Xenoblade Chronicles

[demi]

Nailed it. Xenoblade, despite all the good games that have come out, takes a giant liquid shit on them.

[Great Rumbler]

Xenoblade
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XIII

[magus]

I'm glad you are enjoying it, Joe. If it comes to America, you have to buy it now. Games like this shouldn't be pirated.

Oh, I definitely will. I'm no Magus.

It's basically the JRPG I've been waiting all generation to play

the jrpg everybody wants to play is world of warcraft,it's the most depressing thing ever

[Bebpo]

A single player MMO done right without the grinding and not requiring 8000 hours to see the whole story/all the content?

Sure!

I wish they made a single player version of FFXI that played like Xenoblade.  Would love to go through the story and explore the world of FFXI but I hate mmo.

[magus]

you know great rumbler is the second person to say this... and it got me thinking... what people see in this game that they didn't see in FF12? all the thing i said about this game,i would have said the same about FF12

[demi]

you know great rumbler is the second person to say this... and it got me thinking... what people see in this game that they didn't see in FF12? all the thing i said about this game,i would have said the same about FF12

The combat is better. The characters are unique and have their own characteristic (Job Board = awful, garbage, shit). The story (yes, the story) is better. Political Intrigue 

Loot is great and good. Questing is great and good. Traversal is great and good (fast travel omg). You can see your characters armor + weapon is great and good. No Vaan and Penelo is great and good.

Graphics are arguable. I think FF12 is a great looking game. Just awful to play and enjoy.

[Great Rumbler]

Nothing else this generation even comes close to Xenoblade in terms of ambition, scope, and pure detail that you can find in every nook and cranny of this game. Even the characters aren't so bad, sure they're plucky teens for the most part but there not quite so annoying or brain-dead stupid as so many other RPGs like to revel in [looking at you, plucky kids from FFXIII] and the story, from what I've seen so far, is actually kind of interesting. I'll have to play further to find out for sure, but it doesn't instantly repulse me, so extra points there.

I like the addition of the Heart-to-Heart scenes, one of my favorite aspects about the Star Ocean series., just little scenes that give you a peak at the characters without the oppressive weight of world-ending disaster looming on the horizon. And it actually seems like they're not total animu embarrassments, so more points for Xenoblade.

I like being able to equip my characters with different armor and weapons and actually seeing those new pieces of equipment displayed. It's a nice carry-over from the game's obvious MMO inspirations. It's just a nice touch that you hardly ever see in single-player RPGs [from Japan].

I love the contiguous world, with hardly any borders in sight, streaming as you run across boundless prairies and watch the mountains grow from out of the distance or looking down at the city from the top of a hill. Towns and buildings have detail, little touches that you won't find in MMOs, things that remind you that you're still playing a single-player game.

Only thing I really have an issue with is the characters' faces. They look...off. At the same time, they sort of remind me of Vagrant Story. Wish they'd gone with higher quality models for the cutscenes, but oh well.

So, Xenoblade is basically a combination of East and West, MMO and single-player RPG, taking aspects of each and melding them into something that's familiar but also unique. And it absolutely STUNS me that Nintendo, in its current mindset, put up the money for something this big.

[magus]

Even the characters aren't so bad

if you ask me they are just bland... i don't know maybe i'm more attuned to animu character,the plot too,i guess it's my fault for doing so much questing but it moves at a glacial pace

I like being able to equip my characters with different armor and weapons and actually seeing those new pieces of equipment displayed. It's a nice carry-over from the game's obvious MMO inspirations. It's just a nice touch that you hardly ever see in single-player RPGs [from Japan].

this feature too could have been done so much better,there are so many piece of equipment that looks the same only with a different color that i'm not sure why they even bothered doing it,it's really hard to notice the difference unless you switch to a different class of equipment (like from medium to heavy) everybody praise it but i seems to be the only one to hold this opinion

The combat is better.

but why? in both game combat happens for the most without any input from the player,if anything in FF12 the player has more control over it

heck in fact both game are a sad affair of "one guy tanks,one heal,and the other deals the damage"

I love the contiguous world, with hardly any borders in sight, streaming as you run across boundless prairies and watch the mountains grow from out of the distance or looking down at the city from the top of a hill.

but that's something that any sandbox or mmorpg game can do so i don't understand why people tell me like it's the most amazing thing they have ever seen everytime a single player rpg does it,for me it just makes traveling around a pain in the ass,sure i get giddy when i find something but finding something entails looking for 2 minutes at shulk swimming around... like the most boring aquarium ever


 

[demi]

The differences are huge. Look at Sleep, or Confusion. What do you ahve to do in FFXII when this occurs? You have to take the time to set up an item, or a spell. And then you have to wait for the character to cast it. You have to set up Gambits for this. This is cumbersome. This is obstructive.

