Xenoblade Chronicles X is wondrous — but this lush, massive world is not for the timid

Set aside at least 200 hours of your life for this game.

Monolith Soft’s highly anticipated Wii U role-playing game has remained tightly under wraps since it was first teased in early 2013 in a Nintendo Direct video presentation. The spiritual sequel to one of the best role-playing offerings on the Nintendo 3DS, Xenoblade Chronicles, and the next in a long line of Xeno-series releases (the first game appeared for the PlayStation in 1998), has only been shown in brief video clips since then, which has all of its secrets sealed up tightly. But now, just a few weeks after Nintendo finally confirmed a North American release time frame of 2015, and just days before the game’s Japanese release, I’ve uncovered one of the game’s biggest secrets — it’s freakin’ massive.