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[Lunafreya Nox Fleuret]

I still dream today about a Xenosaga IV or a Xenogears remake. My favourite games of all time are the Xeno games followed by FF. I do agree that the art is beautiful. Imagine the world design of Xenogears in ps4 pro graphics *drools*

 

[Milly Osworth]

Too bad the characters ruin it all.

 

[DXB-KNIGHT]

They're becoming more and more and parallel when it comes to awesome over world

 

[InfiniDragon]

They need to get a good writer onboard. Someone who has experience writing and creating timeless RPGs.

...paging Shegasato Itoi...

Uh...or he can just go in the living room and get his wife (Soraya Saga). He should just do that.

 

[EVH]

Too bad the characters ruin it all.

This, the characters in XCX are some kind of weaboo retarded dolls that I find hard to even look at. And that is not talking about some of the "armors" for the girls.

 

[JeffZero]

I still dream today about a Xenosaga IV or Xenogears remake. My favourite games of all time are the Xeno games followed by FF. I do agree that the art is beautiful. Imagine the world design of Xenogears in ps4 pro graphics *drools*

You're awesome.

 

[Fou-Lu]

I still dream today about a Xenosaga IV or a Xenogears remake. My favourite games of all time are the Xeno games followed by FF. I do agree that the art is beautiful. Imagine the world design of Xenogears in ps4 pro graphics *drools*

Having read perfect works I just want that vision complete so badly. If only we could get Xenosaga 4-6 where episode 5 is something of a Xenogears remake, but also its own thing.

I hadn't played any Xeno games until I played Xenoblade last year and since then have played and read everything I can get my hands on. Truly a remarkable series of games. Up there with Final Fantasy, Mother and Shadow Hearts as some of my all time faves.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

They need to get a good writer onboard. Someone who has experience writing and creating timeless RPGs.

...paging Shegasato Itoi...

Could you exaggerate a little more? Itoi is definitely not the first name I would associate with writing something like XenoBlade. That's not even his cup of tea.

 

[Spiritwalker]

XB1 was hella impressive and I want a remaster badly. It looks incredible on a PC.

The 3DS version is hideous though. Put that ugly ass abomination down after 10 minutes.

 

[RustyNails]

They got nothing on CDP. Just look at the difference in style.

 

[takriel]

Too bad the characters ruin it all.

Seriously wtf

 

[-Horizon-]

Too bad the characters ruin it all.

The characters are split. Some of the humans look meh, some look perfectly fine. The humanoid aliens also look really good.

 

[Peltz]

I LOVED Xenoblade and felt X was pretty meh. But the environments of XCX were absolutely spectacular.

 

[Deku Tree]

Is XCX being ported to switch?

 

[skypunch]

Could you exaggerate a little more? Itoi is definitely not the first name I would associate with writing something like XenoBlade. That's not even his cup of tea.

Yeah, definitely not Itoi. I would actually like a novelist or a playwriter to be the lead script writer on Xeno games. I want Takahashi to start taking the narrative in his games more seriously. I'm getting a bit tired of the tropey anime writing and dialogue from Yuichiro Takeda. I want the Xeno games to strive for real mature drama and stand out from the crowd with proper quality writing. Right now, Monolith basically just write typical JRPG/anime stuff for young teens.

They got nothing on CDP. Just look at the difference in style.

Yeah, The Witcher 3 is beautiful.

 

[-Horizon-]

Is XCX being ported to switch?

Rumored.

 

[pinkurocket]

Yes

Yes

 

[meow]

I put 50 or 60 hours into Xenoblade, satorl marsh and valak transitioning to night were mindblowing. I also thought eryth sea was lovely and the first time I saw star showers in eryth sea, I was legit losing my mind. I didn't want the night to end.

 

[KratosEnergyDrink]

This, the characters in XCX are some kind of weaboo retarded dolls that I find hard to even look at. And that is not talking about some of the "armors" for the girls.

No Spoiler

Spoiler

here... do you know the story?

Besides the male character models look better.

 

[Fou-Lu]

They got nothing on CDP. Just look at the difference in style.

I mean... CDP does good work, but these aren't remotely comparable to Monolith Soft games when it comes to looking fantastical and out of this world.

I am REALLY excited to see their art direction applied to Cyberpunk though.

 

[LordKano]

Still the best open-world I ever explored. I don't think even Zelda will beat it in my eyes. I've come to a point where I have highest expectations for the next Xenoblade than the next Zelda.

