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StarTopic Xeno Series Community |ST|

After xb3 reveal trailer, I went back to 2 to get kosmos and finally complete the whole rare blade list. I'm so hype for xb3!
 
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Happy 20th Anniversary to Xenosaga Episode 1!

The Xenosaga road was full of hardships and tribulations as Monolith was a new studio struggling to find their footing, and it was unfortunately cut short, but it's still an important part of history worth remembering and celebrating. As Takahashi said in that one interview, Xenoblade as we know it wouldn't exist without Xenosaga.

And as maligned as Xenosaga 2 is, it introduced the break-topple-whatever mechanic we all know and love in Xenoblade and I'll forever give it credit for that.

Also this is totally me overthinking things but I found it funny to imagine this exchange from Future Connected as cheeky metacommentary on older Xeno games.
 
I was thinking we'd see the permanent inhouse character artist with XC3 but I guess since the game started development august 2018 and the hiring ad came out a bit after it was too soon.
 
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Yea, I was curious about the character artist from the hiring call. I don't think the development start time was the issue, you could get fairly far into development before needing the final character designs, the first few months could have just been grayboxing with placeholder models.

I imagine getting an in-house character artist is a pain. Maybe I'm wrong about this but my understanding was freelance is the dream, so the majority applying for the position would be fresh graduates who don't have the clout or experience to go freelance. They've had art on the website like the 20th anniversary piece that was done by some younger fresh artists, so they likely did hire a handful that applied for the position but maybe none of them were up to the standards they needed to helm a full game. Hard to say.

I don't know how I feel about Saito potentially sticking around as the face of the series. The xb3 designs are a massive improvement over 2 but he still has that same face problem. He tweets a lot about Xenoblade and retweets stuff from Monolith so I guess they just settled for a freelancer who enjoys working with them than someone a little young and inexperienced.
 
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Yea, I was curious about the character artist from the hiring call. I don't think the development start time was the issue, you could get fairly far into development before needing the final character designs, the first few months could have just been grayboxing with placeholder models.

I imagine getting an in-house character artist is a pain. Maybe I'm wrong about this but my understanding was freelance is the dream, so the majority applying for the position would be fresh graduates who don't have the clout or experience to go freelance. They've had art on the website like the 20th anniversary piece that was done by some younger fresh artists, so they likely did hire a handful that applied for the position but maybe none of them were up to the standards they needed to helm a full game. Hard to say.

I don't know how I feel about Saito potentially sticking around as the face of the series. The xb3 designs are a massive improvement over 2 but he still has that same face problem. He tweets a lot about Xenoblade and retweets stuff from Monolith so I guess they just settled for a freelancer who enjoys working with them than someone a little young and inexperienced.
I don't think Saito is an option, they would have asked him if they wanted him instead of putting out a hiring ad (or they could have asked but Saito declined).
 
Don't think Saitom is leaving, he'll probably become a regular collaborator like CHOCO, but that doesn't mean we won't get more artists down the line.
 
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What do you think the reason is for why the Xenoblade games have got a lower and lower Metacritic score with each new game?

From 91, to 86, to 83, to 81...

It's quite the drop off.
Review scores have gotten objectively harsher in the last decade. You don't see anywhere near the same amount of free 9s as you saw back then. Even DE has a lower score than the original Xenoblade even though it's just the same game but better (other than a few minor elements).
 
What do you think the reason is for why the Xenoblade games have got a lower and lower Metacritic score with each new game?

From 91, to 86, to 83, to 81...

It's quite the drop off.
"Can't spell 'ignorant' without IGN." (Refers to their infamous "Rein and Duncan" review.)

The reason for Definitive Edition scoring lower than usual might also have something to do with the fact it did not get as much production values as other mainline games, or they expected it to have a more extensive visual overhaul a la Final Fantasy VII Remake, which came out around the same time.

XCDE sadly doesn't have that much of a cutting edge look despite it's vistas still being some of the most scenic (I do think XCX edges them out in that department). Sadly, graphics also sells reviews.
 
What do you think the reason is for why the Xenoblade games have got a lower and lower Metacritic score with each new game?

From 91, to 86, to 83, to 81...

It's quite the drop off.
Scores have gotten harsher + some weird negatives (like comparing graphics to other consoles).
I truly hope that Xenoblade 3 can break 90 mc
 
Scores have gotten harsher + some weird negatives (like comparing graphics to other consoles).
I truly hope that Xenoblade 3 can break 90 mc

If graphics were the issue then Xenoblade 1 would never have been able to get over the 90 mark on the Wii.

