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punk rebel ecks posted:The thing isn't that Xenoblade Chronicles exploration was incredible, it is just that Xenoblade X's exploration is so bad in comparison that it makes Xenoblade Chronicles look incredible in comparison. I explored X just fine and had a pretty good survey rate of all the areas. It is just really boring and mediocre to explore. You do remember that The Bionis was largely a straight road from Colony 9 to Alcamoth, right? I love Xenoblade Chronicles to death, but there is no way in hell that it had better exploration than XCX does. Hell, Xenoblade Chronicles even mostly divided its areas by level ranges, rather than scattering creatures like throughout the zones like actual wildlife. Sneaking past a pack of level 30 Grexes to go kill some level 20's is much more fun than "well, I hit the level 30 region, better go back for now  ".punk rebel ecks posted:No it isn't. You can keep saying "objective", but sorry it isn't true. In Chronicles you actually have to reasonably explore areas to find many of the bosses. Not all of them, but a good sum of them. In Xenoblade X virtually all of them are just walking around in open field in a common area. And yet you keep throwing your subjective opinion around as absolute fact despite all arguments to the contrary of it  .
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Dec 31, 2015 08:16
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Improbable Lobster posted:Literally incorrect Well that was my experience with the game. Just run around in the Skell and find tyrant after tyrant.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:16
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punk rebel ecks posted:No it isn't. You can keep saying "objective", but sorry it isn't true. In Chronicles you actually have to reasonably explore areas to find many of the bosses. Not all of them, but a good sum of them. In Xenoblade X virtually all of them are just walking around in open field in a common area. This is factually incorrect. Bosses are hidden in a variety of places including deep in caves, only found in certain conditions, or in out of the way places. Many of them are visible in the open or in obvious places but the same applies to Unique Monsters in Xenoblade Chronicles, most of whom can be trivially found just by looking around. This isn't even a case where it's like hard to prove. Here's a list: http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Unique_Monster At best some of them only spawn after a certain point in the story or under certain weather conditions.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:18
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Neddy Seagoon posted:You do remember that The Bionis was largely a straight road from Colony 9 to Alcamoth, right? I love Xenoblade Chronicles to death, but there is no way in hell that it had better exploration than XCX does. Hell, Xenoblade Chronicles even mostly divided its areas by level ranges, rather than scattering creatures like throughout the zones like actual wildlife. Sneaking past a pack of level 30 Grexes to go kill some level 20's is much more fun than "well, I hit the level 30 region, better go back for now It isn't just a straight zone, it is how the map is designed. Yes Chronicles was essentially big map after big map, but there was a lot of care put into the design and layout. In contrast X just feels like a lot of randomly generated areas, which plague almost every large open world game. punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 08:18
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punk rebel ecks posted:Sorry if I give you my opinion. Calling it your opinion doesn't mean it isn't incorrect. You're free to dislike Xenoblade X all you want and that is your opinion but when you start making claims like the bosses were all unique or whatever then you are stating a fact that can be disproven, not an opinion.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:21
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ImpAtom posted:This is factually incorrect. Bosses are hidden in a variety of places including deep in caves, only found in certain conditions, or in out of the way places. Many of them are visible in the open or in obvious places but the same applies to Unique Monsters in Xenoblade Chronicles, most of whom can be trivially found just by looking around. I will concede that there weren't as many unique bosses as I recall in Chronicles. I will still maintain that Chronicles had far better exploration as the areas were far better designed IMO.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:22
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Motto posted:You can argue that Xenoblade's locales are more visually appealing than X's relatively more archetypal zones Noctilum has like 4 different types of Jungle and I want to see what "archetype" Sylvalum can be said to fall under.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:24
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Hell, let's look at what going through an average region in each game is like; Xenoblade Chronicles; There's a mob. There's some more. Let's swing wide and avoid those. Whoops, it's a high-level area, better go back around the other way. XCX; Well there's a bunch of flowers there that may be Mortifoles. That clump of rocks might be a Tectinsula, better go poke it carefully AND OH GOD IT'S TEN LEVELS HIGHER THAN US, RUN! Oh look, Scipios are descending from the treetops. It's night, so we can sneak through those Solbats without them honking everyone to death and go reach that probe site now.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:26
