TheMoon
Member
** shoutouts to Dice// who made the fancy new banners **
Developed by: MonolithSoft
Localized by: 8-4 Ltd. & NOA Treehouse
Published by: Nintendo
Platform: Wii U
Release Dates: April 29, 2015 (JP) / December 4, 2015 (NA/EU) / December 5, 2015 (AU)
Genre: RPG
Multiplayer: Yes, 32-player passive online squads, 4-player online co-op squad quests
Voice Chat: No
Text Chat: Yes (USB Keyboard supported, also supports the usual touch screen keyboard)
Off-TV Play: Yes
amiibo support: none
Supported controllers on Wii U: Wii U GamePad, Wii U Pro Controller, USB Keyboard (for text entry to online squad)
Miiverse Integration: Yes
Audio Language: English-only. There's no JP voice track, sadly. (Disc is at full capacity)
eShop download file size: (space required to download
22.7GB // (final file size after install 19GBAdd-on DLC: The Japanese DLC is already included for free on-disc with the Western release!
Bugs: None
Jank: Some
Superb View: All the time, Tip!
- Spoilers belong in spoiler tags! Spoilery images shall be posted as links only, no embeds. Unmarked Spoiler/Postgame Discussion Thread here.
- Keep the face-whining, Sawano-whining, bikini-removal-whining to a minimum please.
- Also, would you kindly scan the OP [CTRL+F is your friend!] or at least skim through the FAQ before asking the easy questions? Thanks!
I'll keep this short. Aliens decided to have a war on our front porch and burned our house down in the process. Then it's basically Battlestar Galactica without the sort of happy ending and they're still after us once we crash/settle on Planet Mira.
Humanity is trying to make a new home on Mira but many life pods with people in them are scattered all over the planet. BLADE, the military organization running things, is out to rescue as many as they can and keep everyone safe in general. You are one of them. The game starts when Elma frees you from your sleep pod and recruits you. The adventure begins. Welcome to Jurassic Park.
Combat
## Diffense wrote a really cool combat overview here. It's a highly recommended read! ##
The base game is a clear evolution of the original Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii (and New Nintendo 3DS). The combat is still menu-based and you select Arts (split into melee, ranged, support [enhance abilities + heal allies], aura [provide special abilities for limited time] and debuff) which then go on a cooldown timer until you can use them again, MMO-style. New is the Secondary Cooldown mechanic, with which you can basically let an Art cool down for two cycles (a green circle fills up after the first regular cooldown) to buff it up with bonus effects for the next use (speed up the Secondary Cooldown by using the corresponding weapon type). Oh, and everyone has both a ranged and melee weapon now (switch at any time during battle!). Auto-attacking builds up Tension Points (TP) which are required to execute powerful Arts. Accruing 3000 TP will unlock Overdrive where you can go absolutely nuts with Arts and just dish out some nice damage.
Effects like Topple, Daze are back from Xenoblade, too. Chain them together for maximum awesomeness. New in Xenoblade Chronicles X are additional layers of depth like a greater focus on positioning and destroying limbs of certain enemies to gain (often changes attack pattern/types) the upper hand in battle and the SOUL VOICE mechanic.
Effects like Topple, Daze are back from Xenoblade, too. Chain them together for maximum awesomeness. New in Xenoblade Chronicles X are additional layers of depth like a greater focus on positioning and destroying limbs of certain enemies to gain (often changes attack pattern/types) the upper hand in battle and the SOUL VOICE mechanic.
Soul Voice & Healing
## ChefWycoon wrote up a cool guide on the Soul Voice system with pics. Check it out here! ##
Soul Voice is a system that has your allies shout stuff at you during battle and if you comply and cast a certain Art in response (suitable Arts are highlighted in the Arts tab), you benefit from various effects.
The big thing is: you cannot manually heal other party members in this game, health is managed mainly via Soul Voice. Performing a Soul Voice request successfully gives both you and the party member who made the request a small amount of health. Successfully performing the B-button prompts (called Soul Challenge) that sometimes occur during battle can heal your party as well but also increases the frequency of Soul Voices and other bonus effects.
You can customize what types of Soul Voice cries will occur during battle, kind of like a tactics planning menu. Resulting effects vary, so experiment a lot!
The big thing is: you cannot manually heal other party members in this game, health is managed mainly via Soul Voice. Performing a Soul Voice request successfully gives both you and the party member who made the request a small amount of health. Successfully performing the B-button prompts (called Soul Challenge) that sometimes occur during battle can heal your party as well but also increases the frequency of Soul Voices and other bonus effects.
You can customize what types of Soul Voice cries will occur during battle, kind of like a tactics planning menu. Resulting effects vary, so experiment a lot!
Skells
Skells are those fancy mechs you've been seeing in all the gifs.
They come in various weight classes with various transformation types. They also have their unique take on combat, with a special ability called Bind that traps an enemy in a force field so you can wail on it for a bit without worrying about getting hit back. Sometimes, you trigger Cockpit Time where you can fire off lots of Arts instantly without cooldowns (also, you're also invincible!). Skells can also go into Overdrive mode the same way as normal characters once enough Gear Points (same thing as TP) have been collected.
