Xenoblade Chronicles X: Finally started this up, because "chip away at Backlog" and all that, and I've actually wanted to play this for a while but stuff kept getting in the way...and by "stuff" I mean "Final fantasy 14."
This entire post is mostly me blogging my thought process of the game's intro stuff.
So the hardest part of the game was making a character. The default design for Cross (the player avatar) is awful and WHY THE FUCK DO THEY KEEP PROMOTING THAT?! Look, generic male doesn't bother me, but his face is too...cutesy, and they chose such an unappealing hair color (some weird maroon pink thing that really doesn't look good as hair); it's sad because some other lesser promotional stuff like early trailers showed Cross with a different hair style (one that was a bit more unique but still reasonable), and dark haired which while not the most original, it looked a hell of a lot better than the Maroon Straight Haired Generic McBoring they kept using...yes, I am aware of the irony of whining bout a bad hair color no one else has and calling it "Generic McBoring" right after saying "The dark hair was better."
Wasn't sure if I wanted male or female, so tested female options first, because hey might as well have something nice to look at if I'm forced to play as a silent protagonist avatar, and I'm use to that anyway thanks to play as
Meepel, was disappointed in Customization options, especially after having JUST seen Mandy create
this character and how much diversity she could go through. For the record, I don't actually care they removed the boob-slider in the US, because honestly, I would just choose the middle size anyway, and get through that option asap (I tend to make my characters average builds in that regard...yes that means I'll probably never play a Lalafell or Roegadynn in FF14, what about it?)
This makes me start to consider going male because maybe the options are better there...but then I make a decision:
If the option to create Meepel's Watermelon hair is in the game, I will stay female. If I cannot do this, I go male. Yes, that's literally my deciding factor.
So I make the Hair Greenish Blue, and then go next option and its..the hair again...but wait, it says Roots and tips, Roots, and Tips...does that mean...
*tests out, gets Watermelon hair* Well then, FEMALE IT IS!
She has long hair with a random hair ornament that's part of the hairstyle because why not. I gave her a scar across the right eye, because it actually looked good, and complimented with black face paint across her left eye giving an odd sense of symmetry. I think I gave her some light freckles too because why not give a few more distinguishing marks?
Oh, and she has Fiora's voice. Was originally going to go with one of the "young adult female" voices because the Mature voice doesn't fit the design at all and **** those young ones...then I saw that the "Classic" voice, realized it sounded exactly like Fiora, and went "Well, this IS Xenoblade's spiritual sequel, how can I not honor that?" and went with that...so my character is now British.
Then the game starts and Elma wakes you from your pod after you've seen the prologue of how Earth got exploded. She then says "oh you don't remember anything" ...well fuck, so I'm an AMNESIAC Silent Protagonist Avatar? What the hell game? To be fair, the game does imply that it's a relatively normal occurrence after coming out of stasis, a "side effect of stasis hangover' so I'm going to assume it's just a framing device to give Elma a reason to explain everything to you...even though the "2 month time skip since the ship crashed" and "you were in stasis that entire time" should be enough for her to exposit things for the sake of the player because let's face it, if Amnesia doesn't exist to hide a character's secret in a way that doesn't make the character come off as hiding something, it's there as a proxy for other characters to have a reason to exposit details about the plot. It works, mind you, just I'm calling to question if it was necessary in XBCX where they had a legitimate framing device for Elma to explain to the player all the details, since "you missed the last 2 months" accomplishes the same thing, there's no reason to throw amnesia in there.
Well, to be fair, I can see one reason they may have done it: Gives the game an excuse for why the Player Avatar never goes into backstory stuff, since "hey I don't remember it" means there's no canonical backstory, means the player can create their own backstory to whatever they want. I'm just guessing though since I haven't played the game.
That said, Elma asks my character's name, so I have to come up with one!
Being female, I naturally think "Meepel" but no, can't do that, and to address the elephant in the room, I am NEVER calling a character of mine "Meeplina." I could call her "Cross", the canonical name, but nah, I based her heavily off Meepel from FF14, so I should honor that somehow. What can I do to the name to keep it unique but still honoring...
So I think about the name "Cross" and wonder how to splice that with Meepel, remember that s/he's named "Cross" because "XBCX" and then LIGHT BULB! I'll make her name the Organization 13 equivalent of Meepel!
So after using a Word scrambler (because the Orgy 13 name generator is a piece of crap; Meepel DOES NOT BECOME XEMERA WHAT THE HELL?) of "MeepelX" I eventually decide on using
Peelxem. Why that one? Because it sounds the most "Nomura-esque" thereby capturing Orgy-13 the greatest.
So now Peelxem and Elma run around the outdoors murdering wild life with guns and knives because that's totally what people who wake up from 2 months of stasis do right? Well, ok, Elma's been active the last 2 months so this is routine for her but shut up!
Speaking of Elma, she's different than I was expecting. I was expecting something closer to, say, Lightning, only less of an early game bitch (I don't mean this as an insult to Lightning seeing as I'm pretty sure Lightning was made that way early game intentionally such to give a "she's only working with others because she's practical, not because she wants to" and it contrasts how she is later on, especially her Hope treatment), but she's...actually quite different.
The thing that stands out to me is they do a good job demonstrating her as a strong and independent female, but one who isn't OPEN about it. As in, her default emotion is actually smiling...yes, she's actually pretty cheerful, and shows a sense of optimism, but at the same time, you can tell she's fully capable of handling herself, as well as a good leader. I think it's hard to find female characters like that truthfully; usually STRONG FEMALES they have to go out of their way to show "Look at her, she's bad ass enough to go up against some males!" or give her a "tough girl" facade, giving her masculine qualities, but Elma has none of that. It's hard to explain, but you don't doubt for a second she can take care of herself, despite how the game does nothing to really go out of it's way to show "This is a strong female character!"
...by the way, she's also basically the game's real protagonist isn't she? I get the feeling Peelxem is just going to be the person observing the events.
Gameplay is...Xenoblade, only you can swap between Melee and Guns, which is nice. I appreciate the removal of the chest system in favor of a standard loot system that is menu driven, such that every-time a battle ends, it just says "here's your loot, do you want it?" Also Fiora's voice was definitely the right one because battle quotes feel more lively with her; you're a silent protagonist, sure, but the battle quotes are actually rather in-depth, like one is "The Early Bird SMASHES the worm!" or "What is it? Why is it standing? JUST SHOOT IT ALREADY!" or something to that effect.
Also, Peelxem can jump WAY BETTER than Shulk or anyone from Xenoblade can. Just saying. I do appreciate the landing-roll you do if you do a running jump from a high enough distance; just a nice little visual touch. Also sprint mechanic is completely awesome for a game that inevitably is going to require large amounts of terrain traversing.
Anyway, that's about it; I finished the prologue, saw one cutscene after the fact and turned the game off. Game is looking promising so far since it retains the gameplay stuff of Xenoblade I liked, and the premise is certainly interesting, being "let's work on colonizing this new planet!" though sadly, given I know my jRPGs, no doubt that'll be sidetracked into a general "RAR EVIL VILLAIN ATTACKS MURDER HIM!" scenario. Here's hoping that is only a subplot, just to add some sense of urgency to shake the game up and never becomes the main focus, because we need more original premises in jRPGs.