There are some poor design decisions in both 2 and X that would naturally give them lower review scores at the times they released.

2 having hilariously weak overworld interactions in a immediately post BOTW world, plus several key systems including those interactions being tied to gacha elements (no, in the context of reviews, nobody cares if you can with planning technically skip the gacha entirely, that's clearly not the intent of the designers), would always have dragged it down.

X being very story lite and having some real bad unreadable UI design would have hurt it at the time too.
 
2 having hilariously weak overworld interactions in a immediately post BOTW world, plus several key systems including those interactions being tied to gacha elements (no, in the context of reviews, nobody cares if you can with planning technically skip the gacha entirely, that's clearly not the intent of the designers), would always have dragged it down.
I'm pretty sure you can't, I've seen a few people try. There are field skills that are impossible to pass without summoning, but you can do a minimal amount. Unless I missed a successful workaround?
 
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In a generation of stagnation, with Square having the biggest difficulties with transitioning to HD and Namco pumping out one midtier Tales after another, Xenoblade was refreshing in how it played, looked and felt. Since then things have changed quite a bit (for better and worse) and both X and 2 had some genuine terrible idea sprinkled throughout otherwise absolutely amazing titles. We'll see how they'll handle 3, if they manage to side step some of the issues they've made with the last few entries, I can see this easily rival the original.
 
In a generation of stagnation, with Square having the biggest difficulties with transitioning to HD and Namco pumping out one midtier Tales after another, Xenoblade was refreshing in how it played, looked and felt. Since then things have changed quite a bit (for better and worse) and both X and 2 had some genuine terrible idea sprinkled throughout otherwise absolutely amazing titles. We'll see how they'll handle 3, if they manage to side step some of the issues they've made with the last few entries, I can see this easily rival the original.

Yeah there is some baffling design decisions in X and 2 which hurt their overall score. It's really the little things that they need to work on. A better dub is something else that needs prioritising (already sounds much better going by the trailer).
 
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I'm pretty sure it's you can't, I've seen a few people try. There are field skills that are impossible to pass without summoning, but you can do a minimal amount. Unless I missed a successful workaround?
Well if you consider summoning at all part of the gacha, yes, it's impossible. But there are quite a few blades like Wulfric and Herald that are guaranteed summons that will clear story field skills (Wulfric might as well be a story blade)
 
Well if you consider summoning at all part of the gacha, yes, it's impossible. But there are quite a few blades like Wulfric and Herald that are guaranteed summons that will clear story field skills (Wulfric might as well be a story blade)
Guaranteed pulls are a part of most gacha systems, so I do consider it part of that. But point taken that if you plan well enough you don't have to deal with any RNG nonsense.
 
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I'm pretty sure you can't, I've seen a few people try. There are field skills that are impossible to pass without summoning, but you can do a minimal amount. Unless I missed a successful workaround?

I think there's enough blades that you get from side quests and the like that are there that you can get through the main quest without additional random blades, but I don't ever care enough to try and see if it's accurate.

Although to be honest, much as I like everything else, I think the gachapon system existing at all puts me off the idea every time I consider replaying Xeno2. It's just such a downer.
 
I think there's enough blades that you get from side quests and the like that are there that you can get through the main quest without additional random blades, but I don't ever care enough to try and see if it's accurate.

Although to be honest, much as I like everything else, I think the gachapon system existing at all puts me off the idea every time I consider replaying Xeno2. It's just such a downer.
Makes sense. If I had to do another new game from scratch I'd probably pass as well, having to deal with field skills alone from the start would annoy me. And trying to build up all those affinity charts. But maybe I'll finally do NG+ after I finish the main game again in DE.
 
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Yeah the lower review scores of XCX, XC2, and XC1DE are generally attributable to the first two game's divisive design descisions and all three games coming out in a more critical era of game reviews.



We're getting a Xenosaga anthology book from Choco!

Looking forward to this! What a pleasant surprise.
 
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I'm pretty sure you can't, I've seen a few people try. There are field skills that are impossible to pass without summoning, but you can do a minimal amount. Unless I missed a successful workaround?
Probably not exactly what you're talking about, but the panel in the world tree that requires electric blades to open a door, can be ignored. It's possible to glitch through the door without ever doing the field skill check, that's what the speedrun does.

But really the gacha elements are kind of overblown. Everything you'll need to get through the main story can be gotten from stuff you get in the main story (not even sidequests) and then you just need some elemental stuff from commons which you should have a ton of. Personally, I had a harder time getting those diskbomb weapons with good attributes on them in X than any particular blade in 2.
 
