Watch over an hour of Xenoblade Chronicles X gameplay
Mechs called Skells in western release.
Xenoblade Chronicles X, Monolith Soft's Wii U-exclusive spiritual successor to Xenoblade Chronicles, has been excruciatingly detailed with over an hour of gameplay revealed in the latest Nintendo Direct.
First off, Nintendo showed an eight-minute overview video showing off several of the colourful RPGs locales and mechanics. It detailed such diverse environments from the rolling forests of Primordia, to the Metroid-esque swamp Noctilum, to the cosmopolitan New Los Angeles, the only established city in mankind's new home of planet Mira. We also get to see how the map system works, as players will spend much of their time exploring the vast planet as they look for Lifeholds, pieces of the space ark that brought the remaining humans to Mira.
Along the way players will be able to use cool transforming mechs called Skells to drive and fly across the game's lush terrain. There will be Skell-based combat too, but that's one of the few things Nintendo isn't showing off quite yet.
Interestingly, in the Japanese release the Skells are called "dolls". It's even written in English in the Japanese gameplay footage. Which begs the question: why change that?
The expansive adventure will feature four-player online questing and real-time menu-based combat.
For an additional hour-plus of gameplay, check out Nintendo's Twitch channel for the recording of its Nintendo Direct. The Treehouse walkthrough begins at approximately the 42-minute mark. (I'd embed it, but then it will autoplay and we all know how annoying that is.)
Xenoblade Chronicles X is due 29th April in Japan and later this year in Europe and North America.