The Shrine

It's finally out, I have sunk my teeth into it, and it is glorious. It's also the primary reason I bought a Wii U like a year ago! (Along with Smash & Bayonetta 2!)

Playing it now too. About 4 hours in. I picked Reclaimer.

I wanted to play more yesterday, but we got hit with a hard storm that knocked the power out for half the day.

Currently I am battling it out with some beastmen type aliens, which I am assuming are also alien to this planet, like humans; at least that's what I told Elma and Lyn. Lots of stuff to do all over the place in this game; and I really like how all of the side quests feed into the central narrative of establishing the first human colony on Planet Mira.

Mine's in the mail. Got a decent pre-order deal on Amazon.

I'm in no hurry to get it - won't be playing it until I'm done with Fallout 4.

I am pretty sure they copied parts of the Pron battle music from the Nine Inch Nails album broken, especially the guitar on Wish.

Noctilum music is better than anything in the earlier parts, bits of it sound very Chrono Triggery, which is nice because this series is like a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger. Even though Mitsuda wasn't on the team for this one, Sawano did a lot of great work - it's a little bit of a shame that his music was showcased in some of the worst possible ways, so it had a lot of negative response... until people played the game:



Something about the Noctilum cave music just really really fits the scenery. It's like if a symphony orchestra attempting halloween themed western. Trust me, listen to the whole thing, and puicture yourself in a cave with luminous lifeforms.

So the close of Chapter 5 is where the plot really starts.

Chapter 1-5 more or less establish you in the world. Then at the end of chapter 5 the reality of the situation gets thrown on its head, and you really get thrown into the plot. The game really starts to get that Takahashian feeling to it.

It should be noted that the chapters are not indicators of length, just book marks really. Chapter 1-5, for example, may as well just have been called Chapter 1.

Oracle wrote:Mine's in the mail. Got a decent pre-order deal on Amazon.

I'm in no hurry to get it - won't be playing it until I'm done with Fallout 4.

That would be wise, Xenoblade is a 300 hour game.

The meat and potatoes is in the world itself, just exploring everything. The main storyline isn't that large a part of the pie(and I don't think you kill god! but I could be wrong! JRPGS!)

I do have a couple of complaints. That is the font and line spacing on non-conversation dialogue is incredibly tight/small. I would speculate that it has to do with localization.

The text is designed to be delivered all at once as the user passes the characters, and that means that some of the text is excessively long. There is a limited amount of screen real-estate to fit it in, so they ended up using a smaller font and tighter line spacing. This probably wasn't an issue in Japanese since Japanese text usually takes up much less space.

Fortunately, all of this text is just flavour and is unimportant, so you can ignore it if you don't want to be bothered feeling illiterate when you're reading and accidentally skip or reread lines.

Next is audio, sometimes songs with singing occur at the same time as dialogue, and the music volume isn't dropped down to appropriate levels. This is probably because they had a poor audio director, or that it was a polish task that never made it far enough up the priority chain.

Oh, if you didn't buy the game digitally, highly recommend downloading the 4 downloadable packs. They improve load time a great deal.

I'm not having any loading issues. I also have the digital version. I think the last physical copy of a game I ever got was New Super Mario Bros U, and only because it was free with another purchase.

Julius Seeker wrote:I'm not having any loading issues. I also have the digital version. I think the last physical copy of a game I ever got was New Super Mario Bros U, and only because it was free with another purchase.

They're caked into the digital version, you don't need to download if you have that version. :o

I got my collectors edition copy in yesterday, and I am loving the game so far. I am only an hour or so in so far, but plan to REALLY sink my teeth into it tonight. I am already loving the world and some of the little details, like Lin's Monado hairpins ^_^

This game looks fun I look forward to the upcoming quality PC port like all the other games in the series.

*bursts into tears*

Shrinweck wrote:This game looks fun I look forward to the upcoming quality PC port like all the other games in the series.

*bursts into tears*

Emulation will get there eventually!

Eric wrote:

Oracle wrote:Mine's in the mail. Got a decent pre-order deal on Amazon.

I'm in no hurry to get it - won't be playing it until I'm done with Fallout 4.

That would be wise, Xenoblade is a 300 hour game.

The meat and potatoes is in the world itself, just exploring everything. The main storyline isn't that large a part of the pie(and I don't think you kill god! but I could be wrong! JRPGS!)

It came today. It is sitting on my shelf calling to me, taunting me.

Shrinweck wrote:This game looks fun I look forward to the upcoming quality PC port like all the other games in the series.

