Xenoblade Chronicles (2010)

I played this for like 35 hours and suddenly I thought: "WOW, I don't care about ANY of these characters or about ANY of their problems". I stopped playing and am now watching only the cutscenes on YouTube to know what happens and I'm like "WOW, this is basically some pretty bad anime".

Hopefully there are some cool twists that will change my mind about the story, but I couldn't justify spending another 35 hours with it.

I did have a very chill time hanging out in the world tho, the areas look beautiful.

"What a bunch of jokers"

Wow, just wow. I can't describe this game or what it was like for me, it was an incredible experience. My play-through of the main story alone took about 100 hours, most of that time was just spent exploring the world this game creates. The atmosphere, the music, it draws you into an unforgettable experience and immerses you into the world of two titans, frozen in time. The gameplay helps too, it's got a fun, unique combat system that isn't too taxing to learn. I died plenty of times when playing this game, but I was never overly frustrated, it mostly felt like my fault. The story is great as well, but I'm not getting into it as I don't wish to spoil the game for anyone. My biggest gripe with this game is that I didn't play it earlier. I remember considering buying it multiple times years ago, but I never did. I wish I had. I'll never forget the time I had with this game. It deserves its spot among the greatest RPGs of all time for sure. And I for one, cannot wait for the remake.

(I should really finish Xenogears now)

Wow. What a journey this game was. And no, I don't mean the journey the characters went down. I mean the emotional journey I endured slogging through the horrible execution of the game's systems.

I honestly can't believe I'm giving this game four stars. Aspects of it are so clunky and frustrating that it's hard to convince myself it deserves a rating that high, but what it's trying to do warrants the score. Before we get to that though, let's dive into the two things I truly I hate.

First, the visuals. Gross. The environments have incredibly cool art direction but the execution on the standard def Wii results in massive blobs of pixelated textures everywhere. If you squint your eyes and blur your vision, maybe it starts to look ok, but that is literally what it takes. It feels like the designers just tried to do something that the tech couldn't support, and that's a recurring theme in this game. I can't wait to try the Wii U and Switch titles in the future to hopefully see the same care in design executed on a platform that can do it justice.

And then there are the character designs. From the weird lifeless doll eyes, to the horrible misogynist, sexy female armor. There isn't much redeemable here. So yeah, for a game that had a lot of people excited for its visuals, I just don't see how it lived up to that hype in any way.

Second, the character movement. All of it. Characters skirt along the terrain in stiff animations that don't properly sync with movement speed. The jumping animations are absolutely comical, so literally in fact that my two year old just cracked up laughing every time he saw them happen. So what do they do with this clunky movement? They add these semi-platforming elements with this weird fall mechanic that will kill you from extreme heights (unless you land in water, then you can fall for forever and not even feel it). It just doesn't make sense and I'm having a hard time truly even describing it here. The best way I can come up with is that it feels like the movement in an incredibly low budget shovelware title used to promote some product. It's like something where a third party game engine was purchased, characters were thrown in, and none of the default movement settings of the engine were tweaked. I find the whole thing baffling given the amount of effort that obviously went into the execution of such an epic story.

The main reason the movement is such a problem gets me to the game's best strength, the battle system. While I wish the learning curve on the system was better, once I got the hang of it I really loved it. Firing off special moves from my menu dock at the bottom and having their effects vary based on my position relative to the enemy is very cool and fun when it's working. I loved managing who the enemy is targeting using aggro abilities so that I could get the proper back attacks, etc. It's an absolutely wonderful design, utilizing concepts made popular by MMOs in a single player game. I'm sure at this point you can see where I'm going. If you make a battle system where movement is key, the movement better be fluid, precise, and easy to visually grasp. That is not the case much of the time. You'll often be fighting huge enemies with non-obvious collision boxes, sometimes on bridges or cliffs. The result? Your character will be running in place instead of actually moving because of some collision you don't quite understand, or worse, the collisions will bulldoze you off a ledge, killing you and/or breaking you out of the fight and thus losing all of your battle progress. This all happens frequently enough that I almost quit playing all together multiple times.

It's funny too, because there is literally no penalty for death in this game other than losing the one fight you were in. When you die, you just warp back to the last landmark you crossed, everything you had earned up to the point of dying remains in tact. I can't help but wonder if this decision was made because they realized just how many times you will die, not because of something you did wrong, but because the game just does stupid, cheap, unpredictable things.

