Ever try walking around the world in XCX? It takes hours, and the characters move quickly. Yes I did it just to try it. I have yet to try in BotW, but I’m guessing it’s probably not even close, Link walks a little slower, and Xenoblade has a much longer path around much more land. But Zelda has an easier path though, so that screws the calculations more; it’s essentially a big rectangle with a lot of open lands, while Xenoblade has a very windy coastline (when you can get to it on foot), much of the travel is along rugged terrain as well.

Either way, XCX is monumentally huge.

Sounds needlessly overcomplicated, and sounds like I'm going to love it! Can't wait for tonight. 

The reviewers giving it 7's or so seem like they're nitpicking, not like it really deserves that.

85 is really good. Sounds like the complaints are mostly holdovers from the other games (which I love) so I expect to love this too.

Okay, can I just say something that I've been thinking about for a while? The comparisons between Zelda and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are way too grounded in basic fundamentals that barely shape the actual games themselves and thus seem like huge leaps in logic when frame in such a basic fashion. When you just say "Xenoblade Chronicles is the next fix for fans of Zelda BOTW" or "Xenoblade is the game for those Zelda fans after BOTW" or anything of that nature, you are breaking down the games to such a degree that they seem more similar than they most likely are. Like, literally the only similarity is that they're open world and they're both made by Nintendo.

If people added addendums to these statements or explained that they were only talking about the open world aspect exclusively it would be fine, but I've even seen people talk about them both as RPGs. As someone who is not into the Xeno games, am I wrong about this, or are the comparisons a little bit short-sighted?

I hope it goes up to 86 because that's what I predicted :p. Anyways, 85 is a great metascore, most of the things reviewers complain about are because of Xenoblade being Xenoblade, so I know that they won't bother me :p.

I think the comparison is ridiculous. I'm a fan of both franchises, and the only similarities as that they are both open-world. I think you can stop counting. It's just that they're going to be compared, sadly, because open-world games tend to be compared even if they're nothing alike. I mean, when BOTW came out, a lot of people compared it to The Witcher 3 or GTAV. They're... wildly different.

85 is a very solid score. I'm glad to hear it. Will pick this up as soon as I figure out a way to do so for $40.

84 now.

Dang, I was feeling the hype and was gonna go with 90, but that may not be the case... I'm still plenty hyped for the game!