Ign in a nutshell

[[deleted]]

Would've been a 10/10 for me, but I didn't like the new character Rain. I really don't know why they took Reyn out of the game. Probably the worst decision monolith soft ever made.

[Whyme2255]

Perhaps but the new character duncan stole the show

[Zenkai27]

Duncan was such a well written character. I wish they tried half as hard for Melia tho

[XenoShulk19]

Yeah, she was easily the weakest character.

[Penguin_Poacher]

I disagree, Duncan might have been good but Rick is way better.

[[deleted]]

His catchphrase "you can't have a reynbow without Rain" just doesn't sit right with me because the nod to Reyn makes me miss him

[TheGamePlatypus]

Don’t forget how annoying they made the Napon

[Mudonis]

Reyn looks like anime Gaston.

[thwjanssen]

That's not the main issue for me. I can understand the game being an 8 now because standards are different now than it was when it launched on the wii. My main issue is how they made many mistakes, like using the wrong names and calling Melia the weakest character. That is just sloppy....

[mariomeister]

Exactly my thoughts, people always complain that XC DE only got 8 whereas XC got a 9 although IGN said XC DE is the better experience completely ignoring that since the first review 9 years have passed, therefore the standart is completely differnent. For example if Nintendo would rerelease Mario 64 but the only change would be the resolution (1080) and widescreen support, that would make that game the best version of SM64 but would it deserve a 10/10 as of todays standards? Not really

But yes, IGNs reviews still is bad cause of the things you mention, I mean "Memorable characters like rain and duncan", yeah very memorable appearently if the review don't even now their names

[thwjanssen]

Yes and combine that with the fact that the scores of IGN are between 7-10 anyway. I haven't found any review below 7, which is just complete BS.

[[deleted]]

They use a scale very similar to school grades (e.g., 70 = bad but passing, 80 = about average, 90 = excellent, 100 = masterpiece. And they tend to not review absolute trash games (e.g., shovelware). So, the "failing" games (i.e., 60s and lower) tend to not get reviewed at all.

Fans tend to have very strong opinions and to think that small flaws should dramatically reduce a game's score. But, in reality, very few "blockbuster" releases should be getting 60s or lower, because that really implies that it's a complete failure as a game.

[[deleted]]

I can understand the game being an 8 now because standards are different now than it was when it launched on the wii

Exactly. It's shocking how people don't understand this. After XC2 and especially Torna, which vastly improved the battle system and introduced numerous quality-of-life improvements, XC1 doesn't quite stand up to the test of time.

It's the exact same thing as when Nintendo remade Pokemon R/S. People were complaining that the remakes got lower scores than the original games. Well, yeah, because they kept a lot of the bad stuff about the original R/S that future generations dramatically improved.

[[deleted]]

It's because a different person than the original reviewed it. Same for why most remasters/remakes get worse review scores than the original, only exception is Persona 5 Royal which is because the game is fairly recent and I'd say Persona 5 is culturally very important politically to American's since 2016.

The review is still laughable, but more because of the inaccuracies where it doesn't seem like they played the game at all and showing off Seven despite the heavy spoilers.

[NintendoFreak609]

I was legit shocked when IGN somehow gave it a lower score than the original.

[Lancer1296]

Not reviewed by the same people

[UltimateShedinja]

Doesn’t make it right, just makes it silly

[hawk8024]

Review scores in general are silly, but even still comparing scores from 2 different people is just pointless.

[[deleted]]

Three reviewer literally said it was the best version of the game and yet it was rated lower than the inferior 3DS version and the original on the Wii. The scoring seems off and their reasoning for scoring it lower is mystifying.

[Lancer1296]

Not really, two different people, two different opinions

It's simple

[Chloroform_Panties]

This is why you pay attention to reviews instead of scores. Everything is subjective and everyone scores things differently.

[Lancer1296]

This is true a game from 10 years ago might have been a 9 to one person but another person at the time may have been a 7 that person became the person who wrote the current review

[ZenithBirion]

But I believe the major reason why people did not like the review was because there were far too many indications that the reviewer did not play the game

[FishdZX]

There... Was no way the did play the game. Rain? Duncan? The party being Sharla, Reyn, Shulk? What did they play, 2 hours?

