LTTP/RTTP: Xenoblade Chronicles X - Somehow... my favorite Xenoblade so far?

[Theswweet]

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.

 

[Scruffy8642]

After enjoying XC2 and playing XCDE atm, I"m super excited to play X some time. Hopefully it comes to Switch if DE does well.

 

[eXistor]

It's the best realized world and has the best world-traversal by far in the series. To me those are some of the most important aspects of RPG's and that's why I'd rank X as my favorite. If X had the story and characters of 1 or 2 it'd be even better.

I love how the world is essentially an onion; the further you get in the game, the more layers get revealed.

 

[TheBaldEmperor]

Well it is the best Xenoblade game. Love the others but this one is king. I explored every inch of that world. I didn't want it to end.

 

[Theswweet]

It's the best realized world and has the best world-traversal by far in the series. To me those are some of the most important aspects of RPG's and that's why I'd rank X as my favorite. If X had the story and characters of 1 or 2 it'd be even better.

I love how the world is essentially an onion; the further you get in the game, the more layers get revealed.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I love how the game has parts of the map deliberately sectioned off for when you get your Skell, and then when you get flight. It's fascinating how they designed the world on like 3 different levels.

 

[Xita]

I absolutely adore this game, Sylvanum (night) music is incredible. One of my favorite experiences I've ever had in a game was wandering off the map and finding Sylvanum way before you were supposed to come there and seeing the Northern Lights and hearing that music. Just an amazing experience I'll never forget.

 

[ryushe]

This game is literally the only reason I still have my Wii U hooked up.

There are a bunch of weird design oddities that are present in this game but once you delve deep into its admittedly obtuse systems, you'll find a game and world unlike any other in its genre.

 

[Cudpug]

It is a -stunning- video game. It has a litany of small issues, but taking a step back and observing the whole, it's wondrous. I keep thinking about it long after finishing the story.

Mira is absolutely amazing and the way the city continues to evolve in line with the sidequests is impressive. I feel like it deserved to sell a whole lot more and hope we see it as a late-in-life port on the Switch. Oh, and while the music has its detractors, there are some absolute gems. Here is my personal favourite:

Field Kaijou - Xenoblade Chronicles X OST

Music: Field KaijouGame: Xenoblade Chronicles XComposer: Hiroyuki Sawano

www.youtube.com

 

[JustJavi]

I need this to come out on Switch. Such an amazing game, more people deserve to experience it

 

[ara]

XBX is a cool fucking game, way cooler than the other two even if 2 is probably still my overall favorite of the series.

The only thing I personally didn't like about it that much was the skell stuff, or more specifically, getting the flight unit for my skells. At that point I had been wandering the world for like 60 hours, narrowly avoiding my death hundreds of times, exploring areas where I shouldn't have survived and it was all very exhilarating. Getting to a high point, surrounded with high-level enemies, by finding hidden paths and making almost glitch-like jumps and leaps and so on with just your character? Incredibly rewarding.

That was, by far, the main reason I loved the game. And as soon as you could fly, all of that is immediately gone. I think I almost dropped the game at that point lol, but opted to see the story to its (fairly disappointing) end.

 

[hussien-11]

This game is Wii U's Shenmue. the biggest and most ambitious JRPG of this whole generation... and a failed product commercially which is very sad.

It is true that it is the best playing Xenoblade game with the best designed world. Man, I will keep going back to this game for years. The first moment I used the flight pack... flying over NLA, I was shocked and impressed, despite watching a lot of videos for the game. It was one of my favorite moments in any video game.

One thing I like about this game a lot is creatures/enemies, how much effort went into designing and animating them... some of them shine in the dark, some of them can hide in the environment... really crazy stuff, and you can destroy parts like MH to have better loots and to cut their abilities.

It took me more than 50h of playtime to truly understand what I'm doing and how should I approach battles and to start exploiting the battle system and beat monsters several levels above me, which was extremely satisfying.

