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It includes an option to lower the difficulty of a boss encounter after you've died three times in a row, but I would have preferred more consistent balancing across the board.īeyond combat, you also have the option to unlock and further develop new party members by running "affinity missions." Since you control a mute, player-created character, these affinity missions carry most of the weight of character development in the game via your party members. My only problem with combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X is that the challenge can sometimes spike in very frustrating ways, especially later in the game. It's a solid system, though it hasn't changed considerably from the 2012 iteration. Abilities can knock enemies down, set them on fire, push them back or gain benefits based on those various status effects, leading to a bit of strategizing required to take down more powerful foes. Fights take place in real time, with your character auto-attacking while you choose special abilities from a row on the bottom of the screen.
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Much of your exploration will be punctuated by combat. In between accepting these objectives, you have the freedom to explore the world, fight monsters and take on side quests at your own pace. Rather than forcing you through a set of linear plot beats, the game lets you decide when to take on any given story progression mission for the chapter you're on. While there are a few twists and turns, and a handful of aggressively lengthy cutscenes, plot is decidedly not the focus of Xenoblade Chronicles X. There, the remains of the human race seek to rebuild and explore their new home. A small fragment of humanity manages to escape the devastation, launching themselves through space until they crash-land on a planet called Mira. Xenoblade Chronicles X tells a stand-alone sci-fi saga that begins in a dark place: Earth has been destroyed by two warring alien empires.