Xenoblade Chronicles X is perhaps the most anticipated Wii U game outside of the upcoming Legend of Zelda game. The game was teased early in 2013 as a Wii U exclusive sequel to the original Wii title, Xenoblade Chronicles. The original came out late in the Wii’s life cycle in the West and only released because of a huge campaign to see it and a few other games like Pandora’s Tower locally translated for the rest of the world to enjoy. In the upcoming Edge Magazine issue dedicated to Miyamoto and upcoming games for the Nintendo Wii U, executive producer Tetsuya Takahashi discusses how the Wii U GamePad will be used in the new game. We decided that it would be perfect to use as a navigation device, in the same way that a lot of tablet computers are. We’ve put some important features relating to the game system and your objectives onto the GamePad, so I feel that this should create a very user-friendly experience for players. It sounds like you’ll be using the GamePad to navigate the world, similar to what many games have done in the past. While it’s not innovative just from that description, we’re certainly looking forward to seeing it in action. If you’re interested in checking out what other things have been gleaned from this newest issue of Edge Magazine, check it out here. local_offer edge magazine Monolith Soft Nintendo wii u xenoblade chronicles x stars Further Reading Legendary Pokemon coming to Pokemon Go The cost of Nintendo consoles in today's dollars Wii U gets firmware update Watch the Smash 4 EVO Finals on Disney XD Will Xenoblade Chronicles X ever release on Switch? Take a peek at this week’s Nintendo Dow RyuNoHadouken Navigation, item selection/equipment hot swap keys…thats all i want from the gamepad Big Nate Two words. Christian Schoff Da fuq is that? Big Nate I don’t know. I call it “My reaction to Xenoblade X” Sonic 2099 The Hedgehog More Then That!! Jack This game will be epic. To think that we will be getting this, Zelda, and Star Fox (assuming none are delayed) next year is just amazing. 🙂 Potemkin The first time they showed this game I thought it had great graphics, but during this past E3, I couldn’t help but notice that either the game terrible or it was just the character models that look awful. I hope they put more polish into this. uPadWatcher You should realize that the graphics are the same. If you look at the character’s face in the first teaser trailer, it’s still the same with better improvements. What you last saw were just CGI cut scenes… NOT ACTUAL GAME PLAY. If you had watched the real game play in action during Nintendo’s Treehouse live @ E3, you should have seen how the game works and plays. Potemkin I did. Hence my thoughts on the graphics. kevin nun—- I know right? The environment looks great but when it comes to the character models it looks like another wii game. Fred No it doesn’t. Go pull out Xenoblade again. X looks head and shoulders better than Xenoblade especially the characters models! BrBa but the face man … is so creepy :(. Here is the Xenoblade: http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111023035338/xenoblade/images/c/c0/Fiora_1.jpg ^__^ !! and here is the Xenoblade X http://i.imgur.com/ww5aKj8.jpg o__O …. MujuraNoKamen But for an 8th gen game, the hair looks horrifically animated & textured. The characters look all flat and pixelated. There has been a visual downgrade compared to the earlier footage and Monolith shouldn’t release a game that doesn’t live up to the expectation they built – and they definitely shouldn’t lie about how the game looks. Fred I think you need to calm down a little. If it doesn’t look quite as good as you’re going it won’t change how fun it is. CommonSense This is mostly not true. Yeah, the hair isnt tops, but its not horrible, even for 8th gen open world games (Most western studios are just plain horrible with hair anyways, so X’s hair isnt a stand out anyways). There is no pixelation like you are complaining, and the flat skin is an art decision. The actual body models, and the clothes, are pretty high poly and poly detailed, with good shader details as well. The faces are just a visual cacaphony, The game is markedly and decidedly better looking now than it was at reveal and trailer 2. Night and day better looking. Much much better looking. The thing is, they never actualy SHOWED the faces back then, aside from using the games create a face tools to make a creepy cherub like red herring shulk face at the very end of the trailer… Which actually looks WORSE, than what they have now. So, interesting experience, you now have first hand experience as to what it feels like to be indoctrinated by a halo effect and see/believe things that dont really exist because of it. Weird huh? uPadWatcher Do your research again. Look at the Xenosaga trilogy on PS2 and Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii and see the difference of what Monolith Soft have made in Xenoblade Chronicles X on Wii U… especially in full HD. C4 Yeah, it’s really just the style which doesn’t resonate with everyone. MujuraNoKamen I actually just googled search “Xenoblade X dolls” as soon as I typed the D, the top result was “Downgrade”. Monolith soft better be working hard on this because if they do a watch dogs on us and what was supposed to be a next-gen game looks early 360-level I’ll be pissed. The environments look great but everything else looked awful – it is early days so I’m sure the final product will live up to the