Alternate pieces of box art for Xenoblade Chronicles. Image found at infendo.com.
Introduction
In tonight’s session with Xenoblade Chronicles…more exploring! (On the way to somewhere, or something.)
Summary of the Session
So, picking up where I’d left off last time, I continued to wander toward the goal of the ruined tower at the bottom of Valak Mountain. If the story conceit for heading toward this tower is to get into cover before the night comes, that conceit does not work. I’ve been mostly heading straight towards where I need to go and yet I’ve been on the mountain for at least four nights so far.
Anyway, tonight’s exploration lead me to a few landmarks (including some sort of mysterious ice church), a secret tunnel, and two Nopon research camps. Points of interest aside, though, I only made any progress towards that ruined tower Alvis wants me to go to in so far as I went from the upper level of the mountain to the lower one. Even so, I still have about 800 steps to go before I get to the tower, and the mountain has more nooks and crannies than an Animal Crossing shopkeeper convention on a berry farm.
After coming up with that analogy (and tinkering with everyone’s abilities a bit) I saved and I quit.
When Exploration Distracts
Xenoblade Chronicles‘ Valak Mountain is huge. Xenoblade Chronicles X is supposed to have five whole continents to explore and, honestly, even if they’re all the size of this mountain I’d be satisfied. Seriously.
Part of the reason that it’s taking me so long to get to the next part of the game’s story is because there’s a lot to see on the mountain. Not necessarily anything spectacular, like secret areas or enemies, but there are some nice vistas, what feel like branching paths, and just some basic exciting exploration fare like long caves and mysterious rivers.
But I’m starting to wonder if there’s too much to explore here.
I mean, recently I listened to Radio Free Nintendo’s RetroActive on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and one of the things that got brought up is that that game has some really cool secret tunnels off the beaten track that are kind of like little mini extra dungeons. Plus that game’s expanisve world lends itself to the same exploration that Xenoblade Chronicles offers. The difference, though, is that Twilight Princess‘ world is fairly contained. There are clear limits and parts of areas that just end in cliffs or solid stone walls in that game. But that’s much less the case with Xenoblade Chronicles, and so the world feels even more open. Not to mention that I feel like Valak Mountain might just be as big as most of Twilight Princess’ overworld. But I could be exaggerating that.
Anyway, I love exploration in video games — it’s one of the major reasons why I love the Zelda series and RPGs in general. But this game, this Xenoblade Chronicles, just feels like it’s got almost too much of the good thing.
In a Zelda game, either because you don’t have the right item or you tell yourself you’ll come back to it later, you can skip over a lot of — even all — of the extra exploratory stuff. But with Xenoblade Chronicles it seems like the world is so huge that it’s impossible to not wind up taking the scenic route to wherever you’re going. Not necessarily because there’s something more interesting on a slightly different path than the straightforward one, but because there’s just so much world and so little strict path to begin with.
Questions
What are your thoughts on exploration in games? Is it always a good thing? Do some games have too much of it? Is it even possible for a game to have too much to explore?
Let’s chat in the comments.
Going Box By Box 