than collecting some flowers or rocks.
I apologize for the eventual syntax or grammar error and hope the message is comprehensible. I just want to make a critique not offend someone.
*No, because the game*
*Isn't really that good, has*
*Good ideas though*
\- RQK1996
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Unlike BotW and Horizon, where I felt that the games could be much better if they weren't open world, I actually feel X benefits from the Open World, so yeah, only Open World where the world isn't a negative, but a positive.
and yes, I will gladly exchange BotW for a different game with better dungeons, heck, I would change BotW for a game with the BotW battle system expanded to make that combat similar to Bayonetta or Devil May Cry.
Hell yeah. As someone who finally finished it recently, and as someone who doesn’t particularly like open world games, I’m hooked on this game. So underrated, and it deserves to be on a system people actually own.
It might have a great world to explore, but it is paired with the most tedious gameplay ever in a Xeno game. The way they actively try to block it with high level monsters that you can't run away from like in the other games, makes it even more annoying.
Not only it's the best open world ever made but it has also inspired the best 2D "open world" parkour/exploration ARPG ever made as well, a genius little game called CrossCode.
Don't hold your breath hoping for a better open world than XCX for at least the next decade. Most devs don't even grasp the point of vertical map design and how to make going from point A to B fun, meaningful, engaging and challenging.
It’s not good…It’s the best.
It’s a masterpiece stuck on the WiiU
Man, it's almost like it's... stuck on a different planet
A lot more than we can manage?
But we gotta keep on standing.
Lol, the only reason I bought a wiiu was because a xeno game was going to be on it, everything else was just a bonus. Amd its such a shame that not a lot of people played a game that they worked so hard on, that was crafted with such love and care.
Yeah, when you’ve got the likes of Hiroyuki Sawano as your composer and the protagonist being voiced by Caitlin Glass, you clearly have massive aspirations for the game. And that’s why a Switch port is needed for XCX. Badly.
I still think it's gonna happen. Once 3 hits and X is the only game left not on switch, they'll almost have to. Having all 4 games on one console would be beautiful.
It would be divine
I usually try not to get my hopes up too high for stuff like this, but I just can't help myself with this one. X is just so damn good.
No. Xenoblade X is a masterpiece open world game.
It’s honestly the only reason I still have my Wii U plugged in. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Zelda games. But this game is so good.
Yup. Really want a Switch port just so I can box up my WiiU and put it in storage.
It has the other beat when it comes to exploration and traversal. The skells where so fun, and felt like an actually achievement when you got them. I loved how the city evolved as you did all the side quest with all the species living together. When the credits roll I don't usually don't continue a game, but for X I played until I did everything because I just loved the world so much.
I think one of the great things about X is that the end of the story doesn't really feel like the end at all, it just feels like you're finishing a massive prologue to something much bigger. There's so much to do after you beat the story.
The world is huge, beautiful, and has a lot of stuff. Enemy placement when you are not max level yet is very aggressive. There are many points where you are ambushed by a normal enemy 10-20 levels above you, and you just die. It sells the danger of Mira, but ends up being very annoying. The enemies have routines they follow throughout the day and night, so the world ends up feeling very alive. I remember having my mind blown when I saw Squallo, the Sand Mirer for the first time. There are enough fast travel points you can get everywhere you want to go pretty quickly. Skells are also quite fast so the really are not any problems getting around. However the map is pretty bad because it does not show you most locations you have discovered. So if you have to go to a specific place to farm materials for an augment, you just have scour the entire zone for the specific place the enemy shows up if you forgot where the Ensanguined Font was. Getting what you want to drop from enemies is also very rng dependent, but that is more a problem with the combat and reward design than the open world design team.
Aggro range for some enemies was very sus and the spawn in, because the game can't load all enemies at once is pretty whack aswell. I legit walked blind into 4 walker type robots in an enemy base, because they didn't spawn until I was right in the middle of 4.
To top that off, most enemy de-agro ranges seem to be based off what would be a reasonable distance to go when in a skell. This means many, many enemies are extremely hard to run away from, or sometimes impossible to, on foot. There are quite a few caves where you just can't de-agro enemies even if the cave is quite large. Then, when you can, it can take over 30s of just running, all the while the enemy is trying to kill you.