 

[KratosEnergyDrink]

Yeah. The world of Xenoblade X looks amazing and fascinating. It's a real shame that the story within that world is painfully mediocre.

Story wise X it is really a matter of taste. Story is not as original as in the first one but better than in most RPGs out there, and there are many interesting side quests.

 

[EDarkness]

Story wise X it is really a matter of taste. Story is not as original as in the first one but better than in most RPGs out there, and there are many interesting side quests.

I thought so, too. I didn't have a problem with it, and I didn't mind that Alma was basically the main character. The side characters were interesting. I'm looking forward to what they do next.

They do need to get some better character designers for the next game, though. What they had in Xenoblade Chronicles X was pretty bad.

 

[Tesser]

I think one of Monolithsoft's greatest strengths - if we're focusing purely on World design - is the sense of scale and intrigue with certain environments. Game: Xenoblade Chronicles...example: Gaur Plains. One of the things that really struck me getting to that area and playing it for the first few times was the placement and relation it had to the rest of Xenoblade's World in general. It was cool by itself to have Mechonis & Sword Valley looming over in the background but when you realize "see that sword, you can go there", you realize the scale of the World and how it all ties together.

XCX too manages to be intriguing purely from a visual stand-point. There's plenty of natural and artificial area that work purely as opportunistic sight-seeing tours, but it helps flesh out the World of Mira while at the same time giving players the opportunities to curiously think how this may all play into the narrative and overall progression of the game. People talk about player-made imagination is a bad thing when something's not properly explained or given context, but when it comes to World-building and perhaps "lore", personally...it only makes the environments more interesting and intriguing to explore.

 

[skypunch]

Story wise X it is really a matter of taste. Story is not as original as in the first one but better than in most RPGs out there, and there are many interesting side quests.

The storytelling in X is so cliché and eye-rolling though. The game is certainly aware of many schools of thought, but most of the moral dilemma's in the game were very elementary and then the game spewed out some "We all need to work together" narrative that literally underlined EVERYTHING in the game. It has a broad, simple premise and applies everything to this end.

 

[EDarkness]

The storytelling in X is so cliché and eye-rolling though. The game is certainly aware of many schools of thought, but most of the moral dilemma's in the game were very elementary and then the game spewed out some "We all need to work together" narrative that literally underlined EVERYTHING in the game. It has a broad, simple premise and applies everything to this end.

True, but I thought it made sense considering the situation they were in. I thought it was well laid out in the beginning how the overall story was going to play out over the course of the game. In the end, I was more interested in the side stories than the main one, because there were some interesting ones and I liked the relationships between characters.

 

[matmanx1]

I agree with you OP. Mira, in particular, is one of my favorite fantasy game worlds of all time.

 

[TheMoon]

I believe that's already been confirmed

Let's not go down that route and claim a rumor is a confirmation of anything.

 

[AquaWateria]

Yes

Yes

Wow that looks so amazing.

I can't think of anything that can beat that sense of scale and beauty. The amazing part is how this was done with Wii U hardware. Even the most graphically intense games can't compare.

 

[gogojira]

I need to actually play XBX one day. I've had the CE since day one. =\

 

[sora87]

These threads always make me want to go back to XBX but then I remember I was at a point where I have to grind to advance the story and just instantly get turned off.

 

[skypunch]

These threads always make me want to go back to XBX but then I remember I was at a point where I have to grind to advance the story and just instantly get turned off.

Yeah, I attempted to play through it again but like you I couldn't be arsed to meet the story requirements to progress the story so I dropped it. It's just too much busy work and it all begins to pile up on you the further you get into the game. I hope they drop this outdated style of open world game design in their next title. Most modern open world RPGs have already stopped designing their games like this.

 

[Fou-Lu]

These threads always make me want to go back to XBX but then I remember I was at a point where I have to grind to advance the story and just instantly get turned off.

Yeah, I attempted to play through it again but like you I couldn't be arsed to meet the story requirements to progress the story so I dropped it. It's just too much busy work it all begins to pile up on you the further you get into the game. I hope they drop this outdated style of open world game design in their next title. Most modern open world RPGs have already stopped designing their games like this.

I totally get this, and I think it is a bit silly in X. Fortunately I enjoyed exploring so much that I usually had the requirements complete before I even went on to continue the story.

