Xenoblade Chronicles X (with a bit on the other Xeno games)

[Commander]

It may or may not come to you as a surprise, but I am a huge Xeno fan. I know there was an old thread. I could honestly talk about Xenogears, Xenosaga, Xenoblade, and Xenoblade X for hours and make huge posts, but I'm just going to give a quick little run down on how all four are different from each other. Xenogears and Xenosaga are very plot heavy and go into more philosophical and religious thinking even going to some extremes. These games are more based along the perfect works, but I do recommend trying Xenogears at least if you don't mind text walls.

Xenoblade is the one most of you are familiar with which is all about exploration and the story is a very well written, but not very complex and characters are pretty basic (I don't want to say generic, but they kind of are) and it certainly doesn't go as deep as the other two imo. I still love the game, but more for the battle system and I did like the plot, but I preferred Xenosaga's just due to the cast and especially the villains.

The first thing I want to get off my chest is to not associate Xenoblade with Xenoblade X. They are literally like two different games that share only a small amount of things like Nopon (at least up through chapter 6). Visually Combat may look the same as Xenoblade, but it hardly is. Enemies are much, much stronger than Xenoblade and can absolutely destroy you if you are careless. A group of enemies in Xenoblade wasn't too bad, but in X, it could be absolute hell even if they're 2 or 3 levels under you. There is also always an enemy higher level than you nearby so you never do feel safe.

This game is also very hard to judge because on the surface, it's a 7.5 by doing the bare minimum, but if you immerse yourself I would easily give it a 10. I'll try my best to go into more details, but you can take my word for it that this well worth the money if you're willing to go beyond the bare minimum and do other things such as sidequests and missions.

Combat

I'll start with combat first. Trust me when I say that they don't baby you around with tutorials and only give you what you need. There are a ton of features you need to look for and figure out which will help you out so much in combat. Equipping Skills, upgrading arts, grabbing new gear, etc. Your weapons do wear out, but it's not that big of a deal as equipment isn't what's going to win battles (because your damage output is crap...or feels like it). Strategy and position will help you out so more. It reminds me a bit of Xenosaga II where using certain characters for certain situations would help win those really hard battles.

My only really big complaint is that it's a little bit of a pain switching out characters. There are a total of 19, yes 19 characters to play as and you have to go find them in new la if you want to switch them out. You also can't switch out the player character (which makes sense) making for a really crazy level imbalance if you don't stick to a set of four. It's not that big of a deal as remember, your damage is crap anyways. If this was Xenoblade's combat, this would've been a huge negative from me, but even a level 18 or 19 character can be just as helpful as a level 23-25 one (though they're more likely to die). The player character basically can do anything the others could, but I still recommend playing around with them down the line when they're stronger. There's this thing that's called class rank which is far more important than level as you'll learn. Level is for stronger equipment and classes is for skills and arts which will be more helpful.

Believe it or not, that's only the surface of combat. I could go into Skells which aren't super OP like Xenogear's Gears, but my god will you be happy when you get one. It takes a while to get used to, but when you do combat is hell of a lot of fun. I thought Xenoblade's was good, but X just is that much better. You'll learn more by doing than me explaining it. This is also the one time you'll hear me complain that they're isn't a paperback manual as I would've wanted it for this game for sure.

Exploration/Side Quests

Exploration is easily the strongest selling point to this game. This world is massive and beautiful. I could see some complaining about the graphics not looking super realistic, but for the game size it's really impressive. It looks much, much, much better than Xenoblade's graphics by a landslide. It's also hard to describe the world as it's just a world. There obviously some filler stuff like mountain ranges and grassy fields, but all of it feels different. I think my favorite part is that it literally is one big open world. Want to go swim in the ocean to get to the next continent? You can even if it takes you an hour or two. Want to climb a mountain? You can if you're able to get the footholding right. The jumping and sprint commands just make it so that you feel motivated to try and climb stuff. At some points this game feels like a beautiful platformer figuring you how to climb stuff or get to a probe.

This games also doesn't like giving you free stuff. Even skells are a pain to get. You have to pass the halfway point in the game in order to get them and even then they don't simply hand one to you. It's so worth going through the effort though as it unlocks a whole new world. You can now jump even higher and scary big enemies aren't so scary anymore due to the skell actually being able to damage them. You also want to be careful with that skell as repairs are hella expensive (unless you do a lot of sidequesting then it doesn't hurt so much to lose one). But yeah, Skells are really useful to traveling and getting to those hard to reach areas shaving so much time off.

