Thanks. Is there exploration or you just follow the story forcefully most of the time? Sorry to ask these silly questions.

After chapter 1 which is the first few hours you have exploration, new continents become available as you progress through the story, the series isn't a typical JRPG ride though it created the whole open world JRPG craze for good reason you have giant areas to explore as you like that come together in an organic ecosystem but at the same time running around with out a care like in other games is not advised in Xenoblade as the game doesn't hesitate to have areas with enemies who are level 60-90 early on in the game, you need to approach the exploration like an actual smart adventurer.

Not necessarily, I also thought Octopath was overly complex as well, but loved Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

The difference between them is that XC2’s complexity yields diverse outcomes that fit into a strategy, while Octopath Traveler is a complex input with an incredibly simple outcome. OT was complex for the sake of being complex.

Also, too many battles. That OT demo seemed to have more battles in 5 hours than XC2 had in 60.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is open world, you work your own story in there are a lot of sub-plots to follow which enrich the story - but there are some critical path plot points. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 are plot driven, but both have lots of side quests; XC1s are dry, but XC2’s are done fairly well.

Xenoblade 1 and 2 both still have a lot of exploration, but it is more along a path (kind of like Xenosaga, except with more space and more ability to backtrack), while XCX is closer to Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule - except with a giant city as your home.

The basic story of Xenoblade Chronicles X is a city of humans lands on Planet Mira. There they are under attack by an Empire who is attempting to exterminate humanity. On the planet humans need to align themselves with indigenous life forms and other aliens. There are commercial enterprises you can align yourself with, and the story is more or less focused on building civilization on a new planet: and there are different ways to go about it, or you can take the time to build everything. It has one major flaw, and that is the UI font size which makes the game frustrating to play on the Gamepad so you have to play on the TV screen in order to see it well enough. Of course there’s a lot of twisty plot stuff I didn’t get into, I basically just wrote the plot that is obvious from the outset. Like Breath of the Wild, XCX is not just open world, but the sort of open world game where you can go everywhere you can see (except the moon).

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 starts off feeling like Skies of Arcadia, but ends up feeling like Xenosaga.

Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is a vertical journey - kind of Faxanadu in 3D, as far as Bionis = The Tree World, and Mechonis = Mountain World. Similar to Faxanadu, one world is more biological, and the less biological side is invading for seemingly unknown reasons which become apparent later in the game.

I don't have a problem with complex gameplay mechanics, if the game is good I'll eat that gladly. My views are basically what @Jumpin said (regarding Octopath Travelever). After reading responses and watching some gameplays, I decided to give it a go after I finish Kirby. Should be a fun ride, and I'll need help from you and other experienced players too.  

Forgot to say, but shortly after our discussion I bought a physical copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 guys. Started playing it 5 days ago or so.

I think I'm at the end of chapter 3 (or close to it) with 15h clocked. OMG... this game is so huge, I think it's going to take me 100h to just finish it.

I'm struggling with lots of systems, but I'm really liking it so far. I definitely need help understanding some mechanics. Don't even know how the pouch works yet.

The pouch system is basically a way to instill additional  but temporary buffs on a character with item consumables. 

77 hours in and I've done chapter 8 - I'm not sure what to do at this point! 

I mean the story has really ramped up with Amalthus revealing his true colours. I wish you spent more time doing story stuff in Morytha, but chapter 8 was really strong all in all. Right now with the Titans all at the World Tree, it would just completely break my immersion in the story if I sauntered off around the world doing various quests, instead of concentrating on the world-ending scenario currently playing out. I'm guessing I don't have much more to go now - maybe 2 to 5 hours if I just move on up the World Tree and onto Indol to confront Amalthus and then Jin and Malos.  

I have active side-quests I want to finish and more Blades to try and find. I have a couple of questions that people might be able to help with.

1) I've heard there's a 'point of no return' - is it easy to load your save up after finishing the main story and complete unfinished side quests?

2) NG+ adds new Blades - is it possible to get these in a normal playthrough, without starting NG+?

A problem for me is that I'm probably not going to have enough time to do a NG+ - but it is quite tempting given how you keep your Blades and Driver levels etc, and I guess if I took my time it would take me right up to the DLC release (I'll buy it if the story expansion is good). 

I want to get into the Xenoblade series myself, but unfortunately all of the games are still rather expensive I hope that I will be able to some day though!

1) It loads up  before the final battle but the game logs down that you've completed the game.

2) No