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Xenoblade Chronicles X Hands-on Preview

by Danny Bivens - May 4, 2015, 9:19 pm EDT
Total comments: 5

Learn all about the combat and game mechanics in our spoiler free preview straight out of Japan!

Xenoblade Chronicles X, known simply as Xenoblade X (Cross) in Japan, has been on the radar of many gamers for the past few years. A follow-up to the critically acclaimed Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii, developer Monolith Software is looking to offer another deeply immersive experience at a scope that they simply couldn't technologically reach in previous games. After playing just a little over seven hours of the game, it is way too early to give a final verdict on my experience. However, from what I have played, it’s easy to say that X is a game that is something special and RPG fans should be super excited about.

Gameplay in X is fluid and easy to get the hang of. Battles can be initiated by walking up to an enemy and pressing the R button. From there, your character performs automatic standard attacks on enemies with the ability to also change weapons with the X button. Although my initial setup consisted of an assault rifle and a knife, swords, sniper rifles and a slew of other weapons are eventually at players’ disposal. Where you can really bring a lot of damage to enemies is with the Arts, which can be scrolled through with the D-Pad. Arts don’t just include attacks, but can also give characters buffs to, for example, increase attack power temporarily or boost your defense.

One fun aspect of X’s battle system is the Soul System, which can help gain additional HP and dole out more damage in combat. During battles, your companion characters will chat an awful lot. In most RPGs, the chatter is more or less meaningless, however in X, the members of your party will tell you to do specific things in the battle, such as using a specific Art or to move in to attack a specific part of the enemy. If followed correctly, listening to this Soul Voice enables you gain some additional HP for your party. Another aspect of the Soul System, called Soul Challenge, has an orange circle appear on the screen. If you successfully press the B button before the circle disappears, you can activate a variety of different effects, such as increasing damage to your foe. It’s an extremely dense system that will take some time to master. But if you can, it can certainly pay off greatly.

Most enemies have specific spots on their bodies that have a separate gauge outside of their overall health. Once you deplete the gauge on the specific area of the body, the enemies are sometimes temporarily stunned. Not only that, but sometimes, body parts can even come flying off! For example, while I was grinding in the game, I was fighting some very weak sheep like creatures. They had a gauge on both their head and their tails. Monolith didn’t go as far as to add in decapitations here, but if you whack at their rear ends enough, you get to see this in action. Call me deranged if you will, but there’s something satisfying about seeing one of these little guys’ tails fly off in the heat of battle. The attention to detail, even just in this specific case, is fantastic.

Visually, Xenoblade Chronicles X is a treat. The environments are incredibly vast and are full of nooks and crannies to be explored. The first continent of the game contains lush fields, lakes and mountains with vegetation and trees everywhere. New Los Angeles (NLA) is a bustling town filled with lots of interesting places and things to see. From the busy shopping area to the more calm, present day-like areas of the town, Monolith has done a great job at mixing the modern with the futuristic to make a fun, unique sci-fi environment. Overall, though, NLA is more or less an anime rendering of what a neo-Los Angeles would look like from a Japanese perspective. Character models are also varied, with some leaning toward more anime-inspired looks and others looking something more akin to what you would find in western-designed games. Even if you’re not in love with the character design, everything else about the aesthetic feels fresh and looks great.

It should be noted that I am playing the disc version of the game. With that said, playing the game entirely off of the disc alone does have some performance drawbacks. Particularly with rendering environments, enemies, Skells, NPCs, and load times in general. Thankfully, Monolith has opted to give owners of the disc version a chance to boost the performance of the game thanks to offering data packs for free on the eShop. Since I have a limited amount of space on my Wii U, I downloaded one of the four free packs. This particular one gives the game an overall performance boost and shortens load times. Since I still have a few packs that I’m unable to download, there still are occasions of enemies and NPCs popping up as I’m running through environments. Despite these performance drawbacks, the game still runs incredibly smooth. For the optimal experience with the game, getting the digital version or having at least 10 GB for the data packs is the way to go.

I've just barely scratched the surface with Xenoblade. I’ve really enjoyed what little I've played of the game so far.. While some of the character designs can be a little bit too over-the-top anime for my taste, the rest of the game is a sight to behold. The amount of customization is almost overwhelming, especially with character creation. Gamers can easily spend an hour or more trying to create the perfect avatar to take through the game. From the amazing landscapes to the ridiculous amount of gear, the attention to detail is amazing. Even though I’m sitting at just a little over seven hours into the game, between side-quests and the story, I’m sure I can get at least 10 times more than that out of X before it’s all said and done.

Talkback

EnnerMay 05, 2015

So exciting!


Hopefully the Soul Voice system is balanced throughout the game. It doesn't seem there are many traditional healing artes in the game.


I don't mind the somewhat bug-eyed character design for what appears to be most of the female characters. Or the dead doll faces most of the character designs seem to be. That probably means my sensibilities are already messed up. The look of the humans remind me of the Xenosaga games, which is no surprise.


I still need to monkey around some more with the Soul system. It's super dense and seems like there are enough options to keep it pretty even throughout the game.

As for the character designs, the one that creeped me out the most was the girl on the far left in the bottom picture. Her name is Rin and she is 13 years old. She slightly sexualized and just kind of creeps me out with those eyes. She's also a little bit annoying. Other than her, so far, I'm fine with all of the characters I've interacted with.

EnnerMay 06, 2015

Yeah, Lynlee seems to be the lynch pin for the displeasure of the game's character designs. Some people seem to have come around to Elma and other characters, but Lynlee's big bug eyes are still a point of contention. Adding to that, pictures from the Japan Miiverse of Xenoblade X are showing some ridiculous and unfortunate clothing and armor for Lynn. If you didn't quite appreciate some of the armor designs for Sharla or the Speed Armor in Xenoblade Chronicles, there's some stuff in Xenoblade Chronicles X where Monolith Soft double downs on that design line.

I'd imagine that Nintendo of America and Europe are planning to modify some of the armor designs because of how Lynlee looks.

ejamerMay 06, 2015

Quote from: Enner

... but Lynlee's big bug eyes are still a point of contention. ...

Not a point of contention for me, but Lynlee is pretty freaky looking so I can understand why others would feel that way!

The easiest way out would be to change her age to 18. That's not to say that she still wouldn't look like a young teenage girl, though. All we can say from here in Japan is, "Please understand."

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WiiU

Game Profile

Xenoblade Chronicles X Box Art

Genre RPG
Developer Monolith Software Inc.
Players1
Online1 - 4

Worldwide Releases

na: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Release Dec 04, 2015
PublisherNintendo
RatingTeen
jpn: Xenoblade X
Release Apr 29, 2015
PublisherNintendo
Rating15+
eu: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Release Dec 04, 2015
PublisherNintendo
Rating12+
aus: Xenoblade Chronicles X
Release Dec 05, 2015
PublisherNintendo
RatingMature
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