There is one boss fight in particular that is the absolute worst. It's later in the game and the main fight area is surrounded by poison ether. If any character stands in the ether, even the computer controlled allies, they will quickly lose all of their health until they die. Combine this layout with one of the biggest, bulkiest, collision confusing enemy designs to be featured in the game, and the result is that your allies are constantly pushed into the poison where they will happily continue fighting until they die, making no effort to leave.

I just don't understand how such a gameplay decision could make it to the final version of the game. It takes one person playing it to realize that if you aren't going to program the computer controlled characters' behavior to prioritize getting themselves out of the poison, the poison should not be in the game. Simple. Getting past that fight is one of the most frustrating things I have ever done in a game, and had it been closer to hour one of my playthrough than hour 100, I probably wouldn't have suffered through it and just happily walked away for good.

So, why the heck did I like this game? To put it as simply as I can, I enjoyed the vision for what they wanted in spite of the execution flaws. The story is epic, full of twists, and features a wonderful blend of sci-fi and fantasy that I dig. I hope the newer games in the series improve on all the shortcomings so that I can come back to this sort of storytelling without all the frustrations. That said, after blurting all of this out here, maybe I should have given it three stars. Who knows.

After finishing it, I rate it as a very good game and I would recommend it to any RPG fan. The storyline is good and is able to maintain the player's attention throughout the game with a bunch of elaborated characters and a fair amount of plot twists.

The battle system may feel weird for those used to RPG with turn-based battles, but those used to MMORPG's action bar will feel at home from the beginning. Despite the fast-paced nature of the fights, there´s a fair dose of strategy involved where one has to take into account things like attack types, character stats, equipment (gems!), enemy immunities, positioning while attacking...

It took me 128 hrs to beat it in my first gameplay. This was taking it easy and spending my time picking up collectables, crafting gems, doing side quests... and yet, there's still plenty of stuff left to do.

THE BEST:

• Great story
• Battle's strategic depth
• Gem crafting system
• Epic soundtrack

NOT SO GREAT:

• Side quests don't add anything to the main story and are only there to help you level up or get better equipment in case you're struggling. They all fall in one of the classic MMORPG types of quest (kill X monsters, find X item, talk to X person...).
• Inventory management get tedious towards the end of the game when materials, crystals and gems start to pile up.

The world: A massive a titan called The Bionis frozen in time in the midst of a battle against its other titan enemy The Mechonis.

The hero: a nerd and his merry band of well-fleshed-out friends with tragic backstories (except for Riki, he's there for the Awww).

The story: one of struggle against machines called Mechon coming from the Mechonis seemingly aiming to exterminate the Homs of the Bionis.

The villain: Now that would be telling. Where's the fun in that?

The review: First I would like to talk about the graphics. Could they have been better? Yes. But given when the game was originally released and the limitations of the systems that the game was released on, it would be foolish to expect something more showy than what we got. But even if the graphical resolution is not optimal, the graphics are not that bad. That being said, every other thing about the game is so amazingly awesome that graphics would be the last thing on your mind whilst playing this (unless you're a negative Ness. Are you a negative Ness?). Now that I've addressed the elephant in the review, let's get to the good stuff.

The content. This game is full of it. The side quests, though mainly consisting of "kill that monster" or "collect these items", have heart and evolve throughout the game. Trades and the fact that many quests can be achieved by following the story progress, takes away a good deal of the tediousness. Aside from the side-quests, you have things such as affinity, heart-to-hearts, and just pure exploration of the world (we'll get to that in a second) to keep you occupied for tens of hours. It's very unlikely that you will bored from lack of things to do.

Now for the exploration (see, I told you we'd get to it), this game is open world is every sense of the word (2 words actually but never mind). The Bionis is HUGE, and to quote Chuggaconroy (2014) "if you can see it then you can go there". Nothing is there just for the sake of being there, everything has a purpose, all designed by a loving creator (You'll get the joke when you play the game). Aside from the amount of places to explore, the environment is just gorgeous. I mean Eryth Sea, Alcamoth, Valak Mountain, the Bionis Leg are just areas that I never knew were on my bucket list.