Probably not exactly what you're talking about, but the panel in the world tree that requires electric blades to open a door, can be ignored. It's possible to glitch through the door without ever doing the field skill check, that's what the speedrun does.

But really the gacha elements are kind of overblown. Everything you'll need to get through the main story can be gotten from stuff you get in the main story (not even sidequests) and then you just need some elemental stuff from commons which you should have a ton of. Personally, I had a harder time getting those diskbomb weapons with good attributes on them in X than any particular blade in 2.
Yeah, in my fresh new game (no +) I was more annoyed by my movement speed being reset than any field skills, but I suppose at that point I was very familiarized with the game
 
Probably not exactly what you're talking about, but the panel in the world tree that requires electric blades to open a door, can be ignored. It's possible to glitch through the door without ever doing the field skill check, that's what the speedrun does.

But really the gacha elements are kind of overblown. Everything you'll need to get through the main story can be gotten from stuff you get in the main story (not even sidequests) and then you just need some elemental stuff from commons which you should have a ton of. Personally, I had a harder time getting those diskbomb weapons with good attributes on them in X than any particular blade in 2.
sure, the main story doesn't require them, but ignoring all the extra content doesn't make it ok. that extra content is meant to be experienced and it's walled behind a poorly mechanic. not everyone bum-rushes the story
 
sure, the main story doesn't require them, but ignoring all the extra content doesn't make it ok. that extra content is meant to be experienced and it's walled behind a poorly mechanic. not everyone bum-rushes the story
I know, I did every sidequest and blade quest in the game. That's the thing though. If you just want to rush the story, then you'll have everything you need to just do that. But if you're going through a lot of the content, then you'll naturally pick up more blades and fill out more affinity chart nodes. Seems to even out to me.

Even then, I can't recall needing much beyond the basic elemental skills to clear out-of-the-way field checks. Like give me an example of a field check that required some weird skills that were hard to get, I may be forgetting something.

edit: after thinking about it for a bit, I will concede it takes too long to get a story blade with fortitude, especially with all the fortitude checks in Uraya. Thank god for Crossette in the DLC
 
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What do you think the reason is for why the Xenoblade games have got a lower and lower Metacritic score with each new game?

From 91, to 86, to 83, to 81...

It's quite the drop off.
Late response but Xenoblade 1 has been a bit more of an exception in terms of review averages when looking at all the Xeno releases:

Xenogears: 84
Xenosaga Episode I: 83
Xenosaga Episode II: 73
Xenosaga Episode III: 81
Xenoblade Chronicles: 92
Xenoblade Chronicles X: 84
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: 83
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna ~ The Golden Country: 80
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition: 89

Outside of Xenoblade 1 releases on the high end and Xenosaga II on the low end, pretty much all of the games have averaged low to mid-80's. In Torna's case DLC very rarely reviews as well as its respective base game in general.

Just talking about the Xenoblade games in particular, I do think Xenoblade 1 is the most polished entry in general with the most mass-appeal and the strongest opening section to hook players in. I go back and forth on whether I like Xenoblade 1 or Xenoblade 2 more as a whole, but I think Xenoblade 1 is an easier game to recommend to someone. That said, even Definitive Edition had an average slightly lower than the original release.
 
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The main story of XC2 is more or less designed with the least number of field skill checks required. However, I understand the frustration towards exploring and being hit with optional walls you can't pass. It was annoying backtracking, only for many of the checks to have items that are completely obsolete or be followed up with an even bigger field check.

The idea was probably that like the gacha, the different field checks individual players could pass early would lead to playthroughs being unique; your luck in gacha and the field checks the gacha let's you pass.
 
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XC is the favourite among critics for sure - and I'd say it's more likely to click with non-Xeno fans. I'd agree with the sentiment above that XC strikes a nice balance. It's approachable but deep, anime but restrained and expansive but generally easy to navigate.

However, I think the discussion within the wider fandom has a lot of nuance. Gears will remain the peak for some, while Saga - despite it's obvious flaws - went really big and is admired by many.

X evokes its own unique flavour, while XC2 feels like a mesh of XC and even Gears, but with very much it's own identity. I'd argue XC2 does a lot of the big things better than XC, but it's also more clumsy, with more roadblocks and pinch points that will frustrate players.

I think a mix of XC and XC2, with a dash of X could make the best Blade game.

I also think the community values big ideas, unique concepts and... how the game makes you feel more than the average reviewer. That's not to say reviewers don't consider these things, of course they do.

But when reviewing something that touches your soul, but has obvious flaws, you've got to balance that in a review designed to help the general audience make a purchasing decision.

Where as I'll take the crap tutorials and technical shortcomings of XC2 because I just adore so much else about it.
 