In Xenoblade, you walk up, and you tell your character to slap the shit out of him, and he is back in action. You're right in the battle, you're part of the battle. It doesn't feel "MMO" at all. It's so smooth and part of the game that you often slap yourself in the FACE at how obvious this should have been. The battles feel alive. FFXII is just watching your AI scripts plan itself out. A screensaver.

[demi]

And btw, you don't need Shulk in your party to experience visions. Have fun customizing your party!

[Great Rumbler]

but that's something that any sandbox or mmorpg game can do

And how many do it as well as Xenoblade? Awesome vistas, lots of details in towns and in the overworld, and a really good art style overall.

[iconoclast]

this feature too could have been done so much better,there are so many piece of equipment that looks the same only with a different color that i'm not sure why they even bothered doing it,it's really hard to notice the difference unless you switch to a different class of equipment (like from medium to heavy) everybody praise it but i seems to be the only one to hold this opinion

I agree with this. 90% of the armor I've gotten so far has just been the same models recycled with a different color scheme. I thought maybe I was just getting unlucky, but I guess there really isn't much variety after all.

[demi]

The later armors look great. We're like angels...

[Bebpo]

Nintendo didn't put tons of money into this.  There was no advertising even in Japan, and it probably had the same budget as the Baten Kaitos games.  Maybe a little more since those were 2 year projects iirc and XB took 3 years of development. 

The thing is that Monolith was smart and made all the right decisions.  Remember the first reveals where everyone was looking at the fruit textures and laughing?  Well now look at the vistas you get in return and you see it was the right decision.  Instead of going with pushing graphics, they pushed scope and art design, things that don't cost insane $$$s.  Everything about the game design was budget conscious and yet the result is masterful.  Monolith Soft. are a great rpg company who've made a lot of mistakes over their games but they kept learning and learning and learning from them (and Takahashi has learned A LOT through his disasters with Xenogears [the whole disc 2/budget/time fiasco] and Xenosaga [the whole episode 2/3 fiasco]) and so they are making smart, awesome games.

I only wish the studio was a little bigger so they could pump out more big titles and that they didn't have the waste staff on some of their cash in games like Dragonball or SRW OG Saga.  Hopefully though they'll announce Baten Kaitos 3 soon for the 3DS and Takahashi's team is currently working on their followup to Xenoblade on the WiiU, so in about 3 years we should see another Takahashi masterpiece.

I just hope they fit Soma Bringer 2 in there somewhere!  Soma Bringer has a lot of the same qualities as XB, great worldview, interesting story, good music, loot; but it definitely had problems too like shit graphics and weak dungeons/repetition.  I think a sequel would be awesome, and the ending for the first set one up.  SB is Soraya Saga (Takahashi's wife and co-writer of Xenogears, parts of Xenosaga) baby and she writes just as good of worlds and stories as her husband.

[magus]

And how many do it as well as Xenoblade? Awesome vistas, lots of details in towns and in the overworld, and a really good art style overall.

i don't know,for me any big open map is the same as the sea in wind waker or those boring ass planet in mass effect,i just don't see the charm and it hurts me when people tells me that it's "SO MUCH BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER LINEAR RPG!"

The differences are huge. Look at Sleep, or Confusion. What do you ahve to do in FFXII when this occurs? You have to take the time to set up an item, or a spell. And then you have to wait for the character to cast it. You have to set up Gambits for this. This is cumbersome. This is obstructive.

In Xenoblade, you walk up, and you tell your character to slap the shit out of him, and he is back in action. You're right in the battle, you're part of the battle. It doesn't feel "MMO" at all. It's so smooth and part of the game that you often slap yourself in the FACE at how obvious this should have been. The battles feel alive. FFXII is just watching your AI scripts plan itself out. A screensaver.

2 character out of 3 will out of an AI scripts,the fact that you can't control that script is not a good thing,it's true that the combat system is faster but you tell your character what he does and he does it, is what you do in a MMO,heck there is even a skill palette and skill come with cooldown times,those are features that you would find in a MMO

Soma Bringer

there is a fan-translation of the game but i'd be lying if i didn't say i played it for 5 minutes and decided it just didn't look interessing

[demi]

You can tell other characters what to do. When a vision occurs, run up to someone and press B at the prompt. You can now perform a move. Maybe draw some aggro? Maybe heal some characters? I have no idea where these FF12 draws are coming from. They couldn't be further apart, and it's for the better.

