Xenoblade Chronicles X is set for release in the West on this December. But here in Japan, the game has already been out for two months. Here’s what Japanese gamers think of the game.
Published in the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu, the results of a reader poll on numerous aspects of the Wii U’s high profile JRPG, Xenoblade Chronicles X. Of those polled between May 29 and June 5, 1257 people offered valid responses to the magazine’s numerous questions about the game. Here’s a sample of what was asked and answered.
Thoughts on Game Length and Difficulty
Asked how long they played the game, most responders at the time of answering had put a sold 100 to 200 hours into the game. Most had managed to clear the game and the majority seemed to consider the game’s difficulty to be a baby bear just right.
Branching Story
Xenoblade Chronicles X features a branching story where things can change drastically from the simplest of choices. While most players seemed to enjoy the system, the fact that the game allows for only one save file did put others off.
Content, World Size, and Variation
A whopping majority of players either responded that the game had a lot or a whole lot of content (I have no idea what the 3% who thought the game had very little content were thinking). Likewise, most players definitely seemed to feel the game offered a nice vastness to its worlds. However, in terms of variation from place to place, an almost equal portion seemed to think that there was either enough variation or not very much with less than a quarter responding that they thought there was a lot.
Favourite Mecha
One of the big appeals of Xenoblade is the existence of mecha, called “dolls”, that you eventually get (and break). There are three types of dolls, light, middle, and heavy. Asked their favourite type, the poll was for the most part neatly divided, with a slight majority of voted going to the heavy type primarily for its durability and large fuel stock. The 1% that answered “other” were indicating [redacted due to spoilers].
Online
Xenoblade Chronicles X features a somewhat loose online mode — because all games, even single player games must totally have an online mode or the internet will implode from lack of love. Called the “loosely connected online” system, it allows players to share game information and use other player’s characters and NPCs. Asked how much they enjoyed the system, most indicated that they did not really.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is scheduled for release in the West on December 4. You can read Kotaku‘s own Richard Eisenbeis’ review of the game here.
Comments
4 responses to “Japanese Gamers’ Opinions On Xenoblade Chronicles X”
Didn’t enjoy the “loosely connected online”, huh?
Should have just left the game with a fixed protagonist and not bothered with online….
Always online in some countries doesn’t make a difference in terms of availability.. like Japan where the internet is many factors of magnitude better than here. And yet here we can see the audience there is divided on the enjoyment of having an always online system. And if you split the 20% in half and give 10% to each the positive and the negative, that’s over half the people not liking it despite their amazing internet there. Says a lot about forcing always online, especially within an existing franchise.
Everything else is pleasing to see.. big world, lots of content, near-perfect difficult etc
I notice they haven’t asked anyone what they felt about the amount of and quality of the actual story content. Apparently that’s pretty sparse which is a big disappointment for me personally.
I wonder what those 2% that said the world felt very small was comparing it against? a MMO?