*bursts into tears*

Assuming NX is backwards compatible, you may have an opportunity to play both Xenoblades on that console next year. Or if you don't care about dropping a few hundred extra, the Wii U for this one, and a 3DS for the other one - although it'll likely be out soon on virtual console for Wii U; it is in Europe already.

As far as the Xeno-series goes. Xenogears has a chance; Xenosaga is highly unlikely given Namco's general history of not porting to PC; and Xenoblade is nearly impossible given that Nintendo is unlikely to release their core franchises on competing platforms. A more likely event is Xenosaga releasing on NX.

Thank god for Google.

I kinda wish this game had a www.wowhead.com like website. Some of the fetch/collect quests aren't very clear, it's just like "Here's your objective, figure it out." and by figure it out I assume they mean ask someone or use the internet, because nothing in-game helps you figure out where exactly something drops, or if it's a drop, or a random thing floating on the ground heh.

There's the Xenoblade wiki, and gamefaqs. Each with a full weeks worth of information!

Anyway, a good tip is to use other characters aside from Lin and Elma as much as possible. Those two are already required for the main story and a number of affinity chapters, so they get plenty of xp already. I am using a wide range of characters; currently attempting to get everyone up to level 25. The game reminds me a lot of FF6 in this way, I am already setting up my favourite groupings.

Quick note to everyone still early in the game, use your first couple of Blade level increases to increase your Mechanical skill, level 3 mechanical will cover all but one of the FrontierNav sites in Primordia.

Just finished chapter 6 and got my Skell licence, really enjoying it so far. Chapter 5 was very challenging for me, but chapter 6 was a breeze.

Yeah, I have come across a few that require 5, but 5 is currently above the cap where I am; just after chapter 7, but before chapter 8.

I painted my Skell to look exactly like Weltall from Xenogears.

Anyway, I chose Reclaimers, what about you guys?

I'm like 2 hours into the game. I've heard I should actually read the game manual, so that's my next task before I dive in any deeper.

Think I'm level 9.

It depends how familiar you are with the first Xenoblade Chronicles. The gameplay builds on that one. I was pretty much able to jump right in. Even though I jumped in early, I still found that if Inran into anything questionable, that at least 5 other people had already asked on popular websites, and about 20 people had answered. With the first Xenoblade, thanks to Wurope, the wiki was already thoroughly populated with hints/answers to every single bit of content. Because yes, the world is huge, some stuff is difficult to find

A few tips:

When you get the follow ball, it is very helpful, as it will lead you to the location you're trying to get to.

If you lose in a story or affinity quest based battle 3 times, you have the option to pretty much halve the difficulty.

Part of the game is avoiding powerful enemies and getting to your target location. There'll be a few quests you'll hit where you may feel under leveled, but they're still doable if you run past the enemies and lose them, or if you can sneak by them.

I put hundreds of ours into Xenoblade Chronicles :p

It's the new mechanics and features in X that the manual is very useful for.

Hey for those collectable missions that don't have any sort of tracking, I found a pretty good item guide, should make hunting down shit alot easier. There's nothing in-game to help you find this stuff it seems =/

http://imgur.com/a/4Gb2C

The kiddo is getting a WiiU for Christmas, because Mario Maker, and I think Sine will play this. I'm glad it's good! I was a bit concerned about the lack of titles for the WiiU. I couldnt even find the games section at Gamestop without asking! lol

I've watched a bit of Mario Maker on twitch and some of my favorite level descriptions I've seen come up involve levels parents have clearly made for their children "Beat this before supper" and such.

Knowing the kid, he will make an endless amount of levels. He makes tons of levels on BattleBlock Theater and N+

Oracle wrote:I'm like 2 hours into the game. I've heard I should actually read the game manual, so that's my next task before I dive in any deeper.

Think I'm level 9.

I hit the 100 hour mark last night.

This game is pure goodness, and is EXACTLY what I was hoping for when I bought my Wii U two years+ in advance of the game's release :p

I am not as far in as I had figured to be at this point, but that is because I have just had a really busy social life the last week or so. I'm home tonight so I am hoping to really dig into it tonight

Overdrive/evasion is so busted lol.

So how far along is everyone with the game? Anyone done with it (as in, not planning on playing it anymore)?
So yea, interested if you guys are done the game and tackling any end-game content.

I took a break for around a month from gaming in general, just picked it up again this weekend, so I am behind most people. I try not to spend my breaks gaming, as it's really easy to just have them vanish, and then not get much of anything else done. ESPECIALLY when it comes to any RPG beginning with Xeno-.