Bebpo: I just put Soma Bringer on my card, everyone says its supposed to be super good. So I'll sit down with it sometime... eventually

[Bebpo]

Re: magus
Wind Waker (and all the DS 3d zeldas) had really really crappy fast travel.  Also there was nothing to do while sailing/train driving and the vistas were really boring (oh look, more sea; oh look train tracks).

XB has gorgeous areas with all kinds of hidden pockets to find and pieces of the world lore to uncover.  It has weather, night/day with full lighting transitions, nature cycle with nocturnal and daytime creatures, vistas to find, quests to do.  Every major area is totally different and they are all huge and there is a ton of them.  Yeah, it would be nicer to run a little faster and have more warp points, but that isn't enough to kill it.

The closest is FFXII, but FFXII areas were just big open fields with nothing in them besides some monsters.  XB's fields are much more interesting.


And keep playing Soma Bringer.  You'd probably hate the gameplay since it's a loot arpg, but you might enjoy the story/music/2d backgrounds enough to finish it.

[demi]

And how many do it as well as Xenoblade? Awesome vistas, lots of details in towns and in the overworld, and a really good art style overall.

i don't know,for me any big open map is the same as the sea in wind waker or those boring ass planet in mass effect,i just don't see the charm and it hurts me when people tells me that it's "SO MUCH BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER LINEAR RPG!"

I thnk you have ADHD bro...

[Bebpo]

Also magus, the battle system is good because it's fast, fluid, and still has enough depth and options to make it strategic and fun when you beat down a giant unique mob 3 levels higher than you because you picked the right party members, used the right skills at the same time, and pulled your chains off.

Is it the MOST COMPLEX DEEP BATTLE SYSTEM EVER?  No.  But what it trades off in depth it gets in speed and being fluid.  It's still deeper than a whole lot of arpg, mmo-like, or wrpg battle systems.

[Great Rumbler]

i don't know,for me any big open map is the same as the sea in wind waker or those boring ass planet in mass effect,i just don't see the charm and it hurts me when people tells me that it's "SO MUCH BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER LINEAR RPG!"

And it hurts ME whenever someone comes into a FFXIII thread and says "I'm okay with the game being one long corridor filled with random battles and cutscenes and nothing else!". So there.

[magus]

You can tell other characters what to do. When a vision occurs, run up to someone and press B at the prompt. You can now perform a move. Maybe draw some aggro? Maybe heal some characters? I have no idea where these FF12 draws are coming from. They couldn't be further apart, and it's for the better.

Bebpo: I just put Soma Bringer on my card, everyone says its supposed to be super good. So I'll sit down with it sometime... eventually

i know that,but visions don't happen often enough to make a difference,and when a vision happen most of the time it boils down to "YOU SHOULD USE THE SHIELD MONADO ART! NOW!"

And keep playing Soma Bringer.  You'd probably hate the gameplay since it's a loot arpg, but you might enjoy the story/music/2d backgrounds enough to finish it.

yeah i thought the 2d background was cool but the actual game looked like a total borefest

when you beat down a giant unique mob 3 levels higher than you because you picked the right party members

when i beat down a giant mob 3 levels higher than me,it feels like the CPU has done all the job,it's the CPU that decided when to heal,and it's the CPU that drawed all the aggro,all i did was going to the back of the enemy and poke him once,if the fight lasted long enough maybe i get off a chain which mostly ends up in "SPAM ALL THE RED SKILLS!"

i don't have a problem with that but i don't feel like calling it a good battle system either... maybe i would enjoy it more if i switched character

i don't know,for me any big open map is the same as the sea in wind waker or those boring ass planet in mass effect,i just don't see the charm and it hurts me when people tells me that it's "SO MUCH BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER LINEAR RPG!"

And it hurts ME whenever someone comes into a FFXIII thread and says "I'm okay with the game being one long corridor filled with random battles and cutscenes and nothing else!". So there.

it's nice having this friendly discussion with the bore

[demi]

Spamming all the red skills gets me nowhere. Half the time I have to do a Chain Attack just to heal, or buff up. Or I set up a Topple on a Unique Enemy, then Daze him.

[magus]

yeah i don't do that at all,i prefer to set up a big damage chain,getting reyn "this deal huge damage but you can use it only once in a minute" skill at the end does A LOT of damage

anyway been wrapping some other quest up,i gifted most of my collectables (makes raising friendship level a lot easier,i don't know why bebpo says it was that hard,it's just kinda time consuming since you can't gift more than one item for button prompt) so that the 2 girls would become buddy buddy and i finaly solved that annoying friendship quest,the XP reward was huuuuuuuuuuge to the point my character leveled up twice! at level 41 i went back to the high level mob of the first area and kicked their ass,should have checked if the thing they dropped were worth the effort

one of the new quest i got require me to backtrack to the first zone,that's kind of a low blow

[demi]

Gee, it's a good thing you can just warp there. Huge issue.