Now for sidequest, you'll be happy to know that almost all of the filler quests are jammed into one little terminal so you don't have to run around looking for them. They are also called basic missions, though basic missions with a character on the screen usually unlock something whether its a character, new mission, or even a special prize so it's always good to check once in a while. The one thing I recommend picking up tyrant mission (the unique monsters of this game) as you pretty much have to do them to gain survey points and you get free affinity and money out of which is two birds with one stone. but feel free to do whatever ones you want of these.

The other noticable mission are normal missions which can range from anything. The important thing here is that choices I believe make an impact. Like there is one mission where you can turn a race of aliens into things that practically worship pizza. They are fun and more importantly never go away. I don't know what exactly happens between choices, but it does make a difference and may even increase affinity for certain characters in your party.

There's also the map on your gamepad which has a hexagonal system. Completing things in those hexagons helps increase your survey rate. This can range from planting probes (aka quick jump points in a nutshell) visiting special areas called undiscovered territories, defeating tryants, recovering white whale pieces, and on and on. Completing the objective in the hexagon increases your survey which is sometimes required for certain points in the game. Like the game tells you, planting probes should always be your primary objective as it makes traveling a lot easier.

Story

I'm actually including something else that some other people might not consider story. First, I'll focus on the main story. In order to progress through the plot, there are things called story missions. Sometimes they can feel long or short depending on how much you've explored and done the extra stuff. I'm not going to go into it too much, but these story focus mostly on the plot and not much else. You also have to travel with a certain band of members so...that might turn some people off. It's definitely a very good and very interesting plot though I haven't gotten very far. It starts off a little slow and somewhat boring at the start (honestly, I cared more about exploring...and I usually play games for plot), but it starts to pick up and get far more engaging further in.

The other things I want to talk about is affinity missions. Story missions focus on plot and due to this, characters get very little character development in story missions. Affinity missions are a whole different story. You will have no idea what will happen when you do one...trust me on that. Usually though, you do learn a bits and pieces about certain characters and even meet some new ones. These can range from silly light hearted moments (one made me lmao) to very dark and very serious moments. I'm not going to spoil anything as this is one of my favorite parts of the game. The 19 character cast may not be as fleshed out as Xenoblade's 7, but they all are very interesting and getting to know their story is really worth it. The best part is that you have choices in what you do and can even skip an objective if you don't want to do it (I usually go for it as it's always worth it). Seriously, they give you a ton of freedom in things that it's almost hard to believe. Did I mention these are voice acted? Yeah, it wouldn't be the same without the voices either.

I know that it isn't much, but it's very hard to describe the plot without spoiling things. X is certainly darker and even goes into darker themes like racism and the end of the human race in some very interesting ways. You also start to see the city grow (though the size of New LA is probably my only disappointment so far) through missions and unlocking stuff so even lolligaging feels like it's part of the plot sometimes. It's just hard to describe as there is a lot to this game. If you only go through the surface/bare minimum, the story kind of sucks, but going beyond that makes the story enjoyable to watch.

Music and Sound

I'll start off with music. I'm going to be opening a can of worms here, but the music selection is interesting...and probably the most argued thing of the game. I mean Xeno games have been know for having freaking VGM gods work on there games like ACE + and very famous or well know composers so there is a high standard to them. Let's just say that the regular battle theme is a rap...see where I'm going with this. The vocal lyrics are very interesting and took a bit of time to grow on me, but when they did, I love them. I don't know how, but it works. It might get a little repetetive as there's nowhere near as many songs as Xenoblade, but I don't mind. Still better than Xenosaga Episode I's one battle theme. Literally any time there was a battle (including a boss) only that theme played. Anyways, the music suits the world, but I could see some people not liking it. The Tyrant theme is one of my favorites and I like it more than Those who bear our names.

And just to get this out of the way, I swear Takahashi has a fetish for awkward jumping and sound effects for those. As for the voice actors...they are all really good. I thought I was going to hate Lin's voice, but it's one of my favorites. Like I don't think I dislike any voice actor in the game which is really, really rare. Some of them I couldn't imagine with a Japanese voice they're that good. There is no Japanese option, but it doesn't bother me. The only annoy voice may be Tatsu, but that's kind of because he's supposed to be. Speaking of Tatsu, he'll grow on you (I like him more than Rikki as a character if that says something).

