I am one of the biggest Xenoblade Chronicles fans outhere ( the wii game). I had very high expectations for it when I first bought it, and it simply exceeded them all. The characters, the world, the music, the artstyle, everything was simply jaw dropping. As a norma JRPG the game was also very good, but the main story was far more engaging. I found myself mostly skipping all side quests 70% through the game just to get to the ending of this epic tale.

However, with Xenoblade Chronicles X it wasnt like that. Most people think that the story is about Team Elma exploring new areas and defeating indigins. Well, in a way it is, but thats far from what I got out of the story. I didnt care about that much about the main story, although it was actually good with like 2 good plot twists, but of course Xenoblade Chronicles's is way better. The story of XCX is about humanity's survival. Everyone of them has lost everything. Almost everyone they ever knew didnt make it on the White Whale; nevertheless, they chose to survive. They didnt give up hope despite the constant threarts they face. Each side quest told a very interesting story about a civilain trying to survive in all of this. I had that idea in my head all along, so I found the game's story/world more compeling. 

P.S: I still like XC more of course, fantasy over sci-fi all the way, but both of them have very interesting world and characters nonetheless. This goes without saying to but XCX exceeds XC in terms of exploration and definitely gameplay.

I agree on this, XCX was a different type of story, it wasn't going to resonate as well with people who only like the type of story approach in the original.

XCX's story had moments of greatness, (Chapter 5, Chapter 11 and 12 for instance) but on the whole what made the first game more compelling to me was that it supplied a constant stream of mysteries, new info, and answers that raised more questions, thus keeping me engaged throughout, while XCX could often go for ages without any major new developments.

The first game's epic tale of Gods, machines, future sight, eugenics, and intrigue was simply more gripping to me than finding stray cats or playing matchmaker for two smitten colleagues.

As with its soundtrack, XCX's story often soars just as high as its legendary predecessor, just not quite as consistently.

I'm going to disagree, on several accounts.,

Firstly, simply having lost something doesn't make characters interesting or engaging by any means. For example, Fire Emblem: Awakening, a game which I actually quite like, introduces a bunch of characters after the halfway point in the game (depending on how many people got married), all of whom lost their parents and were forced to live in terror from a monster destroying their world. And despite all of that...with the exception of Lucina and perhaps Morgan, they're all about as two dimensional as a sheet of paper. You need a deeper personality, one that gets fleshed out and expanded upon before I start caring about you, and Xenoblade X is sorely lacking in that for pretty much every single character in the game.

Another big point against the game is that nearly every character you interact with in a side quest is just, for lack of a better way of putting it, annoying. Generally this comes about by begging you to go find stuff for them or accomplish some menial task, which would be fine, except the tasks are so pathetic that it feels like busy work. Find a ring for this person so he can build up the confidence to ask some girl on a date. Find some catnip to help someone else lure his cat back. The fact that the game forces you into these certainly doesn't help matters. I'm already having trouble sympathizing with these characters due to how bland they are, and now you're going to make me do all their chores as well. Not helping the empathy factor here.

IMO I think Xenoblade X has a very good beginning of an intense story. The whole plot has amazing foundations and it can be turned into something like the first... It has amazing potential.

The White Whale? Really? Talk about tempting fate.

Yeah. The writing's barely a step above Other M's when it comes to subtlety.

"The story of XCX is about humanity's survival. Everyone of them has lost everything. Almost everyone they ever knew didnt make it on the White Whale; nevertheless, they chose to survive."

And the game struggles so hard to reflect this, mainly because every character in the game either needed more time on screen or is awfully written... or both.

Nonetheless, those Tatsu food jokes are the best. There, I said it.

I think the game would have benefitted from focussing on a smaller cast of characters, instead of dozens.

Its pretty obvious that it is about humanity survival, and all the strugles the situation they were on caused, the problem isnt the story itself, its the delivery. The dialogues are atrocious, characters are badly developed and have no expressions and the game forgets to tie the story with the world, outside of the story missions you kinda forget what youre even doing in that planet. And the sidequests are senseless as fck. Itd be a great story, if the delivery was good.