Xenoblade Chronicles vs Xenoblade Chronicles X

[Nuvendil]

CarcharodonKraz said:

Nuvendil said:
I hold them as equals, but for entirely different reasons. There are areas where Xenoblade Chronicles tops X: while X's central plot (granted, the required story missions are only a small slice of the writing) while good doesn't match the sweeping epic of the original. Unless the last chapter just floors me :P. But then, side content is an area where XCX completely and utterly craps on the original. Almost all of it is tightly unified by the driving underlying narrative, giving the game a sense of unity and tasks a sense of greater purpose. And the game admirably avoids the issue of fragmentation, a problem many other open worlds suffer where the side content and central content are clearly segregated and exist almost completely parallel.

Those are examples of the sort of back and forth the comparison is like for me. Equal, but entirely different. And most importantly, both excellent.

hey..... that was one of the more insightful reads on this sight.   You've actually got me wanting to do the sidequests, and i'm not a sidequest kind of guide.  Nice.  Now heres hoping your comment is accurate.

Well yes, this is a subjective thing but I will stand by the idea of underlying unity.  But not in a "YOU MUST SAVE US!" way like other games but rather in a more low key manner that examines the variety of issues inherent in the premise from a variety of angles in a variety of tones.  I think the most interesting side quests start showing up when other alien races start living in NLA.  Some are simpler stuff, others are funny (sometimes quite funny), but others can be serious.  Very serious.  My advice is not to grab one quest and stick to it.  You can have as many normal quests active as you want.  Also, don't forget the reward ticket system.  It makes harvesting the drops from mobs a breeze.  But the key to all this is that it's all routed in surviving the circumstances.  The biggest challenge is the size of the game.  There are a lot of side quests so you can, theoretically, miss some of the good ones or get stuck in some less interesting ones.  Which is why I say this game is best experienced at a slower pace.