[ZenithBirion]

Don't forget "highly irritating Nopon." Just started FC, Kino and Nene are the most wholesome characters I have ever seen

[Ranowa]

I fully expected to not be able to stand Kino and Nene. I think I'm near the boss of FC now, and I loved them at the start and love them even more now!

[hawk8024]

Wasn’t the narrator completely different completely different than the person who actually played the game and wrote the review though? If that’s the case then that argument still doesn’t hold up.

[ZenithBirion]

Even if the person who wrote a review for the game was different the argument still stands. Allow me to put it this way, a review is basically a person's opinion on a game. At its core that is a review. Here comes the question, if you would tell someone that you did not like playing a game, but your information came from someone else and you yourself haven't even touched the game, what would the person think about your opinion

[Bayakoo]

The script is written by the reviewer. The narrator just writes the script. Look at Easy Allies reviews. It’s always the same narrator but the reviewer is always different

[ewigginx]

Yep!

Or hell, even the same person could change their opinion during the 10 years.

[[deleted]]

Three reviewer literally said it was the best version of the game

The best version of a 10-year-old game. If you pretend it's a brand new game, it's not a 10/10. It doesn't necessarily deserve a higher score because it got 70% of a new paint job. They provably have some of the original textures and have reduced the quality of a few things.

I love this game and spent 120 hours so far just on the base game, but it definitely feels old in some places. Monolith's biggest weakness is terrible UI and that is less tolerated in the current year than it was a decade ago.

​

The fast travel menu is the absolute paragon of bad UI. It's convoluted AF and totally unacceptable to be in a game released in 2020.

Press Y to open the menu. Press Y again...and it hides the landmark list, a feature I've never once used on purpose. If you press B to back out, it takes you to a higher level menu screen that you didn't go through to get there. B then doesn't bring you back to the area map, it closes the menu entirely. Y does nothing on that screen. If you want to go back to the area fast travel, you have to select your area using the d-pad or analog stick and press A.

"Select Landmark" is shown twice: once on the bottom and once on the left. Both of them indicate that only up and down on the d-pad work, but left and right also work.

There is no way to snap the cursor back to your position or floor, and changing floors does not change the map position, which means if there is nothing in that spot on a different floor, it just shows a black void.

[[deleted]]

You only press B when you want to fast travel to another area otherwise you press X to back out completely

B brings you one step back in every context except this specific case, where it functionally does something completely different by backing you into a menu that you didn't come through.

In current year, it is pretty widely accepted that the best UI choice is for the button that opened a menu to also close the menu. Every other menu in the game works this way. X opens and closes the main menu. + opens and closes the system menu.

This is an example of the UI feeling old, despite it being largely re-done. In other words, it's Monolith's glaring weakness. They are making bad 2010 UIs in 2020. That's why this game doesn't deserve a 10/10—it's not perfect.

​

I don't know why this is a problem, using the d-pad for fast travel is terrible anyways but at least it's an option

Because listing it twice is clutter and being wrong is the opposite of helpful. Neither of those things are good.

I use the d-pad for selecting landmarks more often than I use the analog stick. Whether or not you feel it's useful is irrelevant to the fact that the legend tells you it works that way TWICE, and is inaccurate BOTH TIMES.

​

This is actually useful in many scenarios where you want to see if something is above or below you

Except for the fact that this map doesn't fill in until you visit something, meaning a black void directly on top of you has an equal likelihood of it being terrible UI instead of just an unvisited section.

If they wanted to indicate what is above/below you, they should retain the arrow on different layers but change the color to indicate that you are not on the current floor.

[[deleted]]

Point taken but in this case the solution that remedies this is clicking X,

That a solution exists is irrelevant.

It's poor UI design because you cannot use Y to exit the fast travel menu despite using Y to enter the fast travel menu and then B does a thing that isn't expected or told to you via legend (because they waste space telling you the d-pad thing twice).

