Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct Thoughts

Earlier today, Nintendo had a Japan Only Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct. In my post yesterday, I had thought that this was a direct for everyone. I was wrong. So no big news for us North American Xenoblade X fans. But there are some things I want to talk about from the Direct! Here are my thoughts:

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The entire Xenoblade X Nintendo Direct was just footage from the game & in-game characters explaining the game's world. We didn't see Iwata or any of the other Nintendo people this time and that was fine. I don't speak japanese, but some people on twitter do, thankfully, so I was able to find out what the characters were talking about.

We were shown many different areas of the Xenoblade X's world and.....WOW. This is a MASSIVE game. Dare I say that it looks a ton bigger than any of the Elder Scroll games? There's just so many huge areas in this game.

The most important one to talk about is New Los Angeles. Xenoblade X is set on an alien planet which humans have crashed landed on. They built their own new city and named it NLA. The city has an industrial portion but it also has a huge area that looks like the suburbs on Earth and a big shopping district too. Blade is also located in the city. Blade is the military organization in the city, its where the main characters can buy weapons and get major missions. The characters can also talk to people in the city and get missions from there.

NLA looks like an amazing hub to explore and I think you could just spend hours in that city alone. Of course then you'd miss the delights that lay for outside of the city...

There are several continents in Xenoblade X.  There's a desert continent, a fiery one, an ice one, a jungle one, and the grasslands where NLA is. These places so very huge and there are all kinds monsters and different quests to find out there. And you can run around in those areas but thats not the only way you have to get there...

The Direct showed off the Mechs in Xenoblade X more. These big, hulking machines can be entered and you walk around with them, fly in the air and they can transform into vehicle to drive too! Its so impressive and will be very handy. Running will only take you so far. The flying and driving look to be great ways to get around in the game.

I've heard that Xenoblade X nearly didn't fit onto a Wii U disc and I can see why. Xenoblade X looks to the biggest game on the Wii U yet. And the graphics are extremely detailed and gorgeous.

Oh and one final thing I'd like to note: the game will have 4-player ONLINE quests that people can take on together. This wasn't mentioned in the direct. It was mentioned after the direct on twitter. Also up to 32 players can passively share information & items. Wow. This game is amazing.

I can't wait to play Xenoblade X. It might be a wait though. The game is coming out in April in Japan but it doesn't have a date yet for North America or Europe. The game will need to be translated and American/European voices will have to be added to the game! Sounds like a lot of work! So I wouldn't expect this game till Fall/Winter. I'll just have to keep dreaming about it for awhile.

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I'll be back tomorrow with an Indie game preview.