Xenoblade Chronicles X's Story is amazing...... if you get what its all about

[RPGZero]

For me, XCX is a study of a city, of a large group of people after they have to adapt to a new homeworld. It's a study of how a large variety of people act, react, adapt, or don't adapt to new surroundings. It's about each individuals actions within this situation, as not everyone would feel the same. Attached to that is how individuals live with not just meeting, but having no choice but to co-exist with alien species. Most movies/shows/games have humanity just meeting aliens for the first time and stop there or humanity has known aliens for hundreds of years. XCX is a case study of storytelling through world building as opposed to a melodramatic plot or long term character development. Each person and situation represents an attitude and doing each affinity and normal
missions is a look at said attitude. The game plays out more like a TV show based on worldbuilding than like a plot driven movie.

That's why the game is structured the way it is. The story missions are really things that only open up because of your exploration, work on affinity missions, and work on normal quests. The campaign is one of the less interesting things about the game, but unlike most other titles, it's part of a larger whole. I felt the same when I was playing The Witcher 3 as well. The campaign was okay in that game, but it was really the totality of everything including side quests that felt better written and more interesting than the main quests that really caught my attention.

What's also great is that the game explores explores both the tragedy and the comedy that could go on. Trite Tatsu jokes aside, there is some legitimate comedy that made me laugh. This is coming from someone who is jaded towards a lot of comedy. At the same time, there are some horrifying things that people do to others and themselves on Mira that they probably otherwise would have never done if they were on earth.

I don't remember any of the side quests from XC. While I love XC, i'm not beyond admitting that it did a lot of things by the numbers and for the most part, was the Shulk and Melia show. For a game that's supposed to be character development driven, those are the only two that had long characters arcs that stood out.

I'm always bewildered by the cult of character development that came about with the advent of FMVs in the video game fandom and then rose among armchair critics in the movie world. Some of the best stories made don't have "relatable" characters or character development, at least not in the way they talk about it. In fact, some of the best stuff ever written has negative character development, where the protagonist gets worse as the narrative goes on. In fact, some of the games that people claim have great character development don't. Instead, what they have is strong characterization. And some of the best fiction includes ensemble casts that much like XCX, are a study of a situation or a time period with each character being a miniature portrait of someone in that time to give us a more broad look at what's going on. What kept my interest in this game and made me love it wasn't a single person's development, but anticipation of what crazy thing the next person you met was involved in. It's also why I loved a blank slate protagonist for this game - it's about how you, the player react to these situations, not how a pre-built person you have no control over reacts.