Following Satoru Iwata’s trailer reveal for Monolith Soft’s “X” at this morning’s E3 Nintendo Direct, some brand-new images from the Japanese Nintendo website have been revealed. The webpage contains six screenshots for the upcoming open-world science-fiction fantasy-adventure game, and highlights key scenes from the trailer in high resolution.
As the trailer looked stunning in motion, a lot of people (including myself) may have had problems viewing the Nintendo Direct stream, thus getting cut off in between footage of “X”. Well, these stills may do some justice for you guys.
Here we see one of our protagonists making his way across the hangar, en route to a mecha suit that looks a bit like an Id from Xenogears and Xenosaga. It’s clearly no surprise, since this game is handled by the team behind those games, after all.
The camera placement behind this shot implies that this is from a cutscene, but given how Xenoblade Chronicles seamlessly integrated cutscenes with in-game models throughout the game, the look we see here will probably be consistent throughout.
As we look at this panoramic shot, this field is undoubtedly an over-world that will be explored, both by foot and within the robot suit. Like Xenoblade Chronicles, this “X” game will share the same prominent feature in exploring a wide and expansive world, and battling the ferocious monsters that reside in it.
What appears beyond the hero and his mecha suit is a colony of some sorts. There seems to be a city surrounded by great big walls, and some cannons for defense. With that kind of fire-power out in the open, there’s definitely some kind of conflict or war happening around those parts.
Interestingly, the mechs that we’re seeing happen to be called “Dolls”, as you can tell by looking at the HUD screen. These “Dolls” run on limited fuel, and will require a lots of refueling as you travel a lot. The characters on this image appear to be running towards a monster.
Could they be charging at it to grind for experience points, or do those creatures contain substances that fill up the Dolls’ fuel meter?
Also notice how far the draw distance looks. The high-definition graphics make this game look really beautiful as a Xenoblade successor. It’s also got a clock above the map-screen, which makes it possible to see the controllable clock again.
Some mech-on-monster action. The monster looks like an incredibly huge enemy that, even with the robot suit on, still outsizes you. It’s unknown if this enemy is a standard enemy, or a powerful, rare foe, but it looks massive. Perhaps these things always overpower you unless you bring out the mecha-suit to do your battles.
Seeing the colors of this mecha suit, it’s our protagonist’s robot suit powering up after activation. There’s a strong lens flare from the light radiating out of its head. Perhaps this is an early cinematic about the character getting ready to fly inside his suit, or, god forbid, a cinematic that will appear for each activation.
Finally, we have one last screen that depicts our character walking around a town. The camera is placed behind the character’s back, and yet it strikes a fine balance between creating a cinematic effect and establishing an over-world foundation.
The camera is set a little low—just a little bit above the character’s feet—so that we can see that this is a town with houses and buildings. It also, however, shows a wide composition to create a sense of scale between yourself and the game’s world.
So there you have it folks, some great looking images for Monolith Soft’s upcoming “X”. The game is available exclusively on the Wii U, and will be arriving sometime in 2014. As this game was presented to us twice in English by Satoru Iwata, there is a strong possibility that “X” will arrive internationally, including the United States and Europe.