While they are quite expensive, they are also fully customizable with all sorts of specific weapons, colors and new modules that add features such as the ability of flight. Thankfully you can insure them and get three free repairs before you have to shell out your hard-earned in-game cash. For more, watch the Skells-focused Survival Guide here. Lots of stuff about customization and insurance in there.
They come in various weight classes with various transformation types. They also have their unique take on combat, with a special ability called Bind that traps an enemy in a force field so you can wail on it for a bit without worrying about getting hit back. Sometimes, you trigger Cockpit Time where you can fire off lots of Arts instantly without cooldowns (also, you're also invincible!). Skells can also go into Overdrive mode the same way as normal characters once enough Gear Points (same thing as TP) have been collected.
While they are quite expensive, they are also fully customizable with all sorts of specific weapons, colors and new modules that add features such as the ability of flight. Thankfully you can insure them and get three free repairs before you have to shell out your hard-earned in-game cash. For more, watch the Skells-focused Survival Guide here. Lots of stuff about customization and insurance in there.
Affinity Quests
Affinity Quests are back. Talk to people, help them with their problems, improve relationships between them and you. Including the gigantic web that looks like you're trying to unfold a conspiracy or catch a serial killer. Affinity Quests are much more involved in this game and are required to unlock new story quests.
Divisions
You can join Divisions to take on their respective sidequests and help out NLA and BLADE with some stuff because you're nice. You can freely switch around between them at any time! Your liaisons in these Divisions are special companions that you can recruit to your party, too.
Here's a quick rundown of the Divisions:
Here's a quick rundown of the Divisions:
Frontier Net
Frontier Net is a system you access via the Wii U GamePad and involves a lot of shenanigans with the map screen. You set up probes all over Mira and depending on what type of probe you set up and where you put it in relation to other probes, you get bonuses. It's all beautifully explained with visual aids here in Nintendo's Survival Guide episode 4. Really, there's a reason I listed them under Mandatory Viewing.
Also, here's a cool guide a bout Data Probes. Read it! Be enlightened!
Also, here's a cool guide a bout Data Probes. Read it! Be enlightened!
Augments & Collectopedia
Augments are the successor to the gems from Xenoblade. You can add these things to your gear to improve stats and stuff. Another thing making a return from the previous game is the Collectopedia which catalogs all the stuff you pick up along the way and nets you some neat rewards for completing it.
Game Structure
The game progresses nonlinearly based on what you decided to do and how you want to play since the world is completely open and seamless from the get-go. So go nuts.
--ONLINE FEATURES--
A more detailed rundown can be found on Reddit. Click.
Scouting
You can recruit the main characters of other players in your 32 person squad and add them to your party temporarily. Once you're done with them, the XP they earned while they were with you will transfer over to their owner's game.
Squads
The passive online squads are groups of 32 players that are either random or you can pick/create a squad of your choosing. In these squads you can
- offer loot to other squad members
- leave messages in the world for your squadmates
- collaborate on completing multi-tiered Squad Tasks (you get Reward Tickets or BLADE coins)
- upon completion of one of the currently active Squad Tasks, you can cash in BLADE Coins to fight super-tough monsters in Squad Missions
- Those Squad Missions can be taken on with up to four human players via online co-op (also with A.I.!)
- Completing these advances Planet Mira's research which in turn unlocks World Enemies, special battles against gigantic dangerous monsters that you can also take on cooperatively.
Reputation System
Just like in the solo/offline game, you are part of one of the Divisions in NLA. When playing online, whichever Division you're part of will earn points based on your quest progress for that Division and this will contribute to global rankings for those Divisions. Rep yo set!
I'm super worried for some reason that this game has "no" story (focus)?
Where this comes from is the fact that the main story isn't what's driving this game. There is a story with its epic twists and turns guiding you through the game but the real meat comes from being part of BLADE and doing the sidequests (the Affinity Quests, to be specific) which exist to flesh out the world. This one isn't so much about the epic journey like Xenoblade was, but the act of just being part of the world while stuff happens. I hope this makes sense. See below for more on the sidequests.
So how about those sidequests? Tell me about sidequests!
And here's how StreetsAhead learned to re-love the game due to particular sidequests (no spoilers)Well, in the end, every RPG is like that
The Kizuna Quests are all fully voice acted, have cutscenes and have pretty high production values overall. On par with the story quests, I'd say. The stories mainly focus on character development and expanding on the game's lore. I would say that if you beat the game without doing any Kizuna Quests (which is impossible btw, as some story quests require you to finish specific Kizuna Quests), you would've gotten an "incomplete" story, if that makes sense. You will want to seek them out and complete them all
Btw there are also Normal Quests, which is sort of between Kizuna Quests and Simple Quests. Normal Quests are activated by talking with NPCs with a quest marker above their head, so kinda like in the original Xenoblade. They're not voice acted, but (usually) tell cute little stories. Lots of text in these quests. The Simple Quests are accepted from the quest board and they're the sort of filler quests you come to expect from MMOs. Just "Gather 3 of this item" or "Talk to this NPC" or "Kill 5 of this monster" kind of quests. I don't know if they're endlessly generated but it wouldn't surprise me if they were.