 

[Gala]

Yea OP, XCX is where the series clicked for me and I agree with what you say. The world is the star and exploring it feels fun and rewarding. It still feels incredible that they managed to realise this on the Wii U and with the success of both XC1 and XC2 on Switch, my hopes are high that they give it the TMS treatment, so more people can enjoy it. This is genuinesly a game for which I would buy a used Wii U to play again.

 

[NioA]

Why "somehow", there's nothing wrong on prefering this rather than the other two lol
In fact, I tend to put the original and X on the same level (and XC1 is my GOAT)
There's nothing like an open world JRPG (if not FFXV, but... You know), X is its own thing in the genre. The most courageous game, imho

 

[Marmoka]

This game deserves another chance, I don't know if in Switch or the next Nintendo console. It's a great game.

 

[Deleted member 12555]

These threads hurt, I would rather Monolith work on porting this to the Switch with additional stuff and misc. improvements, that's how much I want to play this.

And fully controlling mechas in a Monolith game (not just fighting in them like in Gears or Saga) has been a long time coming for fans who didn't get the Wii U.

I've also been to YT to check out the OST and some of the tracks are really AOT levels of hype, good stuff by Sawano.

I have a Formula kit from Kotobukiya I bought a few months back when they did a rerun, gotta get on that. Love the design.

 

[Yuntu]

XCX is fantastic and I am glad you love it OP.

 

[NovumVeritas]

How does it run on Cemu by the way. I never had the chance to play it unfortunately. Very curious after playing XenoblaDE.

 

[Lilo_D]

These threads hurt, I would rather Monolith work on porting this to the Switch with additional stuff and misc. improvements, that's how much I want to play this.

And fully controlling mechas in a Monolith game (not just fighting in them like in Gears or Saga) has been a long time coming for fans who didn't get the Wii U.

I've also been to YT to check out the OST and some of the tracks are really AOT levels of hype, good stuff by Sawano.

I have a Formula kit from Kotobukiya I bought a few months back when they did a rerun, gotta get on that. Love the design.

Click to shrink...

Maybe we can see it on a more powerful switch pro or the successor, after playing XBDE, the heavy dynamic resolution will only hurt this game

 

[Łazy]

XenobladeX 2 is gonna be glorious !

And X on the Switch would be soooo good.
Just talking to every people in NLA, following the evolution of mankind and more, while adventuring on those enormous cleverly designed lands, running and jumping in the most enjoying way.

 

[Theswweet]

How does it run on Cemu by the way. I never had the chance to play it unfortunately. Very curious after playing XenoblaDE.

Click to shrink...

It works pretty well! There's a few minor issues - some graphical glitches in some parts of NLA, mainly - but for like 99% of the time it runs flawlessly, and you can even pump the internal resolution and the LoD quite a bit! If you have multiple monitors, you can render the gamepad to a separate window, and just have it on that monitor.

 

[leng jai]

To me the only good thing about the game was the world design and traversal. Everything else about it was mediocre to awful.

 

[NovumVeritas]

It works pretty well! There's a few minor issues - some graphical glitches in some parts of NLA, mainly - but for like 99% of the time it runs flawlessly, and you can even pump the internal resolution and the LoD quite a bit! If you have multiple monitors, you can render the gamepad to a separate window, and just have it on that monitor.

Click to shrink...

Sweet, that sounds decent. What Cemu version have you used ? The newest one ?

 

[Theswweet]

Sweet, that sounds decent. What Cemu version have you used ? The newest one ?

Click to shrink...

I've been using 1.19.0, but that's only because when I moved from my laptop to my desktop that was the available version. I haven't updated since that'd mean I would have to start my shader cache from start.

Oh yeah - that's another thing. Latest versions of CEMU let you async compile shaders, so instead of having stutters when shaders load in, it just doesn't load the effect that the shaders are tied to until it's compiled. Either way, most shaders are only compiled when you head to a new area for the first time, so it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. Especially once you're pretty far into the game you stop running into it.

