I've put more than 100 hours in Xenoblade X now and I don't even think I'm close to finishing the story yet. I've been so busy solving petty disputes and diffusing racial tensions (and good fucking god there are so many racial tensions) that the main story about huge galactic organisations and the Lifehold Core has kind of fallen to the wayside for me. Not to say I'm not enjoying it, it may not be like the first Xenoblade in many ways but it's got it's narrative hooks into me, it's just that said narrative hooks are only as big as every other brilliantly crafted sidequest in what has fast become one of my favourite fictional worlds.
The best part of Xenoblade X for me is the time immediately after completing a main story quest. Once you come home after one of these a load of new sidequests will pop up all over New LA, and wandering the streets and corridors of the 6 districts and finding all sorts of squabbles and assassination attempts and alien harems, then looking at the quest list with a smile on my face trying to decide which I should start with.
On top of this is the quest board in the Administrative District, which I quickly realised wasn't a quest board in the traditional sense like I thought it would be when it was introduced. It's not a checklist, it's an every-updating space-craigslist. You don't "finish" the quest-board, like you would in World of Warcraft or other such games, you can only accept 20 missions at a time from it and that won't cover everything posted on it at once, and as soon as you finish a quest a new one comes up. The quest-board is literally your job, and I mean that in the best possible way. The sidequests you find around NLA aren't going to net you much money most of the time, unless it's part of the quest itself like a Nopon Get-Rich-Quick scheme or a Manon offering cash for Miranium, so the quest board is your in-universe day job. And once you start looking at it like that, you realise that all those boring collectathon quests you aren't bothered about are there to be ignored. You notice characters actually pointing it out too, it's all part of your job. You pick up the work you enjoy. Until I reached that point I was stuck with a ton of boring collection quests I thought I HAD to do, because it was on the quest board. Now I pretty much exclusively pick up the giant monster assassination missions like the model Harrier that I am, and instantly turning in any collection missions I'd picked up the materials for just by wandering around.
To a lot of people the idea of simulating a job like this will be completely unappealing to them. I can certainly see why too. But I love it, as part of the simulation of a city so detailed that I could show you on the map where all the garbage is incinerated and who's in charge of it, as well as their subordinates. And not just because the game includes a huge sprawling "affinity map" of everyone you've met, how they relate to everyone else and how dead they are right now. I remember these people I meet on the street more than I remember anyone that wasn't a main character in Witcher 3, and unlike in Witcher 3 I actually look forward to seeing them again, despite them being just as likely to end up dead.
Lots of these people will end up dead, to be honest. Weather they're unfortunate victims of some race-motivated crime or if they've just decided to pull a heel-turn worthy of WWE at it's best and you're left to smack up their shit with a 4-person pile-on. The game isn't afraid to veer into very dark territories, and they're all the more effecting because of how much of the game is a sci-fi slice-of-life story. To compare it to the Witcher 3 again, I could so much as participate in a boxing match without having to deliberately lose to that my opponent could feed his family. I found it all so taxing, dreary and frankly depressing. But Xenoblade presents a much more interesting world full of people I care about witch stories that actually end on happy notes, rather than morally grey and often depressing ones. I feel like I'll have to write about how much I don't like Witcher 3 at some point now. Ugh.
There's so much else to talk about with Xenoblade X. The soundtrack, which is still my favourite of everything in 2015, the combat, the clothes, the planet, I'd be here all day. But this stuff about the world is what I really wanted to write about, and you can probably find all that stuff in the reviews. Xenoblade X is a spectacular game and it ties with Bloodborne for me as the best game of 2015. And 2015 was a damn good year.
I'll probably write about Final Fantasy XIII-2 next, before I forget about it. Toot.
The best part of Xenoblade X for me is the time immediately after completing a main story quest. Once you come home after one of these a load of new sidequests will pop up all over New LA, and wandering the streets and corridors of the 6 districts and finding all sorts of squabbles and assassination attempts and alien harems, then looking at the quest list with a smile on my face trying to decide which I should start with.
On top of this is the quest board in the Administrative District, which I quickly realised wasn't a quest board in the traditional sense like I thought it would be when it was introduced. It's not a checklist, it's an every-updating space-craigslist. You don't "finish" the quest-board, like you would in World of Warcraft or other such games, you can only accept 20 missions at a time from it and that won't cover everything posted on it at once, and as soon as you finish a quest a new one comes up. The quest-board is literally your job, and I mean that in the best possible way. The sidequests you find around NLA aren't going to net you much money most of the time, unless it's part of the quest itself like a Nopon Get-Rich-Quick scheme or a Manon offering cash for Miranium, so the quest board is your in-universe day job. And once you start looking at it like that, you realise that all those boring collectathon quests you aren't bothered about are there to be ignored. You notice characters actually pointing it out too, it's all part of your job. You pick up the work you enjoy. Until I reached that point I was stuck with a ton of boring collection quests I thought I HAD to do, because it was on the quest board. Now I pretty much exclusively pick up the giant monster assassination missions like the model Harrier that I am, and instantly turning in any collection missions I'd picked up the materials for just by wandering around.
To a lot of people the idea of simulating a job like this will be completely unappealing to them. I can certainly see why too. But I love it, as part of the simulation of a city so detailed that I could show you on the map where all the garbage is incinerated and who's in charge of it, as well as their subordinates. And not just because the game includes a huge sprawling "affinity map" of everyone you've met, how they relate to everyone else and how dead they are right now. I remember these people I meet on the street more than I remember anyone that wasn't a main character in Witcher 3, and unlike in Witcher 3 I actually look forward to seeing them again, despite them being just as likely to end up dead.
Lots of these people will end up dead, to be honest. Weather they're unfortunate victims of some race-motivated crime or if they've just decided to pull a heel-turn worthy of WWE at it's best and you're left to smack up their shit with a 4-person pile-on. The game isn't afraid to veer into very dark territories, and they're all the more effecting because of how much of the game is a sci-fi slice-of-life story. To compare it to the Witcher 3 again, I could so much as participate in a boxing match without having to deliberately lose to that my opponent could feed his family. I found it all so taxing, dreary and frankly depressing. But Xenoblade presents a much more interesting world full of people I care about witch stories that actually end on happy notes, rather than morally grey and often depressing ones. I feel like I'll have to write about how much I don't like Witcher 3 at some point now. Ugh.
There's so much else to talk about with Xenoblade X. The soundtrack, which is still my favourite of everything in 2015, the combat, the clothes, the planet, I'd be here all day. But this stuff about the world is what I really wanted to write about, and you can probably find all that stuff in the reviews. Xenoblade X is a spectacular game and it ties with Bloodborne for me as the best game of 2015. And 2015 was a damn good year.
I'll probably write about Final Fantasy XIII-2 next, before I forget about it. Toot.
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