Here are some of the early reviews:
Nintendo Everything - Thumbs Up
Gamespot - 8/10
Polygon - 7/10
Nintendo Life - 9/10
Destructoid - 9/10
Nintendo World Report - 9.5/10
Eurogamer - Essential
Gamesradar - 3.5/5
Gamereactor - 10/10
Game Informer - 7.25/10
After reading most of these reviews most of the negativity surrounding this game is the reviewers not liking what XCX is.
- They complained the game pacing is too slow. Polygon even said "things progress in XCX as a glacial pace".
- Complaintsabout taking so long to get a Skell. That's the whole point though. Skells are not the first up travel mode. Skells exist to even further explore areas late game and kill even tougher mosters. Some reviews did not understand this.
- Some reviewers even complained that the game is too indept and has too much info on the screen at once. That's the whole point, this is a very indepth game. You will take time to learn it all.
Most of the negative comments revolve around the lack of instant gratification in XCX that most games have. XCX is not crack cocaine like Super Mario is. You can't jsut pick XCX up and instantly know what to do and go stomping through the game. You will have to earn all your vuctories in XCX by time spent learning how the game works and exploring the world. These reviewers didn't like that you have to learn about the game first. In short their final review scores were lower because XCX is XCX, a very long and in depth RPG.
If you do not like long JRPGs then do not buy XCX. They just docked it review score points because they hated what XCX is. Sure XCX is not perfect but complaining about what XCX is, that's poor reviewing.
Also there is this phenomenon (copy/pasted from a forum):
When Nintendo has many tutorials, NINTENDO IS HOLDING OUR HAND TOO MUCH.
Now, XENOBLADE X IS TOO COMPLICATED AND NO ONE IS HOLDING OUR HAND
It's pretty true unfortunately.
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Two alien races fighting over worlds colonised by Humans and destroying them . . . hmmm where have I seen this before? . . . . Yeah thanks Blizzard in Starcraft.
Just a little jab at XCX but it's cool. This reuse of a tried and tested theme does not diminish XCX's awesomeness at all.