Xenoblade for the Wii is crazy good

[Cthulhu]

Despite getting it right after it came out, Xenoblade sat on my shelves for well over a month before I even opened it. When I finally put it in, I was very, very pleasantly surprised. This game is way better than I was expecting.

The last game I played that was something like this - although not nearly as good - was White Knight Chronicles. Xenoblade effectively plays like what WKC should have been. The somewhat mmo-ish battle system isn't a chore like that one - it's fast, frantic, and you have enough constantly recharging techniques to keep yourself busy. Your teammates are actually somewhat intelligent (shock!) and tend to do useful things in battle. There's also several different aspects to leveling up (well, in addition to levels) - you can power up your special moves, your Monad blade moves, build up passive(ish) skill trees, and develop combo moves with other characters. The "future sight" system that was slightly hyped up doesn't come into play too often (only against bosses as far as I can tell), but it's neat while it's in operation.

The storyline is developing pretty well and has had at least one major turn I didn't expect. The main cast is endearing but not too far from the normal JRPG standards - thankfully, there's no real emo to be found here. Lots of spunky youths fighting for justice though.

The only problem I have had is that changing your target in battle can be a little tougher than it should be. No real biggie though.

Other random notes: the music is excellent. The graphics are great for a Wii game. Lots of side quests (right off the bat even), although most are "kill X of monster Y" or "get me X items please." Game always tells you where next story event is and has a story reminder feature. You can teleport around to speed up traveling starting very early in the game. Supposedly the game is really long.

I don't know if this will get an English version or not but I sure hope so. It sold just over 100k in Japan, which I guess is good but not great. I'd like to see them get more recognition for it. If you have a Japanese Wii and are comfortable with playing an RPG in Japanese, this game is definitely worth your time.

[Zeether]

The game was a no show at E3 but I heard Nintendo still has plans to bring it here.

[Elixir]

Yeah everyone keeps raving on about it, I guess it's because it has Norio in it, but I don't see the appeal. Just looks like FF11 with Monster Hunter.

I'd like to use my Japanese Wii more, but there's seriously nothing out there that interests me.

[ZOM]

Hey nice to see Cthulhu again, I tend to like the games you write about so looks like I'll have to pick this one up one of these days.
How do you gauge the language barrier for people who have just "low grade Kanji-knowledge" ? ( )
Is it much text heavy?

[Cthulhu]

Hey nice to see Cthulhu again, I tend to like the games you write about so looks like I'll have to pick this one up one of these days.
How do you gauge the language barrier for people who have just "low grade Kanji-knowledge" ? ( )
Is it much text heavy?

Why thank you! I feel so loved. (Personal side note: life has been crazy busy. Had time to start gaming a bit more again recently. Yay.)

Hmm... well, the kanji in the game is fairly extensive, but you can pause the game at any point (including all cinemas so far) and the dialogue subtitles are still visible, so looking things up is no problem. The conversations can be set to non auto-forward as well, so you have plenty of time to read. It is still an RPG and has a ton of text (lots of the conversations are voiced, but not all), but a lot of it (like item descriptions and such) is superfluous. Not a direct answer, but maybe that helps a bit?

And for Elixir: If it makes you feel any better the combat is much more fast-paced than most recent 3'rd person combat rpg games. The voice acting quality is excellent and does have some big names in it but I consider that a bonus more than a key feature. You attack faster than in Monster Hunter and your special moves recharge much more quickly for what that's worth to ya.

[ZOM]

Yep, exactly what I wanted to hear. I was a bit on the fence about this one, not only because the lack of localization announcements but also because looking at some of the videos it looked like it plays similar to WKC which, while I really enjoyed the cliche-feel(yes I like kingdoms and kidnapped princesses in my games), the battle-system was just poorly executed, if at least that game was challenging it would've countered a bit the slow battles...

Anyways, should work out well enough then. thanks

[Ebbo]

So this game was finally released... In Europe :p

I've put only about two hours into it but wow. Not big fan of jrpgs but this one feels so refreshing in so many ways. And the localization is actually quite nice, even the british voiceacting has a charm to it (but you can also change language to japanese if you want to).
And there is no way I'm going to finish this one before Skyward Sword... Oh my. Quests. Quests everywhere!

[iconoclast]

I've played for a few hours as well. I wasn't expecting to like it too much, but I'm enjoying the story so far and the combat is pretty fun (for now, I can see it becoming extremely repetitive). I don't like the sidequests though, so far they've all been the type of quests you'd see in an MMO. "I need 5 pieces of silk for blah blah blah, go kill these spiders and get the silk". Not a big deal though, I'll just skip them and move along with the story.

[drunkninja24]

Eh, I don't find the sidequests particularly bothersome, even though most of them are "kill x amount of monsters/acquire x amount of items", mostly because you really don't have to go out of your way for most of them. If you just explore around, you're bound to find the monster or get the items you need anyway, might as well get a nice bonus out of it (it really helps that you don't need to go back to the person who gave the quest once it's done).

And I really like the battle system. It's similar to FFXII in a fashion, but feels much more exciting and fast-paced.

[Jockel]

For the American fellows crying manly tears:
Install Homebrew-Channel, install Gecko OS, import Xenoblade from Yurop, play.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Does it output 60 Hz?

[Ebbo]

Does it output 60 Hz?

50Hz/60Hz modes supported.

Played some more and the music is starting to really grow on me - so good.

