Xenoblade Chronicles X (2015)

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During a recent hands-on session with X--which launches in Japan this month but won't be out in North America until later this year--a PR representative for Nintendo told me that I could walk literally anywhere within the game's five continents. You can run to and through all of them, she said, and can climb up and over pretty much any structure you see. My demo began in a series of valleys nestled among large craggy hills, with sides made up of steep rock faces at an unforgivingly sharp angle. I didn't think I could make it up most of these organic structures of stone and earth, but I was going to try.

To my delight, you absolutely can climb up anything you see. You can't scale a sheer rock face, but if you find a craggier area or a grassy slope to climb, you can get to the top. It's more like jumping upwards repeatedly than climbing, but it is what it is. Giant islands being held in the sky by sloping pillars of rock can be surmounting by carefully running up the center of one pillar. And on top of these islands you can stare out into the distance, picking out more shadowed valleys and enticing crags, with titanic buildings shrouded in mist sitting tantalizingly on the horizon.

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