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[Mr. Saturn]

You fight mechon.
There are two robots, the bionis and the mechonis.
You wear mechon armour.
Your first weapon is made of mechon parts.

For it to be a mech game wouldn't you actually have to pilot a mech?

 

[Laconic]

For it to be a mech game wouldn't you actually have to pilot a mech?

Would riding

Spoiler

Fiora

count?

 

[Fandangox]

For it to be a mech game wouldn't you actually have to pilot a mech?

Depends, Xenoblade was certainly a mech game, at least thematically.

Would riding

Spoiler

Fiora

count?

Woah there! Spoilers bro!

 

[Don_Tombery]

She is not a Mech...

Spoiler

she is more a cyborg. And by the way this is kind of a massive spoiler

 

[Laconic]

Depends, Xenoblade was certainly a mech game, at least thematically.



Woah there! Spoilers bro!

Touche... and amended.

 

[random25]

For it to be a mech game wouldn't you actually have to pilot a mech?

Spoiler

Fiora pilots a mech...2 mechs actually

 

[Diffense]

I agree one of my favorite sidequests was the

Spoiler

drug smuggling of the Nopon with the Hi Entia

but there were lots of bad sidequests in-between that chain.

I don't think Unions will be all that plot-related, but actually more related to the side content, it sounds to me like the Union's overall purpose is to strengthen, rebuilt, and Mira, similar to Colony 6. Maybe since there are Unions each with a specific goal in mind, sidequests can be better designed to follow this specific goals and feel less of the general "Go talk to x npc player" or "Kill x number of things" But maybe I am being hopeful.

You could be right. I was speculating that some of those things will not be optional. Takahashi said you can pursue the story in different directions in X. So if it's not linear, there has to be a way to choose which branches to take and when. Since we know Unions are in, it seemed like a natural fit to me that it's the mechanism used to manage the things you'll need to do to advance the game.

Spoiler

Fiora pilots a mech...2 mechs actually

I pretty much typed up something similar to your post and didn't post because I thought the argument was dead.
IIRC, there were primitive mechs around Colony 9 and the army was training to use them under that hilarious commander.
A huge mech was towering over you from early in the game and you were fighting mechs all the time.
One of your party members

Spoiler

rode a mech into battle, 'died' in it, resurrected in another, and spent half the game in it.

As the player, you didn't directly control mechs but Xenoblade was still a heavily mech-themed game.

The fact that the player didn't directly control mechs is probably a 'deficiency' of Xenoblade that Takahashi set out to correct with X.
He had stated in interviews that Xenoblade was "an experiment" despite how well it was received and with X he achieved his dream of having mechs and humans exploring the same world.
Xenoblade was a different kind of 3D RPG from Monolithsoft's previous games so they didn't want to tackle too much at once.
Having solved some problems in Xenoblade, they added player-controlled mechs in its successor.
It's definitely easier on the heart not to hate mechs if you like Takahashi's games.

 

[TheMoon]

YES! thank you going to watch it now! It still needs an analysis tho

There is nothing to analyze. It's just running around. What do you want them to say? "Oh there are trees in this area!" ...better save that for the regular gameplay trailers.