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punk rebel ecks posted:I will concede that there weren't as many unique bosses as I recall in Chronicles. I will still maintain that Chronicles had far better exploration as the areas were far better designed IMO. Here is a list of the Secret Areas in Xenoblade: http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Secret_Area Now, this doesn't represent the full extent of what you can find while exploring in Xenoblade but these are things which are considered the big secrets in each area. They are not huge hidden areas with a lot of content to them. Most of them are just a particularly cool thing in the environment like the scar from Dunban's Monado burst in the opening. Again, they are paralleled in Xenoblade X by the actual Landmarks you can discover. Even then there are distinctive things to find in X. In Oblivia for example there's a hidden cave packed full of items that's super-easy to miss because it's buried in a cliffside and small enough that if you're in a Skell you might not even see it. There's also obvious landmarks in the open world like the Leaning Ring. Every zone has their share of both. There's hidden superweapons or equipment or sidequests to be found just by exploring. Plus there's a lot of cleverly designed hidden paths and secrets. Prior to getting your Skell there are a lot of cool hidden pathways you probably wouldn't find that involve going nonstandard ways to get to goals. You can get to a lot of probe points or treasures well before you'd expect to be able to. Even once you get the Skell it opens up a lot of potential paths that you might miss once you get the Flight Pack and can just fly everywhere. Caldros on the ground is almost an entirely different beast from Caldros in a Skell. Now if you just like exploring Xenoblade more, that's fine and completely your prerogative, but the gap between the two is not as wide as you're describing.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:32
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punk rebel ecks posted:No it isn't. You can keep saying "objective", but sorry it isn't true. In Chronicles you actually have to reasonably explore areas to find many of the bosses. Not all of them, but a good sum of them. In Xenoblade X virtually all of them are just walking around in open field in a common area. Seriously, you aren't making any sense with these arguments. There was little to nothing to explore in Chronicles - with the exception of the caves in Guar and a few ruins in the marsh that ended up being quest targets anyway, everything was pretty open and visible and basically just scenery, no nifty hidden tidbits or anything. Most of the later areas were pretty linear, too. Conversely, X is packed with all kinds of cool, hidden away poo poo that exists simply to be found by you, without quest prompting, which puts the exploration aspects of Xenoblade to shame - you know, exactly what it set out to do in the first place. Also, your complaint about Tyrants? There are just as many hidden Tyrants as there were random boss monsters in XBC. There are also several Tyrants that walk around. And several Tyrants that only show up during certain conditions. Or times of day. And so on. There's over 300 of the drat things. Many of them are hidden and lords of their own little area. It's not even remotely fair to compare this aspect of the two games in the first place, and the fact that you are somehow saying X did it worse is baffling. I mean, I prefer XBC as well, but X is a much, much larger game with a much more interesting sandbox. There isn't even a contest.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:40
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Hell, let's look at what going through an average region in each game is like; None of that sounds particularly interesting in X. All that changed was an enemy swap. In Chronicles the maps were actually properly designed to explore. I could explore the forest and find a strangely shaped hill. I go up it and find the Lizard's Templar. I could explore Gaur Plains and find the spider's lair or the tribe behind the mountain. But what is there isn't what is important, what is important is that it is actually reasonably enjoyable to get there. To find the tribe you have to navigate through the narrow spaces behind the mountain of Gaur Plains. Dungeons were actually dungeons and not just mines you can go in and out of immediately. There are many other examples of this but this is what immediately comes to mind. Now is Chronicles the undisputed king of level design? No. But compared to X it is certainly much better. X's areas are just boring as hell and feel randomly generated. It suffers from Metal Gear Solid V syndrome. While X has huge areas with tons of content, they aren't particularly interesting. Sure things look nice but that's about it.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:41
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Who could forget the amazing XBC dungeons like "narrow walkways with enemies on them and nothing else". That was a cool way to get to one of the final bosses.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:50
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ImpAtom posted:Stuff. Psycho Landlord posted:Stuff. I'm speaking quality of quantity. Sure X has MUCH more hidden areas as compared to Chronicles. However, to me at least, they weren't as well done because Chronicles felt like a much more tightly designed games which made the journey to get to said areas in Chronicles far more enjoyable. For an example, if you would ask most gamers what game currently has the best exploration, many would say Dark Souls. Now this would be odd to someone who hasn't played the Souls games because the games don't have too many hidden areas on paper, but the journey to get to them is very enjoyable. And once the player discovers them it is very rewarding. Sure there is not much to discover as compared to say Metal Gear Solid V or The Witcher III but how the entire game is designed brings much more enjoyment experience because Dark Souls is tightly designed. This is pretty much how I feel about Chronicles, it was a tightly designed game being with how (relative to other JRPGs at the time) large. Now Xenoblade X is much large, but in the process it feels like it isn't as tightly designed because due to the game going for a huge open world it doesn't feel as tightly designed. Again not bring up Metal Gear Solid V for the hundredth time but this is why people found the game disappointing especially after coming off of Ground Zeroes. Also I don't mean secret area, literally, I mean places in the game that stood out or were noteworthy such as the temple of the Lizards. Not a secret area but a cool place you can find by exploring.