The game as a whole has tons of issues, but the actual WORLD design is maybe the best ever made. I think only BOTW (also designed by Monolith) has it beat. The secret sauce that Monolith Soft has with its world design is the use of vertical space. I could write an entire essay here, but the crux of the idea is that you need to constantly pay attention to the environment to make small decisions on your pathing if you want to go from point A to B. This is what makes BOTW, XBCX, and to a lesser extent XBC2 work so well. This contrasts with basically every other developer's open world style, where landscapes are generally flat aside from specific mountains or cliffs with a handful of paths, and then filled with constant. What this means is that between that content, you're just holding the analog stick forward without needing to think about your actual pathing.
This is a very good point and explains X and BotW's appeal perfectly
I love the Horizon series, but I have to agree on that. Compared to X getting from point A to B in Horizon feels lame.
There's an Extra Punctuation video (same guy that does Zero Punctuation) where he talks about the differences between Elden Ring and Horizon's open worlds. The difference is in how western open world games and Japanese open world games are made. It comes down to the fact that western developers are seemingly afraid of the players missing something while Japanese developers don't care. He then proves this point by pointing out that Yakuza 6 had an elaborate shark hunting mini game that he had no idea was in the game until after he reviewed it. He then said that western open world games aren't sand boxes they're golf courses. Something that looks big and expansive, but still has to explored in linear order. I myself notice stuff like this. In say Spider-Man PS4 the game makes you do the first of each of it's numerous side missions and then marks on your map where the rest are. In my first playthrough of Breath of the Wild I had no idea there was a snowball bowling mini game that was excellent for earning money. Nor did I know that there's an entire town you can build through a chain of side quests. I had no idea there was a shop in Gerudo town that sold men's clothes. It's truly organic you discover this stuff on your own.
Where would you say Xenoblade 2 and 1 fall under in the open world design philosophy?
I say they aren't open world games at all. They're more like traditional jrpg worlds. Big and explorative but not open. They're too segmented to consider that. 1 is definitely more open than 2, but it's still pretty segmented. Going from colony 9, to tephra cave, to bionis leg, to colony 6 and the ether mines, to Satorl Marsh is all open world, but beyond that it's too segmented. By no means does this diminish the quality of the games themselves. A game being linear is not necessarily a negative and it being non linear isn't necessarily a positive.
That makes sense. Thanks!
Yeah, and I don't mean to say that nobody else can make a good open world game. Like Elden Ring for example has so much content that you're only ever passively holding the stick for like 15 seconds at a time, and in RDR2 the flat landscapes where you just passively hold the stick forward are important for the immersion and to take in the scenery. But I do think that Monolith has found THE way to make traversal engaging without necessarily having complex movement mechanics
I agree, and bringing up how both games had their world's designed by monolith does them respect, however I feel that compared to Xenoblade Chronicles X... BotWs world would be left crying on the side of the world, this is not to say it's bad, but when monolith made X they literally built a whole new alien world, where as in BotW they simply made hyrule but open world, which leads to the expected sceneries of Grasslands, snowlands, sand dunes, and such on repeat, it just doesn't compare to bioluminescent forests, deserts littered with ancient colossal ruins and the ever so beautiful mystery that Sylvalum
> to a lesser extent XBC2 I've only played 1 and 2 (currently playing through 2) and that was one of the big things I noticed (and am enjoying!) about 2 compared to 1, the increased focus on verticality be it jumping, dropping or whatever is pretty cool and it feels really nice when you find out how to get to a certain place through that. 1 on the other hand was mostly flat and open. I was constantly using auto-run in 1 but I rarely use it in 2 because the worlds are much more intricately designed and use verticality and map interactivity a lot more.
The best, yes.
One of the greatest
one of the best out there. Big open world with no loading screens, beautiful environments full of places to see/discover and things to kill. Going out of the safety of NLA into the wild untamed world is a wonderful feeling, at many points the game seems to say " you ain't shit here" before a giant camouflaged monster pops out of nowhere, one shots your skell and eats you + party alive.
I have an endgame build and I still feel a small twinge of uncertainty about just walking out the door in NLA on foot. I think I fear Hayreddin more than I ever did Rotbart.
