Xenoblade Chronicles - Wii

[boxoctosis]

Well, my wife wants to play Wii Fit and my children want to watch me play Wind Waker and Mario so it's unfortunately not as clean cut as it seems at first glance.

Stick the lot of them in your cellar-dungeon. I thought that sort of thing was mandatory in Belgium.

[scottcr]

I think your view of japanese rpg's is stuck in the dark ages. Valkyria Chronicles, Demons Souls and now Xenoblade. And even FXXIII was visually stunning with a hum dinger of a battle system, even though it was too linear. This game in particular couldn't be enjoyed on a handheld - the areas are just too big and MMO like.

Of course it could be on a handheld.

[boxoctosis]

I dunno. The draw distance is like nothing I've ever seen. It never fails to impress.

[Vorgot]

Only just started playing this, but it's charmed the pants off me already. Even the opening cut scene was really well done, then you got thrown into some real action. The tutorials are nice and clear, the camera works really well, and even the menu system seems well thought out. The game seems to be doing everything right to suck you in, not bombarding you with complex stuff early on, but making you feel like you are right in it from the off. Going from Dragon Age to this, even though they are different types of RPG, Xenoblade already has shown me tons more thought and care has gone into it, along with a lot more imagination.

And as I only recently have got an HD TV, and everyone said the Wii would look gash, this looks stunning through component, absolutely lovely. Had to stop to post as I am so impressed, but back to it!

Oh, and I have the Japanese voices on, which seems to fit perfectly. Is the English voice acting decent?

[Guan]

When I switched to English and heard Reyn, I immediately switched back. But from what I've heard, the English voices aren't horrible. Still, despite the off-sync subs, I prefer Japanese.

[ah]

The voice acting is okay but some of the dialogue is a bit wobbly, which I guess is easier to ignore when it's just text and some japanese audio you can't understand. I'm playing in English and it doesn't really bother me, though.

[Mallet]

There are some really great battle banters that you miss out if you play in Japanese and it's refreshing to hear British banter as well, the English voice overs aren't the best you'll ever hear but they are in no way bad and don't detract from the game at all imo. Besides the screeching that comes from female characters in Japanese is enough to put me off.

I was taking a break last night and flicking through some films on the TV. Predators, Species 2, fast and Furious and Dragon Ball were all on, I came away thinking that perhaps the story lines in JRPGs aren't that bad after all

[moosegrinder]

Scalpers have started on Amazon. Didn't see that coming at all

[Vorgot]

There are some really great battle banters that you miss out if you play in Japanese and it's refreshing to hear British banter as well, the English voice overs aren't the best you'll ever hear but they are in no way bad and don't detract from the game at all imo. Besides the screeching that comes from female characters in Japanese is enough to put me off.

I was taking a break last night and flicking through some films on the TV. Predators, Species 2, fast and Furious and Dragon Ball were all on, I came away thinking that perhaps the story lines in JRPGs aren't that bad after all

Cheers, I may well switch it over then Hopefully I can do that mid game

[Dandy_Sephy]

you can do it at any time

[Stolly]

Of course it could be on a handheld.

Yeah and everything would be tiny and finicky. I'm not a great fan of handheld gaming by the way - I'd rather read a book

[Mallet]

My suspicion on who another party member will be looks like it will turn out to be true, the amount and location of heart to hearts I couldn't access are the clues for me. It's been obvious what and who metal face has been from the start as well, I still think the story is very intriguing though

I've started to get the affinity up between party members to the point where cross character skill links are becoming really powerful, for example Reyn has a skill that increases damage with weapons by 10% which is perfect for Shulk and Dunban.

55 hours in now and I can't believe how much of the game is still left ahead of me, there isn't a snow flake's chance in hell this game would have gotten made on the HD consoles as the costs would be astronomical. It also makes me sad that we may not see a true sequel on the same scale

[Davros sock drawer]

I'm not very far in, just fighting Metal Face.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

[Majora]

I've just been spamming all the attack buttons and waiting for them to recharge, the game hasn't really asked I do anything more than that so far. I don't really like how all your allies moves are out of your hands but that might be because I'm a control freak.

I'm loving the music and cut-scenes though. They're so obscenely bombastic but they really get my blood pumping. The dialogue is a bit dodgy but I like the characters. Overall it reminds me of Dragon Age, where I'm playing it for everything but the combat.

[Davros sock drawer]

You can change who leads the party if you want to play with their moves, and you also get a crack at them when you do a chain attack.

My "issue", if you can call it such when I'm enjoying the game, is that I can't see what the hell is going on. There is so much onscreen furniture, so many little glowing symbols and charge bars, and glowing blue lines, and cursors, and enemy attacks, and just...NOISE! that I just mash and pray.

The Metal Face battle is asking me to do certain attacks in order, so I think I need to go over the hints again.

[Majora]

I think with Metal Face you had to do a chain attack, no? When the 3 blue bars in the top left of the screen are full.

I agree though, it's all too manic and frantic for me, same as Dragon Age. In an RPG I quite like to take my time with strategy but here I feel like I have no time to plan or react, I'm just mashing attacks and occasionally looking for my team-mates health dropping low. I know what most of the visual indicators mean in isolation but I feel like i just don't have time to take the onslaught of information in when fighting.

