Xenoblade Chronicles X: Finished the main story.
Ok, Chapter 11? Fine, no complaints. Straight forward, feels well balanced for what I had, etc. Chapter 12 though? It is short mercifully since just a final boss rush, but unfortunately it doesn't feel well planned. It's multiple fights scaled around having Skells, and for a first time player who won't have grasped all the game's intricacies, using only level 30 Skells, it's VERY hard to get through all this with keeping your skells alive. I eventually just said screw it, took, the difficulty drop...and still struggled at that. The 2nd fight in particular seems fine but near the end things go crazy and he whips out stagger tricks, and has support that just barrages you as soon as you're staggered and lol wipe.
See, the Skell thing wouldn't be so bad if there was anyway to make up for lost Skells in this. It's a temporary Point of No Return (though the game bans you from saving after you make the decision, so you can't be perma-screwed), so if a Skell dies, you either reset, or try to do without it. Skells are not well handled in that regard; yeah, ok, I get it, losing a skell needs to have a penalty, and they gave you one ins STEEP monetary costs, I get it. The thing is, here, Skell loss is basically a perma-death, and at least 3 of the fights are scaled around them. In particular, in my 2nd attempt, I got to the 3rd fight, and yeah, there's no realistic way to beat that without overleveling a lot or having your skells since the enemies are just too massive on damage. The game does at least have the foresight to scale the final boss around NOT having Skells, despite how he looks. In fact, if you use Skells on him, he opens with a Fuel -> 0 move, so it's obvious they didn't want you to sue them and he's perfectly acceptable as a result. Way better handled than the rest of the rush before him.
Yeah, chapter 12 doesn't feel well designed and I had to do some grinding just to get a little stronger, buff my skell weapons a bit, etc. It's irksome really.
The plot in Chapter 12 was...well, I'll give the game one thing: It basically subverts all the tropes you think it's aiming for, giving actually interesting twists on the idea. Could have stood if some of those reveals happened earlier rather than going FULL ON XENO MODE in the final chapter because they realized they hadn't gotten convoluted enough and need to at least try.
The big thing that stands out to me is how the villain talks about Humans = Scum, need to die, they're a horrible abomination, etc. You think there's going to be a big reveal about how HUMANS ARE BAD FOR THE UNIVERSE AND NEED TO DIE philosophy...but the game doesn't do that at all. Quite the reverse, the Villain wants humans dead because they're a threat to his EVIL EMPIRE, and humanity has done absolutely nothing wrong beyond that. So yes, it doesn't spew philosophical nonsense, just humans just so happen to be kryptonite to this particular race, and said race brought it entirely upon themselves by constantly poking the proverbial bear, rather than leaving them alone. Elma I think even calls him out on the whole "you know, if you left us alone, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. We would have been content to just live our lives on this new planet and have been none the wiser."
Also handled SPACE JESUS better than most, since the whole savior thing is not fantastical at all. Simply just an alien (namely Elma) came to Earth about 30 years prior it's destruction to warn them that there's this big war that Earth is inevitably going to be caught in the middle of and there's nothing they can do to prevent or stop it, so they should start working on various contingencies just to SURVIVE, and she's going to help them by revealing secret technology. IOWs, shit happens, sometimes you can't stop it, just make sure you're prepared for the inevitable. What also made it work is that it's clear Elma has nothing to do with the two warring races, she just knows about them, so it makes sense she'd go the route of "Warn potential victims" rather than "try to prevent the outcome." She's not going to do much against 2 warring races, and they also made it clear she has no ulterior motives other than "see that humanity survives because they're completely innocent!"
That's really something that can't be stressed enough; XBCX never delves into making humanity seem like bad guys ore "we deserved this!" Now, it DOES do this with POLITICS, sure, but even then it's downplayed, more just attacking the idea of "rich get privileges!" and that was more just being realistic. They establish that "they only saved 20 million people because it was pretty much impossible to save anything more" even noting that the alternative (which they lied about) would have only saved 50,000 people, hence why they went with that. They also establish that the lies made by the government weren't done to trick people, but rather, just keep them from worrying, and the actual scenario really wasn't THAT much worse than the lied one, since the outcome of "You'll get your organic bodies back!" was still true, just "it won't be your original bodies, it'll be a genetic duplicate." Basically, yes they lied, but in truth, is it really a big deal? Just easier to accept when you think your organic body is still around. And really, all those politicians are backstory stuff we never see.
There's one Politician in the game, and while they make him a bit of a hardass, they do show he's reasonable and good hearted. You really do expect a moment to come where he tries to pull a fast one, where he does something morally questionable, as he even has moments where he undermines BLADE to get something important from the enemy, but when all is said and done, his motivations were entirely rooted in just being a strong leader the people of New LA need, even willing to compromise his own demands for the greater good (case in point, one instance involves him demanding a certain alien assist in fighting threats and after the whole mission is finished, he eventually brings up the alternative of "we can have you work in construction, at least that way you're still servicing the city and not freeloading" and the team is like "awww, you really are a nice guy even if you try to hide it."
Lastly, the thing that stood out to me right after I beat the game is how it completely inverts the Hero/Villain relationship. Normally, the heroes set out to stop the villain's EVIL SCHEME from taking over the world or something, and the villain of course gets 99% of the way there until the heroes inevitably stop him and save the day. Some variations of course depending on game, but you know what I mean; heroes are reacting to the villain.
