Xenoblade Chronicles X [Wii U]

[Candescence]

What is the extent of Nintendo's involvement with the series? It's not first or second party... did they buy exclusivity rights or something?

Uh... It IS second party. Monolith soft is owned by Nintendo.

[Patticus]

Uh... It IS second party. Monolith soft is owned by Nintendo.

Oh, I had no idea!

How are their Xenoblade games' RPG elements? The only RPG I have been able to stomach is Mass Effect (the first being much more RPG-y than its successors), how would their last game compare to that? Do you have to level bust all the time, are you tied to FF-style battles, or is it more open and actiony?

[Jolt_TH]

Haven't played it myself but for what I can tell its an action based RPG with real time battles with RPG elements as opposed to turn based and it is very very open and explore-encouraging

[EuroMIX]

Oh, I had no idea!

How are their Xenoblade games' RPG elements? The only RPG I have been able to stomach is Mass Effect (the first being much more RPG-y than its successors), how would their last game compare to that? Do you have to level bust all the time, are you tied to FF-style battles, or is it more open and actiony?

 

I you see it, you can more than likely go there. I made a point myself to explore all around Colony 9 just to see how flexible the game was. The combat is like real-time RPG, where you can move but you choose attacks from a list.

[Autosaver]

Oh, I had no idea!

How are their Xenoblade games' RPG elements? The only RPG I have been able to stomach is Mass Effect (the first being much more RPG-y than its successors), how would their last game compare to that? Do you have to level bust all the time, are you tied to FF-style battles, or is it more open and actiony?

 

The game has little to no grinding, so that's lovely. Plus the side quests give you a ton of XP so it's not like you will have to spend hours before fighting a boss or anything.

 

The battles are a blend of old school and modern RPG. Your character has auto attacks and you can move around. You get a bar on the bottom screen that lets you use special moves. These moves are important because some of them have special properties. One has triple damage if you hit the enemy on its back. Another one has the ability to confuse an enemy. A third move could say "If an enemy is confused, use this to topple them and knock them down" which means you should have some strategy.

 

Other characters in your party use these moves too so you can combo with your own moves to do some devastating effects.

 

The game is open and you explore vast fields. The enemies on the field you fight right there and then. There's no random encounter. You don't load up any special arenas. You just fight them where you found them. If you die? You keep your items, gold, and progress. There's no losing money, losing your items, or losing all that progress you made because you died. It eases stress and makes the RPG genre more tolerable.

 

I own Mass Effect 3 but I haven't played it yet so I honestly can't make any comparisons to that game yet.

[\Lennox]

Uh... It IS second party. Monolith soft is owned by Nintendo.

 

Second-party =/= Owned by Nintendo (For example, Game Freak isn't owned by Nintendo and yet they still make games exclusively for Nintendo platforms. That's why they're second-party.).

 

First party = Owned by Nintendo (Monolith Soft was fully bought by Nintendo, as of 2008. Any Banpresto projects that require their assistance are exclusively released on Nintendo consoles as a result. So yeah, Project X Zone? That game was Nintendo-developed and I'm still shocked about that.)

 

Thee battles are a blend of old school and modern RPG. Your character has auto attacks and you can move around. You get a bar on the bottom screen that lets you use special moves. These moves are important because some of them have special properties. One has triple damage if you hit the enemy on its back. Another one has the ability to confuse an enemy. A third move could say "If an enemy is confused, use this to topple them and knock them down" which means you should have some strategy.

If anything, the combat's more like an MMORPG, except you have no MP or TP (like in FFXIV or FFXI). All Arts (in-game jargon for techniques/skills) have cooldown/recast time, every player character has aggro and socketed equipment constitutes most of your pre-battle buffs. No HP recovery items, but X may be different in the sense that Doll Fuel will be recovered. Positioning is still important though, as a higher damage output occurs DEPENDING on the angle from which your hit connects with the enemy.

Break-Topple-Daze is probably one of the most helpful ways to ensure some form of an advantage in combat. Breaking reduces the enemy's defenses, leaves them open to Toppling which leaves them vulnerable to attack--Daze only extends that window of vulnerability and visually resembles Pokémon's Confusion status effect. Note that your player characters are not immune to this as well, so if you've been Broken, chances are that if your enemy has moves that can Topple and Daze you, you're screwed.

Edited June 15, 2013 by Lennox

[Soniman]

if anyone is interested here is the gameplay video

 

 

cool to final see how the mechs work

[JaidynReiman]

 Second-party =/= Owned by Nintendo (For example, Game Freak isn't owned by Nintendo and yet they still make games exclusively for Nintendo platforms. That's why they're second-party.).

