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sc94597 on 22 December 2015
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So I am 20 hours in, finished chapter 5, a bunch of affinity quests, and a bunch of normal quests. I very much enjoy the story so far (even though I already spoiled it months ago.) The game-play is addicting.

Here is a list of things I like:

- World mechanics feel realistic. There are things like weapons manufacturers, job paths, realistic moral dilemmas, realistic means of gaining money and resources, the scale of the world feels similar to how it could be with the way rivers, caves, mountains, etc are developed, anything that feels unrealistic can be explained away through plot events, the map interface on the game-pad, etc, etc.

- There are high level enemies throughout every continent , and many of them. This makes it feel pretty good when I progress my character. Instead of every enemy in an area being defeatable, I slowly am able to defeat more and more enemy types as I progress. I've also noticed that level matters not so much. There was a level 13 Tyrant in Primordia which gave me more trouble at level 18 than a level 20 one in Oblivia. I love being able to return to something after developing my characters and beating it. Too many open-world RPG's don't do this well enough, and you never really feel like you are becoming better. Additionally exploration and not following the directed path is rewarded. For example there was a quest where I had to kill a certain number of enemies at nighttime. The follow ball directed me to the enemies, but they were level 22 (I was level 16.) I decided I was just going to explore the world some more and walked to the opposite side of Primordia. The same enemies, with the same name was there, but it was only level 11! I was able to complete the quest without doing more work because I decided to explore. I also love finding new ways to avoid high level enemies to get to new places.

- There are so many ways to develop your character and NLA. Whether it is gathering revenue and Miranium. Using that Miranium to boost arms manufacturers or quests. Developing your skills, arts, classes. Messing with your gear in a multitude of ways, and realizing that some gear might be better in different scenarios, rather than there being a best gear. You can level up by questing, exploring, collecting, etc, etc. This is what makes the game so appealing for me. There are just so many ways to mix it up, and not get bored with any one thing.

- The way the story is told. If I were to compare it to an anime. The filler episodes and character development are pushed to affinity quests, while the main story events are in the story missions. I like that. Sometimes I feel like taking it easy and experiencing character development. Other times I like to find out how a story event plays out. I wish there was a greater balance between the two, and more of both though. Normal quests need to take a little bit less of the game-play time.

Things I don't like:

- There are fewer quests found outside of NLA. I think I found a few in Primordia, and only one in both Noctilum and Oblivia each. In the original Xenoblade Chronicles there were NPC's scattered throughout each zone handing quests out. I want some more of that. NLA is probably the least appealing part of the game, and I'd rather not have that be the only area where you find people who actually are important.

- The visuals are beautiful, and the world has so much depth and detail. Everything from animal behavior to landscape design. The image quality is pretty bad on an HDTV. I am going to try it out on my monitor once I get my HDMI -> DVI adapter in the mail, but for now the aliasing and blur is pretty bad on my 55 inch 1080p television. I actually prefer the visuals on the Gamepad. While it is a little bit blurrier, the aliasing isn't very noticeable at all on the gamepad. Maybe I am too use to 1080p games with good AA, but I can't help but want to see the beautiful world without aliasing, blur, and other artifacts.

- Sound settings are not adjustable, and music is inconsistent. I love every song that doesn't take place in NLA. The songs in NLA are atrocious. Also I can't adjust the sound levels of the game, which is a pain, considering how adjustable all the other features are. I'd rather turn voices in combat off entirely, turn down the combat noise, turn up the music when I am exploring the over-world. When I am in a story event, I want to turn the music down, and have the voices up. This shouldn't have been a hard feature to add into the game, to be honest.

Overall, I am very impressed with the game-play and world design. A better balance between story/affinity quests and normal quests could've been made. And I have some concerns with regards to the interface and image quality.