Mind me, I know that the game is developed by the first party known as Monolith Soft., responsible for the Xenosaga trilogy on the PS2, Baten Kaitos on the GameCube and previously created Disaster: Day of Crisis on the white console.
There is just no way around it. If you are by any chance a faithful JRPG fan, Xenoblade will deliver for you, in one way or another. It's grand presentation is marvelous, and it's interface is designed in a simple but helpful way. This is, without a doubt, one of the Wii's prettiest games.
The gameplay reminds me the most of Final Fantasy XII, except that it is here executed more smoothly, more exciting and best of all, it fixes small things common to the traditional thinking design that only RPG veterans will notice, regardless of it being an action based one. For example though, skipping large areas of walking grounds by the use of landmarks is well done and well needed for a giant design such as this.
I had barely traversed through the landscapes and I can say already that I love the soundtrack accompanying me. The songs feel calm, exotic and grand to me. The battle theme, that can change according to the hectic tension each battle provides, actually never bores me, because it is that good.
As far as the story goes, it starts out pretty normal, aside from watching two gigantic gods fight each other. Shulk leads a calm life alongside his childhood friends Reyn and Fiora, and spends most of his time inside interiors. It is not until abnormal circumstances arise involving Mechons and the legendary Monado sword that the plot is starting to move and from there on out, no matter how large the game is, the plot thickens and continues to grow in an intriguing way, while every party character is very much likable with good portraits of human emotions.
Some of the traditional RPG standards, such as normal attacks and mana, are both ignored. Instead, normal attacks activate automatically, and health regenerates the same way after battles. A special system called Chain Attacks is available once you use Art(the equivalent of Spells or Abilities in here) skills effectively, which definitely reminded me of Mega Man X: Command Mission's Final Strike. Once activated, you can chain Art attacks for free on an enemy, and if you chain well enough according to the game's rules, you can do even much more damage.
Next to this, each character has their own special ability to use in battles, which fills up the more attacks are successfully done. Such as Reyn being able to drag enemies towards him using aggression, or Shulk being able to reflect off special incoming future attacks.
That's right, future attacks. This RPG involves a future concept used during the story as well as combat and when picking up certain items, showing you possible future events happening. Stronger enemies usually start using dangerous future attacks, which you can overcome by either calling in for help from your allies, or using one of your own counter Arts, such as letting the enemy fall asleep.
Xenoblade also incorporates a crafting mode, letting you create certain gems out of crystals and cylinders, which make you able to equip their bonus attributes on your character's equipment. There is another kind of gameplay, called Heart-to-Heart. It basically is about building off affinity towards party characters, which then unlock bonus scenes at many parts of the game, giving you more rewards.
The Art skills themselves can be leveled up by collecting enough AP(action points if I remember) using various ways. Each character can also learn special Skill Trees, most of them being active passively, while experiencing around. And if you collect enough items in an area and place them in the so called Collectopedia, you can get access to bonus rewards. Even trading items amongst party characters can give more affinity and thus more options to see Heart-To-Hearts.
Convenient tutorials are placed alongside the first parts, explaining the gameplay well and understandable and the amount of it is also quite impressive for an action rpg such as this. Even tedious repetition in battles(should this happen, although I doubt it for most of us) as will be noticed by the ones preparing to beat the game can easily be bounced of by changing characters once in a while, offering just as much entertainment because of the diversity in them.
The only dissapointing note for me in this is that many of the side quests, next to the many others in this huge game, are tedious to complete, because certain characters only appear at certain times during day or night. Other than this minor point, nothing else of serious error can be mentioned by me.
For it's sheer amount of fun, length and lasting appeal already is Xenoblade an absolute must play for RPG fans.It's graphics and soundtrack are top notch, it is rewarding on it's own to traverse the god's bodies(which are the world maps of this game basically) and listening to these dazzling songs while the great gameplay kicks in plenty of times. Even the difficulty is fair and spot on for me.
It's amazing how a single game can let me enjoy a dying console as excitingly as possible until the last few promising games are released and the next generation is amongst us.
Rating: 9.0
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