[magus]

warping there is no problem,having to search for the items i need again it is,i probably only miss 1 or 2 of them so i guess it's no biggie anyway

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I'm getting a new gaming PC tomorrow.

The first game I'll install on it? Xenoblade. Even a busy guy like me can't pass up the real deal.

[demi]

I hope you like it, Patel. I would be curious how people who are aversive or atrophied by JRPGs feel about it. I love this game. I just got the final character.

[demi]

[demi]

omfg... this is the new battle theme (when you hit a certain point in story)



this game is so win

[Howard Alan Treesong]

the only JRPGs I've been able to stomach this gen are NieR, Vesperia, and Resonance. If people who like those like this then it's worth checking out (at HD resolutions)

[iconoclast]

the only JRPGs I've been able to stomach this gen are NieR, Vesperia, and Resonance. If people who like those like this then it's worth checking out (at HD resolutions)

If you added The Last Remnant, Valkyria, and Devil Survivor, that would round out my list of the best JRPGs this gen. And Xenoblade seems pretty awesome too.

[Great Rumbler]

NieR and Resonance

It's far better than those two.

The Last Remnant

And this one, too.

[tiesto]

the only JRPGs I've been able to stomach this gen are NieR, Vesperia, and Resonance. If people who like those like this then it's worth checking out (at HD resolutions)

Those games are awesome, add Valkyria and SO4 (yes, I know I'm the only one) and you have my favorite console RPGs this gen.

[Great Rumbler]

SO4 started out pretty good, but it got absolutely atrocious not long after that.

[demi]

that's not XENOBLADE TALK

[tiesto]

SO4 started out pretty good, but it got absolutely atrocious not long after that.

If you buy the PS3 version (no disk-swapping), and skip all the cutscenes it's pretty enjoyable. Fun battle system and a decent take on item creation. I liked the game better than the shitpile that was 3 at least... but it's not a patch on 1 or Second Story

It would be PERFECT if Xenoblade came tomorrow... My new house and Xenoblade on the same day, would be pretty much the greatest day ever!

[Great Rumbler]

that's not XENOBLADE TALK

You're right, MORE XENOBLADE TALK.

[cool breeze]

the only JRPGs I've been able to stomach this gen are NieR, Vesperia, and Resonance. If people who like those like this then it's worth checking out (at HD resolutions)

I want to check out Resonance of Fate now.  Nier and Vesperia are the two jrpg I really liked this gen.  then again, I haven't played too many.

I mean, xenoblade XENOBLADE DEREK SMART XENOBLADE

[Great Rumbler]

the only JRPGs I've been able to stomach this gen are NieR, Vesperia, and Resonance. If people who like those like this then it's worth checking out (at HD resolutions)

I want to check out Resonance of Fate now.  Nier and Vesperia are the two jrpg I really liked this gen.  then again, I haven't played too many.

I mean, xenoblade XENOBLADE DEREK SMART XENOBLADE

XENOBLADE IS SOOOO ZOMG

spoiler (click to show/hide)

RoF is a pretty good game. It's got an interesting and fun combat system, a unique world, characters that are fairly decent, and weird/hilarious cutscenes.

[close]

[demi]

I don't know why you like those games in particular, but if you could stomach Vesperia's story (singling this out) or characters then Xenoblade's should be just fine. I thought RoF was craptastic. Never played NieR (yet)

Riki actually shines... I quite like the little guy. Whoever did the VA for him had a lot of fun. lol

[Positive Touch]

fucking CHRIST i spent all day trying to get this to work right & it just won't!  the game runs just a little bit too slow so there are too many cutscenes & fights where the sound does that annoying stutter.  DAMN IT I AM SO CLOSE I WANT A GOOD JRPG FUCK FUCK FUCK

[magus]

a word of warning,there is a quest that is apparently bugged,the quest giver will ask for 4 walnut grapes (which are common) OR 2 bittersweet kiwi (which are rare) if you have 4 walnut grapes when you undertake this quest,you can't give him the bittersweet kiwi anymore and are stuck with the lamer reward even if you do have the kiwi

[Herr Mafflard]

started this--tried playing it on the Wii first but it raped my eyes so I'm playing it on Dolphin with the 30fps patch. Now I can actually make stuff out in the mini-map: e.g. I had no idea Landmarks and Quest icons were actually different when playing it on the Wii!



anyway, really liking it. Haven't really played an rpg that emphasises positioning so much. It's certainly unique, I think. And Demi's right--not having to worry about AI partner actions is a welcome relief.

making my way through Tephra Cave towards Colony 6 at the moment 

[Great Rumbler]

Gaur Plains looks AWESOME.