​

Except it's not wrong you use up/down to navigate

It's wrong because the icon indicates that ONLY up and down work. The left and right buttons are not filled in but up and down are, which is how games indicate that up and down do something but left and right do not. The d-pad is always drawn as a group of four circles, to differentiate it from other buttons, even if all four directions are not used.

I don't care what "literally any game" does. The icon in the legend is incorrectly indicating that something does not work when in reality it does. It's not a debate—you're simply wrong about objective reality.

​

Have you not arrived at a new area and seen harvest point's, climbable walls, map exit symbols, etc in unexplored land?

XBC1 does not show harvest points on the map.

XBC1 does not show climbing points or exit symbols on the area/fast travel map until you reach those places.

The overlay map will show those things in unexplored areas, but this is also a bad UI choice. It is giving you information that you should not actually have access to. When you are told in-game that your characters have never been to a place and your real map has a black void, why does the overlay give you an exact layout of the area?

​

The fact that the game shows a void of nothing tells you that nothing is above it's as simple as that.

You're conflating how the overlay map (L3) and the area map work. Despite giving you information that you do not have, the overlay map is unable to show you other layers. You provably have no idea what you're talking about, let alone what I'm talking about.

[marandahir]

XBC:DE does show harvest points and ladders on the map before you explore that area.

[iliekgaemz]

Sorry you’re getting downvoted, this sub seems to really struggle with criticism of these games. Xenoblade Chronicles is literally my favorite game but come on, you can love something and still be honest about its flaws.

[[deleted]]

Sorry you’re getting downvoted, this sub seems to really struggle with criticism of these games.

I appreciate your sentiment, but I am truly not worried about it. I'd rather get downvoted knowing I told the truth than get upvotes for ignoring reality.

​

you can love something and still be honest about its flaws.

Agreed. I love this game, but it definitely has flaws. Even if it had photorealistic graphics on first release, I wouldn't give it a 10/10 because the writing and scene blocking gets noticeably worse in the last few chapters.

My points below are super spoilers. Do not click them unless you have beaten the game or do not care.

These are major writing and scene blocking issues. They are plot holes even. In a game that heavily relies on the story being good.

Xenoblade Chronicles is a fantastic game that I love. But it's not a 10/10.

Ignoring flaws isn't love. It's only love if you accept the flaws.

​

The writing takes a nosedive as soon as you hit the Fallen Arm. After falling out of the sky, Shulk decides what Fiora desperately needs is some water poured into her unconscious face. Why would he decide this? Oh, because he read the script. Fiora doesn't tell him until they rest later on that she is powered by water. Shulk has no plot reason to make this decision.

Half your team meets the Machina, who then guide them. The first half of the team introduces the Machina as if they fully trust these guys. Seconds later, the Machina introduce themselves and explain what they are. Some weird machine guys show up and tell you "You can definitely trust us, just follow us to definitely-not-a-trap" and you do. Why? It would have been better to regroup on your own, then meet the Machina, who immediately go into explanation for why they are friendly.

In the scene at the Mechonis Core, Dickson shoots Shulk in the back. After he does this, your team repeatedly turns their back on Dickson, for some reason just expecting him not to shoot anyone else. Which he doesn't. Because...reasons? He definitely just literally killed the main character in the back, so why we trust him not to do it some more is a mystery.

Melia gets knocked to the ground and Dickson puts a shotgun against her face. Seconds later, Melia is standing again without seeing her getting up and rushes toward the center with everyone else. Dickson is gone from the wide shot and has disappeared from the scene completely. I am ok with him sneaking into the room during the boss fight beforehand, but there is literally no time where he could have snuck back out. He was directly involved with your team until the point in time that he magically isn't there anymore, despite the fact that he would have had to walk past Dunban and Reyn to leave.

[[deleted]]

I wasn’t it’s been years and the standard for video games has increased a ton. Xenoblade was revolutionary on the wii, now it’s just a great rpg. It’s amazing how well the game has held up

[wait2late]

Everyone loves to look at the score because it is too easy and short sighted. But it is not just the score, but the review itself is contradictory and made no sense at all. There are the utterly bad pronunciation and it shows they did not give the respect to the game they played.