first 2 trailers. But seriously virtually everything in this E3 trailer looked downgraded from what we had last year. Dolls before: http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/34c9f8d7431744e0c8d25cf12d82d26a1370990167_large.jpg Dolls after: http://media1.gameinformer.com/filestorage/CommunityServer.Components.SiteFiles/imagefeed/featured/e32014/Nintendo/PressConference/xenoblade/xenomechs-610.jpg Now check the characters (It’s probably best to watch the video instead of pictures) You can see the shine and some impressive animation on Elma’s hair in trailer 1: http://i.imgur.com/nN6pgnK.jpg Compare that to the blocks in the latest trailer: http://0519f170a2731643c0a9-ec45ee3cb118921cf5758d3a3db775b7.r83.cf1.rackcdn.com/6bf7817a905df2929e4acc947629394bdce8ba4c.png__846x0_q80.png The characters too, in last years E3 trailer you could see the lighting reflecting off the guy’s Armour which had some fairly impressive textures. the toning on his skin/muscles. Elma’s Armour looked all metallic, reflecting the light and shit but now it’s just texture-less blocks of colour – characters have quite a lot of jaggies too even watching the demo in 720p Going back to the dolls look at how pixilated the inside of the dolls look: http://geekparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Xenoblade-Chronicles-X-E3-2014.jpg Check out early 2013’s visuals: http://www.abload.de/img/cockpitsmall8vq3q.gif no contest right? I don’t mean to be mr negative as I’m fairly sure they’re working on polishing it up. A couple of shots from the lastest tarielr looked pretty sharp. so I just hope the final game looks as consistently great as what was seen before. http://images.lvp.llnw.net/81d5fd2a308b4f5c981628b17e9fcadd/media/2dc6723242e14e4b8fb872728e40c41f/04w.1280×720.jpeg None of us want this to be compared to the Watch dogs lie or worse, Aliens colonial marines. Ultrasyd I have the same feeling. But 1st trailer was more like a cinematic and not a lot of gameplay scenes. The models are indeed terrible. Just my opinion. Just like a single player MMORPG if you see what i mean. I’m really looking forward to this game though. I’ve been playing Ni No Kuni on PS3 lately and it looks so awesome. I think i would love to see such graphics (anim style/ smooth animation) in a JRPG. Yeah i really need such a game Fred I’ve been playing Xenoblade and the graphics for X put the graphics for Xenoblade to shame Phoenix The models do look a bit…weird. I mean, they all have these huge eyes and the same facial expressions, it just doesn’t seem quite right compared to the character models in Xenoblade Chronicles. C4 Looks fine to me. Mario I never played Xenoblade chronicles (Which I regret). But to me, they look just fine. BrBa nothing wrong with the first one, but the X is terrible, in term of character model. BrBa http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/xenoblade-chronicles-x/screenshot3.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ww5aKj8.jpg http://lookglambox.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Anime-Anatasia-with-Barbie-Valeria.jpg Creepy as f*ck! CommonSense Its the character designers face designs. Hes the same designer from xenosaga, and decided to go with the same weird cherub face style as xenosaga instead of something else he did like, xenogears. Gives me kind of the same reaction as the tmnt 2014 faces. Did the same to me back with saga too. The rest of the character, monsters, and environment are aces. But man… Those faces… They can really put a negative halo effect on the whole games visuals for some people. BrBa I agree, the face is so weird …. FutureFox I didn’t even have to read their comment to know how they’d use it. This is how everyone has used the damn thing. Its boring. Uninspiring and doesn’t bode well as any competitive reason to own a Wii U for newcomers. uPadWatcher Sounds like you have no experience in the Xeno series. Most of the people see otherwise when it comes to Xenoblade Chronicles X. It’s more of an open world with more stuff not found in other games including the Wii original. FutureFox I didn’t mean the game itself was boring and unimaginative just the developers (and other developers) use the gamepad to merely a map-screen. Especially when you consider it being the most expensive piece of hardware on the console. Nintendo could have spent far less making a second peripheral dedicated to navigation/inventory for a much cheaper cost and gamers would be just as happy. uPadWatcher With the Game Pad, you can do more than just move and shoot. That’s why there’s a touch screen to use weapons, health… and even a helpful map to see where you’re going or the next move in the heat of a battle and when to attack. A – Kuma “nintendo could have spent far less on making a second peripheral dedicated to navigation/inventory” or, crazy idea, developers could actually try to make better use of the gamepad. But having a map/inventory on hand rather than having to stop everything to look is actually very helpful sometimes. FutureFox Well even if developers threw their best ideas on it the gamers would have to want to use it. Judging by the complaints on this site alone people don’t want to use the gamepad for anything more than map and off-tv play. So why should developers go to town implementing features that gamers themselves don’t want to try? People already don’t want to have to use the gyro for StarFox and its not even completed. Fred For this game