I know we have a couple of hardcore Xenoblade fans on this board (including myself), so I was wondering what everyone thought of the Treehouse footage.
The cutscene clips they showed during the digital event were completely underwhelming, but the actual gameplay looks to be very much in line with Xenoblade, and man do the environments look gorgeous again!

Also, hey, a customizable main hero!
The Xeno-series has never had that before, and I wonder how it's going to play into the story, if at all.

First look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKKiODpn6Fg

Second look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTW1sjmoY2c

The world looks lovely, but I'm still not sold on the battle system. However, I am somewhat intrigued by the hints that there will be some sort of callbacks to previous Xeno games in this one, whatever that means.

Well this was pretty much the highlight of E3 for me - I think the game looks very promising. With the whole crash-landing ship thing I certainly got a Xenogears vibe too.

My only real quibble with the original Xenoblade (as with open-world games in general) was the enormous number of similar fetch quests and monster hunts - it's like the worlds are so large all the developers can really afford to populate them with is simple quests, and it feels to me like an artificial way of prolonging gameplay time. I don't doubt the sequel will be the same, but as long as it has a great story, beautiful world, and memorable soundtrack again I'll be happy

Really? All it reminded me of is how Star Ocean used this bit one too many times.

No Fayt, I don't care about the damn UP3!

source: http://gematsu.com/2014/08/xenoblade-ch … edecessors

Well that's it, I won't be leaving my house anymore next year.

I'm curious about the story? I'm sure it'll be epic, but will it be... "strange" for lack of a better word? Obviously it comes down to taste, and as much as I enjoyed Dragon's Dogma the story was a bit laughable. I'm guessing much of this has to do with the difference in culture, and again there's nothing wrong with it. However, the plots gets arguably "awkward" from  a Western player's perspective. Please note, I'm not trying to insult anyone or anything, I'm just trying to get an idea if the plot is something I might sink my teeth into.

Also, I know Xenoblade is considered a gem in the Wii library. How is the story? From a Western perspective, would it make sense? Again, I'm not saying nor do I think everything should be Western-centric (I would personally hate that), however I would like to know if the storyline is something that would arguably appeal to me. Thanks.

Haven't played Dragon's Dogma, so I'm not really sure what you consider laughable or awkward.

Are you getting a generic fantasy story like in Skyrim and its ilk?
I'm pretty much 100% sure that the answer to that is "no".
This is Tetsuya Takahashi, and his stories tend to be far from generic.
If you've played any of the other Xeno-games you should have an idea of what to expect.

There will be big robots, quite likely one or more gods, and crazy plot twists along the way.
If you're asking what I think you're asking, then it's not very likely that it will make "sense from a Western perspective" although I don't think that those words actually mean anything.

It will most likely be a wild and crazy ride, yes.

Edit: And the same goes for the first Xenoblade. Expect lots of spectacle and crazy twists.