A new update was published on the official Japanese website for Xenoblade Chronicles X, which details some of the game’s downloadable content and online features.
The main draw of the DLC are the new characters – “HB”, “Boze”, “Ierv” and “Aksena”. They each come with their own DLC pack priced at 500 yen, containing the character and three missions. Finishing those missions allows you to add that character, who comes with two unique Artes, to your party. Three of those DLC packs award you with a blueprint for a new Skell, while the other one gives you a blueprint for a new type of weapon.
In addition, there are three more DLC packs containing missions that make it easier to level your characters, earn money and improve their relationships. These are priced at 300 yen each.
Finally, you can buy all of those DLC packs together for 2,000 yen instead of buying them all individually for 2,900 yen.
Check out screenshots of the DLC characters and more in the gallery below!
Xenoblade Chronicles X will finally be released in Japan later today. Ahead of its release, Nintendo released another official video which shows some of the game’s online features, such as Squad Quests and online co-op play.
Over the weekend at Chokaigi 2015 in Japan, Pokémon fans were treated to a huge Pokken Tournament stream. During the stream, it was revealed that Gengar would be a playable character, and a trailer was shown alongside it. Now Bandai Namco have released the official HD trailer, which you can check out below!
D3Publisher continues with its SIMPLE DL series with a trailer for Vol. 36, which is slated for a May 1st release in Japan exclusively in the Nintendo eShop. Check out the trailer below!
SEGA’s classic Streets of Rage 2 is heading to Japan soon as part of its 3D series, and earlier we got to take a gander at what the game would look like in stereoscopic 3D when viewing the video they uploaded on your Nintendo 3DS. Now we can see the first bit of the game in the video below!
The new themes for this week have just hit the Japanese 3DS theme shop, including ones for BlazBlue and Puzzle & Dragons – the latter of which will be made available tomorrow. Check out the video below to see all the new themes in action!
Today’s Iwata Asks for Xenoblade Chronicles X was filled with plenty of insightful information about the game’s development. There were so many interesting details that I figured I summary would come in handy! If you’d like the “cliffnotes” version, read on below.
– Monolith Soft originally wanted to connect the Bionis and Mechonis into one field in Xenoblade Chronicles
– For Xenoblade Chronicles X, Monolith Soft originally talked about creating a whole planet for the game
– Takahashi: “In the end, we created a field that can be developed on a realistic scale by creating five continents around 400km”
– Creating an open-world setting was one of the game’s pillars
– You couldn’t go to a few places that you saw in Xenoblade Chronicles, so Monolith Soft wanted to fix this with X
– It’s possible to go to any location shown on the screen
– Takahashi proposed dividing the area into hexagon-shaped fields so that players would have a better idea about knowing where to go
– Takahashi wrote a lot of the game’s plot; Kojima never saw him write so much before
– Takeda picked out the stories that fit within the game’s content and turned them into scripts
– Takeda was originally the only one assigned as scriptwriter, but Hyodo was brought in since the volume of work was too much for one person
– Hyodo asked staff if he could create additional characters for quest scenarios, and he was told, “Make as many as you want”
– Kojima: “In comparison to how it was with Xenoblade Chronicles and also other games in general, we did not have to be so restrictive about the places to appear in this game”
– Hyodo was able to help create young female characters who could take on important roles, as Takahashi and Takeda like middle-aged male characters
– Including the quests, it took at least 1.5 years to write out the scenarios
– The main story is shorter than Xenoblade Chronicles
– More quest depth than Xenoblade Chronicles
– Kojima says they put in 3000% more depth into the quests
– Similar number of quests as the Xenoblade Chronicles, though “we did put 3000% of our hearts into creating them”
– Quests are more condensed this time around
– Yokota believes this game will last five times longer if they try to complete everything
– Monolith Soft went through a “mass construction” of development in the middle of making the game
– This is because they decided to change the main character into an avatar
– This required some of the story to be rewritten
– Wanted a loosely connected online world since playing alone in a big world may feel lonely
– Game automatically connects online if your Wii U is connected to the Internet
– Random missions are assigned to groups of 32 players
– Can ignore these missions, but you’ll still be rewarded if other players complete them
– There were many discussions about how many choices should be offered for the avatar customizations
– Prior to X’s “mass construction”, Takeda wrote a script expecting to have a main character like the original Xenoblade Chronicles
– This was the first time Takeda wrote a script for an avatar
– Different avatar voices
– Kojima: “From my standpoint, though, I think we were equally struggling with this change. (laughs) The flow of the story changed from being guided by a distinct main character to an avatar designed by the player, so that must’ve been a lot of work.”