Xenoblade 1 is definitely my favorite overall and I can see why it resonates with more people. X and 2 do a number of things better though. X's amount of freedom is amazing and it had the best sidequests while 2's story has higher highs and it has the best towns. I also really loved 2's sense of whimsy and adventurous spirit. A lot of people say 2 gets better in the back half when they reveal the more sci-fi stuff and it takes a darker turn, but I actually loved the earlier brighter fun adventure feel of the first three chapters - aside from some of the more crass and juvenile humor. And of course, both X and 2 run laps around 1 when comes to character build options.

But overall Xenoblade 1 is the world I love being in the most and the one I have the most fun playing. I love all three combat systems and this general style of real-time but still stat-based combat, but my preference is for the more slow and methodical combat of the first game (and to a lesser extent X without overdrive) as opposed to the more clicky rhythm-game feel of 2 and X with overdrive. It always felt like an evolved version of Chrono Trigger's combat to me. It's not perfect, and I think they needed some sort of spell points in addition to cooldowns to prevent art spam and have some consequences carry over between battles.

Also, while 1's customization is lacking compared to X and 2, it's still pretty good compared to classics like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, and Xenogears. I have fun messing with different skill links and gem setups. I've actually been replaying the game these last couple of weeks.

I think 2 still resonated with a lot of people as well even if it's not as easy a recommend as 1. If they toned down the sexualization and got rid of the penis joke and similar 13-year-old type of humor, I'd have no problem talking about it to my friends lol. The real shame is X. It's so incredibly ambitious and was really pushing what a JRPG could be and no one cared. It makes me so sad that for all of X's ambition it just didn't leave any mark on the industry.
 
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it did, just in a subtle way. Xenoblade X walked so Breath of the Wild could run.
Very much this. Monolith pretty much co-developed Breath of the Wild, and considering how well that did, absolutely it left an impact, just not directly.
 
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Yeah X paved the way for BotW and Zelda continues to pave the way for Monolith Soft, I don't see their relationship with the series ending anytime soon.
 
I'm curious how many of X's environment designers were involved with BotW specifically as environment designers there too. I've looked through moby game's credits page for BotW but there's no level/environment design credits, there's environment art and environment modeling as well as art and modeling for dungeons, so I was confused as to how much of the actual planning out of the topography was done by Monolith staff. I assumed modeling would just be executing the plan, but maybe I'm wrong.

The lead level designer of X was Koh Arai (https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,40533/) but he's only credited under 'structural art' for BotW and I have no clue what that means. I wonder if he'll back for Xenoblade 3 or if he's a Zelda guy now.

Of the other four people credited under 'Lead Level Design - Field' for X, two didn't work on BotW at all, one is credited under game design, and the last one is credited under associate management which moby games lists as a business job rather than a design job.
 
Koh Arai never worked on Xenoblade aside from X, he was actually the one who took over the director role from Takahashi on Xenosaga Episode 2. So I think he's either still working on BotW2 or not working on anything for Monolith right now.

The biggest roles of Monolith staff on BotW I feel is those credited under Game Design, but it's hard to say for sure.
 
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I'm curious how many of X's environment designers were involved with BotW specifically as environment designers there too. I've looked through moby game's credits page for BotW but there's no level/environment design credits, there's environment art and environment modeling as well as art and modeling for dungeons, so I was confused as to how much of the actual planning out of the topography was done by Monolith staff. I assumed modeling would just be executing the plan, but maybe I'm wrong.

The lead level designer of X was Koh Arai (https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,40533/) but he's only credited under 'structural art' for BotW and I have no clue what that means. I wonder if he'll back for Xenoblade 3 or if he's a Zelda guy now.

Of the other four people credited under 'Lead Level Design - Field' for X, two didn't work on BotW at all, one is credited under game design, and the last one is credited under associate management which moby games lists as a business job rather than a design job.

Been silently following this for a bit, and this post was intriguing so I looked I to structural art, and its pretty interesting. And wide. And deep.

From my dive it seems to draw a pretty straight line to monolithsofts signature fantasy environment design with the large crazy structures, and in particular getting them to balance just so, so they could possibly be plausible in the real world (the main use is FOR the real world after all) like the anti air guns on colony 9, the massive overhanging things on bionis leg, X... Everything. Everything freaking X. Every where you look. And BotW stuff in particular the more fantastical or macro art structures.

But then I came across the structural art nightmare zone. And I blame you. So now, you all must suffer with me.