[magus]

oh i can't believe how stupid i am,i never used the map option so everytime i had to go back to the starting town i went back across all the other area's....

so for example i warped to area 3 entrance and then walked to area 2 and from area 2 exit i warped to area 2 entrance to go to area 1,when apparently you can just warp to area 1 directly through the menu

[Bebpo]

No wonder you were so bored of the game

[magus]

nah that just made traveling to different area more annoying but not by much,i haven't done much back & forth between area's to begin with,the thing that bore me in the game all have to do with how the maps are structured,for example i've spent like 30 minutes searching for a particular NPC in the tree village and i still haven't found it,i know that i could just ignore the guy and go on my merry way and proceed with the plot but it just doesn't seems fair,especialy since it ends a pretty big quest of chain i have already done and probably has yet another huge reward... i really wish they didn't give named NPC schedules,it's nice that i can jump to any moment of the day i want so i don't need to wait around but if i don't know if the guy i'm searching is even around the feature is useless

i think i might be really overleveled the party is level 42 and the normal monster in the jungle area are like 10 level belows me,the named mob in the starting area dropped some really powerfull medium armor which i slapped on dunban,now he has the dodge of dunban AND the tankiness of reyn,too bad he only has half the HP but i guess you can't have all

[demi]

oh i can't believe how stupid i am,i never used the map option so everytime i had to go back to the starting town i went back across all the other area's....

so for example i warped to area 3 entrance and then walked to area 2 and from area 2 exit i warped to area 2 entrance to go to area 1,when apparently you can just warp to area 1 directly through the menu

OH GOD I HATE TRAVELING

XENOBLADE

[magus]

uh maybe i didn't explain myself... i know that you can warp between different landmark in the same zone but i didn't know you could warp say... from bionis leg to colony 9,that made me waste like 30 seconds since i had to warp to the entrance of theyths cave first,and to colony 9 after... that still makes walking around in old area's searching for collectibles for quest that ask you to backtrack still a pain in the ass

so i'm not sure what's demi point?

[naff]

i really wish they didn't give named NPC schedules,it's nice that i can jump to any moment of the day i want so i don't need to wait around but if i don't know if the guy i'm searching is even around the feature is useless

If you've spoken to him before and are trying to re-find him use the affinity chart to see what time he's active

[Great Rumbler]

lol

[Bebpo]

i really wish they didn't give named NPC schedules,it's nice that i can jump to any moment of the day i want so i don't need to wait around but if i don't know if the guy i'm searching is even around the feature is useless

If you've spoken to him before and are trying to re-find him use the affinity chart to see what time he's active

Or just use a faq/wiki that lists all the npcs and where they are at what time.  Helps a lot!

[magus]

i really wish they didn't give named NPC schedules,it's nice that i can jump to any moment of the day i want so i don't need to wait around but if i don't know if the guy i'm searching is even around the feature is useless

If you've spoken to him before and are trying to re-find him use the affinity chart to see what time he's active

yeah i do that all the time,in fact you can even check the place where the NPC is by looking at the quest log,but this quest involve finding a character which i still haven't spoken to

i searched in a faq and got his time schedule but no luck so far

[magus]

there is a quest where you can have 2 different outcomes but both outcomes have a bad ending and decrease your town rating....

bebpo?

[Bebpo]

iirc that's because they setup another later quest that increases your town ratings back and more.

[magus]

well is there any difference between what of the 2 outcomes i pick anyway? i would have to load back an earlier save and redo A LOT of quest to pick the other "looks less bad" outcome and i would rather not do that

[demi]

Joke's on him. Xenoblade would easily break 7k here in the States. Guess NOA hates sales...

[Bebpo]

Meh, niche genre Japanese-y games with no marketing don't sell in the west.  Especially on a niche console for core gamers.  Same old, same old.

well is there any difference between what of the 2 outcomes i pick anyway? i would have to load back an earlier save and redo A LOT of quest to pick the other "looks less bad" outcome and i would rather not do that

Don't worry about it.

[tiesto]

sales on this sure showed reggie what-for

less than 7k first week in the uk

Maybe if they put a soccer player on the cover it would've sold better...

[Joe Molotov]

I doubt Smurfs Dance Party or Jerry Rice Dog Football sells more than 7k copies, but that shit still gets released.