No. Not in the slightest. That also means you do not need to play Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii/N3DS) before playing this one. But you need to play it at some point anyway because it's still amazing.
Can I customize the HUD?
Yes, you can disable everything separately. However, you can't move anything to the GamePad screen. Some of it, like the map, is already there of course. This is the HUD customization screen:
Can I adjust audio levels (turn music down/voices up)?
No.
Can I use headphones with the GamePad while playing on the TV?No, not unless you switch to Off-TV Play which mirrors the gameplay to both the TV and GamePad and sends the audio to the GamePad but then you have to tap the touch screen to disable Off-TV every time you need to use the map UI. It's a hassle but it's a workaround at least.
Can I redesign my character later on?
Yes, you can completely change your character during the game (incl. their sex). You're not stuck with anything except for the name. You'll get the option after clearing chapter 5 and doing a certain quest. Details here.
I got disconnected from the network, how do I get back online ("offline" is displayed in the top left)?
You have to return to the title screen (in the settings tab). Don't forget to save. Then just "continue" and you're back online.
Can I use both the Pro Controller and the GamePad for the map?
Yes, you can play with a Pro Controller and have the GamePad on the side to use the map UI when needed.
I heard you can download something to make loads better? What's the 411 on that?
Yes but this is only relevant if you own the disc version (!) to bring it in line with the eShop version. You have the option to download the following data packs to improve load times and have assets stream in faster. IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED YOU INSTALL THESE!. Also, let me repeat: You do not need these if you have the eShop version. They have zero benefit in that case. ZERO! NADA! NOTHING!
Anything I else I should know going in?Read these newbie tips from KingSnake: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=188676971&postcount=9255
Also, watch these to learn about systems and stuff you can do:
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Your New Home
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Planetary Defense 101
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Large Skell Combat
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Mining Your Own Business
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: The Sharpest BLADE in the World
Some numbers: You get your first Skell between hour 20-30. You can finish the main story by hour 60 or so. Then you can keep going until your clock reads 300h+. You're not done once you finish the story. Plenty of stuff to do still. Keep flying.
How do you take screenshots on Wii U?
To post 720p screenshots, hit HOME, go to the web browser, go to your preferred image hoster (imgur.com/abload.de are recommended), click the "browse" button and then pick either the TV or GamePad screen and upload. Ideally you should have an account so you can easily access your uploaded pics via the gallery on your computer.
Why is your OT subtitle so shitty?
Sorry.
Iwata Asks: Xenoblade X
(feels weird posting this again ... ...)
...)
Links:
Official NA Website: http://xenobladechroniclesx.nintendo.com/
Official EU Website: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Wii-U/Xenoblade-Chronicles-X-766921.html
Xenoblade X Import OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1037185
NeoGAF's Show Off Your Xenoblade Chronicles X Character & Skell Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1150833
Review Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1148160
Official eManual PDF from Nintendo's site: Super Long Nintendo.co.uk URL Here
Guide to "everything" (item/monster locations, etc):
Xenoblade X wiki: http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Xenoblade_Chronicles_X
Reddit thread about the online stuff: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_...z/xenoblade_x_multiplayer_information_thread/
Maps with locations (from Prima Guide): http://imgur.com/a/n7zxi
Official EU Website: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Wii-U/Xenoblade-Chronicles-X-766921.html
Xenoblade X Import OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1037185
NeoGAF's Show Off Your Xenoblade Chronicles X Character & Skell Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1150833
Review Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1148160
Official eManual PDF from Nintendo's site: Super Long Nintendo.co.uk URL Here
Guide to "everything" (item/monster locations, etc):
Weapon Type Resistance Guide: http://neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=189319259&postcount=14226Also linking my sheet again because it's color-coded and I'm proud of that.Still missing some online stuff and equipment, and everything in English
Xenoblade X wiki: http://xenoblade.wikia.com/wiki/Xenoblade_Chronicles_X
Reddit thread about the online stuff: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xenoblade_...z/xenoblade_x_multiplayer_information_thread/
Maps with locations (from Prima Guide): http://imgur.com/a/n7zxi
Mandatory Viewing:
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Your New Home
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Planetary Defense 101 (combat)
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Large Skell Combat
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Mining Your Own Business (map stuff)
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: The Sharpest BLADE in the World (online)
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Your New Home
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Planetary Defense 101 (combat)
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Large Skell Combat
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Mining Your Own Business (map stuff)
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: The Sharpest BLADE in the World (online)
Screenshots:
Add your NNID in the spreadsheet linked below (quote to see link). If you all want to hang out in a Squad, I can put that info here too if you want.
There's also a discord room where you can set up stuff.
QUOTE POST TO SEE LINK
Player NNID Google Spreadsheet: QUOTE TO SEE LINK