 

[Zalman]

It is the best Xenoblade game. The traversal and world design are unmatched.

 

[Alent]

Fantastic world to explore and running/flying around in skells is a blast. I don't even care about the lacking story because i found all the sidequests to be much more fun and engaging, and building up NLA with all the alien species and more was very fulfilling. It's not my fav of the series but i absolutely put it above XB2.

 

[NovumVeritas]

I've been using 1.19.0, but that's only because when I moved from my laptop to my desktop that was the available version. I haven't updated since that'd mean I would have to start my shader cache from start.

Oh yeah - that's another thing. Latest versions of CEMU let you async compile shaders, so instead of having stutters when shaders load in, it just doesn't load the effect that the shaders are tied to until it's compiled. Either way, most shaders are only compiled when you head to a new area for the first time, so it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. Especially once you're pretty far into the game you stop running into it.

Click to shrink...

You are almost up to date with the Cemu version. The async shader ability sounds similar to Ubershaders. I will have a look into it, sounds pretty good :)

 

[Asbsand]

Breath of the Wild Effect.

It's an open-ended game that asks the player to do their own thing until they can go do more main quest stuff, and in that process you discover a lot of things and unlock progression-related stuff that feels like you earned it yourself. On top of that the story isn't actually half bad and it's still very cinematic, there's just less of it. I also loved it more than the others, but I do still have a soft-spot for the more Hero's Journey arc of those other games, taking you on a grand adventure that ebbs and flows like a proper story.

 

[Ishaan]

X is probably the most mature of the three Xenoblades in its overall tone, too. I don't mean "mature" in the sense that the story is dark or anything, but that the game feels like it was designed by adults for adults. People that understand things like jobs and responsibility and being part of a society. Nearly everybody in the game speaks like an adult and treats you like one as well.

When you become part of BLADE, they go to great lengths to convey that you're part of something larger. You aren't the most important person in the world, people don't love you and hang on to your every word, and you aren't the chosen one destined to save the world from blah blah blah. I love that yours is one squad of many in BLADE, and a lot of them are hinted at being extremely capable in their own right.

This ties into gameplay, too. The way they have you pick a BLADE division at the start of the game, and spell out what your responsibilities are. I love it. Every single little thing in Xenoblade X is designed to make you feel like you're helping humanity rebuild itself on an alien planet, and doing it as part of a team.

Finally, I love the dialogue. There are little touches and flourishes, like Elma explaining why the probes are installed using lasers and buried deep underground. And she does this as you're installing your very first probe. It adds a lot to the worldbuilding and helps making everything that much more believable. This is, for my money, one of the best-written, most engrossing, and fleshed out JRPG worlds. And it has none of the usual JRPG "bullshit".

 

[Benes]

The idea was great on paper, but the delivery so-so.

QOL issues, meh soundtrack, ugly char faces are listed many times but my biggest disappointment was the fact that you can basically see the entire map on your pad from the first minute of game, killing all the sense of wonder and discovery.

Yes, you still must get there, but you already know there is going to be ice or fire or jungle or desert.

Obviously, my fav moment of this game was when I tried to reach ice area and I realized there was an UNMAPPED sand strip before it! <3

I hope they will fix all of those in XCX2.

 

[Bard]

I love XCX, going through the areas three different times as your mobility options open up always felt amazing because you'd end up finding a bunch of new things.

The soundtrack is glorious and I know people don't like the Skell combat but I had a ton of fun with it. I want more games where I can climb into a giant flying robot and explore a huge map, fuck it's so good.

This better be ported to the switch nintendo! Put Elma in smash damn it!

 

[Deleted member 31092]

Every Xenoblade is someone's favorite Xenoblade. They are 3 fantastic games.

I'm glad you love it OP. I personally love 2 and I can't wait to see what Monolith does next. They have my total trust at this point.