 

First party = Owned by Nintendo (Monolith Soft was fully bought by Nintendo, as of 2008. Any Banpresto projects that require their assistance are exclusively released on Nintendo consoles as a result. So yeah, Project X Zone? That game was Nintendo-developed and I'm still shocked about that.)

That's not really accurate:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer#Second-party_developer

 

 

Second-party refers to subsidiary companies and companies with a contract with a company to only publish games with that console owner. Technically, though, because the console developer funds it, they're all first-party. Second-party is just a term used by people to distinguish between games developed by a console owner or by a console owner's subsidaries/licensed developers.

 

So, Monolith Soft and Retro Studios are both "second" party to Nintendo, as is Rare and Bungie to Microsoft.

 

 

Retro Studios and Bungie merely have contracts with Nintendo and Microsoft, respectively (Bungie was formerly owned by Microsoft) and Monolith and Rare are owned by Nintendo and Microsoft, respectively, as subsidiaries.

[KrazyBean]

if anyone is interested here is the gameplay video

 

 

cool to final see how the mechs work

 

And now people are saying that the mechs are ripping off Titanfall. Oh the wonders of the YouTube comments section.

 

Also, "Huge Succeeded". LMAO!

[MegasonicZX]

Ya know, while the mechs look pretty cool, im not exactly really sold on the gameplay, it looks pretty slow and the enemies look like they take way too much time to take out. I'll still keep an eye on this though since it might just be some early footage that might be improved on later in the games development.

[Gabz Girl]

It really does look gorgeous, and the gameplay reminds me a lot of Xenoblade though the HUD looks vastly different. The mechs are an added bonus too. Honestly I don't see anything wrong with it! I just wish they could tell us what this game is actually called, what the story is and whether this is an MMO or not. That's all for E3, I guess.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

if anyone is interested here is the gameplay video

 

 

cool to final see how the mechs work

I'm getting powerful Transformers vibes from this. Good.

[Kaabiitorori]

From the gameplay trailer (incredibly good-looking trailer, by the way!), if you have previously played Xenoblade you know where you are coming from. From the looks of the trailer, the game seems to feature the same Battle Arts system: commands shown on the bottom of the screen which allows you to attack, perform buffs/debuffs, magic, assist with healing, etc., including unique Talent Arts for each character. Not only this applies to your characters but also on your mechs too, and the latter can assist you on defeating bigger and stronger enemies.

 

I'm very pleased to see X will follow up the great gameplay featured in Xenoblade, now even more polished for this game. Cannot wait for more information about the overworlds, the story, and more gamplay footage. This game is looking incredibly good! =D

[Zaysho]

Ya know, while the mechs look pretty cool, im not exactly really sold on the gameplay, it looks pretty slow and the enemies look like they take way too much time to take out. I'll still keep an eye on this though since it might just be some early footage that might be improved on later in the games development.

For what it's worth, Xenoblade's battles were occasionally a little slow and tedious at times. I'm actually not too surprised (not that I disliked Xenoblade's system, but it definitely got a little hectic and tedious with the larger creatures).

 

Seeing how the Mechs work in battle is cool to see, though. Can't wait to hear more in the future. The little bit they showed so far looks really good. Hopefully the inventory system gets a major upgrade, because it was a huge pain in the later parts of game.

[Conando]

That's not really accurate:

(ALL OF THE TEXT)

 

You're wrong, though. Retro Studios and Monolith Soft are internal Nintendo developers now, complete owned and integrated into their software and development department. They are not under contract, they are Nintendo.

 

http://www.retrostudios.com/retro.asp

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Soft

[JaidynReiman]

You're wrong, though. Retro Studios and Monolith Soft are internal Nintendo developers now, complete owned and integrated into their software and development department. They are not under contract, they are Nintendo.

 

http://www.retrostudios.com/retro.asp

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Soft

I looked up Retro Studios and it didn't seem to say that, but ok. Both are still subsidiary companies, though. Yes they're wholly owned, but it doesn't change the fact that they are subsidiaries of Nintendo.

 

It'd be a different case if the subsidiary companies themselves were disbanded and integrated as a specific studio in Nintendo similar to Sonic Team. Sonic Team has its own name and everything, but its still a specific team, not a subsidiary company.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiary

[Sami]

Gonna be honest, I... didn't really like what we saw in the Direct yesterday. I'm not really sure what I expected? I played about three or four hours of Xenoblade and enjoyed it, but I can easily say that the combat was the weakest part for me. I'm just not very fond of the MMO-like battle system - makes me feel like I'm not really in full control. 

 

It was hard to really pinpoint what I didn't like because it just felt... off. Reading from other impressions, though, I think I can understand why it just didn't feel very exciting to me. 

 

- UI is extremely cluttered and covers up way too much of the screen

- There are no physical effects on the player or enemy from taking damage. Enemies just cycle through their attack animations without even flinching when four players are pumping them full of bullets. It's also rather telling that hardly anyone even noticed the player mech losing its arm after getting attacked. Shouldn't these things have some actual impact to make it feel like something is happening?