Actually, I just remembered these is a certain set of voices that might bug you. I can't talk about it as it's a bit of a spoiler, but they aren't that bad. Just might get on your nerves (thankfully you don't have to see them to much).

Additional Notes

There is just so much to do in this game that I probably only scratched the surface. They took everything bad in Xenoblade and made it better. Partners rarely drop dead in this game due to Soul Voices, if your armor looks goofy you put fashion armor on top of it to change it, gender swapping, swimming fast in water, and just downright easy to access quests. Times of days still happen, but it's not as important as it was in Xenoblade so that will make a few people happy. The game is hard to get into, but when it does everything feels so user friendly.

Final Marks

While I feel the game is a 9 due to the horrible bare minimum design, I honestly love this game. I believe the original Xenoblade was a 9.5 which I believe is fair, but I actually am enjoying this game more. The two are just so different it's hard to even compare them. I have a few minor complaints on a few things, but the positive pretty much wipe out any negatives I have. If you're an RPG fan, I recommend you at least give this game a try even if you're hesitant. The steep learning curve is a huge hurdle, but pass that and you'll have a blast. (I'm also starting to question how this game got a T for Teen rating).

Sorry about that essay there, but this game is very complicated to explain. Anyways, if you guys want me to talk about any of the other Xeno games or discuss random stuff here feel free to say something. (I might be busy playing the game though).

[Stalkerkain]

Hmm that's very interesting, and gives me more incentive to try Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Now, like you, I'm a very very into plot and characterization.

That being said, I played through like iunno, 1/4? 1/2 of Xenoblade Chronicles? (Probably a little after recruiting Rikki)

And all I can remember is a particular two characters screaming "I'm really feelin' it" or "It's Reyn Time!"

I was really upset with the lack of characterization, and eventually I stopped caring about the characters altogether.

Maybe I just never got far enough.

A couple of questions:

How many hours is this "slow start"? I think i spent like 20 hours in Xenoblade Chronicles and it still seemed to get nowhere to me.

I'd actually like to hear more "Cons" of the game from you, as that'll probably give me a better perspective.

[Commander]

A lot of characterization in Xenoblade was buried withing heart to hearts which was made by affinity...which Xenoblade X was like screw that and now it's only affinity to the player (thank god). The issue I had with affinity in Xenoblade was that it could be decreased. I'd say after chapter 4 things really start to open up. Basically, Primodora is the main area you explore in those chapters, but once it opens up the game gets far more interesting. It's definitely a lot shorter than Xenoblade's as that story does get boring until about Sword Valley (I'll admit I dozed off for a while too).

It's hard to explain, but you're basically locked into a very small selection of things early on making combat a little slow. Classes teach arts, but it isn't until you hit a third tier that the player character is going to be useful. You'll maybe have 4 or 5 arts to use until then, but once you hit that third tier BAM! things start getting a little fun and you can unlock about 5 or 6 of the secret characters then. I'd say maybe 4 or 5 hours. Basically, it happens when they don't force you to accept story missions right away and can do whatever the heck you want.

I suppose my biggest gripe are collectopedia missions, but to be honest, you could just store them and finish them while exploring. They even have notes when you collect something for the quest. Thankfully, you can buy enemy items if you're willing to do online missions. Right now, it's hard to do, but when the game gets more players, it'll start picking up. I haven't tested the other online play areas yet, but you can leech off of other players just like how they leech off of you. The online play is a bit of a let down, but it doesn't bother me.

I also have a love hate relationship with the enemy layout on maps. As I said, enemies can range from any level and trust me they will. You just need to be careful when exploring because a random enemy could screw you over if you accidentally hit them. Weapon cooldowns are also a bit annoying which adds to the slowness in the beginning, but once you get enough arts, you won't care about that too much. The one thing I'm thankful for is that enemies usually have a very short site range so you can usually sneak by them without fighting. Truth be told, I rarely actually do that much fighting. You don't need to kill a billion enemies to level up as just exploring and doing multiple things/objectives will get you to that level anyways.