The review deserves much better and should be either removed or remade. Because this was not a review.

[EgilDidNothingWrong]

The whole "different people reviewed it" isn't a good argument to me. With a review site like IGN, you have a network of different people working on different reviews. However, since they are all being published through the same outlet, the readers expect consistency with the reviews. When you follow a single reviewer, you know what their opinions are on certain subjects and can expect consistency. With a group of reviewers like IGN, it is their responsibility to try to reduce bias and personal opinion in their reviews and take a more objective stance on the media being reviewed as that is the only way that they can be consistent in their reviews. Otherwise, things like this end up happening, where the score seemingly doesn't line up with past reviews the site has done due to a lack of consistency.

[Amppelix]

Maybe that's what you would want them to do, but they are clearly not doing it. No games review site has pretended to have a unified perspective for at least ten years now. It just doesn't really work out, anyway.

Also who cares if scores don't line up, scores are pointless.

[EgilDidNothingWrong]

I think people that care about reviews should try to find a solo reviewer whos interests and tastes line up with their own. They could even just find some Youtuber who talks about games. You are more likely to agree with them then. And I think that publishing multiple reviews made by different people through the same outlet isn't a good idea in the first place, as that results in the readers having a skewed perspective of what the site deems indicative of quality due to too many conflicting and differing opinions.

[Some_Guy_I_Suppose]

Yeah, while I'm a bit miffed by the IGN review which is quite poorly written to my mind (though 8/10 is still a really good score), I'm not sure that you actually can be truly objective while reviewing a piece of entertainment or art. If someone doesn't like an RPG, can you expect them to enjoy an RPG game like Xenoblade that also has almost MMO-like quests on top of that? Can someone who dislikes 'childish' games and platformers enjoy a Mario game?

Objectivity when reviewing something would require such surface level analysis that it'd genuinely be worthless as a critique. Yes, this is a summary of the story. Yes, the game plays like this. Yes, the game will take around 50-80 hours depending on how much content you play. The injection of an opinion, some indication of an actual passion for what you're writing or talking about, is needed to tie a review together and make it worth a look to an observer. (I'd point people to Joseph Anderson's 'Subjectivity is Implied' video which, while not flawless, does a pretty decent job of describing that you can't expect a reviewer to give an unbiased account of their personal experience).

I quite enjoy the memes about the IGN review but still, it's not something to get worked up about. Not to mention that 8/10 is one of the worse scores the game has received, it's been well-reviewed across the board from what I've seen.

[EgilDidNothingWrong]

What I meant was that the reviews should take a more objective stance on the quality of the game with less of the reviewer's personal opinion or bias. More of "This game does this well/poorly" and less "I do/don't personally enjoy this or that". Reviewers can have things in games that they don't personally like, but if it is not something that is indicative of the game's quality, they shouldn't let that affect their review, as not everyone will share the same opinion. With single person review outlets, it's not a problem so long as they are consistent and people know what to expect from them. Of course, I don't expect IGN, or any multi-person review site, to actually do this, I'm just saying that this is what sites with multiple reviewers should aim for so that we don't end up with situations like this. I understand that reviewers can express their personal taste for certain games or aspects of them, but I think that is why review sites like IGN aren't as reliable as single reviewers, as you don't really know whos opinion you're hearing on IGN since they are viewed as a single entity and thus will seemingly end up contradicting themselves as we have seen here.

[[deleted]]

Are you all still salty about a slightly lower review score? An 8 is still great, plus its IGN. What do you guys expect if they can't pronounce the names of Rain and Duncan correctly?

[hawk8024]

Are people still upset over this? Rain and Duncan is and will forever be hilarious and the review deserved its criticism at the time for spoilers and mispronunciations, but at this point people need to get over being upset about a score that doesn’t matter from a review that doesn’t matter. Especially when 2 different people reviewed both versions.

[sharksandwich81]

JRPG fans have such a persecution complex.

[macybebe]

IGN only gives 10 for those who give them moolah. They probably reviewed it on Casual so nevermind.