Louise-Bourgeois-Maman-Spider-1999-Long-Museum-West-Bund-Shanghai-2018.jpg


Thanks Louise Bourgeois
 
I'm a pretty big fan of both games, but I legitimately can't see how Xenoblade Chronicles X influenced Breath of the Wild, the "freedom" of X isn't really all that (I guess besides the ability to jump around like a madman? which more often than not is something that you can abuse if you are stubborn enough, and not really an intended design like a lot of Breath of the Wild's mobility), since there is always gates of progression to most things, story chapters, affinity missions, side quests, they are all locked behind affinity chart, levels, story progression, etc. The amount of freedom to its design lies within the fact that you can still decide to go anywhere, but going anywhere won't really give you a substantial reward in the story or a side quest most of the time, the most you could do is grind out levels and clean up stuff like unique monsters and the like, but that wouldn't be too different from the other games I think, just that you can do it across all continents if you so desire to go through that. And like there is freedom in your character builds, but of course Breath of the Wild isn't heavy on those RPG elements, so is a non factor there.
 
I'm a pretty big fan of both games, but I legitimately can't see how Xenoblade Chronicles X influenced Breath of the Wild, the "freedom" of X isn't really all that (I guess besides the ability to jump around like a madman? which more often than not is something that you can abuse if you are stubborn enough, and not really an intended design like a lot of Breath of the Wild's mobility), since there is always gates of progression to most things, story chapters, affinity missions, side quests, they are all locked behind affinity chart, levels, story progression, etc. The amount of freedom to its design lies within the fact that you can still decide to go anywhere, but going anywhere won't really give you a substantial reward in the story or a side quest most of the time, the most you could do is grind out levels and clean up stuff like unique monsters and the like, but that wouldn't be too different from the other games I think, just that you can do it across all continents if you so desire to go through that. And like there is freedom in your character builds, but of course Breath of the Wild isn't heavy on those RPG elements, so is a non factor there.
The differences you outlined seem to all be game mechanics, which yeah, I would not argue X influenced BotW in that regard. But the design of the world, the landscapes, the plausible but still almost surreal terrain features, the verticality, the way exploration is rewarded with special areas and alcoves for more exploration, I would argue all that could've influenced BotW. Especially since it's known that one of the primary things Monolith helped the Zelda team with was terrain design.
 
Someone recreated one of the trailers for the Wii version of Xenoblade using DE footage:



It made me a bit nostalgic.
 
Just finished Xenosaga 2. I had generally gotten the sense that this was considered the weakest game in the trilogy and, based on what I've played so far, I don't disagree. You can kinda see what would later become the Xenoblade battle system beginning to take shape in this game, but it just doesn't come together very well here. There's just kind of a lot going on, and even normal enemies often require a fair amount of combo-ing to deal with effectively. A lot of the outside of battle segments aren't the greatest either, with the game really leaning into a lot of very artificial, videogame-y BS and some weird sidequest design.

There's seemingly a surprising amount of post-game content, but it doesn't seem important to the story, so I think I'm just going to move on, at least for now. I might come back to it later, but right now I think I'm ready for this game to just be over.
 
I'm a pretty big fan of both games, but I legitimately can't see how Xenoblade Chronicles X influenced Breath of the Wild, the "freedom" of X isn't really all that (I guess besides the ability to jump around like a madman? which more often than not is something that you can abuse if you are stubborn enough, and not really an intended design like a lot of Breath of the Wild's mobility), since there is always gates of progression to most things, story chapters, affinity missions, side quests, they are all locked behind affinity chart, levels, story progression, etc. The amount of freedom to its design lies within the fact that you can still decide to go anywhere, but going anywhere won't really give you a substantial reward in the story or a side quest most of the time, the most you could do is grind out levels and clean up stuff like unique monsters and the like, but that wouldn't be too different from the other games I think, just that you can do it across all continents if you so desire to go through that. And like there is freedom in your character builds, but of course Breath of the Wild isn't heavy on those RPG elements, so is a non factor there.

Not mechanics, visual functional design.
 
It's amazing that both Square and Bandai-Namco just kind of sit on the IP doing bugger all with it when the Blade series has been doing so well. In the case of both they could easily just throw in a marketing blurb about the origins of the Xeno series, but alas...
 
That interview of these kinds of games only selling well when they have a big budget still makes me laugh. They've been pumping out mediocre low budget title one after another with little to no marketing. No wonder non of them sold well...
 
That interview of these kinds of games only selling well when they have a big budget still makes me laugh. They've been pumping out mediocre low budget title one after another with little to no marketing. No wonder non of them sold well...
well to their benefit, Tales finally got a budget and hit 2M faster than any Tales before it
 
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