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Xenoblade Chronicles


Jimboxy
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Not sure how much it matters but I really liked Xenoblade Chronicles 1. How it holds up 10 years later? I don’t know. But I really enjoyed the combat system. It’s single player MMO-like so you have a party of 3 that all do default attacks and all have special powers or I think the game calls them ‘Arts’ that are all cool down type stuff. And you have to mix each character’s abilities together to do combos to take down enemies. A lot of enemies you can just beat to death but will want to combo for higher damage. Machine enemies are tricky because the only person who can damage them is the Main character Shulk because of his special sword. You will want your other characters to ‘Topple’ them to keep them stunned and open up for even higher damage but the other characters can not really hurt the machine enemies at all (I think).

 

The big gimmick to this game, and it’s super cool, is the main character can see in to the future. So if any of your characters are about to take a death blow the game will show you that, and a timer/meter will appear at the bottom of the screen giving you time to adapt your tactics and stop it from happening. It’s odd at first but super neat. 

 

The story seems like some really over the top but very simple anime stuff. But I promise you will never guess how the game ends and what the big reveal is. It’s maybe the most wildest ending I’ve ever seen to a game. And I’m not saying best, just entirely unpredictable. Most other people said they didn’t really care about the story. So mileage may vary but I really, really liked it. I liked it much more than the story in the sequel that was super weird about anime girls being swords that are bound to you or whatever. Had no logic to it at all. This is a lot more straight forward revenge mission (until it isn’t) and I really enjoyed it.

 

The game is super quest based, again like an MMO. You have your main story missions but the game literally tells you right at the beginning that if you do not do the side quests you will not be able to complete the game. You need the levels and exp so they are only technically optional. And there are tonnes of them. And they’re all super basic stuff. Get X amount of these, go kill this thing, go here and come back, etc. 
 

The game for me always had 3 big negatives. The first one is the characters in combat never stop talking. They all had like 3 lines of dialogue and would never stop saying them over and over for 100 hours. I mean they do not stop. Maybe they will fix that or have an option in the menu of the new version to not make that happen. 
 

The game teaches you something about the combat right at the beginning of the game. Like right at the beginning. And you will never need it again until 2 fights right at the other end of the 100 hour video game. It’s a really bad design thing.

 

The last thing is finding and handing in quests. The game has lots of towns and cities, they’re all huge, and the NPC’s wander around according to their in game clock cycle. So you can enter a town, run around it and pick up a laundry list of quests, go out there and do them, and when you come back no one is where they were when you pick the quest up. There is a diary of where people are at what times. But a lot of the NPC’s are super forgettable and some of the cities are quite complicated places to get around so just finding them is really, really annoying. 

Overall, though, I remember really liking the game. That was 10 years ago, however, and I’ve literally not touched it since. But at the time I was very in to it and liked it a whole bunch. 

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I’ve always wanted to try this game due to the critical reception it received but the sound of those MMO style quests which you basically have to do to be able to complete it and wandering around complex cities trying to find characters to hand quests back in sounds like hell to me.

 

But I like the sounds of what you’re saying about story and the seeing into future stuff during battles. Although the battle system doesn’t sound like it’s for me either. 
 

I don’t know, just always been curious due to the 9-10/10’s it received everywhere but everything I read about it just makes me think, how the Hell did it score so highly? 

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7 hours ago, Maf said:

The first one is the characters in combat never stop talking.

 

- It's Reyn time!

- I'm really feeling it!

- It's Reyn time!

- I'm really feeling it!

- It's Reyn time!

- I'm really feeling it!

- It's Reyn time!

- I'm really feeling it!

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13 hours ago, Maf said:

game literally tells you right at the beginning that if you do not do the side quests you will not be able to complete the game.

 

maybe i missed that bit as i'm pretty sure i would have given up if i'd read that. i finished the game and did do some side missions but i'm not one for doing all/many side quests so i doubt i did anywhere near all of them.