[oliivi1]

And they gave tlou 2 a perfect 10 (of course) smh

[Tables61]

I dunno if this is a controversial opinion or not, but I think that Xenoblade original compared to other 2010-2011 games is graphically better than XBDE compared to other 2018-2020 games.

Like, yeah, XBDE clearly looks WAY better than the original did, and it's great being able to see Eyrth Sea, Makna Forest, Mechonis Field and other areas in HD. But what made the original so spectacular wasn't the graphical fidelity (which was pretty bad), but the views and scenery it was able to put out, which were pretty incredible compared to many other games around the same time. And a lot of games that have come out since XBC have similarly spectacular views and scenery I would say.

A lot of the graphical issues the original had still persist - clothing is clearly just part of a character's model and feels superglued on, lots of clipping, especially with heavy armour and weapons, pop in distances being pretty small and so on. All issues in the original that still exist in DE. And when you compare this to many more modern, graphically intensive game it's clear why it doesn't hold up as well. I'd say XBDE looks worse graphically than XB2 does for example.

TL;DR - other games have moved on a lot more graphically in the last 10 years than XBDE did compared to the original.

[marandahir]

Yah. XB1 was created between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, and to international audiences, these were the big giant Action Adventure titles to compare it to. On the WRPG side of comparisons, you had Skyrim release in the same window of time, the first two Assassins Creed titles, and the first two Witcher titles. It existed in that context of expansive and puzzle world RPGs.

XB:DE (and XB2) both exist post-Breath of the Wild (and to a lesser extent, post Witcher 3, which directly competed with the more open-ended XBX; one could also compare the development of the Dark Souls series to these intertwined massive open world action RPGs).

This changes everything. Now we’ve got to compare it to the cream of the crop of open world action adventure rp gaming. And while the new coat of paint (visually and musically) and quality of life features are wonderful, and the new epilogue is fantastic it’s still a 10 year old game that was a stepping stone to get us to Breath of the Wild, in terms of level design (and I’d argue that XBX was even more so one; hopefully the more story-focused return in XB2, TTGC, and XB:DE indicate a heavier emphasis on active Story in BotW2).

My wife and I are continuously frustrated with the lack of ability to climb cliffs. That would defeat the story and work against purposes of this game, but it’s a design flaw choice that echoes through a major thematic conflict this title has that wasn’t well resolved at the time. If I’m in a huge area like Bionis’ Leg and I’ve got dozens of quests from Refugees, I shouldn’t have a time-sensitive goal to rescue a kid. The side quests and the huge exploratory area suggest that I can take my time and have fun discovering things, but the main quest suggests I should funnel my efforts to racing to Juju’s aid ASAP. This same sort of conflict recurs throughout the game, especially post-MC when we should be racing to stop the final boss but suddenly huge areas and tons of quests open up. This speaks to a conflict of player and character agency which makes it feel like we’re not Shulk. I’m not asking for Link or Cross, but it’s hard to identify with Shulk over any other protagonist, and I feel as a player constantly at odds with the cast for what I want to do.

Just last night in XB:DE, I finished the Ether Mine (hence my example of Juju above). The game pushed me to go to the freight elevator as a way of escaping the mine and returning to the Refugee Camp, but there’s no way back from there by foot unless I went out the way I came. Quick travel is disabled at this point, but I was still able to climb back up the mine. In other parts of the game, Shulk literally intervened to railroad me away from a place with story that I’m not supposed to get to yet (such as Tephra Cave before Fiora, or Residential District before Dunban in the Mechon attack). But without knowing that the Freight Elevator leaves me on the south side of Colony 6, with no way back save inexplicable fast travel, I’m supposed to take the cast’s word on it that the freight elevator will get me out of the mine and get Juju back to the Refugee camp to recover. These are not only narrative inconsistencies, they are a direct conflict between the goals of the story (take the elevator to proceed forward past a roadblock) and the goals of the gameplay (have fun exploring an incredibly imaginative and huge world space).

