So, I played about 25 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles X before I took a deep-dive into Final Fantasy XIV, fully intending to get back to it before long - and so I have. I was already enjoying it quite a bit before, but somehow I think it might just be my favorite in the series now? I've been playing on CEMU, and man is this game *gorgeous* with a better LoD and a higher resolution:
Combat feels like a direct evolution of the first Xenoblade's, and Overdrive is a *ton* of fun to learn and play with. For my money, Mira is the best open-world in any Nintendo game, and perhaps in any game out there - the scope and scale of everything is insane, and especially when emulating it's hard to remember that this somehow ran on the Wii U. Skell combat definitely isn't quite as deep as on-foot combat, and the customization in the latter is actually insane, but it's still a ton of fun - and more importantly, it feels cool to use 'em.
I'd seen memes about the soundtrack and the story, and honestly? They feel overblown. The soundtrack is fantastic, and although the main story isn't quite as much of a focus as in the other Xenoblade's, all of the sidequests are actually good, and Affinity Missions are legitimately awesome. I've been doing as many as I can going through the game, and it absolutely feels like that's the way the game is designed - it 100% wants you to engage with that stuff, and while that might gate you from doing the main story, I've literally never felt like I was being forced to do something else just to unlock the next Story Mission. Since, well, I was doing it all naturally.
I'm about 60~ hours in, and just unlocked flight - I've still got 3 more story chapters left so we'll see how I truly feel at the end, but this game is something special.
Combat feels like a direct evolution of the first Xenoblade's, and Overdrive is a *ton* of fun to learn and play with. For my money, Mira is the best open-world in any Nintendo game, and perhaps in any game out there - the scope and scale of everything is insane, and especially when emulating it's hard to remember that this somehow ran on the Wii U. Skell combat definitely isn't quite as deep as on-foot combat, and the customization in the latter is actually insane, but it's still a ton of fun - and more importantly, it feels cool to use 'em.
I'd seen memes about the soundtrack and the story, and honestly? They feel overblown. The soundtrack is fantastic, and although the main story isn't quite as much of a focus as in the other Xenoblade's, all of the sidequests are actually good, and Affinity Missions are legitimately awesome. I've been doing as many as I can going through the game, and it absolutely feels like that's the way the game is designed - it 100% wants you to engage with that stuff, and while that might gate you from doing the main story, I've literally never felt like I was being forced to do something else just to unlock the next Story Mission. Since, well, I was doing it all naturally.
I'm about 60~ hours in, and just unlocked flight - I've still got 3 more story chapters left so we'll see how I truly feel at the end, but this game is something special.