XBCX...it's the opposite. The Heroes have a mission to find the Lifehold unit because they need it to survive and this has been their goal since they first landed on Planet Mira, and the Ganglion are doing whatever they can to make sure they fail. Even at the end, you're not making one last ditch assault on the alien stronghold; you're rushing to the Lifehold Core and the Luxaar, the villain, tries to stop you himself since all his other plans have failed.
So yeah, kudos to keeping the plot original and sticking to it's guns, rather than falling for all the jRPG cliches. It's a unique premise (colonize the planet), with a unique Ticking Clock plot device to add a sense of tension, and the villains are clearly just there as a complication because the story would be a boring goose chase of misleading nonsense.
...though, one thing they couldn't avoid is a blatant KOS-MOS reference in Elma's real body which the game goes basically until the last cutscene without doing. Seriously Monolith, YOU WENT NEARLY 80 HOURS WITHOUT DOING THAT! At least it's only a reference in terms of visuals, and not anything else.
Characters are alright, but nothing special. I've already stated why I like Elma plenty in other posts, though I won't deny she's not the most developed character, just one that is competent. Lin is surprisingly not annoying since while she's a "young mechanic prodigy!" they tend to side-step a lot of the "Young kid!" tropes, outside of her obsession with cooking Tatsu. Speaking of which, Tatsu was obviously made for people who hate Riki, in that he's clearly made to be annoying and the characters never miss a chance to make fun of him (in particular Lin.) Heck, this exchange sums up how Tatsu is treated perfectly.
Tastu: Mamapon, worry not! The evil monster will have to deal with the wrath of Tatsu...'s incredibly strong friends!
Lin: ...and there he goes...
Elma: Yep, definitely saw that coming.
I feel like they could have done more with Gwin, Irine, Doug, and L, namely the 2ndary characters who are introduced relatively early and clearly have SOME plot, but you only really see it through optional Affinity Missions then "ok, final chapter time, WE WILL REMIND YOU THESE CHARACTERS ARE IMPORTANT BY HAVING THEM TAKE PLACE IN THE FINAL CUTSCENES!" It was a nice chaneg of pace to see scenes focus on characters other than Team Elma and I do get the game established that Irine and Doug had their own teams, and Gwin is on Irine's team, so they had their own missions (and Elma's crew is basically the "#1 best team beacuse Elma is just that awesome.")
As far as L goes, would have wanted more of him because his gimmick is silly. Alien who learned english and Earth culture by studying a Lifehold core unit...but never quite got it 100%, so he's screwing up common Earth idioms like "Early bird is the worm!" which lends itself to amusing dialog, but alas, being someone who wasn't Elma, Lin, or Tatsu, got less screen time than he deserves.
Another thing I will give credit to is how it handled Cross (namely the player character.) For once, you're NOT a super special awesome Mary Sue; you just happen to be someone Elma saved and joined her team, thus are a proxy. You are an average, if skilled, member of BLADE who gets to do all the fun missions because of what team you are on. Game isn't about you, it's clearly Elma's story, you just are the eyes by which we see it. IN fact, early on, I feel like the game tried to make that clear, where when you wake up, Elma goes "Oh, you lost your memories? Makes sense, not an uncommon side effect of waking up from Cryogenic sleep" and that's it. The game basically uses that excuse, combined with your recent awakening, to justify why characters exposit details they take for granted, since it makes sense Cross doesn't actually know them. I think the moment that really established that you are nothing special the most is the Mimiesome reveal where Cross loses his/her arm and OMG YOU'RE A ROBOT and Lin's response isn't "Gasp, what is this!?" but rather act in a way someone who needs medical attention does and then the game goes "oh yeah, all of us are like that, guess we kind of take it for granted which is why we didn't tell you." It almost feels like the game is teasing all those other CHOSEN ONE or MARY SUE Silent Protagonists by putting Cross in situations that at first seem to suggest s/he is special...only for the game to quickly go "oh, actually, that's completely normal in this context."
Gameplay...it's a variation of XBCs, won't get into details. It does a better job of structuring a battle system where you don't need a dedicated healer since Soul Voices are common and work surprisingly well to keep your team alive, and even does a good job of encouraging you to use certain skills at less than ideal times since "well, if I use this now, it'll do less damage but I'll get a Soul Voice healing bonus, which may be worth it" Skells are fun as well, though the penalty is a bit steep and probably could be reworked. I guess it's worth noting the only real dungeon the game has is Chapter 11, as everything else is just overworld hot-spots and maybe an occasional optional cave for the purpose of expanding the world a bit.
And honestly, the game is just REALLY FUN to just mess around and run around Planet Mira in, especially once you get your Skell and flight mode, then you have free range to do whatever you want basically.
Music is unique and works well in game, so I'll leave it at that.
So yeah, I enjoyed the game, though I hesitate to say whether it's better than the original or not. It's certainly different enough at least though at the same time, I get the feeling if someone didn't enjoy XBC, they would probably not get a lot of this game. Still, I had fun and I put about 80 hours into it, and honestly, the game didn't FEEL that long, partially because a lot of that time spent is you doing stuff you want to do, not wasting time with meaningless plot things.
