Judging from GameXplain's stream, I feel the first 1.5-2 hours seem to be pretty slow.

But after that it seems to be smooth sailing form there! :D

Those pics are so good. Waiting for the western release date.

I wouldn't judge anything about this game based on their stream. Not only does the player not understand Japanese, he clearly didn't play Xenoblade and is honestly really bad at the game. I saw him about a half-hour into the game still trying to figure out how to start a fight.

He's also just really slow, spending several seconds looking at dialogue he can't read, going into equipment management every time he gets a new item, being really indecisive in general. He's doing his best as someone who has no experience with the game and can't understand the language it's in, but it's a poor example from which to draw conclusions about the pacing.

This guy on the GameXplain stream is just awful.

Ahh, yeah, that makes sense.

Well then, XCX seems to look great pacing-wise by what you said, especially since you can control the pace yourself due to the huge world.

Think you oughta fix the blurry pics in the OP?

Which picture(s) is blurry for you?

They are blown up.

Is soooo big. And gorgeous. And I dont see the downgraded places, he is going out of the way and everything looks cool.

Thanks for pointing out those errors. The top image was fine for me but I've replaced it and adjusted the other.