I haven't played long enough for first impressions. I find the game is slower to get you to learn things than XCX was. XCX is more like BotW where you're dropped right into the action and story. This game is much more like every other Xeno game where there is kind of a lead-up to the inciting event while XCX pretty much puts it in its cutscene, and then hits you with a MASSIVE twist about 6-8 hours in that makes the conflict so much higher. Not sure how XC2 will do its plot.
Don't take what I said above as criticism; I LOVE the game so far.
I know my view isn't widespread, but I liked XCX a lot more than XC, and I am already enjoying this one more too.
As an off-topic related note that you probably don't care about: I like XC, but I played the game before the whole project rainfall thing, and so that extra hype didn't spice up my enjoyment of the game the way it did others. Also, I was a huge pre-existing fan of Xenogears and Xenosaga, so the lower density story got to me. I like high-density stories; particularly in games like Xenogears, and even with the more comedic games like Ace Attorney. (which yes, has more story to it than most RPGs these days), so when XC turned out to be a different sort of game (still an adequate story, I'll add), I was a little off-put, and I never shook that. I did replay it two and a half more times though, for a total of about 200 hours, which I think is more than most people can say :P
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
