Xenoblade Chronicles X Interview
By Riley Little 26 December 2015
We sat down to chat with Nintendo Treehouse’s Demetrius Boggs about Xenoblade Chronicles X, Super Smash Bros., and Nintendo’s decision to localize this game.
As many gamers are well aware, Nintendo’s software offerings in 2015 were rather polarizing. For the first time in a long time, it feels like the company rushed releases on several of its games. While it’s obvious that the house of Mario is rushing to get its teams in line for development on its upcoming NX console, there was one late 2015 release that managed to cap off the year nicely for Ninty – Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Anyone that read our review of Xenoblade Chronicles X knows that we fancy it as one of the best games on the Wii U platform, which is why it was great to have an opportunity to sit down and chat with Nintendo Treehouse’s product marketing specialist Demetrius Boggs about the blockbuster RPG during the pre-show festivities at the Canadian Videogame Awards. Not part of the actual development at Monolith, Boggs went into detail about the localization process for the massive title, Xenoblade Chronicles X.
GR: I guess your baby is out now. How does it feel?
Boggs: “Fantastic, and it looks like it’s going really, really well. I myself have played this game probably 3 times over, and I still enjoy it. And I still enjoy talking about it too!”
GR: Now, I’m kind of curious what the decision process was for localizing Xenoblade Chronicles X this time around. As we know, there was a major movement to bring the original Xenoblade Chronicles to North America, so what made Nintendo say “this seems like a no-brainer, we’re just going to bring it over here immediately”?
Boggs: “It’s actually a game we’re really interested in championing, it’s something we feel is a really, really good title. So, we’re trying to do something about that to show that this game is great by doing quite a few things now, talking on say Treehouse Live, and I’ve come across to quite a few areas now, like here in particular, just to talk about the game. Trying to get it more exposure this time, instead of the… opposite, you could say.”
“Monolith Soft makes great games. I’ve been a fan of them for years, so for myself, personally, I was really happy to speak about this game, and they were happy to have me do it.”
GR: I believe one thing that was pointed out was that the world in Xenoblade Chronicles X is larger than Skyrim and Fallout 3 combined or something absurd like that?
Boggs: “Yeah, I’ve read that report. I can’t really say it myself, I don’t know the exact square footage, but I do know that it is twice as big as Xenoblade Chronicles, which was already a large game. I think a lot of that too comes from the vertical scale of everything, because, not only do you have these giant mountains that go up and down, but a lot of them go inside or underneath. So you have a lot of different areas that you can explore and go into and that’s where it really starts adding up, I think.”
GR: Are you hoping that maybe some of these characters crossover into Super Smash Bros. or anything like that?
Boggs: “I’m always down for new characters to be in Smash! I would love for more representation of any type of Monolith games that we’ve had. Yeah, to have Elma or something like that in the game would be great, but that’s all up to Sakurai and the wonderful magic that he works and the craziness. I’m with you guys though, the more the better.”
GR: What audience are you hoping to reach with Xenoblade Chronicles X?
Boggs: “It’s a mix of the Japanese RPG and Western games, so we definitely would like to reach out to both of those [audiences], as well as for those that love Metroid, you know a sci-fi type of game, or even our Zelda audience which is a big audience as well. I would love for them to try this game out because I think the exploration and the adventure is still there, it’s still a wonderful game to play and to enjoy.”
GR: Any tips for people who are thinking about picking up the game?
Boggs: “I’ve got lots of them!”
GR: Well, what would you say is the most sound advice for Xenoblade Chronicles X players?
Boggs: “Probably to collect everything. There are a lot of times that you’ll come across missions, well, accept as many missions as you can and to collect as many items as you can on the map. See, I’m already going into multiple ones! Essentially, try to collect and explore as much as you possibly can. Exploration really does help and that’s the key to learning how everything kind of works, and it also ties into how the GamePad works with Frontier Nav.”
GR: Thank you very much for your time, I appreciate it.
Boggs: “No problem!”
Xenoblade Chronicles X made it into our Top 5 RPGs of 2015, which speaks volumes for how highly its regarded amongst Game Rant staff. Of course, given how well-received the original Xenoblade Chronicles game was, it doesn’t come as a massive surprise to see quality was maintained in the upgrade to Wii U. With work on this title now wrapped, however, it’ll be interesting to see what Monolith Soft tackles next.
There seems to be a lot happening at Nintendo’s Treehouse at this point in time, but that’s to be expected with such major games as The Legend of Zelda for Wii U and Star Fox Zero still in development. Heck, recent reports suggest that the Nintendo NX console will enter mass production at the end of Q1 2016 as well, which would mean that several titles are likely in the works at the Big N right now. Suffice to say, there’s no question that Demetrius Boggs will have a lot on his plate in the near future.
