Xenoblade

[Game_boy]

A Xeno-series spiritual successor (a JRPG) by the same director (and some of the team) as Xenogears and Xenosaga, but now Monolith Soft is owned by Nintendo and this is a first-party Wii title. Out in Japan tomorrow. I'm buying it purely on the quality of its soundtrack.

Features a truly open world (less constrained than Zelda TP; shorter loading times than Metroid Prime), real time battles, and seems to be the highest quality JRPG effort for the Wii yet.

It got 36/40 (that's 9/10 from four reviewers) from Famitsu if you think review scores are a good indicator.

Gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v00DGXlZdCc
Website (Screenshots, Music, Characters etc.) http://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/sx4j/

Music by Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda and others:
Main Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPbLMS_mCpM
Cutscenes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL4OPdD4NPI
Field: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX9sB7CXQ3U

[Endless Mike]

Famitsu scores are pretty much directly proportional to how much advertising space a company buys from them.

[Game_boy]

Famitsu scores are pretty much directly proportional to how much advertising space a company buys from them.

Yes. They gave FFXIII a perfect score, right?

Review scores are much less useful than the text of reviews.

[Endless Mike]

Famitsu has given 14 perfect scores ever. 8 of those have been since 2008, the first was on 1998. I don't know when they started as a magazine. FFXIII was not one of them, actually.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/21/40 ... su-rating/

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, for Nintendo 64)
2. Soul Calibur (1999, for Dreamcast)
3. Vagrant Story (2000, for PlayStation)
4. The Legend of Zelda – The Wind Waker (2003, for GameCube)
5. Nintendogs (2005, for the DS)
6. Final Fantasy XII (2006, for PlayStation 2)
7. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008, for the Wii)
8. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008, for PlayStation 3)
9. 428: Fusasareta Shibuya de (2008, for the Wii)
10. Dragon Quest IX (2009, for the DS)
11. Monster Hunter Tri (2009, for the Wii)
12. Bayonetta (2009, for PlayStation 3/XBox 360)
13. New Super Mario Bros. (2009, for Wii)
14. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010, for PSP)

[Joeldi]

Arrgghhhhh Bump BUmp Bump why is no-one posting about this game?

Okay, so I got it yesterday, and I've never been /that/ much of a JRPG fan. Nice but not really all that much fun. But this game has blown me away. The battle system is exciting and fast paced and strategic but with so many little details; your characters' appearances change with what they have equipped; the setting is really fucking cool; they've managed to put in prescience as a game mechanic, which I remember a thread here about how nobody had really done it and how it would work; and they've included the Japanese sound track, if you're into that kind of thing (I am)

Okay, that's not a particularly coherent ramble about why I'm loving this game, surely there's someone out there who can add something a little more meaningful...

[Chen]

Arrgghhhhh Bump BUmp Bump why is no-one posting about this game?

The fact its not available in North America I'm sure isn't helping things. The only legal way to play it would be to import it, then import a Wii as well and hope your TV supports PAL. I'm still playing Deus Ex at the moment, but I'm sure when I'm done with that there'll be some alternative method to playing this game. It has gotten exceptionally good reviews on most sites.

[iamevn]

Arrgghhhhh Bump BUmp Bump why is no-one posting about this game?

The fact its not available in North America I'm sure isn't helping things. The only legal way to play it would be to import it, then import a Wii as well and hope your TV supports PAL. I'm still playing Deus Ex at the moment, but I'm sure when I'm done with that there'll be some alternative method to playing this game. It has gotten exceptionally good reviews on most sites.

As far as legal ways go, there are homebrew apps for the wii that will patch the system menu to allow for games from other regions and patch the video mode. Priiloader is one that I use that has the option. (note: as far as I can tell, priiloader cannot be used to load pirated games, so I think this is okay as far as the rules go)

[Chen]

Arrgghhhhh Bump BUmp Bump why is no-one posting about this game?

The fact its not available in North America I'm sure isn't helping things. The only legal way to play it would be to import it, then import a Wii as well and hope your TV supports PAL. I'm still playing Deus Ex at the moment, but I'm sure when I'm done with that there'll be some alternative method to playing this game. It has gotten exceptionally good reviews on most sites.