 

[TunaLover]

Mira in Xenoblade X works like a big puzzle without actually being one (at least not being an obvious one), you only can reach certain locations once you progress in the game, indigens are there to prevent you go any furher, so there's a sense on progression and reward when you finally reach that impossible place you though never would get by leveling up equiping better sets, discovering new sight sites can be pretty challenging because the complexity of the game world. So once you practically can't reach any new place on foot there comes the Skell, it was actually pretty clever give this out later in the game (license thing), because otherwise the challenge of reaching place on foot would be pointless; overall everything every place, every cave, every unreachable point, every sea, every enemy was designed with player progression in mind, think Metroid power-ups to get to new areas, except it was masterfull implemented in XCX that you problably never felt like it was aparent.

 

[random25]

The storytelling in X is so cliché and eye-rolling though. The game is certainly aware of many schools of thought, but most of the moral dilemma's in the game were very elementary and then the game spewed out some "We all need to work together" narrative that literally underlined EVERYTHING in the game. It has a broad, simple premise and applies everything to this end.

We probably played different games to say that Xenoblade X story is so cliché. It does not have a lot of the common things you usually see in JRPG stories that makes it so refreshing.

 

[Eliseo]

I still dream today about a Xenosaga IV or a Xenogears remake. My favourite games of all time are the Xeno games followed by FF. I do agree that the art is beautiful. Imagine the world design of Xenogears in ps4 pro graphics *drools*

This can still happen but if monolith soft is behind it it wont be on the ps4.

 

[skypunch]

We probably played different games to say that Xenoblade X story is so cliché. It does not have a lot of the common things you usually see in JRPG stories that makes it so refreshing.

There wasn't anything about it that I felt was refreshing though. Last I remember, it's a pretty thin and straightforward story full of common anime tropes and comic relief that represents some of the worst aspects of anime. It's a bog-standard anime plot in all honesty. Xenoblade's script was roughly the same, but just more fleshed out and multi-layered because more focus, time, and effort was put into it. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't for the fantastic British dub which felt like a breath of fresh air for JRPGs and really helped elevate the script and characters (hats off to Nintendo of Europe and Side UK!).

X returned to using the typical American anime voice actors you hear in an absurd amount of JRPGs, and video games in general, and thus failed to elevate the bog-standard anime script and pedestrian characters into something more electrifying. The dub doesn't have the same spark the British dub of Xenoblade has, and just sounds like every other JRPG on the market.

 

[random25]

There wasn't anything about it that I felt was refreshing though. Last I remember, it's a pretty thin and straightforward story, full of common anime tropes, and comic relief that represents some of the worst aspects of anime. It's a bog-standard anime plot in all honesty. Xenoblade's script was also the same but just more fleshed out and multi-layered because more focus, time, and effort was put into it. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't for the fantastic British dub which felt like a breath of fresh air for JRPGs and really helped elevate the script and characters.

X returned to the typical American anime dub you hear in pretty much all JRPGs and thus failed to elevate the bog-standard anime script and pedestrian characters into something more electrifying. The dub doesn't have the same spark the British dub of Xenoblade has.

But it's no cliché. Traditional JRPGs usually have some or all of the following:
- story starts at some simple town where the protagonist lives.
- protagonist is some simple dude who got some extraordinary powers and got dragged down to some world conflict.
- You collect some crystals or some more super powers to fight evil.
- Your end goal is always to save the world.
- the final boss is a god or obtained godlike powers.
- protagonist has some love interest within your party to provide extra story.
- your party is composed of different people you met on your adventure that has objectives different from you that suddenly joins you and your cause just because.

I can list some more elements in JRPGs that have become clichés but as you can see Xenoblade X does not really have much of those as compared to any RPG that came before that. So yeah it's no cliché story as far as I'm concerned.

JRPGs have anime tropes most of the time and it's not really that avoidable. I don't see that as a negative. And while I don't like American dubs either I don't see a reason why X is a cliché story because of that.

 

[EDarkness]

There wasn't anything about it that I felt was refreshing though. Last I remember, it's a pretty thin and straightforward story full of common anime tropes and comic relief that represents some of the worst aspects of anime. It's a bog-standard anime plot in all honesty. Xenoblade's script was roughly the same, but just more fleshed out and multi-layered because more focus, time, and effort was put into it. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't for the fantastic British dub which felt like a breath of fresh air for JRPGs and really helped elevate the script and characters (hats off to Nintendo of Europe and Side UK!).

X returned to using the typical American anime voice actors you hear in an absurd amount of JRPGs, and video games in general, and thus failed to elevate the bog-standard anime script and pedestrian characters into something more electrifying. The dub doesn't have the same spark the British dub of Xenoblade has, and just sounds like every other JRPG on the market.