I'm only a couple of hours into this now but what just about to post this exact same thing that Seeker already posted. 100% agreed. I thought my 42" LCD was big enough but maybe you need a fucking 75" one to clearly read the text onscreen. Otherwise, a fun and very pretty game.

Julius Seeker wrote:I do have a couple of complaints. That is the font and line spacing on non-conversation dialogue is incredibly tight/small. I would speculate that it has to do with localization.

The text is designed to be delivered all at once as the user passes the characters, and that means that some of the text is excessively long. There is a limited amount of screen real-estate to fit it in, so they ended up using a smaller font and tighter line spacing. This probably wasn't an issue in Japanese since Japanese text usually takes up much less space.

Fortunately, all of this text is just flavour and is unimportant, so you can ignore it if you don't want to be bothered feeling illiterate when you're reading and accidentally skip or reread lines.

Next is audio, sometimes songs with singing occur at the same time as dialogue, and the music volume isn't dropped down to appropriate levels. This is probably because they had a poor audio director, or that it was a polish task that never made it far enough up the priority chain.

Still playing through this when I have time. Just finished the 5th chapter. Do the aesthetics of this game remind anyone else of Phantasy Star Online? (albeit far advanced) That game was great.

I just finished chapter 8. You'll probably pass me. I spent months on chapter 7 doing all sorts of side quest stuff and exploring the world.

I forget if it was chapter 5 or 6 where the game hits the monkey wrench which REALLY fires off the story.

You guys really need to finish the story, Skell flight makes finishing side stuff signifigantly easier lol.

Heh, that's what I heard. It's also why I finally completed Chapter 8 without finishing all possible sidequests

Eric wrote:You guys really need to finish the story, Skell flight makes finishing side stuff signifigantly easier lol.

You don't get the Skels until you finish the chapters? I thought you got then part way through. I could look it up but I'm too lazy.

ManaMan wrote:

Eric wrote:You guys really need to finish the story, Skell flight makes finishing side stuff signifigantly easier lol.

You don't get the Skels until you finish the chapters? I thought you got then part way through. I could look it up but I'm too lazy.

You get Skells fairly early in the chapters, you get Skell FLIGHT near the end of the game after jumping through some quest hurdles.

I got a surprising character yesterday who I won't say here due to spoilers. Plus a pair that was shown in previews (Celica and Rock). I think I'll focus on getting through the main story until I get the Skells, and then do my usual thing of holding off the ending for a full year while I gather the rest of everything.

Spoiler box isn't working for me today. So I'll let you deduce who I got, Eric.

I got past the Chapter 9 quests and finished the story quest that gives the flying Skells.

Wow! It's much too much fun to fly around Mira.

One thing I've noticed is that some of the items are now giving credits, or are being replaced by credits; assuming they're things I have capped out on. So money might be less of an issue.

Money was an issue for you? Do you not leave the game running when you're not around? Leaving the game running and proper node management can net you like 1 million credits a day. I always was able to deck my chars in the best gear/skells(Vendor gear anyway) with this method.

I haven't had money issues yet, but I anticipate them coming up because of all the cash I just dumped into Skells now that I am getting lots of my characters up to level 30. Especially since my levels have been skyrocketing as a result of getting those Skells and being able to mow through enemies significantly higher in levels. Doug went from level 18 to 30 in under an hour. So I can see myself wanting to upgrade equipment at a much faster rate.

This is really a separate topic, but I figured I would contain it in this thread: Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) vs. Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)

For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to Xenoblade Chronicles as Xenoblade, and Xenoblade Chronicles X as XCX.

The first Xenoblade has some moments and locations that are very deer to me, similar to Skies of Arcadia. I've been through the game twice now: Frontier Village is one of the most beautiful locations I have ever come across in an RPG (and don't let the name fool you, it's HUGE). Both times I lingered around here a lot longer than I needed to, mostly due to the fact that I didn't want to move on.

Then XCX really has a lot more to it, and the game stretches a lot further in terms of quality stuff to do, A LOT further. In terms of issues that seem real and touching, XCX has a lot more of that. As much as I liked Frontier Village, in the ever evolving New LA is a much more interesting city than everything Xenoblade has to offer. Another advantage, in my opinion, is that XCX is a revisit to the sorts of themes that are familiar in older Monolithsoft/Takahashi/Xeno games. The story of Xenoblade would never arrive where Xenogears was, but XCX can very easily go that direction.