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Dec 31, 2015 08:51
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Hell, let's look at what going through an average region in each game is like; My experience with XCX: Okay let's sprint to the next unactivated probe. Okay now let's sprint to the next one. Okay, now we've activated most of the probes in this area and we can fast-travel around to whatever mission objectives there are. (later, with a flying skell) Cool, now I can interact with the terrain even less! And the best part is, the game is structured in a way that encourages this playstyle. It's padded with so many hours upon hours of indistinguishable chore missions that you'll want to knock them out as efficiently as you can. I wouldn't go so far as to say the first game was exploration-heavy, but the level of story engagement and immersion within its environments was so much stronger, and that counts for a lot.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:01
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Supercar Gautier posted:My experience with XCX: Okay let's sprint to the next unactivated probe. Okay now let's sprint to the next one. It's very difficult to believe you just ran across perfectly flat landscapes with no form of exploration, finding your way around environmental obsticles, or figuring out how to get to probes, especially in places like Noctilum where they are specifically designed to require a bit of effort to get to.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:03
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It's true, here and there the game makes you jump up a cliff. Then you do that once and never have to again.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:05
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ImpAtom posted:It's very difficult to believe you just ran across perfectly flat landscapes with no form of exploration, finding your way around environmental obsticles, or figuring out how to get to probes, especially in places like Noctilum where they are specifically designed to require a bit of effort to get to. Outside of a few areas here and there, Noctilum was very easy actually. It is challenging to find probes at first, but after you learn to walk upright to meet the requirements of Mission 4 finding probes is very easy. Especially once you have a skell. Supercar Gautier posted:It's true, here and there the game makes you jump up a cliff. Then you do that once and never have to again. This is a bit of an exaggeration. There are some probes that require your noggin. But they are far and few in-between. And once you get a skell hard to find probes are virtually non-existent.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:07
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Supercar Gautier posted:It's true, here and there the game makes you jump up a cliff. Then you do that once and never have to again. I guess I'm not really seeing how that is different from Xenoblade where once you hit a landmark there was never a reason not to fast travel to it again. punk rebel ecks posted:And once you get a skell hard to find probes are virtually non-existent. That's kind of the point of Skells though. The first Skell you get is super-lovely to emphasize the big advantage of it is that you can now explore places you couldn't before and the Flight Pack is basically like getting the Space Jump in Metroid because now you've got basically unrestricted access to the world. The cool part is that the game is designed with it in mind so that you don't need this tool to get to a lot of places and the game rewards you with early access to a lot of stuff if you can do it early. By the endgame it's pretty trivial to get anywhere you want to but you can't actually fly until Chapter 9 of 12 so I don't think that's unreasonable. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 09:08
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Supercar Gautier posted:It's true, here and there the game makes you jump up a cliff. Then you do that once and never have to again. A clear downgrade from Xenoblade's universal method of exploration and transport, the brisk jog.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:08
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Motto posted:A clear downgrade from Xenoblade's universal method of exploration and transport, the brisk jog. This needs to be emphasized. You don't actually want to do a lot of exploring in Xenoblade because you're so painfully slow and the game has few ways of rewarding exploration.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:21
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Are we still talking about hidden places? Cause I am over 200+ hours in and I just found Demon's pocket, while farming Harlmut. Must have killed him over 100 times now.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:24
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I mean I should note that I think Xenoblade X has a lot of flaws. Skell combat is kinda legitimately lovely. All the cool improvements to the combat system sort of fade out in favor of spamming your big damage attack on cooldown. Fuel conservation is a joke even without manipulating the multiple ways to refill fuel for low costs. The plot is utterly dull and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people only progress forward because they want to unlock more non-plot stuff. The mission design relies way too heavily on collecting random items that they don't document well and there's a frustrating inconsistency between missions where they clearly tell you where to go and missions where they just shrug and hope you can figure out where this random item is. Locking you into affinity missions that require collecting random loot is just plain bad design. The character facial models are horrifyingly bad... I can go on. I just do think the exploration is a legitimately huge step up from Xenoblade in almost every way and the biggest complaint I can make is that by the end of the game it's too easy to get to places.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:24
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I don't think running vs sprinting is really the key issue. My point about Xenoblade is, the regions are given significance through the story. When you're travelling down Valak Mountain, you're not just aimlessly visiting Snow Land; you're trudging down toward enemy territory with purpose. The music takes on an additional tone of dread in the day, or fleeting calm at night. All along the trail from Colony 9 to the Mechonis' Sword, linear though that trail was, stuff was happening. The story imprints on the player's sense of the setting, and revisiting those regions later on brings recollections of the journey, which makes the world feel larger than it actually is. In XCX, what you're doing in any given place is always the same: loving around or doing chores. Characters don't react to what you discover. The quantity and similarity of missions encourages the near-exclusive use of flight and fast-travel, which further dilutes the sense of place. The most interesting Event that can happen is you aggro a mob that's too high-level for you, which gets pretty rote after a while.