 

[Kouriozan]

I do agree that replaying XC1 DE, the combat feels much better in XCX and XC2. But I can forgive that since it was the first one.
What I loved in XCX is the ability to go and do whatever you wanted, once you get your skell, you can pratically go wherever you want, it felt so good. I only felt that again in BotW, and I played a lot of open world between those.
I also liked the class system, the music was amazing, as always with Xenoblade, and Elma is the best character by far.
With that ending I'm expecting they'll continue Mira's story sometime in the future.

 

[Yarbskoo]

It's not my favorite Xenoblade, but it is great and I wouldn't mind replaying it.

Anyone know if it's possible to restore the slider in the character creator in CEMU? You know the one.

Also, how's performance on a 9700K?

 

[Watershed]

Theoretically, how would this run on the Switch? I recall it had additional downloads for texture packs and something to speed up load times on the WiiU? With Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition having such poor resolution and tons of pop-in on the Switch, would X be a mess or would its WiiU origin be a positive for better resolution and performance?

 

[Bard]

People shit on the main story of this game a lot but the fact that the player isn't some chosen savior is one of the things I love about this game. It's just about people trying to survive and make a new home for themselves. Nobody here is some messiah from prophecy, they're all just engineers, pilots, scouts, medical staff, administrators who have to be soldiers as well in order to overcome these challenges. It was great, though a lot of info you get from some of this is more from the side an affinity missions, I still like how the main quest is just focused on establishing a reasonable foothold in this new planet for the continued survival of the human race and the other alien races when they start to take refuge in NLA.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Others have said it, but I'll reiterate it too. It is by far the most underrated xenoblade title and a game that so many people would love but they ignored it or didn't get a chance to play it. The main story isn't all that great, the human art style faces are a bit weird but the sense of you being a part of this gigantic world and literally just living day to day in it hasn't really been accomplished in another title I've ever played.

The main story not tying down your exploration meant as others I traversed basically the whole map when I felt like it and god it is a gorgeous planet. One of the few open world maps that make you feel as just another part in the circle of life.

For me the main story being as weak as it is isn't a deal breaker because the side quests breath so much life into the society and planet you can't help but not care. Your character not being the most important person in the planet or on your own squad for that matter makes it even more clear to me they never intended it to be center stage in this title. Hell even some of the boss fights don't seem all that well designed and detract from the great experience. They wanted to beat into your head that as competent as you were, your main squad mates and basically many other Blade members were just as competent as you and you are a cog in a really well oiled machine.

Skells being a whole new system introduced like 30+ hours into the game was insane. I don't think many other games have truly ever made you care about your robot as this game did. Saving up to buy the newest model was so rewarding.

It saddens and hurts me on so many levels that not everyone has experienced this title. It's stuck on the wii u when good marketing and a more popular console in the switch could breath so much new life into it. If Nintendo somehow allowed monolift to release this title on PC and steam ? It'd easily be one of the most popular rpgs ever and I'm sure the modding community could fix so many little issues.

As it stands when I beat XCDE I very likely will end up getting this title for CEMU. Enough is enough. Monolift has made it clear that the effort and money it would take to even do a simple port of the title to the switch is not something Nintendo wants to do. I am unlikely to get a proper remake of this title or a sequel to it. So might as well enjoy it on 4k 60 fps on my pc.

 

[Zephy]

Loved it, and I'd like to replay it one day, on PC with all the improvements (including the music replacement for New LA).

Hoping we get the sequel one day.

 

[Neifirst]

That was, by far, the main reason I loved the game. And as soon as you could fly, all of that is immediately gone. I think I almost dropped the game at that point lol, but opted to see the story to its (fairly disappointing) end.

Click to shrink...

This was my experience too, and I LOVED XBX. As cool as it was finally getting that Skell, I actually found the exploration was much more tension-filled and exciting during the on-foot sections of the game.