As for the gameplay, it fits the perfect description of easy to learn but hard to master. It's the perfect gameplay for rpgs in my opinion, going beyond simple button mashing into art mashing. But seriously, you have to strategize, organize your party well, and work on toppling that motherlover with the intense spike damage. I didn't think I'd like the auto-attacking , or the art cooling, but it turns out they are important elements of the gameplay. First they add a challenge, second there's so much going on during a battle that you need the auto-attacks to help you out while you consider everything, and third they play an important role in strategy formation. Another aspect of the gameplay are the party members; they're all so well thought out. You can use them all, they have good strong roles, but enough diversity to allow you to customize them a bit.

And speaking of party members, the main characters are brilliantly fleshed out. They not only have their quirks, but so many layers revealed in heart-to-hearts and even battle conversations. Also the secondary characters are magnificent. Kalian, Alvis, Egil, Dickson and every other character that you can think off are well developped especially since you mainly get to know them only through cutscenes. And in case you haven't noticed I'm a big fan of the writing; which brings us to the story. It's the type of story that keeps you guessing. It has everything: action, feels, adventure, feels, plot twists, feels, excitement, and feels. You're never bored. I won't go into it more, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone reading this, but it's easily my favourite aspect of the game.

And just before I conclude the review I have to acknowledge the fantastic voice actors of the English version who have managed to bring all the characters to life. The game would have been completely different if it weren't for them, and as such I need to commend the casting directors for doing such an excellent job.

In conclusion, I loved this game that I guess you could say I was really feeling it. I recommend it without a hesitation.

Xenoblade Chronicles is a 2010 Nintendo Wii JRPG published by Monolithsoft, the company responsible for what is now known as the Xeno series (Xenogears under Square, Xenosaga, Xenoblade). The game has no connection to earlier titles published by Monolith, and represents the company's effort to tell a story in a single game. After the underwhelming performance of the Xenosaga series, the company felt they had something to prove. Generally speaking, they succeeded.

The game follows Shulk and his merry band of misfit adventurers. In a world that consists of only a giant ocean and two sleeping god-giant-robots, Shulk and his kin are natives to the Bionis, the organic titan; the game finds them attempting to protect their homelands against the encroaching threat of the Mechon, insidious machines attacking from the Mechonis, the mechanical titan. Sounds pretty straight-forward. This is, however, a Xeno game, so expect gnostic themes, esoteric Continental existentialist philosophy, religion, and an exploration of the divide between man and machine. Xenoblade Chronicles may be visually very different from its predecessors, but all the big themes we've come to expect from the Xeno series are present in full force.

If there's one word to describe Xenoblade Chronicles, it's huge. The world is freaking huge. Running around in it is no trivial thing. And there is a massive amount of content. I beat the game at about 124 hours, but there was a LOT of content I never saw. Quests, Heart-to-Hearts (short cutscenes between two characters based on the affinity level between them), additional Skill Trees, grinding for BiS gear and gems, Unique Monsters (minibosses), et cetera, et cetera. (Oh, and there's a NG+ option.) So I compile the following items of praise and complaint acknowledging that I did not 100% this game.

The Bad:

I think I have two MAJOR complaints about this game, and one annoyance.

- The annoyance: This game is super loud. And not in the way that the Wii is just a volume-loud console - combat is extremely noisy. Your characters are screaming their skill names as they use them, and screaming at each other, and the music is going, and the sound effects, and the UI sounds... Combat is really, really loud. I muted the game more than once.

- Major Complaint 1: The camera in this game is bad. At the highest responsive speed, it still feels sluggish. It gets hung up on terrain and monsters, which is a problem because there is collision in this game. (Maybe that's another complaint - the collision is very basic, and for many monsters it feels like there's just a giant box around them, so be prepared to just be pushed off ledges to your death sometimes.) The camera doesn't move naturally in ways that make sense, and it's difficult to trick it into doing what you want it to do. The problems of the bad camera are compounded by

- Major Complaint 2: the completely stupid AI. Combat in this game is reminiscient of FFXII; you have control of the party leader, while your remaining two party members are just AI. But unlike FFXII, you cannot "program" that AI. So you're stuck with whatever it wants to do. It responds slowly to the rudimentary commands you're able to give, if it responds at all. I had full party wipes more than once because the AI was just being completely and utterly worthless. It's an incredibly frustrating problem, and a significant one. The best thing is when one of your AI party members does something stupid and draws aggro and gets killed but you can't find them to rez them because the camera is fighting you at every turn. I spent a lot of time yelling at the TV.