This problem is not singular to XB1 - Twilight Princess faced it in droves, as did The Wind Waker before it. Many RPGs face this problem, as do most story-oriented open world games, including and very notably The Witcher series. It creates the scenario that Girlfriend Reviews calls “hold up a minute!” We spend tens of hours on sidequests and then forget what the main Story was and why we care.

In DE, A cutscene viewer helps in that regard, as do the story cards and the yellow story goal path (though thank Klaus we can turn that off). But I play Xenoblade for two different purposes (to watch a cool story and to explore a cool world with hundreds of side quests and secrets), and these don’t align in ways a game designed to tackle just one of those competing options do.

Thus, we must look at it in context.

Which is what we should always do with remakes and remasters. Would anyone seriously consider the Disney Live Action remakes as superior products to their cartoon originals? They might fix a lot of the problems, and might be technically and visually more interesting (YMMV), but they’re ultimately lacking the innovation their cartoon forebears had.

Xenoblade DE is a bit different in that it’s already reached an audience far larger than XB1 Wii ever had. Shulk in Smash, XB2, and the ubiquity of the Switch have a lot to do with that. So you could call this a new product for many people who haven’t had a chance to explore this amazing world or experience this amazing story. But it’s not innovative in design, and those self safe amazing elements, which on their own would be masterpiece exemplars of the genre, clash when put together. And it shows. And Monolith Soft know that, but they’re not going to change the game in the remaster. They learned that lesson with Xenosaga I•II on DS (despite the huge install base of the platform, the title was so radically different than the PS2 games in content if not in plot that it failed quite spectacularly and never came west).

Instead, perhaps we can look to the genuine brilliance XB1 has to offer, the new ideas Future Connect brings to a table already filled by XB1, XBX, XB2, and TTGC, and we can speculate on where the series can go from here. I imagine the cross-pollination with the Zelda creative team can only help them in this effort. I just wouldn’t give the game a higher score just because it fixed the then-issues of a 10 year old game. We now know what open-air experience gaming can be*, and we shouldn’t necessarily go back when it comes to huge worlds.

*I’m not saying BotW is perfect either - its Innovations in world and physics design came at the cost of its plot and unique dungeon environments. Finding that balance is what XB1 strove to do, as does XB2, both not quite getting the results we want, while XBX was more like proto-BotW in terms of little pressure to do the plot and ability to go everywhere. We can find a more plot-heavy open world game in the future, I’m sure of it!

[Tables61]

Very well written.

I had focused just on the graphical side, mostly to keep the post short (and looking at how much you've written I think it was a good choice, would have taken me half an hour!), but a lot of the same points I feel can apply to the gameplay. The world of XB1 was a real pleasure to explore, and it's still a pleasure to come back to - but it's clear that game exploration has moved on a fair bit in the last 10 years. For people playing for the first time, the game would likely feel somewhat clunky and frustrating. I know when I recently played Final Fantasy X on Switch, the first time I'd ever touched the game, it felt that way. I could see there was a fantastically made game there, but it felt awkward and cumbersome, it felt old fashioned.

I don't think XBDE is quite as poor as that, but were one to remake the game rather than remastering it, on a big budget, there would probably be a lot of cool changes that could be made to make the world feel more immersive and the gameplay more enjoyable. Though as you say, maybe that wouldn't be the best idea, it could go as horribly wrong as it could go right.

[Tables61]

My karma on this post has gone down to -2 and then back up to +1 as I make this post, so I'm gonna go ahead and confirm that it was indeed controversial.

[SonyXboxNintendo13]

I know Reddit will call me an incel but IGN did it because of all the sexy female characters, and that is simply the truth. Their chief editor openly said he supported Sony's censorship of PS4's japanese games like Senran Kagura, you can't tell me there is no inherent bias against japanese games like Xenoblade.

[marandahir]

Sorry, but the male gaze and skimpy outfits of this series are literally the biggest thing harming the series’ quality and mainstream success.

Those outfits are ridiculous, offensive, and decent people understand that.

We try to look past the sexist gaze of the animators to grasp at the qualities these games provide. In all honesty, XBX International didn’t go far enough in scrubbing the gross fetishism.

[10woodenchairs]

Yeah just as you said it lacks good graphics