November 04, 2017

[Other] Xenoblade X - 100% Survey Rate!


In anticipation of the third instalment of the Xenoblade franchise coming out in less than a month (Xenoblade 2), I've decided (like many other fans of this franchise) it's the perfect excuse to at least complete the Survey Rate on Xenoblade X before I get my hands on 2! My Survey Rate has been over 90% for the past year. I just had way too much fun building my character, and that has consumed at least two hundred hours, with still a few hundred hours left in sight.

A hundred percent Survey Rate in this game isn't "entirely" the same as completing the game 100%, as the Survey Rate only covers just the basics of the Mira world map. You also have achievements for the game, which requires much more (difficult) things to do, which one could argue that that's more like a true 100%.

Anyway, even if I'm done with the 100% Survey Rate, there's still a lot of things left in Xenoblade X for me to work on (building the perfect party with their own Skells each) - it's just an enormous time sink and I just have way too much stuff to do in my life. I'll definitely come back to this another day in the future, as I also have certain other things unfinished in the first Xenoblade game as well.

What do I think about Xenoblade X as a game? I think Xenoblade X is definitely an improvement on a lot of things that the first Xenoblade did "wrong" - this game just perfected the gameplay, added a ton of world and story building and in my opinion the world map of Mira (or well, as I prefer to believe, just one third of the entire planet so far if we look at the concept art) definitely was designed much more cohesive than the first game. If you loved the first game, get this one too. If you haven't played any of the Xenoblade games: get the first one, then get this one too. You can literally get both games on the Wii U (the first one as a digital download through the Nintendo eShop), as you probably do not want to pay crazy aftermarket prices for a physical copy of the first game.

Monolith Soft has definitely stepped up their game with X and has listened to feedback from the first game. And thankfully they are also brave enough to try out new things, rather than making all the games more or less the same. One of the first major improvements that caught my eye is the amount of late game content versus the previous game and the fact that nothing game breaking is truly missable in this game except for certain character fates in quests (or the two Miiverse achievements that will be permanently locked once Miiverse shuts down in a few days).

Of course Xenoblade X wasn't without its flaws (i.e. the reward ticket system and Nemesis bosses is definitely nice but it suffers from a declining player base as those content relies on an active community), but I'm sure that the next Xenoblade X game will have most of these solved again. It's just a shame that they won't bring out a patch just to make reward tickets become easier to get your hands on. Because this game will definitely suffer a lot when Nintendo will ever take down the online servers for this game in a far future, which is a shame...


Either way, Xenoblade X has definitely been an enjoyable ride and I'm looking forward to play Xenoblade 2 when I get my hands on my (obviously) pre-ordered copy. I've been following the news about this game on a daily basis for the past year and it definitely looks like Xenoblade 2 is in good hands. That's not going to be a lot of hours left on each day for anything else when it's here, I tell you...

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

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