As far as legal ways go, there are homebrew apps for the wii that will patch the system menu to allow for games from other regions and patch the video mode. Priiloader is one that I use that has the option. (note: as far as I can tell, priiloader cannot be used to load pirated games, so I think this is okay as far as the rules go)

I'm fairly sure any modding of the Wii software/hardware is against their terms of service.

I have started playing this game and it is a lot of fun. Lots of depth and a lot of areas to explore. Combat seems like it wants to bring about tactical decisions but currently just spamming arts seems to do the trick. I like the character development as well. The characters seem a lot less stupid and lot less emo than most JRPGs

Spoiler:

Until the Ether mines Shulk generally keeps visions to himself and doesn't tell people they're going to die and such until they press him about why he's acting weird. This started annoying me and then at one point Reyn just outright tells him to start telling the party about these things and not be an idiot about it. That definitely made me smile because going through the rest of the game where he would be an emo and keep the stupid things to himself woulda started pissing me off

[Decker]

I'm not too excited to be honest. I havn't gotten a chance to play Xenogears, which is a shame because I hear it's so good.
Xenosaga however, oh God did that game series put me to sleep. It was simply such a huge chore to play through. The story moved so slowly and there were just long periods of nothing important happening. I got halfway through game one and halfway through game two before just saying "Fuck it."

I usually have a high tolerance for slow moving games too, since I like to take my time on a lot of things.

[Endless Mike]

I'm not too excited to be honest. I havn't gotten a chance to play Xenogears, which is a shame because I hear it's so good.

You hear wrong.

[Chen]

I'm not too excited to be honest. I havn't gotten a chance to play Xenogears, which is a shame because I hear it's so good.
Xenosaga however, oh God did that game series put me to sleep. It was simply such a huge chore to play through. The story moved so slowly and there were just long periods of nothing important happening. I got halfway through game one and halfway through game two before just saying "Fuck it."

I usually have a high tolerance for slow moving games too, since I like to take my time on a lot of things.

Having played most of Xenosaga until I also got bored to tears, I have to say this one is MUCH better. You can dick around and do tons of sidequests or just power along through to the story. I'm the type who likes a lot of items and upgrades to get and this one has a TON of things to pick-up, socket and/or level (both combat arts and a separate skill tree).

[Decker]

Well, if it ever comes stateside, and not on a Wii, maybe I'll take a look at it.

[Game_boy]

Well, if it ever comes stateside, and not on a Wii, maybe I'll take a look at it.

Monolith Soft is fully owned by Nintendo. So it will only ever be on a Wii (or 3DS, or Wii U).

[Joeldi]

My earlier enthusiasm was slightly misplaced I think. Doing all the quests early has made this game far too easy.

Combat seems like it wants to bring about tactical decisions but currently just spamming arts seems to do the trick.

It's worse than that, in a recent boss fight I won by doing absolutely nothing except cast purge around three times. Now I'm avoiding quests like the plague (which is disappointing because I was really enjoying them) and have unequipped everyone's armour/gems (oh god underwear everywhere) in the hope that maybe there might be some challenge later on.

[Chen]

My earlier enthusiasm was slightly misplaced I think. Doing all the quests early has made this game far too easy.

Combat seems like it wants to bring about tactical decisions but currently just spamming arts seems to do the trick.

It's worse than that, in a recent boss fight I won by doing absolutely nothing except cast purge around three times. Now I'm avoiding quests like the plague (which is disappointing because I was really enjoying them) and have unequipped everyone's armour/gems (oh god underwear everywhere) in the hope that maybe there might be some challenge later on.

I'm not that far in but some of the fights still seem tough. There's a stupid level 26 guy guarding a missing child who is still kicking my ass at level 31-32. Perhaps he's an outlier though.

I don't think its the actual quests though that are increasing your power too much. Its all the random things you kill while going through the quest. I've stopped killing things that don't attack me first and it seems to tone things down a bit.

[Decker]

Well, if it ever comes stateside, and not on a Wii, maybe I'll take a look at it.

Monolith Soft is fully owned by Nintendo. So it will only ever be on a Wii (or 3DS, or Wii U).