Another minor complain is the lack of a healer. Honestly, there are a few aura arts that will help in this territory as it allows you to regain health...by attacking. Healing arts suck in this game...like really suck, but soul voices and that one B command restore your HP back. Another major reason why losing a single partner in battle could screw you over. That's a big reason why combat is different and almost any character can be used instead of a classic Rikki, Shulk, Dunban/Reyn type team. There's just no simple instruction on how to battle so experimenting is the key to victory (and some fights are balls to the wall hard, but the game feels easier than Xenoblade at the same time).

Another surprise is that I didn't like the story at the start. I honestly thought it was going to suck. There was no character development, the plot was...kind of boring and generic but after I hit that point, things made sense and got very interesting. It feels like what you're doing has more purpose than before that point. I think Lin was my savior though that point. If I did a review before that point, I would've only recommended it for the gameplay and world as those two things are absolutely amazing. The layout is also a little jarring, but it's kind of interesting learning about the characters and even why some, such as Lao, joined the White Whale. Some of them are interesting, one character is a prick, and another is a complete and absolute bitch (quite literally that's the only thing to call her). My favorite has to be Boze, but they mostly get straight to the point with these characters on the missions and wish they expanded a little bit (still better than Xenoblade's crapton of filler heart-to-hearts).

The player character is also a double edged sword. They aren't the main protagonist, but more of a witness/part of a team. It's kind of weird saying that, but it works and Monolith made it work somehow. It doesn't kill the other characters as I feel it would, but it does feel kind of awkward having a silent character when the other ones all talk. The choice system is kind of complex and you can tell they did a ton of options to help you feel more immersed, but it's still a bit awkward no matter what. I like it though. Sometimes I forget my character can talk in battle which throws me off though.

Another minor thing is foot battles against huge enemies. Sometimes it's hard to see where you are compared to the enemy, but thankfully there's a little bar that tells you if your on the side or behind. enemies on slants can be super awkward to, but this rarely ever happens thankfully due to where enemies spawn. Speaking of that, characters not in your party don't grow levels so it is sometimes a good idea to swap them out and help them catch up (and raise affinity with them). Thankfully, there are items that can boost EXP as well to help speed up that process.

Tutorials are a whole different story. The game only gives you the bare minimum, unlike Xenoblade, which can make you lost at some points. It's actually so easy to make income, but the mission you're required to do only makes it very subtle how it works. If you pick this up, you could have around 1 or 2 million credits and never worry about spending anytime soon. Skells basically get zero tutorials, but their combat is perfect...it's just that nobody gives you advice on them unless you hunt around. Yeah, there are hints and advice, but you have to go talking to people to learn about them.

I suppose you won't like the random chanting in the game, but thankfully, the music can still be heard so they're not obnoxiously loud like in Xenoblade and there are a lot more of them otherwise known as Soul Voices (the using the Aura one does get kind of annoying). I'm usually more focused on not dying I forget about them. The end of battle lines between two characters are sometimes amusing, but yeah it can get a little bit annoying. It's just that combat is a little more demanding because there's so much going on. My other complaint is that I wish I could use the Wii Mote because hitting the B button on a pro controller can get difficult.

Another minor thing it that party switching has this annoying thing where you have to hit confirm instead of B otherwise you have to redo it. Minor, I know but annoying. It's also a bit annoying that your two main party members spawn in the barracks at two different times of day (or evening iirc) which is very annoying since they're required for story missions. The others stay around 24/7 thankfully. Another complaint could be that outfits all look the same for every character except the male and female versions of clothes are a bit different. It's a minor things since there's still a good selection of clothing and coloring though not as good as Xenoblade's. I like the new armor/clothes better since there's only like a couple fanservice outfits that have crappy stats compared to like half of a certain playable character's armor (cough*Sharla*cough).

I can't really recommend this for a first time RPG gamer as it really does take a bit of knowledge of things before diving in and the battle system is not a simple spam buttons like in Xenoblade. It actually is much, much deeper but once you get the hang of it, it's very simple and fun. For example, you can actually damage parts on an enemy and break them off to either stop a deadly attack and/or increase the damage dealt on it. Spamming attacks carelessly will get you killed most of the time. I feel gamexplain did a perfect job on describing it and I agree with a lot of what he says if you want to learn more.