I didn't know the American dub was a problem. I hardly ever watch anime dubbed, so I have no idea what that's generally like. I didn't have any problems with the voice acting in the game. The game is Japanese, made by Japanese people who are influenced by anime and anime plots. No idea why people would go in thinking something different. These are the same guys who worked on Xenosaga. Those games had some silly plots.

 

[Eliseo]

Pro tip, Don't waste your time with skypunch , He hates Xeno X like you have no idea.

 

[TheMoon]

Pro tip, Don't waste your time with skypunch , He hates Xeno X like you have no idea.

When in doubt, look at his post/thread history.

 

[skypunch]

I didn't know the American dub was a problem. I hardly ever watch anime dubbed, so I have no idea what that's generally like. I didn't have any problems with the voice acting in the game. The game is Japanese, made by Japanese people who are influenced by anime and anime plots. No idea why people would go in thinking something different. These are the same guys who worked on Xenosaga. Those games had some silly plots.

It's just I prefer the acting approach of British stage actors over American anime voice actors. In regards to acting, the British ideal is about moving drama, whereas the American ideal is about blockbuster spectacle. This is reflected in the feel of the acting of both games. I just prefer the British style of acting so much more. I feel they convey emotion and feeling in a much more believable way.

 

[etking]

The art is great but the worlds feel empty and lifeless, especially in X. They need to make sure that more interaction with the environment is possible in future games (like digging holes or planting trees / cutting grass in Zelda) and more cities, towns, characters, natural life and story related content is placed everywhere within the world.

Despite of these issues and the very bad (but irrelevant) quest design, Xenoblade Chronicles is the best JRPG I know of, followed by Chrono Cross, Dragon Quest V PS2, Final Fantasy VIII and Shenmue 2. But since X practically has no relevant story at all and not even a second city to explore, the world is good looking but an empty and lifeless shell. Even old games like Skyrim or even Ocarina of Time have so much more to offer in its world.

 

[EDarkness]

The art is great but the worlds feel empty and lifeless, especially in X. They need to make sure that more interaction with the environment is possible in future games (like digging holes or planting trees / cutting grass in Zelda) and more cities, towns, characters, natural life and story related content is placed everywhere within the world.

Despite of these issues and the very bad (but irrelevant) quest design, Xenoblade Chronicles is the best JRPG I know of, followed by Chrono Cross, Dragon Quest V PS2, Final Fantasy VIII and Shenmue 2. But since X practically has no relevant story at all and not even a second city to explore, the world is good looking but an empty and lifeless shell. Even old games like Skyrim or even Ocarina of Time have so much more to offer in its world.

Wait...how can the world be "lifeless" with so much stuff running around? I find that there's too much life, because shit comes from nowhere to kill me on a regular basis.

 

[potatohead]

Final Fantasy used to be like this too...

 

[desu]

Looking at this, I will get a Switch as soon as they annouce the remaster for it (hopefully in January).

 

[Eliseo]

The art is great but the worlds feel empty and lifeless, especially in X. They need to make sure that more interaction with the environment is possible in future games (like digging holes or planting trees / cutting grass in Zelda) and more cities, towns, characters, natural life and story related content is placed everywhere within the world.

Despite of these issues and the very bad (but irrelevant) quest design, Xenoblade Chronicles is the best JRPG I know of, followed by Chrono Cross, Dragon Quest V PS2, Final Fantasy VIII and Shenmue 2. But since X practically has no relevant story at all and not even a second city to explore, the world is good looking but an empty and lifeless shell. Even old games like Skyrim or even Ocarina of Time have so much more to offer in its world.

It had a nice story and the side quest were great so please stop with the "omg xeno x has no story", maybe the presentation wasn't good ( Xeno X it's not perfect by any means) but it had some deep stuff.
You had a whole freakin world to explore and you complain it didn't have a second city to explore?

 

[Ridley327]

Wait...how can the world be "lifeless" with so much stuff running around? I find that there's too much life, because shit comes from nowhere to kill me on a regular basis.

On top of that, I'm not sure how much sense it would make for there to be more than one major town in Mira when the whole point is that it's a largely unexplored and non-colonized world. Being a pioneer in a strange new world is kind of the point in the game.

 

[Matchew]

What got me the most in XBX that I don't get often in open world games is the sense of scale. It was incredible seeing that world.

 

[TheMoon]

Wait...how can the world be "lifeless" with so much stuff running around? I find that there's too much life, because shit comes from nowhere to kill me on a regular basis.

yea none of that shit is empty ...or lifeless.