3DS probably has the best chance of being purchased by me. I actually skipped the latest generation of consoles since my PS2 has been gathering dust. I do all my gaming on the PC.

[Joeldi]

Okay, here I go again. Fighting a boss in some tomb - it's freaking hard and requiring a lot of quick thinking/moving. I'll stop posting about Xenoblade now and go back to enjoying the game.

[matt96]

Wow, I am surprised at how long it has been since someone posted in this thread, but I feel there might actually be some activity here now that the game came out in North America (last Friday actually)
My first impressions of the game are mostly along the lines of "Wow, those are really thick European accents!"

[EmptySet]

My first impressions of the game are mostly along the lines of "Wow, those are really thick European accents!"

I'm reasonably sure those are normal UK accents. If you're American they probably seem more unusual because you are used to having everything dubbed in American accents, with a smattering of stock foreign accents from a narrow reference pool (like the evil mastermind who inexplicably uses British Received Pronunciation, or ze scientist mit ze overblown German-ish accent).

[matt96]

My first impressions of the game are mostly along the lines of "Wow, those are really thick European accents!"

I'm reasonably sure those are normal UK accents. If you're American they probably seem more unusual because you are used to having everything dubbed in American accents, with a smattering of stock foreign accents from a narrow reference pool (like the evil mastermind who inexplicably uses British Received Pronunciation, or ze scientist mit ze overblown German-ish accent).

I said European as in general people from Europe use British English rather than American English, as it is much more common for people in Europe to talk to British people than Americans.

[SecondTalon]

Wait, there's a European Accent?

[LaserGuy]

Just finished the game the other day and thought I'd post a few comments...

Overall, I thought it was a great game. Plot and setting were interesting with some surprising twists in it. The game mechanics are quite complicated--it's a bit overwhelming at the start when you get dozens of discussions about affinity and skill links and all of these different sorts of things. Even at the end of the game I was still running into situations where it was "Oh that's how damage modifiers in chain attacks work". Combat, if anything, was probably the simplest part of the game. The outcome of the battle is more decided by your party and arts choices going in than how you fight it. There were a few mechanics that were a little strange. A few times I had battles end kind of spontaneously that I'd then have to refight from scratch, and some battles were quite frustrating just because you had to fight on a narrow ledge and the monsters had an attack that could easily throw you off and either kill you or drop you to another area where you could no longer continue the fight.

I also liked that the strength of the wildlife didn't necessarily scale with your level. I mean, on average it did, of course, but you could run into level 70 monsters at the very start of the game if you wanted to.

Regarding the end of the game... (obviously huge spoilers)

Spoiler:

I was a little disappointed about how many threads they left dangling between the party members. After the fairly interesting High Entia story arc, Melia just sort of dropped off the map as a party member, and her affections for Shulk were never really addressed once Fiora came back. But then there isn't really any resolution between Fiora and Shulk either (Unless the ending changes depending on their affinity? They were only at purple when I finished...), and the issue of Fiora's body failing was never really addressed--it was just kind of put out there, and then nothing, and then she got her regular body back so it didn't matter.

[matt96]

^not reading that spoiler, as I have yet to finish, because I took a break at Valak Mountain after having played 50 hours in the course of a week, and just tonight I learned that you can keep combos going by intentionally mismatching the colors of techniques so you don't reach a max combo damage multiplier.

[LaserGuy]

^not reading that spoiler, as I have yet to finish, because I took a break at Valak Mountain after having played 50 hours in the course of a week, and just tonight I learned that you can keep combos going by intentionally mismatching the colors of techniques so you don't reach a max combo damage multiplier.

I think this is probably just your party affinity has gone up. You can have an extra link for each affinity level in your party, up to 15 in total. If you skill link to Shulk, you can increase the odds of getting more links within a battle. I don't think hitting the max multiplier should end your chain attack.

[matt96]

I only ever reach max combo with reds, but whenever I do, the combo ends immediately, but last night, when I messed up the colors, I manged to get in about 10 or so techniques in, with the same party I had been using with reyn, shulk, and sharla, with shulk and reyn at max affinity, and the other combinations at just under max affinity, until proven otherwise, I am going to assume max combo kills chain attacks (or it might have been the instant death leading to a lack of enemies that killed the chain)