I suppose the biggest letdown is the fact that you can't enter buildings in New LA. Everything is all done outside, but I kind of like that it's the hub for 90% of your quests to that you don't have to run around a world like an idiot changing the time of day to find them. Speaking of changing time, I hate weather enemies as it's a minor pain to spawn rain, but thankfully it only takes 5 minutes unlike Xenoblade's god who knows when spawning.

Let me just get music out of the way for you. When you buy the game, you're probably going to despise hearing this song like I did, but it grew on me over time and you rarely hear the rapping honestly. I still prefer instrumental, but I've finally embraced this:

The Skell theme is better imo, but here's actually the song I really like and I don't know why (though I could understand why some people wouldn't like it):

But yeah, you should just get used to the music as this game's soundtrack is a heck of a lot smaller then Xenoblade's which didn't bother me, but I could see it bothering some. They are all pretty memorable though and Noctilim has to be my favorite. Obsidia's always makes me feel like an enemy is about to attack me at any time though.

The thing is that I rarely wanted to jump to the plot after a chapter was finished as there is just so much unlocked and exploration is easier to expand on due to missions. Quick Jumping is also a lot better in this game, but that loading time is a bit annoying. (I run the data packs and it can be almost seamless and quick jumps take about 3 or 4 seconds...sometimes 1 depending on where you're at).

I also should go into the game's rating a bit more. The game is way more mature than Xenoblade's. People die in this game. A lot of people die. You may argue a lot of People die in Xenoblade, but as Egil points out, even a thousand isn't a super large amount in Xenoblade's World. The human race is about what, 1000 people so even a single life is big news. They also go into alcohol references, there's fist fighting(ish), and racism. It has it's lighthearted moments, but it's way darker and more mature than Xenoblade only if you go beyond the surface which is why I questioned the T for Teen rating. This is certainly not a game for children and seems to be aimed more towards the older Xeno fans and 16-24 year olds which is rare for a game. Trust me, there almost all of the party members are older than 20 if that signifies something. That could be a complaint, but that's the way I like my Xeno games.

[Stalkerkain]

Hoo! Quite some food for thought you've written there! (I enjoyed reading all of it).

Most of what you've said isn't really that jarring to me, as I've played games with worse functionality or similar difficulty.

I've seen videos of combat, and was worried it would just be button mashing like in Xenoblade Chronicles, but from what you've said, there'll be more planning, and I'm all for it.

Thanks for your really informative take on this! I was initially going to pass on this, but it certainly helped to have someone's perspective (game-site reviews just seem really robotic and don't tell me what i really want to know)

I'll definitely pick up a copy once I finish my finals on the 15th.

[Flux]

I just bought this game yesterday and I've already played it for waaaaay too long. As somebody who loves exploration in a video game, you can already guess where most of my time's gone. The world is MASSIVE and there are very few loading screens (Pretty much only fast-travel and cutscenes have loading screens iirc) and everything's really pretty to boot. So far I've been to Primordia, Noctilum, and Oblivia (Though I really shouldn't have gone there yet. Most of the stuff is too strong for me, but my explorer side got the better of me ^^), and I have to say Noctilum's my favorite place so far. The environments are gorgeous and I love the music track for the overworld there. I also like how it seems to take so long to level up. It gives me the impression that I'll have to put a looot of time into the game before I'll be able to handle those level 90+ Tyrants I've seen walking around, and I like a game with that much potential for time investiture.

My biggest complaint honestly goes to the combat. I get that it's an RPG, but I absolutely HATE games with damage that can't be blocked or evaded in some manner. Combat's still way better than Xenosaga or other turn based RPGs, but it feels like it's basically a war of levels a lot of the time, and my personal opinion is that levels shouldn't matter with enough skill. Other action RPGs such as Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, and even the Tales series will rate higher on my list combat-wise because of the potential to dodge attacks. In Xenosaga Chronicles X, you're pretty much guaranteed to take damage every couple seconds, oftentimes from ridiculous ranges too. For example, when trying to flee from a fight, enemies can swipe their claw and hit you from miles away simply because of how the system's set up. Granted, the player's melee attacks can hit from ridiculous ranges too, but that's just another gripe of mine. I prefer having to actually get in close with a sword and to be able to roll around and dodge moves. The combat system it has makes higher level enemies a death sentence if you're targeted, to the point where you can't even flee because of the ridiculous range they have.