 

[Deleted member 12555]

Maybe we can see it on a more powerful switch pro or the successor, after playing XBDE, the heavy dynamic resolution will only hurt this game

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I just started Xeno Definitive and the resolution is all over the place. I'm cool with waiting I guess, as long as it comes out eventually, this Nintendo generation or the next. It'd be cool if they revisited it before launching a sequel.

I think Xenoblade is a well enough established name now that it'll justify a re-release.

For the people that played, what improvements would you consider most important for an updated version? I've read some stuff about insurance and I know there's the concept of fuel as well, were those fine as they were, or could they be improved upon or even eliminated altogether? What else?

 

[Alric]

With how good I'm hearing XCDE is doing I'm hopeful we'll get a switch port eventually so I can play this through.

 

[Dark Cloud]

I really hope it gets ported with all the fixes it needs. The side quests are great in this game. I love the board which separates them too. So you can do some simple ones like the usual fetch quests, but then you have those deeper side quests with a lot more story in them and that's where the story is at. Flying around in a Skell is amazing.

 

[Oswen]

I find it ok but it's pretty much the worst Xenoblade game.
The World, "class" system, music and mechas are great but overall the game feels disjointed, with odd diffculty jumps, too many "collect shiny things on the ground somewhere" quests and a rather weird and not that good story.

Felt more like a giant sandbox demo than a real game to me, an ok experience but not one I'd be eager to do all over again.

 

[Deleted member 17388]

It is great.

 

[Skulldead]

I love that game, but

Skell combat definitely isn't quite as deep as on-foot combat

Click to shrink...

Yeah same thing for me. I find them more confusing and way less fun then Ground combat. Also the diffculty of th game is all over the place, it goes to very easy to pretty freaking hard in a instant.

 

[K Samedi]

I enjoyed some of the maps but there are a couple of areas there that are flat out boring like the desert area and ice area. I thought the jungle was insanely good though.
The mechs and stuff are cool but I really didn't bother with them too much. There were too many stats to keep up with. The story is kind of boring and not that well executed. It's kind of a hit and miss game for me.

 

[Deleted member 31092]

Theoretically, how would this run on the Switch? I recall it had additional downloads for texture packs and something to speed up load times on the WiiU? With Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition having such poor resolution and tons of pop-in on the Switch, would X be a mess or would its WiiU origin be a positive for better resolution and performance?

Click to shrink...

Straight port: better/much better than on WiiU
Adding all the 2/DE visual tweaks: probably like DE and 2

People underestimate how big of a jump 2 was over X.

 

[Dark Cloud]

Some great things like running and no fall damage was appreciated for this game. I love the little blue ball you could throw out to follow

 

[Efejota]

XBX is a cool fucking game, way cooler than the other two even if 2 is probably still my overall favorite of the series.

The only thing I personally didn't like about it that much was the skell stuff, or more specifically, getting the flight unit for my skells. At that point I had been wandering the world for like 60 hours, narrowly avoiding my death hundreds of times, exploring areas where I shouldn't have survived and it was all very exhilarating. Getting to a high point, surrounded with high-level enemies, by finding hidden paths and making almost glitch-like jumps and leaps and so on with just your character? Incredibly rewarding.

That was, by far, the main reason I loved the game. And as soon as you could fly, all of that is immediately gone. I think I almost dropped the game at that point lol, but opted to see the story to its (fairly disappointing) end.

Click to shrink...

There were still some caves/facilites that forced you to get out of the skell since it didn't fit, but in a way I did have fun messing with the limits of the skell. Like trying to fight on foot against someone inside of a building while my partner would attack from the skell outside, or viceversa.

 

[Transistor]

Xenoblade Chronicles X is so good. XB2 feels like such a step backwards in so many areas.

 

[Zafir]

I still think it has the best gameplay of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. 1 and 2 are no doubt better on story if that's what you're into though.