- Sound design is very muted. Your weapons don't feel like they have any power to them.

- Movement is very slow. No dodging or chasing going on - it feels like an awkward middle ground between turn based and real time without the benefits of either at their best.

 

Bummer. This game was going to be a day one system seller and I really want to love it, but... well, I hope they improve it.

[MegasonicZX]

Yeah, I was actually pretty hyped for this til I found out it was just going to be made with the same system as xenoblade but with mechs, I don't really like the mmo battle system either. 

[Soniman]

It's basically a Final Fantasy-esque Active Time Battle System but with the luxury of actually moving around, very much akin to XII but with some differences. 

 

Xeno's battle system was more then just standing around and watching your players execute attacks, you can move around the enemy, attack from behind for extra damage, attack from the side and set up for more hdd hitting attacks, commanding your other characters and so on. In that sense X seems to build on that, with the whole "mechs" angle being a new angle that's sure to add some extra depth to the whole thing. Im not going to act like Xeno's battle system was super deep but it was still very robust and I still enjoyd playing it, having a game that's the same thing but with more stuff added to it is far from a deal breaker, imo.

[Sami]

It's basically a Final Fantasy-esque Active Time Battle System but with the luxury of actually moving around, very much akin to XII but with some differences. 

 

Xeno's battle system was more then just standing around and watching your players execute attacks, you can move around the enemy, attack from behind for extra damage, attack from the side and set up for more hdd hitting attacks, commanding your other characters and so on. In that sense X seems to build on that, with the whole "mechs" angle being a new angle that's sure to add some extra depth to the whole thing. Im not going to act like Xeno's battle system was super deep but it was still very robust and I still enjoyd playing it, having a game that's the same thing but with more stuff added to it is far from a deal breaker, imo.

 

Oh I don't think it's a bad system or anything, it just doesn't suit my particular tastes. I'd rather go full action or full turn based to fully take advantage of each system. ATB's something I would count as turn based, and I did enjoy that. The bars refill at such a speed that it is pretty much turn by turn anyway, but it just doesn't allow you to sit around for full minutes planning out moves like you can in Pokemon or Persona.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

So I watched the trailer, and a bunch of animes kept yelling at abominations while they took turns flashily grazing them. Is this normal for Xeno-X or

[SilentDoom]

I personally love the Xenoblade battle system. It's a nice balance between dynamic and strategic. Although one thing I noticed is that it seems to be multiplayer co-op this time (alarmingly few have drawn attention to this). I speculate this because the characters were all distinctly different levels. In Xenoblade all characters levelled together so they were never more than about 3 or so levels ahead/behind each other. However the first player is level 45 whilst the second is only level 26.

This is quite interesting actually because part of the appeal of Xenoblade's system was the ability to sort of micro manage your team. Despite the fact that you technically only controlled one character it felt like you had control of three.

On the other hand co-op allows you too potentially create more interesting strategies if you can decently communicate between each other. How will chain attacks work for example?

Mechs of course look like they'll spice up gameplay even more and honestly who doesn't like giant mechs? I'm also loving the enemy designs. Complex yet clear enough to appreciate the detail.

Still super hyped for this. I just wish we had more info on the game overall. Story details, a release date, a title.

[dabbido]

I'm gonna agree with Discoid, I mean... I do love how everything looks and I'm gonna definitely be picking this one up! but there's some things that bother me. Specifically:

 

-How there seems to be no effect whatsoever when you attack monsters, or when it attacks you, I mean they're shooting the heck out of it! at least give it an effect so you know you're hitting it! :/ I'd say let the monster react in pain sometimes too, Then again I didn't have a problem with that on Monster Hunter, but at least you saw blood coming out, and several other effects to let you know you're hitting.  

 

 

-Sound, pretty much the same as before, you're unleashing a barrage of attacks and it doesn't even sound powerful. It's too weird when someone on a mech is shooting while the others attack from all angles with guns and the sound makes you think you're in a beautiful garden, with soft winds and birds singing, that's just wrong XD

 

But yeah, that won't stop me from getting it, but It still bothers me somehow.  

[Solkia]

Wait, so there's no animated feedback to when you hit an enemy?

 

God I hate that shit. That was my main problem with the Monster Hunter demo on 3DS; I couldn't ever tell if I was actually doing anything, because the monster lacked a healthbar as well as feedback.

[Gabz Girl]

From what I remember there was definitely animated feedback in Xenoblade. The enemy would sometimes take a breather for a few seconds because of its low health or even try to escape to regain health a la Monster Hunter. Pretty sure this was an early gameplay vid and we'll see a similar thing in the final release.