Xenoblade Chronicles X - Out Now! Info in first post.

[BigShimmeryWall]

If they have any crafting in it, I hope it still has "To me!" "To you!".

[Keyboard Koala]

More character info:

Van Damme (!):

A commanding officer of BLADE, with the slight flaw of being overly sarcastic. He used to work as chief engineer aboard the immigration ship “White Whale”. He is broadminded and overbearing regardless of who he talks to, with his sarcasm as the flaw in the crystal.

Irina:

Also belongs to the private military organization “BLADE”. She worked for Elma when she was a part of the United Government Special Operations Unit, which is otherwise known as “the Doll Corps”. Irina eventually became a member of BLADE, but even now idolizes Elma as she holds her to the highest esteem. Though she has a strong-minded and frank personality, Irina has a strong sense of duty to protect the people of planet Mira. Monolith describes her as “The BLADE member with an overflowing sense of duty”.

[Nobuo's Organ]

Hmm... amateurish. Yes, amateurish.

[revlob]

"Doll" Corps?

That explains a lot.

[Curtis]

Mock-up cover for the Japanese pre-order version. And it looks like 29th April release. When's the English translation damnit?

[Keyboard Koala]

Not any time soon, I suppose. Xenoblade 3DS hasn't even been released yet. My guess would be late 2015.

[partious]

7900 yen (before sales tax i assume) is an awful lot more expensive than most wii u games

3d world and Mario Kart cost me 5500 each on day of release and smash bros was 6400, which I thought was pricey. Captain Toad was 3300.

Hope zelda doesn't follow suit.

Not going to stop me buying it though.

Edit: 7100 including tax/shipping on amazon, which is ok I guess.

I am aware that this is probably of little concern to most here

[Sun Tze]

How would you guys that have played it, rate the story in the original Xenoblade?

I see mr. Takahashi is still at the helm of things and to his day it kind of pains me he never got the chance to 'tell the entire story'. I remember finishing Xenosaga 1 and being blown away by the scope and grandeur of it all, then being massively disappointed when slow sales meant he had to compress the story into three parts instead of the 7 part epic he originally envisioned.

[SMD]

I wasn't expecting it to end the way it did. Up until then it seemed a decent but standard JRPG plot.

[revlob]

Usual silly trope-ridden nonsense you'd expect from a JRPG, with a cast of colourful yet largely forgettable characters. The setting was the best thing about it.

[dismembo]

I really enjoyed the story, actually. It certainly feels 'complete', anyway. Then again, there is nothing I didn't like about Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii.

[Professor Puzzles]

Not even the jumping animation?

[dismembo]

The jumping animation was rubbish but rubbish in an awesome way. It wasn't pretty but it got the job done.

[shynra]

They touched on it in an iwata asks and again in a eurogamer article, xenoblade was his first game epic where he had the time to do what he wanted, complete his vision. Was a bit where he ran out of time on xenoblade and had plans on how to cut/reduce stuff to make the target but the Nintendo producer told him to keep on going, he will get him more time (and he did) game delayed but he finally got his vision out complete.

Edit:http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-09-most-anticipated-x good ol Simon article too!

Edit2:

Taken from above as he puts it better and more accurately than I:

For example, the PlayStation role-playing game, Xenogears (the first title that Takahashi led as director) ran out of budget midway through development. The team was forced to tell the second half of the story through a series of montage cutscenes. Likewise, Takahashi's grand and ambitious six-part epic Xenosaga was cut short after just three releases, limping to a premature conclusion. The director has a history of making it halfway across a river before finding that his ambition has outstripped commercial, technological or simple physical realities.

History seemed set to repeat with Xenoblade Chronicles, Takahashi's most recent title, published by Nintendo in 2011, a game set on a pair of gigantic bipedal statue gods. Midway through the project the team encountered a raft of difficulties and, realising they would miss the launch deadline, a deflated Takahashi met with Hitoshi Yamagami, the Nintendo producer who oversees RPG development, to suggest a list of deadline-aiding compromises. But Yamagami rejected the plan and told the designer: "You've come this far. You should see it through to the end. I'll convince the others at the company."

It was a risky yet shrewd move on Nintendo's part. The finished Xenoblade Chronicles is one of the strongest and most interesting releases of the past decade, a game that revitalised interest in a fading genre and which, with a clutch of smart tweaks, brought together the very best of contemporary Japanese and western design traits. Takahashi had at last found a partner with both deep enough pockets to fund his outrageous visions and the creative wisdom to steer him away from crippling indulgence.

Read rest in link above

[Dig Dug]

That reminds me of a lecture I had in a game design class today.

In the film industry studios release these huge blockbuster films and safe money makers so they can put money into their more riskier films (the kind that get Oscar nominations), the game industry doesn't really have that. Xenoblade is one of those rare cases where Nintendo used the war chest they got from Wii fitness games to bankroll what is now considered a milestone in its genre.

Could you imagine what the industry would be like if more companies did that instead of treating every game with a "sink or swim" attitude?

We sometimes get that to a degree (think EA bankrolling Shadows of the Damned for example) but we hardly see these type of games be as good as they could have possibly been if the designers were told they could make exactly what they wanted.

[Keyboard Koala]

Gah!

I gave up on the Wii game due to not having enough time to play it, and eventually never went back. Now I'm looking even more forward to the portable version.

