I feel the real beef people had with it was they wanted a more character driven piece, it's the FFXII/Matsuno issue of people expecting another FFX, and instead getting a more grounded and objective piece about large conflict instead of personal ones. Throw in the fact that XCX is a much harder Sci-Fi story than we've seen from this team, and I can see where some fans of the first game may be coming off a bit disappointed. The Souls series is mostly interesting because the story and world are kind of a mystery that you the player have to piece together. You're often just a nobody who happened to wander into a dangerous place long after the real serious stuff happened but now you need to piece together all the clues to figure out what's going on and why everything seems so smurfed up. It also has that great Matsuno draw of morality never being cut or dry. You're not always rewarded for saving everyone and saving some people can seriously cost you. Former allies you help will eventually turn on you for one reason or another, and even the games various endings all have ambiguous elements that make you wonder if you're really doing the right thing. Bloodborne might be the only entry where the endings don't necessarily have that ambiguous nature, but even they all tend to make you wonder if this was really the best choice in the matter since your endings basically can be summed up as "leaving the dream, taking over the dream, and transcending the dream". There is a lot more player interpretation going on here and it's pretty cool. It's also just really hard to find games that do Dark Fantasy and Lovecraft right, so bonus points there.
And honestly, I don’t think the silent protagonist is handled any worse than in SMT, tbh.
It’s not even just the battle system that’s improved. The whole thing is much more open, it looks like, with tons of characters that you can choose for your party, most of them completely optional, but they all get their special little missions so they have their own stories. The downside of this and the class system is that they’re not as varied as the party members from the original, and you don’t feel as inclined to switch leaders (since you have access to all classes anyway), but they’re still cool. They’ve also kinda done the Persona 3 thing in that you can’t access all the party members from one menu and have to go around town and find them as they go about their daily lives. Cumbersome, but really makes it feel like they’re people. But yeah, the world is the main draw and it’s accessible pretty much totally from very early on. I’m also quite impressed with the story, and this was a surprise since many people complained about it. Of course, I have no idea where it will go yet, but I love how different it feels from a typical JRPG - the setting is t just there to form a backdrop for a shonen manga story, the themes of survival, cooperation, coexistence, and all of their flaws and drawbacks seem to be explored in every quest, from the most minuscule to the story missions. And it’s very refreshing. And I’d argue it makes the silent protagonist work, actually - this isn’t your story, you aren’t special on your own, but your contribution to rebuilding society is incredibly important since there aren’t a lot of humans left and everyone needs to make their contribution. So in a way, humanity itself - or at least what’s left of it on Mira - is the main protagonist. And that’s very clever. I really need to get into the Souls thing one day. It sounds very cool so I hope I get a chance some time in the future.
I can see that, it's also not like Xenoblade's battle system didn't have room to improve. I have, for some reason, gotten back into a Dark Souls mood, so that will likely be consuming my life for the next month or two.
You know, now that I’ve got the hang of its systems more or less, I think I may actually be enjoying X more than the original
I'll probably start work on it in the next few days or so. I have to gather my thoughts.
Oooh can’t wait to read it then!
Very true, none of this is helped by the fact I kind of want to jump back into a new playthrough of Demon's Souls or Bloodborne. I do feel my discussion about choice has led me to an idea for Pumpkin's website she wanted me to write for.
Tell me about it. Gaming backlogs suck. And that’s very much a first world problem
I'm not sure if I'm ready to dive into a massive series at the moment. Not to mention Tactics Ogre is kind of testing my patience at the moment. If perma-death doesn't kick my ass in the original, then it's the leveling/skill system in the remake that gets on my nerves. Besides, I got NieR: Automata for Christmas, so that or Fallout 4 will be my next gaming foray, unless I break down and pick up either Dark Souls II or III with the holiday money I acquired.