The Good:

- GIANT ROBOTS, game gets 10/10. (I'm a sucker for giant robots and Xeno games. Xenosaga III is probably my favorite RPG; and you put giant robots in anything and I'm guaranteed to love it. This is a totally subjective position to have, and I understand that, but come on. Giant robots.)

- The writing is terrific. I played this game with the original Japanese audio turned on, and the localization looks pretty good, too. I don't know how to talk more about the writing without spoilers. The characters sometimes seem like pretty stereotypical models of your JRPG tropes - you've got your Everyman Hero, his bruiser BFF, the princess in hiding, the battle-weary cleric, the wizened warrior, the princess in hiding, the ultra-cute chibi-fied melee monster. But this is a Xeno game, and nothing is ever as it seems. Xenoblade embraces the genre's tropes and puts a Xeno spin on them. The story ends up in a place I guess I didn't really expect, and while I was actually playing the game, I kept saying, "I don't see myself NG+'ing this," I could see myself NG+ing it now, just to see the story again knowing what's coming up.

- The game is beautiful in a lot of ways. Visually, the expansive environments are beautifully rendered, and the game pops with color without being too loud. The music is lovely and sets the tone of each zone and encounter.

- Despite how awful the AI is, the combat Talent Arts system is interesting, and felt to me to be somewhere between action-game-style combat and a traditional turn-based system. It felt innovative, even if a little clunky, and almost reminded me of Guild Wars, in that you only have have so many slots for skills and your characters have twice that many, so you build parties and comps together.

- also giant robots come on guys

This game is a SERIOUS time investment, and not for the faint of heart. If you love old-school long-form JRPGs, this game is for you. If you love the previous entries into the Xeno series, this game is for you. There's a ton of content and material in this game, and now that it's out on the 3DS, it's available to a far larger audience than it was on its limited Wii release. It's a lovely game that will reward the invested player. Highly recommended.

I still think this game is super overrated. It's not nearly the best JRPG I've played; hell it's not even the best game in the Xeno subfranchise (actually it's the worse). Having just finished Xenoblade X, this was like having to eat vegetables after you've had dessert. That being said, these are rather tasty veggies. Judging solely on it's own merits, Xenoblade is worth playing. However, there are massive swaths of the game that aren't fun and you can end up with the feeling the creators don't have much respect for your time. It actually makes me want to do another playthrough of Xenogears and Xenosaga. Also, while I think it's the inferior of the two, it does point out some glaring issues with Xenoblade X, most pointedly the lack of a new game plus mode. I liked it. I don't love it.

Xenoblade didn't have many followers because of its late release date, with the Wii U released soon after it's release. However I mean this - It is probably the deepest, most enjoyable RPG of it's gen, PS3 and 360 included.

You play as Shulk, a tinkerer who gets more than he bargains for when he realises he has the ability to wield the Monado, a sword of godly proportions that only a select few can use. After a great evil returns, you have to save the world. The plot becomes darker, deeper and the characters develop well in the plot. The style is nothing gobsmacking to look at, but it looks great on the Wii, really pushing the system's limit. The voice acting is enjoyable in this game. You have the ability to use English or Japanese, but i'd actually stick to the english, with one of the best voice acting casts ever in an RPG. They have common-British sounding accents with your comrade Reyn boasting some of the best sounding quotes. In a serious game with a serious plot, the characters are believable, with human things to say. The main character Shulk is a little serious, but he does have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The gameplay is the shining light of the game. It's an auto attack affair like an MMO, but very well implemented. You can switch attacks, with abilities that are useful in combination with others. The monado has several modes, which can be difficult to get to grips with, but works pretty well. You have hundreds of items to equip and power up with stones that increase your power. Monsters can be huge, with areas having diverse ranges of levels of monsters to fight. Some are just too hard, but there are special monsters that give items and bigger pots of treasure. They're harder monsters, but worth the risk. Bosses are huge and challanging, with some requiring a particular method.

This game is amazing and should never be missed. It's just been released onto 3DS, making it more accessible. If you've not played it, play it. If you've played it, play it again.