Xenoblade Chronicles X, a Wii U exclusive JRPG sequel to the original Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii, was one of the biggest and most impressive games Nintendo showed off during their E3 2014 Treehouse Live special, where gamers got to see an unheard of 40 minutes of raw gameplay from this highly anticipated sequel straight from developer Monolith Soft.
Here’s the entirely unimpressive E3 2014 trailer for Xenoblade Chronicles X for Wii U shown at E3 2014. Don’t judge the game based on this.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an Action RPG with a very large open-world to explore, and intense twitch action and exploration adventure both on the ground and in mechs.
It is technically not a direct sequel to the first Xenoblade Chronicles, but is a follow-up that will pick up on a lot of same themes of the last game and the series as a whole; It will even hearken back to the Xenosaga PS2 trilogy & the original Xenogears (PS1) with details that only fans who’ve played those previous titles will notice.
The plot in Xenoblade Chronicles X features a giant battle between various forces over the face of the Earth, waged in space and on the ground, that is pulverizing the planet to annihilation. In the process, humans build mechanical defenses and all sorts of high-tech weaponry to try and shield themselves, fight back and save the planet.
Checkout 40 minutes of intense Xenoblade Chronicles X gameplay from Day 1 of Nintendo’s E3 2014 Treehouse coverage.
However this is all for not, so the humans build giant spaceships called Arks in a last ditch effort to survive the onslaught. These arks feature entire orbed cities build into them and are launched into space just before planet Earth explodes.
Naturally, each of the Arks flies into a different region of space, some are lost, others crash land on specific planets. You will play as a team from one of these arcs and will eventually be tracking down other survivors in the vast regions of space. You can see this war play out, in spectacular fashion with some incredible, mind-boggling graphics, in the super awesome CG trailer above!
Xenoblade Chronicles X features a ton of character customization for a Japanese RPG, as players can fully customize every aspect of their look, from facial features to hair. The game features Action RPG style realtime battles that look awesome, although this time you can pull out your guns or switch to melee attacks on the fly.
Special Art attacks will use TP Points, these Points build up depending on how you attack enemies. Attacking from closer up gives you more points but is riskier, for example. And you can also now attack enemies from above or below, thus the terrain will have an effect on the damage dealt along with where you attacked the enemy.
Additionally, your partner characters will shout out strategies on how to attack enemies, this is known as the SoulVoice system, if you listen to them and attack in concert you’ll deal out additional damage. Not only that, but your partner can only be healed by using SoulVoice! This adds a whole new layer of tactical gameplay.
Now here’s 45 more minutes of straight Xenoblade Chronicles X gameplay! Combine the two videos and that’s nearly an hour of gameplay!
The open-world of Xenoblade Chronicles X is fully explorable from the very beginning in true sandbox fashion, however even though you can technically go anywhere, you may not be able to survive encounters with the stronger enemies in those areas.
You can now tell from a distance how strong an enemy is and how likely you are to defeat them via various symbols that can be seen from a distance on each enemy. You can even tell how their AI will work, for example, whether they will attack you on sight, or whether they attack when they hear you coming. Very cool!
In the gameplay footage, you can see how gorgeous the game is, and how the vibrant world looks completely different during the day than during night, where different creatures will be about and such.
Xenoblade Chronicles X features an amazing draw distance, huge vistas and giant vicious monsters. Makes me think of the Monster Hunter series in some respects. The world looks like it will be super fun to explore.
And I didn’t even get into the mechs yet… Xenoblade Chronicles X will hit in 2015. I can’t wait!
Here’s the Xenoblade Chronicles X image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:
In addition to games like Yoshi’s Woolly World & Captain Toad, as well as indies like Inside, Ori & the Blind Forest and No Man’s Sky, Xenoblade Chronicles X was among the highlights of E3 2014 for me personally, and is definitely one of my top picks of the show.
This game just looks absolutely phenomenal, and will finally fill that JRPG niche nicely with a hardcore Wii U exclusive early on in the systems life, that will be well worth buying the system for in my humble opinion. I’m super excited to get my hands on it!
What do you think of Xenoblade Chronicles X?