– There was talk about whether or not X should have battle voices, but they decided to have them like in Xenoblade Chronicles since they make the game stand out
– 3,000 lines recorded for Xenoblade Chronicles’ battle scenes, but X has 11,000 lines
– Some voice actors lost their voices during recording due to so many lines
– The team asked the voice actors to keep shouting for hours
– Having robots was another pillar for development
– Kojima wasn’t concerned about balancing the Skells since he “wanted the players to experience a great feeling playing with one of these once they obtain one”
– He wanted to have enemies that take awhile to beat as humans could be defeated with one blow while riding a Skell
– It’s expensive to buy a Skell to give players the same feeling as buying a new car in real life
– Skells can be destroyed in one shot if the enemy is strong enough
– Skull insurance: can be fixed for free up to 3 times
– Have to pay an expensive fee if it breaks a fourth time
– Kojima wanted Skells to be broken for good once they were destroyed, but the staff felt that was too harsh
– If you push the button at the right time to abort when the Skell’s HP becomes zero and is destroyed, the Skell will be fixed without having to use insurance (“insurance on insurance” feature)
– Monolith Soft’s Makoto Shimamoto put in this “insurance on insurance” function without Kojima’s consent
– Kojima always wanted to make a game where robots and humans could fight on the same field
– Takeda says volume of X “far surpasses that of the previous Xenoblade game
– Can learn more about things outside of the main story
– “X” is a symbol for an unknown factor
Yokota on the “X”:
Right, we also named the title overseas Xenoblade Chronicles X, and the X symbolized alien life of the unknown, and exploring an unknown planet. In the Japanese version, we refer to the X as “cross,” as in a place that can serve as a crossroad where people can come across one another unexpectedly. The game has an online aspect, so there will be a lot of player interactions, as if they’re meeting each other at an intersection or a crossroads. A lot of intelligent life from other planets will also appear, and interacting with them can be a lot of fun as well. For example, they won’t come to your town unless you find a way to come across and interact with them.
So you can say this is a game where the experience will change depending on the player’s actions. And by the sense of the game being a crossroads, the Skells and humans can fight together. I feel that the “X” in the title really represents a lot of different aspects of the game.
– Kojima and Takakashi didn’t want the game’s soundtrack to be stereotypical
– The team was forced to abandon a bunch of work after changing the main protagonist to an avatar
– Kojima: “(With a deep sigh) Yeah, we threw it all away.”
– According to Takahashi, X’s text “far surpasses that of the previous game”
– Reggie told Iwata that after the announcement of Zelda Wii U’s delay happened, an American game site held a poll about what games readers were excited for since Zelda Wii U isn’t coming out this year, and Xenoblade Chronicles X was number 1
Iwata on how the game is coming out in Japan first:
Since the game is first coming out in Japan, it will be released in America well after everything about the game has been revealed to the public. That raises the hurdle, but on the flipside, if everyone who plays the game in Japan talks about how much they enjoyed the game world, and how their experiences were different from one another, that would be something great for the western audience to hear. If people outside of Japan hear a lot of positive news about the game, I feel like we can throw an answer to the question of what the future holds for JRPGs. It would be this game, this is the answer to that question, in the form of a video game.
3D Streets of Rage II has launched in Japan. In order to download the game, players need 297 blocks of free space.
Wind-up Knight 2 and Gakken x Toppan, two new releases for Wii U, have also had their file sizes reported. They come in at 1,174.6 MB and 55.7MB respectively.
A bunch of new 3DS themes are out now in Japan. The lineup is as follows:
BlazBlue (Arakune)
SHOW BY ROCK!! No.08
ClariS (Connect)
Tamagotchi
Crayon Shin-chan
Puzzle & Dragons (Tamadra)
The BlazBlue and Puzzle & Dragons themes are priced at 100 yen each. The others cost 200 yen each.
The latest episode of Nintendo’s Japanese show Nyannyan Neko Mario Time has now gone live. We’ve included it below.
