Looks like the game is coming to the US after all, it has its own entry on NoA’s site:
http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/09LPao0thCWTobgndPH5UTuz4zsz63F4
I played it already, and I’m not realy into J-RPG anymore, but man, this game is so good. But why does it say “pre-order from GameStop”? does this mean Xenoblade will be GameStop exclusive? That would be such a fail, GameStop alone would be enough reason for me not to buy the game at all.
Anyway, while I’m at it I might give you my analysis of Xenoblade. Let’s start with the good part.
The overworld is massive! In fact there is no real differentiation between overworld and towns or dungeons, it’s just several continuous areas without any loading time within one area. The general rule is that if you see a place you can go there, there are no invisible barriers or anyone telling you to go back because the plot demands it. You are free to explore the world and it is well worth exploring. You can find hidden areas, treasures or run into super strong mosters. Even the early areas have high level monsters raoming around, which will attack on sight, so you can run into real trouble if you are careless. Finding new or hidden areas is rewarded by experience and skill points and you might run into NPCs with quests.
It is exactly the kind of overworld I would expect from a Zelda game. Of coures it’s no Elder Scrolls, but for a console RPG it’s huge.
You can progress the game at your own pace. Feel like doing side quests? Then do so. Or would you rather explore the over world? No one is stopping you. Or you can just progress the main story, it’s up to you. You usually have one main quest but you decide when to do it.
Combat is fast-paced and feels natural inside the game, not like a chore you put up with just to get to the next cutscene. You have a party of up to seven characters but only three are active and you control one of them. Your character is permanently on auto-attack and you choose when to use your skills. That’s the basics, there is a little more to it but I won’t go into detail here. There is no separate combat screen and it integrates really well.
Each character is slightly different. They have their own skills and need to be played in different ways. In addition you can skill your characters the way you like. enhance the equipment with various gems and have characters share skills among each othere. There is quite some room for tactics. Plus the game never forces you to use a particualr character, so I can simply permabench Rikki. For Ever.
The story is cool, it’s kind of like Star Wars mixed with Terminator by the Japanese. You can pause and skip all the cutscenes, even at your first playthrough. There is no emo brooding or soap opera drama.
Also, the soundtracks is excellent, featuring classic piano, guitar tracks, chanting and synthesizer music (of course not all of that at the same time). Just go to YouTube and hear it yourself.
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Well, now to the bad stuff. This is not really bad in terms of not good, but several issues that drag the game down in terms of it’s market potential.
First of all, Xenoblade is not an intutive game. It’s certainly nothing you would recommend to someone as their very first RPG. Even I was totally confused in the beginning when all sorts of things would happen at the same time (heck, I still don’t fully understand the gem creafting system). I am used to that, so I know it will become clear after some time, but I can see people trying it out, not understanding and just giving up. The Wii completely lacks a simple RPG like the early Final Fantasy.
Then there is the issue of character design. For a J-RPG Xenoblade holds up pretty well, since I can at least tell men and women apart. However, I still have no idea what half of that stuff they are wearing is supposed to be. Some equipment looks really stupid; especially if you are in an epic cutscene wearing just your underwear. This is a major turn-off, if people don’t understand what they see. It’s easier to sell a game about space warriors, knights and wizards or motorbikes. Everyone understands those, but Xenoblade needs to be explained. Baten Kaitos, another RPG from Monolith, had the same problem, it just made no sense.
Xenoblade is a very slow game. Remember what I said about how large the overworld is? As great as it is, it just takes a very long time to get across. Sure, you can save anywhere and there is quick-travel, but walking between quick-travel points can be quite tedious. Even worse, sometimes you want to do a quest and need to find a particular NPC, so you have to search them by foot. This can be really boring. I have a hacked Wii, so I use a cheat code to speed up walking, but everyone else will have to put up with it. What baffles me is that this could easily be solved by adding some sort of vehicle or mount.
Remember how I said the story was cool? Well, it is, but as the story progresses, it starts slipping more and more into anime clichés, with more focus on emotions, gods going mad and everyone working together against a tiny elite of bad guys.