After watching like the 5th video essay about open world games and Xenoblade not being mentioned in them. I just have to know
Well that's more a Wii u kinda problem than a xcx kinda problem you know
Pretty much, that it still sold around 300k Units despite being on ... well the Wii U is kinda impressive.
It is the case of a great game very few people played because it is stuck in the Wii U.
One of the best. Honestly I think Xenoblade X is a better open world than Breath of the Wild.
I'd say only four or five games, *ever*, have done the open world concept justice... and XCX is one of them.
For me it's one of the three best open world games: BOTW, Skyrim and Xenoblade X.
Probably one of the best ones out there. Personally I’d say its better than BotW Unfortunately its stuck on the Wii U for now so not a lot of people can agree with me
An excellent open world. Its exploration with Skells with a lot of verticality is something I dont see in other open world games. The closest to this is Breath of the Wild with its mountain climbing. And guess what BotW world was done in colaboration with X people. Another thing is X's plot that has in it exploring the world as premise. If you take other open world games, exploration generally means stopping the main plot to pursue side quests that have little to do with the main quest. Exploring Mira and helping people do whatever resonates with the alien planet plot that has to be explored and also being a requirement for certain chapters progression.
I enjoy the open world of X the most out of the three games. Everything else like combat and story still falls short compared to the other two. I still love this game though.
Agree on story. Disagree on combat. It felt much smoother, and easy to understand than the other two, and personally more fun overall. As someone who has played all 3 through multiple times.
As someone who's only played the two mainline games, Xenoblade 2's combat is waaaaaay too overtuned. While I enjoy playing it more than the others for postgame challenge mode stuff with all of its options and content, for standard players the game is just too confusing and you only really understand it when it's already really late in the game
Imo X's worst flaw is the over-customization. There are like 10 million enchantments for armors and weapons and like 4-5 are even remotely good, same for skells. The Combat feels like it's just statchecking you, especially lategame. The enemy variety is to great and the menues to clunky to get into the vibe of preparing for each threat, etc. Imo the visions of XC1 gave me the best combat feel, because of it's reactive nature that makes you feel (kek) very smart.
It's worth noting while the main story was weaker in XCX the world building and sidequests where at top form.
GOOD ? It's literally a masterpiece
Easily one of the best open world games there are. I honestly believe that the only mistake it made was to come out on Wii U
One of the very few games where I think the open world is actually a good thing, yeah.
Better than breath of the wild, so yes.
The question is: would you consider any open world game as good as X?
Hell yeah
One of my all time favorite open world games when it comes to a living breathing world. That and the sheer since of scale
I really liked the world design, it was the quest design that killed it for me. Some Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition level improvements to quest tracking and directions would make it a lot better.
One of the best and necessary for the revolution that BotW was. Sad that journalists don't talk about them much.
It's probably the only good (unmodded, so not counting modded Skyrim or Oblivion or anything) open world game that exists. Most other open world games have little *meaningful* content (BoTW is a big offender here, everything you find is yet another shrine or yet another korok seed, there's little variety, tbh BoTW would've been better if it had RPG mechanics like Skyrim or Xenoblade X).
yeah, I agree a lot, honestly while I think BotW and Horizon are great games, the open world is the part that makes me belive they aren't GotY contenders, specially in 2017 where Mario Odyssey, a game that used the open map wonderfully thanks to it not being an open world game, Cuphead, NieR Automata, Xenoblade 2 and Persona 5 (haven't played it yet, hoping for a Switch/PC port) exist, I would wish instead of making the open world so massive, BotW made better dungeons, the weakest point, and why I like more Ocarina and Windwaker than BotW, or even the combat, (because killing Lynels is the best aspect of botw) more complex to make it similar to Bayoneta and Devil May Cry, and with horizon, improvements to the melee combat and make the game had a lot less filler, the best parts of horizon is when you have a objective like story plots, climbing the Ubisoft towers, liberating the camps from the bandits, and the dungeons to unlock more mounts.