[Keyboard Koala]

More details courtesy of the latest issue of Famistu:

– Mira is 400km², which is 5 times (!!) the size of Xenoblade’s original world

– Takahashi’s final check play time was over 300 hours (!!!)

– There are 8 “Union” Sounds"; something like factions for quests; and you can join any of them, and change them depending on your goal. Their names are PATH FINDER, COLEPEDIAN, INTERCEPTOR, LAND BANK, AVALANCHE, ARMS, TESTAMENT, COMPANION.

– Many options for player avatar customization, but there are preset avatar designs by Kunihiko Tanaka

– GamePad shows character locations, quest locations and you can warp to previously visited areas via the GamePad

– The use of ‘X’ in the title has implications for the online functionality, but not as a standard online game, more ‘loosely connected’ (?)

– About 90 songs in the game, and whereas Xenoblade Chronicles had only 1 vocal song at the end, but Xenoblade Chronicles X has many vocal songs

– Sawano involved in all aspects of music

– Battles are faster paced, more action oriented than in Xenobalde Chronicles; and your character differentiates close and distant attacks

– No healer class

– Healing done with new system called ‘Soul Voice’

– 4-player party, in which you control 1 character, the AI controls the rest

– More unique monsters and equipment than Xenoblade Chronicles

– Xenoblade Chronicles was a traditional RPG, whereas Xenoblade Chronicles X is an more of an open world RPG

– Xenoblade Chronicles was quite linear despite having a big world; in Xenoblade Chronicles X you will get quests from different places and have more freedom

300 hours though! Who still has that much time to spend on just one game?

"Threehundred hours! Extreeeeeme!!"

[dismembo]

That's three hundred hours when you know what you're doing. It'll probably take much longer than that if you're taking your time and enjoying the scenery, like me. Probably won't matter that there are fewer games on the Wii U when you can play this.

[Keyboard Koala]

It'll probably take much longer than that if you're taking your time and enjoying the scenery, like me.

I tend to do that as well. How long did it take you to finish the Wii original then?

[dismembo]

I'd have to check the save file but I think I easily spent a couple of hundred hours in that wonderful world. I never wanted it to end and tried to do as many quests as possible. I must have missed some though. How long did it take you?

[Keyboard Koala]

I gave up after only 15hrs or so. Changed work right after I'd started it, so didn't have time to play it anymore. Looking forward to the n3DS version though.

[mdn2]

My completed file was about 120 hours. I'll probably do the same for the 3DS remake.

[dismembo]

I gave up after only 15hrs or so. Changed work right after I'd started it, so didn't have time to play it anymore. Looking forward to the n3DS version though.

Gosh! You must have barely scratched the surface. If you enjoyed what you played upto that point, then I think you'll be in for a real treat. I'm hoping to be able to play through it again myself, before the new one arrives.

[Keyboard Koala]

Think so, yes.

But it was already worth it for *dat* intro. So awesome; so epic. Esp. when the camera pans and zooms out and reveals the towering hulking giants on which your adventure will begin.

[Professor Puzzles]

I was mostly enjoying it to start with then Gaur Plains happened and I jizzed out my eyeballs.

[GokouD]

I've had a thought, this game is obviously set on a low gravity world, hence the massive jumps, tall creatures and flying whales. If it's quite a small planet, I wonder if we'll be able to circumnavigate it? That would certainly make for an interesting map...

[shirubagan]

Mock-up cover for the Japanese pre-order version. And it looks like 29th April release. When's the English translation damnit?

Not any time soon, I suppose. Xenoblade 3DS hasn't even been released yet. My guess would be late 2015.

Yeah, you're both spot-on. According to Nintendo's recently released sales report, Xenoblade n3DS remake will be out on the 2nd April in Europe.

The Japanese version of X will be released on the 29th April with US and EU TBD 2015.

[Keyboard Koala]

New characters reveal:

Guin:

Another member of the private military organization, BLADE. Back on Earth, he worked as a subordinate of Elma and Irina as part of the government spec-ops vehicular instructor corps known as the Doll Squad.

He occasionally messes up here and there, but he’s an honest character who admires Irina and also has a bit of a crush on her.

Nagi:

Nagi is the former captain of the White Whale, an interstellar immigrant ship. He currently serves as the military director of the autonomous government of NLA (New Los Angeles).

In order to protect the livelihood of those living on planet Mira, he works himself to death on a daily basis with government affairs.

I love how the Blade logo looks like a 90s arcade game logo.

[Sun Tze]

1 The use of ‘X’ in the title has implications for the online functionality, but not as a standard online game, more ‘loosely connected’ (?)

2 Sawano involved in all aspects of music

3 300 hours though! Who still has that much time to spend on just one game?

1. Could there be co op/ pvp modes ? Most likely an Arena where you can duel with your Mecha's?

2. Who is this Sawano I keep hearing about? Second thing i checked when i heard about this game was whether Mitsuda was back on board directing music and i think he is?

3. 300 is not that much.... but my gaming purchases are down to maybe 1 game per year on avg so i appreciate it when they last or have good replay value.

[shynra]

Sawano is the composer chosen specifically for the game. I only know him from Gundam Unicorn and he did attack on titan i think too:

example of his work in Unicorn:

Skip to 54 secs to avoid unicorn Ep 1 possible spoiler: