You can count on the same bunch of contributors to always throw a kick at anything Nintendo related in here... like death & taxes, they are a reliable constent of VG Chartz. You know I'm talking about you, don't you ;P

The game got very good scores, great even -- roughly the same as Fallout 4. That is an achievement.
2015 set the standard for video games very high, PARTICULARLY for RPGs. For the record, The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Pillars of Eternity, Fallout 4, and Undertale came out this year.

Keep this in mind: when Fallout 3 came out in 2008, it was considered by many to be the greatest RPG of all time. Fallout 4 received a great deal of flak for, despite being great, not being a significant step up from Fallout 3.

Now, Xenoblade Chronicles is widely considered the best JRPG of the seventh generation only if you discount Persona 4 (hard to place Persona 4 into a generation. Some may consider it sixth, while others would consider it seventh) and Dark Souls (it's a JRPG, but it's a western-style action RPG). If you include both Dark Souls and Persona 4, then Xenoblade Chronicles was the third best. (Edit: Please don't turn to MetaScores for this argument, Dark Souls wasn't as well received as it should have been when it came out, and P4G had a MetaScore of 93.)

Now, as is the trend with the reviews on the game, the game's poorer narrative and music selection (music matters a ton in games, especially JRPGs where gameplay can get repetitive often. See the Final Fantasy series, Xenogears, Soulsborne, Chrono Trigger, and the Personas for excellent examples), makes it appear to be a step down from the original. Fallout 4 got points deducted for being only incrementally better than Fallout 3, and XCX got approximately the same score as Fallout 4.

All this ultimately means is that standards for RPGs have gotten much higher, and XCX just isn't perceived to be as good as The Witcher 3, Bloodborne, or Undertale. XCX is still a good -- even a great -- game.

OK the reviews for this game have been very fair, I read quite a few cause Im still unsure If I will get it, I love RPGs, I love JRPGs but everythign Ive seen from this game gave me a wierd sort of vibe thats simply not ressonating with me. Anyway I read quite a few reviews so far, good and bad ones and the rewievers that gave it 8 or less made theyre reasons very clear and they were nothign liek what you described on the OP.

I'm reading through the reviews, and the complaints are less 'there's too much to do' and more 'a lot of it is a slog'. Even some of the reviews giving it a high score acknowledge it's a game that requires patience.

As someone who often quite enjoys fluff content as a way to pass the time (i wouldn't have sunk 1700~ hours into FF14 if that wasn't the case), i don't mind that XCX has a lot of it. That said, others complaining about it and marking it down as such is completely reasonable. To many people such content can hinder their experience, and if a reviewer felt that was the case for them, it's their job to inform their audience of that.

You have to remember that metacritic provide aggregations. They're not trying to represent your tastes as an individual, but a collective opinion. It's the view of a generalized personality. Treat it as such, and then read through some reviews. If one has complaints you think are silly, obviously that reviewer's tastes don't reflect your own. Doesn't mean that they're wrong, or that they shouldn't be included in an aggregation. It's literally nothing but a clash of opinions.

On a side note, an 84 really isn't worth complaining about. Even by gaming's inflated scoring standards it's still a very high score.

The review scores themselves are good. What itches me is the critical research failure in some tests. Like gamespot claiming the player has not enough time for the missions - which are not timed at all. Or polygon criticising the game not explaining it's mechanics - there are optional tutorials for that - and the User Interface cluttering the screen - each part of the UI can be activated/deactivated at leisure.

It's also not the first time. I can remember how many reviews claiming in their Splatoon reviews not knowing or unsure if there would be any content updates for the game, then seriously downgrading the game for lack of content and replayability.

Pop-ins, bad graphics compared to PS4, missing collision detection, enemies that shoot through walls, meaningless and stupid fetch and kill quests that are forced on the player by locked away story missions, lack of focus on the too short story, too small font size, lack of tutorials and the inconvenience of finding/switching characters not currently in your party, censorship on characters, character customization options and in the translation itself (the philosophical / religious meaning of BLADE was cut and replaced with nonsense) and the music are often criticized as well.

For me the biggest problem will be the locked away story quests. In the original Xenoblade which I consider one the top 3 JRPGs of all time, I did not care for the hundreds of kill/collect side quests at all because they were lame and mostly a waste of time. It still took me 80 hours to reach the final boss, the best 80 hours of gaming since Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy VIII.

If the story is now much shorter and locked away by mandatory boring and low quality side quests I can already see myself stopping to play the game at all and I bought a Wii-U just for Xenoblade X.

In my opinion, a good RPG should not have quests at all, all things to do should feel natural and be meaningful. The next Xenoblade should bring the focus back to the story and leave optional things such as side quests which cannot be enjoyed by everyone optional. And official trailers should not spoil most of the areas and characters, I feel like I have already seen most of the game.

What the shit people. Since when has it been a crime to give a Nintendo game less than a 90?

It's not a crime.Ithink he is saying that if it is a good  game rate it at so. Don't seriously downgrade a game for minor problems because every game has minor problems. Look at MGS 5 had similar minor statements but still got in the 90's. Its like they do not want to give Nintendo another good score out of spite. Because that is what most gaming journalism is 

Pokemon Omega ruby/Alpha Sapphire got a 7.8 for 'too much water' for a game that's on an ISLAND.

LOGIC. It's very rare today.

There is alot of things that you said that are wrong.First, you first get skells around 20 to 30 hours in the game.Second, almost all reviewers are saying that when you get the Skells, it is a more than gratifying experience.Even the ones that gave a lower score said that.Third, I agree that you dont need to put 100+ hours into the game to really get the feel behind it, but playing only through the main story, or doing little effort to experience the whole game outside of what is "mandatory", is bad professionalism, no matter how you want to put it.Any game is made up more than the mandatory missions, story or bosses.If you dont take your time to explore the world, learn its lore, its carachters, get a little lost in it, you will obviosly lose alot of the experience and as a consequence, wont enjoy as much as you should.And thats true not only for XCX, but also for any game.Do you think Fallout would get the points it did if the reviewers ignored most of the side quests, the Vaults, building the settlements, and all that it has to offer?If you do that,is just plain bad professionalism, and a bad review as a consequence.

And again, the gameplay is not repetitive.Thats is also something that most reviewers agreed on.What they critisiced is the side quests(the ones that dont have story elements on it), and some types of side quests, like item catching, which is more trouble than fun.

Nothing against you, but you either read a very bad review, in which the reviewer clearly did a bad job either because he dosnt like the genre or is just bad at his work, or you didnt read the reviews properly, because most of you said about the game is wrong.I know in the end is just all opinions, but they work that for a living.People expect a certain level of quality and dedication in their review, and i personally think that many have been lacking for this game.(nt that all reviews that gave it a lower score are bad, but many of them are)