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EDITED

 

Actually I think I got it completely wrong. I just took this from a Let’s Play

 

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I think this is what I was thinking of and completely misremembered it. Or I didn’t read it properly. One of the two.

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46 minutes ago, bellow said:

I think maf might be making too much of this. You can just level up by fighting like any Jrpg. You'll know when you need to level/quest when some boss kicks your arse. Again, like any Jrpg.


Well like I said above I either misread it or didn’t understand it or what because when I played the game I was intent on getting every town/city up to a 4 star rating by doing their quests (I think it goes up to 5 star but maybe only on NG+?). Granted I’m that kind of player who just does as much stuff as possible anyway, but I was seriously under the impression that you need to do a lot of this to progress. Maybe you don’t?

 

The only part of the game I remember not really partaking in was the affinity quests where you have to have characters fight together so their relationships build and then that gets access to special cutscenes and dialogue stuff. I just never really knew how it worked and the game felt very full with content as it is so I just didn’t bother except for the ones that came up naturally. 

 

I think you only level up quickly by doing quests, though, right? I don’t think you get much exp from just grinding bad guys? Maybe you do. That I don’t remember at all.

 

I think what makes doing the quests and stuff cool is just the sheer scale of the environments. Like they are humongous. To the point where the very late game ones might be too big. The scale and spectacle is part of the fun of exploring in that game, though. That you are so small in a world that really feels grand and sweeping. Even on the Wii for the time the game looked great and colourful too. The game had a nice look to it.
 

The more we talk about this the more I want the Definitive Edition. It is a game I would really like to return to and properly 100%. Damn you hype and weak will power! 
 

EDIT: @one-armed dwarf 

I don’t really feel like FF13 or Lost Odyssey are contemporaries for this game at all. Strictly I guess they are because they’re in the same genre in the same generation, but both of those games still have their roots in traditional JRPG’s where as Xenoblade felt like something quite different. I think FF13 and LO play in the same kind of JRPG ball park where as XC is quite different from a gameplay perspective. When I think of Xenoblade I always think of Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story although that’s just because they were all part of the project rainfall thing.
 

The battle system looks like a FF12/KotOR/Dragon Age because you have characters standing around default attacking while waiting for special attacks/abilities to cool down on a hot bar but even then it’s quite different. It’s a much more reactive type battle system and less of a planned strategy type thing. Which plays in to the seeing the future mechanic.

 

The world and music really go along way in this game I thought. I also really liked the story but most people thought it was throwaway so I don’t know.

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38 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Not to start a big rant but man more games got to be like Chrono Trigger, where you can mainline it all without grinding but also the (few) sidequests they have are fucking awesome and massively enhance the story.

 

There's a bit of a trade off with the Xenoblade games. For instance you'll notice high level creatures just roaming the landscape who will attack if you get too close. But they can easily become a side quest if that's your interest. I remember switching off (not literally) the main quest of XC2 and letting the game become monster hunter for about 5 hours. 

 

There's certainly something to be said for the straight road thru the narrative though, I'll give you that. Trials of Mana is pretty much that. Lasts about the same as Chrono trigger. And if you've still got a Wii, the Last Story fits that bill, too.

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Tbf I'm not against that either, FFXII's game largely takes place in its hunts and not its main story. It's where the gambits systems actually matter. I'm mainly cynical of how often SQs just feel like the bad parts of an MMO.

 

In an MMO it makes sense cause you want to waste as much of people's time as possible to keep them paying a subscription. Also even if @Maf is wrong there have been games which have gatekept content from players if they don't do SQ or grind, which is something I hate if said SQs are boring

 

Off the top of my head a game that did SQ very well was God of War 2018 but that's a whole other genre.

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Man, I forgot how kicking the music is in this game

 

 

 

From like 55 seconds onwards it brings back such a rush.

 

I really don’t think I can commit the time to this game all over again when there is already so much to get through and new consoles getting closer and closer but it is very tempting. Maybe I play XCX as I never played that one and my Wii U is still in my front room just not plugged in

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