the Gamepad use doesn’t have to Sell me because an excluse Xeno game made by Monolith Soft has me 300% sold. These guys are NUTS good at making the most incredible games. If you want to experience it go buy Xenoblade BrBa the game pad is a waste, i can agree with that. But with Nintendo exclusives, nothing is a waste, or boring. Arthur Jarret Yup, they should have done some kind of ‘Monado future vision’ thing with it – where you can view the future in any given location by simply holding up the gamepad like a visor – and try to change it for the better. adamm This, and off-TV play, is exactly why I prefer some Wii U ports over other consoles’ versions. Not terribly innovative, but very pragmatic use of the gamepad. Ultrasyd We might miss some DLC, but we have this awesome feature indeed. Good deal imo Alexander Kleinwechter Ok, pls release Xenoblade chronicles to the Wii U with updated graphics, instead of taking it to ”new” Nintendo 3DS. I dont wanna buy another 3DS system so soon Fred I pulled it out and played in Wii Mode this weekend. It works just fine and I had a great time just do that. Arthur Jarret I often pull it out and play in wii mode too. I almost got arrested once. Fred What does that have to do with getting arrested? Arthur Jarret Just think about it. Wii… Pulling it out… Things aren’t funny if you have to explain it all. http://blog.chron.com/tubular/files/2014/06/know-what-i-mean.gif steveb944 As long as we can play Wii games on there, it ain’t happening. Let me cast the New 3DS to my Wii U and they’ll have my money. JoSilverNG . Honestly I can completely understand the choice to go with the 3DS rather then Wii U. It’s not like Wii U Owners can’t play it, but people who only have a 3DS can’t. While a Wii U version would be nice, it plays just fine on Wii U already. darkcreap I think that off TV play plus a touch screen interface would be great for Xenoblade. I mean, to play watching the gamepad screen and touch on the character movements instead of using the d pad and buttons. It could be much quicker. Of course, this wouldn’t work if you use the TV as the main screen, only in Off TV play. C4 Especially skill selection if that is handled like in Xenoblade. I think the whole interface should be on GamePad, optionally. And vice versa not leave stuff out when you can’t use the second screen (which ironically see Wind Waker _is_ while playing Off-TV play) Kinda still works on TV see eShop, Miiverse or other stuff, you can still follow the pointer on TV, you only get more false positives for ‘click’ when you don’t want to ‘click’ on stuff but that could easily be changed by mapping ‘don’t click, just point’ to one of the shoulder buttons leo Dem character models though ShortyStock Is Shulk in this game? Fred Great question. We don’t know the answer. In one of the trailers it showed someone that looked like Shulk, but it didn’t say if it was him and in another trailer it showed a Napon but we learned at E3 that there are actual worlds in this one not just Giant Titans where people live. ShortyStock I haven’t tried the old one. I might have to if Shulk isn’t in this PS4WiiURocks Looks cool BrBa Oh good, u changed your avatar XD. Craig Desmond this Zelda and star fox are going to be amazing and the only ps4 game im getting is batman arkham knight and I am getting more wii u games aswell these are just my most anticipated games zoohero I know its of but This is just a sad thing to see and it dos not help Nintendo in the right direction…. so sad David Horowitz Having a map on the screen’s only considered “not innovative”, because that’s what many games have used the second screen for, because it’s really convenient. Maybe it’s not the most innovative use for the second screen, but it sure beats having to pause, look at a map, unpause, forget what you just looked at, and repeat. People underrate having a map on the second screen. DJKeens Anything menu related should be on the gamepad, like Darksiders 2 (minus the horrendous lag). Map should be just one of many functions, though as much fast travel as I did in the first Xenoblade , being able to glance and tap at the second screen is more innovative than what most games have done (where it’s usually JUST a map, no interaction aside from pan and zoom). Dying_in_this_Crap_World Awesome, so we wont need teh crappad. Chelseafan1989 Yes we do. Xenoblade Chronicles X is an RPG. Having the map and all the inventory on the screen is way better than clunky menus. GregoryTheRainMaker The 3DS eLite or the 3DS “G2” series. BrBa so this explanation is basically: “The gamepad is a great additional accessory, but you ain’t gonna NEED it, so buy a pro-controller and fucking around with that instead” Yay … Chelseafan1989 You do need it if you want the best way to play it. Chelseafan1989 People saying just using the game pad as an inventory screen and map is not very innovative. How come every time I use my brothers PS4 I wish it was there. I hate the clunkiness of PS4 games. You have too press pause go through one menu into another and another. On the Wii U it is a seamless experience and doesn’t interfere with gameplay and makes the games more immersive and realistic. Dark Souls would be way better than any other console with the game pad. People just don’t see it the way I do. I guess you only know what you are missing after using it for an extensive amount of time and not just reading about it. SpareChnge How the gamepad works? IT SCIENCE BIATCH!