Anyway! As a comparison, breaking it down by hours spent into the game is probably the best way. The games have two different natures, one is driven by the main plot, the other is an open world game driven by exploring the world and the citizens living in it. Also, due to the open world nature, pacing is going to differ by player (my hour 50 may have been your 20):

First 10-20 hours - In short: Differs a little than expected, XCX has a very strong intro, better than Xenoblade. XCX wins.
Elaboration: XCX clearly takes it. Both games have a very good introductory story, but XCX is much more exciting. Xenoblade's beginning is a little more cliche of fantasy and RPGs in general: Everything is calm, introduce the characters, then something hits and establishes the conflict. XCX does something unconventional in fantasy, and throws the story directly intro a conflict. Then the introduction occurs, and then you spend the first 10 hours here. THEN there's a monkey wrench (I believe chapter 5) which introduces the real nature of the conflict; and this portion, I think XCX executed much better than Xenoblade.

Hour 10-60 - In short: Xenoblade hits its stride, whereas XCX is in that portion between the intro and really developing the world. Xenoblade wins.
Elaboration: This is the portion where Xenoblade excels. Let's call this is the portion between Colony 6 and the Mechonis invasion. The user is delivered a storyline along a linear path, and due to all the side quests and things to do, really allows the user to go at their own pace. This is a very similar formula to games like Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest games, and Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10; which in my opinion, worked REALLY well. The user is still exploring the world in Xenoblade, although along a linear path; in XCX the player is exploring in however way they want; but there's not a huge advantage to XCX's strategy here. The benefit Xenoblade has is that the exploration is accompanied by a lot of story, whereas XCX the player doesn't have to engage with the story. XCX's story is very much introducing a lot of new themes and such at this time, it doesn't feel very progressive compared to Xenoblade. XCX's main plotline serves to advance time in the city of New LA forward; each step unlocks more stuff, but that doesn't matter a great deal unless the player has engaged a lot with side-quests; as these sidequests will still be intro quests if the player only engaged with the main story before getting into them. Meanwhile, Xenoblade still has the main story driving the player to discover new cities, and driving the game with the main story.

Hour 50-80 - In short: XCX picks up, while Xenoblade slows down or remains equal. Playing 80 hours of each game, I would say Tie.
Elaboration: XCX speeds up at this point, the introductory stuff is done, and there's a lot more development going on, and the world is fleshed out; now the player is engaging with a world they're familiar with. Xenoblade's world is a lot smaller at this point, there's the portion of stuff left to do, and a large portion you're done with. So by the 80 hour mark, there's a huge interesting world in XCX, whereas Xenoblade has a small area that's of interest, and while the world is still fairly big, most of it is uninteresting due to it being portions that the player is already done with. Also, putting Xenoblade down at the 80 mark for a month, it's going to be hard to pick back up and play again - "Oh yeah, I have to do this thing I didn't really want to do a month ago."; with XCX, it's immediately fun and interesting: "Hmmm, what would I like to do now? I was doing 'thing A' a month ago, but I might want to do 'thing B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, or L instead." So this portion is more of a transition from Xenoblade being better at the 50 hour mark to XCX being better at the 80 hour mark.

Hour 80+ - In short: Xenoblade has dry side quests and finishing the game left, XCX has LOTS and LOTS left in a world that is now vast and interesting. XCX clearly dominates.
Elaboration: There's a lot more flesh on XCX. By this point, the main story of Xenoblade is around completion, things left to do are VERY limited. With XCX there's plenty to do, and much of it is very satisfying to do. The sidequests and such of XCX are often as interesting or more so than Xenoblade's main story beats. Xenoblade's side quests, even the good ones, are less interesting than XCX's least interesting ones. I am in this portion of both Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and XCX, both 80+ hours. The reason I am not picking up Xenoblade 3D anymore, and playing lots of XCX is because XCX is much more exciting to explore. By this point, I have enjoyed the overall story of XCX more - the story has a lot more density to it with all of the side-quests, whereas Xenoblade is thin and long. The world has many more wonders, and even though I have spent A LONG time exploring, I have the feeling that I still haven't seen most of it (at least in any meaningful detail, I fly or drive through a lot of areas that have things of interest), by 80 hours I have Xenoblade thoroughly explored.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy both games a lot; but neither are quite the game I want from Monolithsoft. What I want is a brand new Xenogears taking in all of the good from Xenoblade Chronicles X. It would be An expanding open world game that has a very heavy main plot; I want it to involve the Zohar in some manner, and I want it to involve archaeology and philosophy. A game that focuses as much on uncovering the truth of the past as much as exploring into the future. In other words, I want Xenogears Chronicles X. Luckily, Xenoblade Chronicles X can definitely go in that direction.