[boxoctosis]

I found after a short while it all clicked, and i started to understand fully what was going on, after a similarly baffled start.

Then it becomes much better. Think it clicked for me with one of the longer battles, so I could see all the nuances play out.

Also could someone pos Majora 3 posts up, I negged him by accident (fat iPhone fingers). Don't like to see negativity in this thread!

[Mallet]

You can pause Dragon Age any time you want though.

I usually pull the camera all the way out when I'm playing this game, it's very easy to manipulate which I like in a game. Against metal face you need to Topple him before you can do damage, to do that you have to inflict Break on him first. A chain attack can help you set up Topple but if you use Shulk to inflict Break someone should automatically topple him, not always but enough to get the job done.

It all becomes second nature after a few hours, just stick with it because the battle system is brilliant imo, try to keep your tension high as it really does make a difference to the damage you deal.

[Dave White]

can you swap characters in a battle?

did i miss this duuh??

[Majora]

What is tension? Is that the blue bar? I'm still not sure how that works. Also why do you sometimes get QTEs in the middle of battle? I'm not sure what they do.

[Davros sock drawer]

I think with Metal Face you had to do a chain attack, no? When the 3 blue bars in the top left of the screen are full.

I agree though, it's all too manic and frantic for me, same as Dragon Age. In an RPG I quite like to take my time with strategy but here I feel like I have no time to plan or react, I'm just mashing attacks and occasionally looking for my team-mates health dropping low. I know what most of the visual indicators mean in isolation but I feel like i just don't have time to take the onslaught of information in when fighting.

Exactly how I feel in the battles.

I know the three blue bars need to be full to be able to do a chain attack, but I can't remember how to fill them up.

I'm sure it will click, but I really want to settle down with some nice exploration for a bit.

[Mr.Jeff]

Tension is raised through critical hits, achieving a bonus effect through using skills in the right way like attacking from the back and from hitting the mini battle affinity qte either just on or inside the circle.

The burst affinity qte appears when you miss or get a critical hit with your party leader. Getting it just on or inside the circle not only raises tension but also raises affinity with the rest of your party.

[Davros sock drawer]

Right-oh, thanks. I think I remember being told all that, but I think I got distracted by all the new Monado moves I'd just been granted.

[Vorgot]

When I switched to English and heard Reyn, I immediately switched back. But from what I've heard, the English voices aren't horrible. Still, despite the off-sync subs, I prefer Japanese.

God knows why you got negged for that, but I completely agree. The 'banter' is just getting on my nerves so much. Its back to Japanese for me, definitely.

Very early on, but just before you go in the cave and look out over Colony 9, the draw distance and scale is just epic.

[Mr.Jeff]

And it continues...

Incidentally the story's kicked up several notches during the latter part of the game. For the first 50 hours or so I didn't exactly need the Monado to see where things were going, and whilst I don't wish to imply the plot is atypical of a JRPG I'm glad it's finally decided to get somewhat interesting.

Wow, just hit the bit you're probably mentioning and you're not half wrong that it's kicked things up a gear. I'd been wondering about some of the flapping plotholes and a fair number of them have been revealed. Which is good because certain aspects of the plot were beginning to wear on me a tad. Really good stuff.

Almost 96 hours on the clock now...

Edit: Holy fuck. I'd imagined what some of the possibilities of the plot could be but seeing the reality and reveal of some of them more than matches my expectations.

[Davros sock drawer]

God knows why you got negged for that, but I completely agree. The 'banter' is just getting on my nerves so much. Its back to Japanese for me, definitely.

They just don't shut up, do they?

Have to say, this isn't as good as I hoped it would be.

[Professor Puzzles]

[Davros sock drawer]

Don't get me wrong, I do like it. It's just not giving me that RE4/OoT level "new favourite game" feeling that I was perhaps hoping for from comments in this thread. Not yet anyway.

Is there any way of knowing if an enemy is too tough for me before I go near it? I swam over to the east side of Colony 9 last night and got twatted by a Pink Flamingo. I wasn't even having a pop at it! Killed me with one peck of its pink beak!

[mdn2]

Don't get me wrong, I do like it. It's just not giving me that RE4/OoT level "new favourite game" feeling that I was perhaps hoping for from comments in this thread. Not yet anyway.

Is there any way of knowing if an enemy is too tough for me before I go near it? I swam over to the east side of Colony 9 last night and got twatted by a Pink Flamingo. I wasn't even having a pop at it! Killed me with one peck of its pink beak!

The display when you target an enemy will have a different background colour. Black means you'll win the fight easily and the enemy will ignore you, yellow means it's a pretty even fight and red means you'll get your arse handed to you in the quickest and most humiliating way possible.

[ah]

.Black means you'll win the fight easily and the enemy will ignore you

Actually, whether or not the enemy will ignore you is signified by an icon within its label - if it has an eye symbol then it'll attack on sight, a sound wave symbol means it'll attack if you make noise near to it, etc. No symbol means it'll ignore you unless you attack.