Nintendo just released the follow up to their highly acclaimed Wii exclusive 2012 JRPG, Xenoblade Chronicles, on the Wii U last week. The game launched to highly positive reviews, with people noting its sheer technical scope and ambition, while also noting that the game failed to be as special as the original game was- if only because the original game was such a thorough reinvention of the JRPG genre.
A lot of the criticism was also leveled at the story and characters in Xenoblade X- which are generally viewed as being inferior than those in the original game. Xenoblade Chronicles X in general de-emphasizes storytelling and characterization to focus more on the open world and exploration. While it does what it does very well, many people do miss the kind of great story that the original game managed to tell.
Speaking to GameReactor, developer Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi, the director of the franchise, discussed his hopes from a potential third game in the series.
“While Xenoblade Chronicles was a true story-driven JRPG, we took a rather different approach with Xenoblade Chronicles X,” Takahashi said. “You could say it doesn’t really feel like a typical JRPG: what really sets it apart from other JRPGs is that the game world – the planet Mira – is really vast. I’ve heard that some Japanese users who played Xenoblade Chronicles X said they enjoyed a more story-driven type of game. So if we have the opportunity to make another game in the series, I’d like to made another typical JRPG-style game like Xenoblade Chronicles again.”
Takahashi also expressed a desire about the kinds of games that he hopes Monolith Soft can bring to Nintendo’s larger portfolio.
“This is just my personal view, but I think that Monolith Soft should continue making the kind of games that can’t be made within Nintendo. As you know, before we were Monolith Soft we worked at Square Enix, so Xenoblade Chronicles is the result of those Square Enix influences combining with influences from Nintendo. Just as human civilisation has developed through the intermingling of different peoples and cultures, I hope that Monolith Soft can continue to develop further through having various opportunities to work with Nintendo.”
I think I agree with him on all counts.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is now available exclusively on the Wii U.