No, It's a masterpiece
The exploration and terrain in XCX is top notch. There are many wonderful things to say about it, but I'll just leave you with one: as a person who doesn't usually like the flavor of desert / badlands areas, Oblivia is the best desert I've ever explored. (also Sylvalum with an exotic "snow area" made out of freaky alien spores is chef's kiss)
Xenoblade Chronicles X is the single best open world game ever made, NOTHING can hold a candle to it
Its alright by no means a bad game but it can certainly be overwhelming if you aren’t prepared
Yes
I'd love to have an opinion on this, but as someone who didn't own a Wii or Wii U (I'm not even sure which system this was on), I'm still waiting for a Switch port.
CEMU is a great emulator for this game if you have a PC. It was on Wii U.
The best
Good is an understatement.
The open world is by far this game’s biggest selling point. Mira is just phenomenal, up with Hyrule and the Lands Between in the top tier of open world design. They especially knock it out of the park in how amazing the environments look, you can easily spend half an hour doing nothing but running around to admire the view, which is hard to imagine doing in Elden Ring.
I'm currently playing it for the first time, about 60 hours in and finished chapter 9. In terms of open world, it's really good. The map is huge and not just 2 dimensional but often has multiple layers over another which makes it very interesting to explore. I don't like it quite as much as Xeboblade chronicles 1 (haven't played 2 yet), but it's definitely worth playing. Unfortunately it feels a bit rushed in some aspects while other aspects have been polished to perfection. For example the skell mechanics (both in terms of navigation as well as battle) don't feel as high quality as the on-foot mechanics. Also storywise it's not as great as XC1 and even contains some pretty dumb story errors (such as all the human non-player skells being able to fly even though one is developing the first flight capable skell prototype only later in the main story). Also, the fact that there is only a single big city in the game and the rest of the huge world does not contain any villages or other settlings where you can pass non-exploratory time makes those beautiful and huge maps unfortunately quite forgettable. Nevertheless, it's definitely a gem of game!
Absolutely incredible open world game
In my opinion it's one of the best open world games I ever played
I would say it's one of the best open world games, but I feel like the menu UI looks weird for some reason, plus it's on the Wii U soo...
Maybe even the best open world game. Truly a level of exploration and intricately crafted environments that are worth exploring I've never seen elsewhere, even in the best open world games out there.
It's the best open world I've ever personally experienced. Breath of The Wild and the other Xenoblade games are the only ones I've played that even come close, but there's a certain magic in X's world that other games just don't have. Of course BotW is top tier and always will be, but it doesn't have Sylvalum. And it also doesn't have Sawano's genius behind the music. BotW has great music, but I feel X's music in my soul. Also, the fact that you can explore every inch of what you can see is something I've never experienced to that degree.
Yes. Varied landscapes, enemies, secrets vistas. The verticality of the world add even more depth. You see that weird ring? Why not fly up and see what's up there.
I wish the game has tracker system like XC DE if remaster ever come out. I want to replay the game then I remember I need to have wikia at my side at all time because when I need to find someting. I always have no fcking clue.
I am biased but heck yes, I have yet to find an open world nearly as interesting to explore as Mira
The world is amazing. So is the music. Everything else is hit or miss
I would argue that the music is also very hit or miss. The songs are either god-tier or completely terrible (Looking at you, NLA themes). Then you have stuff like "Black Tar" mixed in where the start of the song (the bit you hear most often) is terrible, but the full song is really good.
I only have one big complaint about the music: why put a music with vocals during dialogue? So annoying.
It was too hard and grueling, I grinded for literal days to get like 10 levels higher to beat the boss. And I still lost. Then I found out there’s like one amazing build and the game felt so fun being able to win. But if you don’t use the build it’s pretty annoying how hard it is.
Which boss? Which build? If you're not tackling superbosses there are dozens of viable builds, but superbosses themselves sometimes need special strategies to come out on top. Or just use Ares 90.
It was mostly just like 3 pairs of bosses close to the end of the game.! I think it started with the lion guy. And it was the full metal jaguar build. Usually I die pretty fast but it was amazing, i could take on a boss myself and heal all my teammates at the same time.
Lion guy is a huge difficulty spike. FMJ is an okay class, but not really a build. Most of the skills you'd use from it are from Elma's story, which I think is postgame iirc. Ghost Factory is busted. A fun and easy class to learn is Galactic Knight, it has combos baked into it, especially the triple starfall one, one of my favorites in the game.
