[Wii] Xenoblade Chronicles

[Tickles]

Genre: RPG
Players: Single player
Wif-fi: No
Rating (By me): 9.5
Game informer rating: 10


A while ago, I have purchased this game and have been playing quite a bit of it, and already it blows my mind. It gives me a lot of reasons to believe the hype in all the gaming sites and magazines that give this game a near perfect to a perfect rating every time. The largest RPG ever created for the Wii, it offers many different ways to play, from the quests to crafting.

The story
The story to this game is simple, two titans battled long ago until they died, and two colonies formed on the titans. One is the homs, the humans of the land, who drive on the biological side of the titans, and the mechanics, higher intelligence robots that thrive on the mechanical side of the titans. Both sides are locked in the same never ending combat the titans had long before them. Even though the story element is simple, there is more to it later in the game that makes you really think, and for the sake of not releasing any spoilers, I won't go into more details than this.

Playability
The game is really easy to grasp, though may seem tedious at first, and helps you along the way with tutorial screens that offer minor details on how to perform something. Once the screen is out of the way, you can get right to fighting, or walking, or whatever. Controls are always available ion the HUD, which you can have turned off by setting the options. Moving your character is simple, just use the joystick on your nunchuck. If at any point you need a refresher of how to play, or how to do something, every tutorial window, plue a more detailed explanation if possible, is available to you at any time in the game. So if you missed how to perform combos, you can pull up the performing combos window.

combat
The combat system takes a bit getting used to, as it relies on auto attack features, and player reflex. Whenever you engage an enemy, your character will begin to attack if they are within range. Once you are, you will be able to select different arts to use that have more effects if used at different positions or under certain conditions, some of which require you to be behind your enemy for bonus damage. You'll find your self coming up with strategies on the fly, especially if you're about to perform a good move, but the enemy decided to turn around, bringing it back to base power, but you have another move ready. But no fears, you can set more than one move, and they will all be used in the order you pressed.

When it comes to combos, you can initiate a chain attack after a certain point in the game, where you take control of each character in your battle party, select one art to combine into a chain, to dish out a lot of damage at once. The more your party members like each other, the larger the chains you can perform.

Environment
Probably the main reason I love this game so much is the landscape. It's as detailed as things get, with blades of grass going in every direction, clear blue skies that have clouds that move across it, and beautiful buildings in the city. You can see it all, and take in all the work that went into it. The best part of it is, no place is restricted, it's all open to explore. You see a place you can jump on, jump on it. You want to dive off a cliff int water, dive of it. There are no invisible barriers, you are only limited to how high your character can jump.

With every environment, there are also a ton of monsters to fight, some of which may seem easy. My first mistake was thinking the first area had only easy monsters until I found a new area with high level monsters that would kill me in one hit. You never know what you will find if you explore a little.

Graphics
The only thing that flaws the game, the graphics seem a bit dated, especially on the character designs. They almost look blocky. This can easily be looked past, as the entire game is awesome, and you forget how your characters look.

These are the highlights you can expect from this game, and the best thing is, you play your way. If you don't feel like doing the main story and do a bunch of side quests, go ahead. You want to just go and hunt monsters to power level, go ahead. You just want to go and sight see, for all means, go ahead. There is no time limit to complete the main quest. I'm not even done with the game, and I did so much before taking on the next portion of the story line. I suggest that if you do play, set the in game language to Japanese, and your Wii system to English to have Japanese voice actors with English subtitles. The English voice acting is actually good, but I just like how Japanese voice actors sound.

I made this thread not just to hype about the game, but for people to discuss about it if they have it, and ask questions about playing strategies, quests, and whatnot. So if you have it, talk about it, if you don;t, you will not be disappointed if you get it.

[Darkstar64]

Why does everyone keep reminding my that I don't have the money for this game?!

I'm gonna get it soon though, so I hope you can give me some tips, because RPG is one of my weakest gaming prowesses, second only to FPS and RTS...

[Aquashin]

i started playing it on wii but then games came out on pc and i didnt touched my WII ever since...

[WhatThePumpkin]

Huh. That sounds like a really good game! And, I'm all for RPGs, so that just makes me want to play! It costs as much as a normal Wii game, doesn't it? I could probably get it... :3