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Dec 31, 2015 09:32
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Supercar Gautier posted:In XCX, what you're doing in any given place is always the same: loving around or doing chores. Characters don't react to what you discover. The quantity and similarity of missions encourages the near-exclusive use of flight and fast-travel, which further dilutes the sense of place. The most interesting Event that can happen is you aggro a mob that's too high-level for you, which gets pretty rote after a while. Isn't that what you're doing every single moment of Xenoblade Chronicles that isn't directly advancing the plot? I mean aside from the mention of flight this sounds like a direct description of how Xenoblade Chronicles functions but XC has fewer and slower movement options. I certainly know that in XC I used fast travel anywhere I needed to go that wasn't forward. I get that you're saying that the storyline element is really important to you and X fumbled on that but otherwise it really does sound like X is Xenoblade with more varied exploration options which is what people have been saying. I also have to say that I think you're ignoring the fact that Xenoblade X's sense of world is a completely different scale, especially with flight. You can hop in your Skell and take off from NLA and go in a direction and see exactly where everything is in comparison to one another. You're not going through interiors that disguise how the setting connects together you get to see everything clearly and concisely without loading screens (aside from fast travel, natch.) You can hop in your flying robot and take off from the city and fly seamlessly towards any destination you want with the environment and landscape plainly visible beneath you. To me this creates a far more immersive experience and a true 'sense of place' though obviously YMMV. (Now if only there was more than one flying song...) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 09:38
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Supercar Gautier posted:The story imprints on the player's sense of the setting, and revisiting those regions later on brings recollections of the journey, which makes the world feel larger than it actually is. Yeah same, but with gameplay and in xcx
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Dec 31, 2015 09:41
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i do wish blade outposts wouldn't pop up in regions until after you've done some pioneering, it kinda takes the wind out of your sails
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Dec 31, 2015 09:49
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Supercar Gautier posted:My experience with XCX: Okay let's sprint to the next unactivated probe. Okay now let's sprint to the next one. Okay, now we've activated most of the probes in this area and we can fast-travel around to whatever mission objectives there are. (later, with a flying skell) Cool, now I can interact with the terrain even less! My experience with XCX: drat girl them pants don't match that top, better scroll through 500 tank tops to make sure you look good, hot date with doug tonight and you know he'll be wearing the cat nose Looper posted:i do wish blade outposts wouldn't pop up in regions until after you've done some pioneering, it kinda takes the wind out of your sails "he who farts is guided by he own wind" - Boze PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 10:29
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I just got the game and happened across a review on the Washington post while searching for something else related to the game. I figured I'd check it out to see what a mainstream outlet though. Third loving line of the review is what I can only imagine is a late game review.
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Dec 31, 2015 10:34
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Sankis posted:I just got the game and happened across a review on the Washington post while searching for something else related to the game. I figured I'd check it out to see what a mainstream outlet though. Third loving line of the review is what I can only imagine is a late game review. If it's in the second paragraph, that is told to you relatively early.
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Dec 31, 2015 10:38
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Lessail posted:If it's in the second paragraph, that is told to you relatively early. That's a relief, thanks. It totally struck me as end game reveal.
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Dec 31, 2015 11:17
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just wait until they reveal which one of the "female" npc's has a secret to hide...... 