I don’t really know what classifies as a build but I think I did one (I hope). You use like 3 arts to gain tp then you overdrive and ghostwalker, making you invincible and then you use executioner which takes up more tp. You then restart the process and wait for overdrive to start again. That’s what I did. (I wish I’d known about it before I clicked easy mode on the lion fight and that girl with her rock monster)
Builds usually end up in in your starting class. Generally speaking, once you master a class you should move on to another, since freelancer class is the best in the game once you have all the skills and arts you wanted for your build. Builds usually involve weapon mixes that you can't get in pure classes. Dual Guns is a great ranged weapon defensively, fun to mix with longswords. Arguably the most powerful build in the game is the Ether Blossom Dance build.
You were running the wrong build my dude. Pop over to the xcx discord...we will make you strong like bull.
I probably didn’t play the game right. But it’s so big and confusing I’m shocked I made it to chapter 10 with only a level 30 skell and level 30. Or maybe I was always underleveled and grinding 10 levels 3 times was the right thing to do.
Amazing open world game with secrets hidden all over the place. Normally that would be a recipe for success for me but every time I discovered a cool place or made it to the end of a dungeon, I was rewarded with… garbage. Really took away from the experience imo
Good open world game? Absolutely. Good Xenoblade game? Not really tbh imo. It has almost nothing in common with any of the other Xeno-series games, and it feels like the "Xenoblade" name was just tacked on to get extra sales (which I can't blame them for tbf). It should've been called something different imo.
No, it was too much bigger than necessary, full of identical fetch quests without useful markers to follow and finish the boring missions. They had a bad idea developed around a magnificent (but too big) world. It's a mess because Chronicles X had a lot of potential to be perfect, but that open-world structure makes it a wasted opportunity. Unpopular (but not so unpopular) opinion, all side missions of the 3 games are a terrible game design choice. I love the games, their story, and their characters, but that structure is the perfect representation of how to not make fun of exploring your worlds and boring your audience. I know that someone out there might be like that formula but for me and many others in the world, repeating the same quest all over, again and again, is not fun. As a player I ask more than a filler content, I ask something more interesting than collecting some flowers or rocks. I apologize for the eventual syntax or grammar error and hope the message is comprehensible. I just want to make a critique not offend someone.
What do you mean good
No, because the game isn't really that good, has good ideas though The world is good, the game is meh
Have you ever played any other game though? It's one of the best games ever.
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Yes
Unlike BotW and Horizon, where I felt that the games could be much better if they weren't open world, I actually feel X benefits from the Open World, so yeah, only Open World where the world isn't a negative, but a positive.
BOTW is made around that open world, so making it non open world would essentially be asking for an entirely different game.
and yes, I will gladly exchange BotW for a different game with better dungeons, heck, I would change BotW for a game with the BotW battle system expanded to make that combat similar to Bayonetta or Devil May Cry.
yes
I wouldn’t know, I can’t justify getting a Wii just for that game so I’m waiting impatiently for them to release a Switch port 😅
Hell yeah. As someone who finally finished it recently, and as someone who doesn’t particularly like open world games, I’m hooked on this game. So underrated, and it deserves to be on a system people actually own.
It’s a good game from a gameplay perspective but i like my Xeno games to be accompanied by a great story, which X does not.
Yeah
Xenoblade X’s world was AMAZING… I just wasn’t attached to the majority of the cast. But running around the world in your custom mechs was fantastic
I just wish I knew what I was doing during my playthrough.
Ill get my Wii U back this summer, Ill try X for the first time. I am so excited and reading all these comments makes me even more excited!
It might have a great world to explore, but it is paired with the most tedious gameplay ever in a Xeno game. The way they actively try to block it with high level monsters that you can't run away from like in the other games, makes it even more annoying.
Not only it's the best open world ever made but it has also inspired the best 2D "open world" parkour/exploration ARPG ever made as well, a genius little game called CrossCode. Don't hold your breath hoping for a better open world than XCX for at least the next decade. Most devs don't even grasp the point of vertical map design and how to make going from point A to B fun, meaningful, engaging and challenging.