Has Monolith surpassed Retro Studio as new Nintendo elite studio?

[shenlong213]

MTZehvor said:

Dulfite said:

I'd say X pushed more hardware and had more consumer hype/awareness. The first one established a dedicated fanbase for the series and that helped spread a word of mouth campaign for the second one (on top of an actual marketing push by Nintendo for X, compared to the first).

Now, I'd say Xenoblade 3d probably pushed more N3ds than Xenoblade pushed Wiis, but I still think X probably had the biggest impact of the three. And now that I own X, I can honestly say it blows my mind how good this game is (I also own Xeno 3d and, though I find it very fun, it's not nearly the quality of X).

 

This is going a bit off topic, so hopefully people won't mind too much, but I'd be curious in asking and getting the opinion of someone who really likes X. One of my biggest problems with X thus far (and honestly what's really keeping me from enjoying it immensely) is the pacing of the game; how it routinely forces you to do side quests/place a bunch of data probes before it lets you accept story missions. I've found this particularly frustrating when combined with the fact that the game consistently reminds you in story missions after Chapter 5 that you've got a limited amount of time to find the Lifehold before humanity dies out. One particularly agregious example that comes to mind was before Chapter 11, where the game forces you to track down someone's cat before you can proceed to the next mission. It feels like an extreme clash of narrative and mission design; on one hand, the game is telling you to hurry things up, while simultaneously forcing you to take part in fetch quests and side quests before you can proceed. Is this annoying for you, and if so, how big of a problem is it?

 

It was more like a challenge to me

And I always like challenge game with non linear gameplay so I found it's really fascinating