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Dec 31, 2015 11:25
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Supercar Gautier posted:I don't think running vs sprinting is really the key issue. My point about Xenoblade is, the regions are given significance through the story. When you're travelling down Valak Mountain, you're not just aimlessly visiting Snow Land; you're trudging down toward enemy territory with purpose. The music takes on an additional tone of dread in the day, or fleeting calm at night. All along the trail from Colony 9 to the Mechonis' Sword, linear though that trail was, stuff was happening. The story imprints on the player's sense of the setting, and revisiting those regions later on brings recollections of the journey, which makes the world feel larger than it actually is. You basically want a scripted directed story game like Telltale Point and Clicks because that's what you're describing. Xenoblade Chronicles X is like Monster Hunter or the Souls series where everything is structured around the heavy gameplay mechanics. There's minimal story that just provides the backdrop for you to use the gameplay systems to the fullest potential and to overcome the challenges the game has set up. This is what most RPGs are, they're not supposed to be an interactive movie. Like when people gush about Morrowind you think they give a poo poo about individual characters? Hell no Morrowind's main appeal and draw was the world and how you could use the assorted gameplay systems to traverse it's interesting locations and to beat everything to a pulp. Diablo 3 is another example of this where the main portion of the game lies outside of story(which again only serves as a backdrop) where you run rifts and bounties using different builds and classes to overcome challenges. People play these games for the gameplay itself. Looper posted:and you were complaining about enemy variety yourself not long ago I wanted more Dinosaurs instead of bugs for my trophy room.  like 80% of the enemies are bugs. The 4 largest flying enemies in the game are some form of centipede and the 5th one is a robot. I remember XC having far more Dinosaurs and Ponies to kill. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 11:51
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I never played the Wii one so I don't know how it compares but I agree that X's world could be more fleshed out. The landscape is excellently built but there's nothing really to find there, hidden caves and plateaus yield the same treasure boxes that reward XP and BP as the ones that are literally just lying on the ground. There aren't really any settlements beyond BLADE trailers with non-npc's, there's no hidden lore to uncover, there's no special equipment, you just get Points. Morrowind is a really bad comparison because that game is packed with areas that are actually populated with unique stuff.
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Dec 31, 2015 14:10
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Tender Bender posted:I never played the Wii one so I don't know how it compares but I agree that X's world could be more fleshed out. The landscape is excellently built but there's nothing really to find there, hidden caves and plateaus yield the same treasure boxes that reward XP and BP as the ones that are literally just lying on the ground. There aren't really any settlements beyond BLADE trailers with non-npc's, there's no hidden lore to uncover, there's no special equipment, you just get Points. Morrowind is a really bad comparison because that game is packed with areas that are actually populated with unique stuff. A few basic settlements do actually exist. Some only appear after Affinity missions.
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Dec 31, 2015 14:20
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I don't think it's controversial to say exploring ends up being its own reward in XCX, which can crash and burn for the way a lot of people like to approach games. But its got such tight design in relation to its traversal mechanics and neat areas and ecosystems that it ended up occupying the same space in my head as stuff like MGSV, GTA4&5, and the cities I have lived in in real life, in a way that let me navigate without a map. I'll take that design over the activity palettes that make up Ubisoft and Bethesda open worlds, but its ultimately right next to fun theme park hallways in relatable enjoyment.
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Dec 31, 2015 14:42
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PRADA SLUT posted:just wait until they reveal which one of the "female" npc's has a secret to hide...... Thanks for that spoiler. So I'm on Chapter 8 and doing the fight at the end of it. My Skell died and I don't appear to be able to bring it back and because there's only 3 of us I'm having a really hard time. Have I missed a way to pick up some of the other characters I've levelled up or a way to get my Skell back? I'm not really sure what to do. Also I agree about the exploration in this game. In Chronicles every location is introduced to you via the story and it made it feel like it had more impact. While this game is really beautiful I feel strange just sort of wandering over to places or swimming to them. It doesn't seem as special, I guess.
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Dec 31, 2015 14:42
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zedprime posted:I don't think it's controversial to say exploring ends up being its own reward in XCX, which can crash and burn for the way a lot of people like to approach games. But its got such tight design in relation to its traversal mechanics and neat areas and ecosystems that it ended up occupying the same space in my head as stuff like MGSV, GTA4&5, and the cities I have lived in in real life, in a way that let me navigate without a map. I'll take that design over the activity palettes that make up Ubisoft and Bethesda open worlds, but its ultimately right next to fun theme park hallways in relatable enjoyment. This sums up my issues with XCX. I don't like doing things in games without context, and this one's awful, leaden story doesn't provide enough reason to explore. The vistas are nice, but after you've seen them once you're just grinding for hours and hours without point or purpose.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:10
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I just wish the city would show some more work done to it, like Colony 6, or 9 or whatever it was.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:12
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Taear posted:Thanks for that spoiler. Barracks, customization console, Hangar.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:24
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The robots in this game are all awesome, I just wish they knew more Kung fu. I think out of all the drat RPGs I've been through, this one had the coolest and most "gently caress yea" moment of getting your airship finally (your flight pack). I had such a poo poo eating grin on my face when I finally got the flight pack mission and flew out of the city for the first time. The world would seem more involved if there were more cities, or even some little towns spirnkled around everywhere. Even though FFVII and Xenogears had much much less involved worlds, they felt huge and alive because of Aveh, Dazil, Shevat, Costa Del Sol and all the cool places.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:41
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