All in all, the game's been really fun though. I complain about the combat, but it does have it's upsides too, and it's still engaging and fun. There's still a lot I need to understand strategically, but I have a feeling I'll be putting a lot of hours into this game.

[Godot]

I need to play this game more. I just have so many games I need to complete this winter... its painful almost.

[Commander]

Sorry it took so long to make an update, but it took me almost eleven days to beat this game and I had to cheat a little bit just to get to it. I can honestly say there is just so many feelings about this game and I probably will change my score from an 8.5 to a 9 and say that it's better than Xenoblade even storywise. Obviously since the game is still fairly new, I won't go into too much but I feel there is a little need to talk about it.

There's a lot of high notes for this game's story, but it's just due to the structure it's very hard to rate. Character arcs are more or less optional outside a given few, but it's due to the huge cast of playable characters this area is a bit weaker. Don't get me wrong, I like them more than Xenoblade's seven, but the characters who really deserved more attention never got it. TBH, this is actually a minor complaint as some of those affinity missions have some golden moments and give a bit of background for that character. The fault is more of a show, don't tell type of thing. I also would've prefered just seven playable characters despite loving some of those extra ones and how they fight. That would've let them expand upon the main ones (who don't feel like mains due to this).

I think the biggest problem I have is that there wasn't any filler and half the antagonists weren't even that memorable. After chapter 3, they start getting more and more to the point and always focused on survival. I'm guessing the developers weren't expecting people to sidequest right away or thoroughly explored some areas earlier in the story, but the barebone structure left out what would've been probably what I consider the good or cool stuff. Half the reason people even remember Metal Face was due to all his appearances and how important he was to the story. These couple of villains...appeared a total of an hour each if even that. There wasn't anything special or any build up to them which made them super weak. The other two get more...but I'd say it's barely passable in Xenosaga/Xenogears standards. Hell, some of the sidequest villains had better story arcs than the main villains.

That brings me up on to the missions again. In the original Xenoblade Chronicles...they were pretty straightforward and blandish. Some were interesting, but they didn't have all that much to them. Xenoblade X's missions, you'll have a hard time finding a horrible, boring, and blandish one outside the filler missions. There are quite a few normal missions, but a large chunk of them are actually in a chain of missions and all have multiple objections and choices to make. I'll give a minor spoiler one to kind of show what I mean (this is also one of the more boring ones...but I don't want to spoil the really good ones):

There's a mission called Tip of the Cap where you help a Nopon by collecting supplies. After a certain point, he gives you the option to choose what type of hat he should make. This actually makes Nopons around the world wear the hat you choose. It's a subtle little feature they added.

As for the main plot, I probably enjoyed it more because I'm a Xeno fan who played previous games. I kind of consider it a bit of backstory for those games...though I don't see any of them connecting. I mean you could connect them timeline wise, but there are many contradictions. Now the one question you might ask: is this game connected to the original? I don't recommend reading this unless you've beaten the game but it isn't really a spoiler:

The answer is maybe. I truthfully feel this game is the answer to so many Xenosaga questions I didn't even think about before playing this game...which is partially why I'm thinking this is the rebuilding of the Xenogears perfect works. I could say things, but anything I say is meaningless as there isn't any concrete proof within the game for anything. If both game are connected to the Xenoverse, it would look something like this:

Xenoblade X -> Next Game -> Xenosaga I-III -> Xenogears -> Xenoblade Chronicles

There are also a couple references to Xenoblade, but there's just too much in question that we have to consider them separate worlds. I also put next game on the list there. I'm almost sure there's going to be another X game. The game wraps up the story...but leaves it on a very big cliffhanger. Even if you use Xenosaga to fill in many of the holes with the game...there's still a couple loose ends that need wrapped up. I do believe the next game will have a much better story as well since let's face it: Xenosaga I had a pretty boring story overall...then it really escalates by III. I really, really look forward to the next Xeno game (I'm like 90% confident there will be a next one...but still, buy this game to support that)

Try to avoid spoilers until January 20th, but if you want to talk about a certain mission or need help, feel free to ask. The game is still fairly new so finding a couple things might be hard until the wiki page is made. Or if you want to talk about a certain mission feel free. I don't recommend looking at a guide though as choices aren't going to kill your 100% completion and leave the surprise factor.