Player Acting Reporting

23rd Thursday Nov.

“XenoBlade Chronicles X”

The player type I will be “Player-acting” according to the “Four Domains of Play'' as a Perseverer. I was given the game, based on the graph. I prefer hard games that I don’t need to put much work into, a “Talent” player. Meanwhile, I don’t like games that are easy, and require hours and days and months of work to progress. Games like Stardew Valley, Terraria, and so on are games I can point to that I would dabble in, but I wouldn’t play them for more than a couple days before getting a bit bored. The only game in that genre I managed to put up with was “Death Stranding”. But still gave up halfway.

The game in question I will be analysing is XenoBlade Chronicles X, which was originally released in 2015 for the Wii U. Developed by Monolith Soft, and published by Nintendo. It is an action role playing game, and is part of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, being formed as a part of the wider Xeno metaseries.

The game is very complex and overwhelming, I didn’t understand at first what I was supposed to do, I knew that I had to follow a marker that pointed me in the right direction (My friend had to point that out for me), and the basic movement, using the analog sticks to move around. Jump was assigned to the right bumper, which immediately raised alarm bells that the combat would be very intensive.

The combat is the one aspect I still don’t understand. Apparently, you gotta be close or around the enemy? And it is proximity based. You can switch to different weapons, with each of them having their own stat lines and abilities with cool downs you have to manage. While also having multiple party members to look after.

I really like the visual design of the characters, enemies, massive structures, menus and how it's stylised. It is a bit outdated, as being on the Wii U, but the graphics hold up and are still appealing to look at. I especially liked the character maker, it gave enough options to customise, but in terms of hairstyle it was a bit limiting. There were mostly only generic anime styles, and no wolf cut or any wave hair style.

It is not a particularly difficult game, but it requires you to understand a lot of concepts and understand the mechanics really well. And I say it does not do a good job in introducing these gameplay loops.

I don’t have much to say about any audio or music, as I only remember the beginning cutscene being quiet, and slow, then building up to a really grand and dramatic music. It hooked me a bit, setting up a bit of the story, a tad slightly confusing as I don’t know who this “evil alien force” is, and who is or are the “blue coloured defenders” , and I think it overstayed its welcome slightly.

One thing I want to mention is that, there are so many cutscenes and story and dialogue and whatnot. After my third cutscene, I was fidgeting with the buttons to try and find how to skip the cutscenes, it was the “plus” symbol on the Wii U gamepad. And I was still bombarded with so much lore and stuff that I don’t care about. I proceeded to skip every cutscene for 10 minutes straight. I was somehow still talking with people, and I just wanted to get into a fight. About an hour of playing, I decided to give up. I can not empathise with people who play massive, long winded RPGs.

“Perseveres” will enjoy this type of game, any one who is, again, into massive, long winded RPGs. Will have a lot of content and stuff to do. I wish this game introduced everything quicker. I do sometimes enjoy slow openings and introductions of mechanics, like “Half Life 2” and its introduction to its world.

The game features tons and tons of content, which is good, but sometimes, I would like a shorter game. “Perseveres” usually have a lot of free time, or sometimes, they put up with one game until completion, then move on to different games. They also usually play games that are much easier or simpler to play, meanwhile I am not into that type of difficulty.

What I learnt from this experience so far, and what I take away is that I want to prioritise gameplay first, then story. I want the player to enjoy the game, and if they like it alot. The game will reward with world building when they play more of the game. I don’t want to bore the player, like how I was feeling when I was playing Xenoblade Chronicles X. And I don’t want to overwhelm the player with a ton of mechanics to learn from the get go.

And when I make or design games in the near future, I will avoid what “Perseveres” are into, even though it is my empathy blind spot, I don’t think many players would enjoy an overstuffed turkey of a game, even if it eventually gets good. I want the beginning parts of the game to be enjoyable as well. Not just a really long cutscene and fetch quests thrown at the player, expecting them to learn. Some enjoy that, but I think most would like intricately designed levels that reward the player when they play the game.

In conclusion, I want every part of a game to be intentionally designed to be fun or rewarding. And less of long drawn out cutscenes and simply middling tutorials that are present in Xenoblade Chronicles X.