When the game starts the mechon are this deadly unstoppable mechanical force that treat humans just as food (reminds me very much of the future from the first Terminator). To defeat them you must either topple them or enchant your team’s weapons with the Monado. The boss mechon can only be hurt by toppling them during a chain attack. Even regular groops of mechon enemies are scary. But as the game progresses they become more common and you get special weapons that can damage mechon without enchantment. They stop being scary and get reduced to regular enemies.
The beautiful organic landscapes of Bionis get replaced by boring mechanical halls of Mechonis. Sure, it fits the story, but these parts are so bland and boring, i just want to get them over with.
Then there is Rikki and the Nopon race. I lready wrote an email about them and the image speaks for itself, so I have nothing to add.
The storytwists are really predictable. Just think “what would be the most cliché twist?” and you have the answer. I heard the ending is supposed to be really god, but I’m only about 90% through, and even if so, that stil does not excuse the rest of the story.
Finally, the cutscenes can go for a really long time. Despite how good the game is, it’s still one of those cinematic RPGs. The story plays out always the same way and the game frequenty stops boss fights before you can finish, simply because of plot-convenience. This is so annoying, i already had it but don’t get the satisfaction of finishing him.
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So, what can I say in conclusion? It’ an upmarket game. Xenoblade is the kind of game to end the Wii’s lifespan, in that regard it was released at the right time. However what is missing is the link to the downmarket. The Wii has its foundation of nice and simple games but then Nintendo jumped straight to GameCube games. There are no introductory RPGs. There is no healthy middle.
It might have become a sort off elite gamer’s game, like Metroid on the NES, but it’s just not very marketable since it’s pretty bizzare. Its quality might give the Xenoblade a long tail, but it’s questionable if it will be printed in large enough numbers. A more down to earth and streamlined game with the same qualities would have helped Xenoblade out.
As for me, despite the criticism I enjoy it and besides, it’s the closes thing to a Zelda game to come from Nintendo since Ocarina. It’s good that more gamers wil get the chance to play it.
The fault of Nintendo was reviewing software to be localized by a game-by-game basis instead of the overall console basis. What do I mean by this?
What is a great game console? It is a game console with a great game library. What makes a great game library? Not just great games, but a library that performs many different ‘jobs’. For example, it is not enough to just have a library with ‘hardcore’ games. There needs to be family games. Why? Because then the console also can be used to entertain the family. The console’s value goes up with diversifying the game library.
What is the difference between the NES/SNES library and the N64/Gamecube library? There were many missing genres on the N64/Gamecube library. If you wanted to play RPG games, you did not buy a N64.
I do not understand Nintendo in why they allowed their game library to become so unbalanced. What is the Wii missing? One of the things it is missing is RPGs. What RPGs are there to buy on the Wii?
“Zelda!” squeals a reader.
No. Just… no.
“Paper Mario!”
Oh God no.
There really isn’t anything. So if someone wants to play an RPG (which is a considerable number of people), the Wii comes across to them as a ‘bad console’ because the RPG was not offered. So they wander to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.
I believe Xenoblade was denied localization because they looked at it only in the context of that one game. But when you look at the big picture, a decent (if slightly mediocre) RPG is actually a huge plus on a console with no RPGs.
The Wii has suffered from the Turbographx-16 problem. “What was that problem?” asks the ever curious reader. Well, reader, what happened is that Blazing Lasers, a shmup, sold extremely well early on in the Turbographx-16 lifecycle. Almost every game that followed it was a shmup. The Turbographx-16 doesn’t have a balanced library because 90% of its game library is shmups. Heaven for shmup lovers, but bad if you are looking for a more rounded gaming experience. (And before I get emails mentioning the non-shmup games, compare the diversity of the Genesis or SNES libraries to the Turbographx-16. There is no contest.)
How can a game console be for everyone if games are not released for everyone? You can’t have a mass market console without a library that represents every gaming genre.
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