[Jockel]

4 Hours in now, and already really loving this game.
RPG of the generation for sure.

[Daigohji]

Currently 5 hours into Xenoblade, which is shaping up to be the first decent JRPG I've played since Valkyria Chronicles. I was concerned at first, as the game design takes some cues from MMO conventions, but it gets better quickly. Combat starts as the basic "lock on and auto-attack" routine, but the game adds new abilities at a fair clip. Battles soon become a matter of drawing aggro to your tank character, then using special abilities that have added effects depending on where you're positioned relative to the enemy.

Xenoblade seems to have stream-lined some of the tedious aspects of JRPGs the right way. FFXIII tried this and went too far, leaving nothing but an endless corridor of battles that play themselves. Xenoblade just quickens the pace a bit. There are no items for use in battle. You heal automatically at the end of a battle. Reviving characters is based on a special ability gauge that can be used by all characters, including NPCs. Status effects can be removed from allies by running over to them an pressing a button. It's all about speed and positioning rather than digging through menus. There's no game over screen. If you die, you just get moved back to the last checkpoint with no other penalty. There's also a welcome fast travel system that takes the sting out of selling loot mid-dungeon.

No remarkable characters yet and the story has a pretty typical JRPG opening, but it's early days. Action in cutscenes is handled very well. Music is pretty good. Plus there's already been one significant event that I didn't see coming.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Opening 3 and a half hours taken care of... my worry is whether the story can hold up to the pace it's gathered already. I'm probably safe in thinking I've experienced the same twist as everyone else! For anime, I always go Japanese language with subtitles... but the English voiceovers are really good - almost exceptional for video game voice acting (some of the descriptions for items and achievements are pretty funny too). Plus it's great to hear British accents which aren't for stereotypical bad guys, hobbits or because you paid Patrick Stewart. I did laugh when a soldier greeted me with what was basically a westcountry: 'ello thur

The only thing which has disappointed me so far are the side-quests. They autocomplete, so there's no interaction with the character who handed you the quest, and as said they seem to be "kill this" or "collect that".

I also love that you can just walk along and start twatting a poor little bunny wabbit with a huge sword!

[Sumez]

After all this great rep I couldn't help ordering the game, I hope to receive it soon, and all the other games I bought recently will have to wait.

[dcharlie]

Got my copy on it's way over - i'd toyed with getting the Japanese version but never got around to it and, to be frank, the Wii has been in cold storage until recently.

Can't wait to give it a shot. I've listened to the sound track - it's HOLYSHITBALLS good.

[sjewkestheloon]

Corking game so far, best JRPG in a long time. It's nice for my Wii to be getting some action!

[Sumez]

Shopto still didn't send my game, and I ordered it last Thursday...

A real bummer since I had hoped to have it this week

[hermosaguy]

Def one of the best games I played in years. Shame Nintendo has no plans to bring it to the states.

[Spacehog]

Waiting for amazon to get their act together...
In the meantime, how is the game holding up? The ones playing it right now, still fun after a couple of hours? Story not too cliche?

[Ebbo]

I'm about 21 hours in and it still feels like I've only scratched the surface on this one. Yes, it's a lots of fun - so far it has only gotten better and better.

As far as the story goes it certainly has its share of jrpg traits and cliches especially at the start but it's still pretty engaging and epic. I also really like some of the characters already, especially Shulk who is suprisingly smart and level-headed guy for a jrpg protagonist. And Reyn is awesome because it's always Reyn Time.

[drunkninja24]

I'm about 21 hours in and it still feels like I've only scratched the surface on this one. Yes, it's a lots of fun - so far it has only gotten better and better.

As far as the story goes it certainly has its share of jrpg traits and cliches especially at the start but it's still pretty engaging and epic. I also really like some of the characters already, especially Shulk who is suprisingly smart and level-headed guy for a jrpg protagonist. And Reyn is awesome because it's always Reyn Time.

Man, what a bunch of jokers!

[Elixir]

Softmodded my Wii last night so I can play non-Japanese games. Looking forward to checking the European version out once it arrives.

Is this really the "best jRPG this generation", or is it just hype? Let's find out.

[Sumez]

Still nothing from Shopto, and later today I'm leaving for a weekend of console and arcade games in a remote city.

[iconoclast]

It kinda goes without saying, but if you guys have a decent PC, you should consider playing this game via Dolphin (build 7714). Game runs flawless and it looks fantastic in HD.

[Elixir]

It kinda goes without saying, but if you guys have a decent PC, you should consider playing this game via Dolphin (build 7714). Game runs flawless and it looks fantastic in HD.

Most people here will not. I've already looked into Dolphin, Xenoblade also requires a 3.0ghz bare minimum, i5 2500k or above. I get about 18fps out of my 2.3GHz Phenom quad core and my PC isn't even 2 years old.

[Sumez]

Yah, too bad my PC can't read Wii discs

[iconoclast]

Yah, too bad my PC can't read Wii discs

You can backup Wii discs through the Wii itself if you have an external hard drive and the Homebrew Channel on your system.

[silvergunner]

Softmodded my Wii last night so I can play non-Japanese games. Looking forward to checking the European version out once it arrives.

Is this really the "best jRPG this generation", or is it just hype? Let's find out.

This hype is NOT a fail,its really awesome and I´m not a hardcore rpg-player/fanboy.Since Release (19.08) the clock shows over 35 hours I have played the game.
You won`t regret a purchase. Story,graphics,music...very nice,a lot to do to get cool items,a stunningly harmony system,gem crafting,you can save every time,everywhere,and the deep battlesystem is just fantastic.
It`s too much to write down.I´m really surprised how good it is!

Sorry for my non-perfect english,thanks