Xenoblade Chronicles - US release date!

[PizzaPino]

Maybe I really haven't given Xenoblade as much time as I should but I couldn't find it very compelling after an hour. Perhaps I'm an "instant gratification" type of gamer but generally if a game is unable to hook me within the first hour I rarely continue with it.

well beginning from some point (not within 1 hour) you can see such big (yes they are freaking big) fields combined awesome music. i wouldve never thought you could pack so much into a wii disc. but this game also has its deeps. sometimes there are quests or missions when i ask myself, if i really have to do them and think of them as annoying or just too much.
but for me, why i love this game so much is
1. the story (in my opinion: e p i c. nobody will ever think from the beginning on, where this game is going)
2. the big and beautiful fields with the music (they say it's almost as big as japan and it's really open. you can almost enter everything without doing the quests)
3.some cutscenes are just to epic
4. weak minds could cry
5. amount of quests
but i guess this game is not for everybody.

(btw, i'm usually not into these kinds of games at all)

 

[Guild McCommunist]

well beginning from some point (not within 1 hour) you can see such big (yes they are freaking big) fields combined awesome music. i wouldve never thought you could pack so much into a wii disc. but this game also has its deeps. sometimes there are quests or missions when i ask myself, if i really have to do them and think of them as annoying or just too much.
but for me, why i love this game so much is
1. the story (in my opinion: e p i c. nobody will ever think from the beginning on, where this game is going)
2. the big and beautiful fields with the music (they say it's almost as big as japan and it's really open. you can almost enter everything without doing the quests)
3. amount of quests
but i guess this game is not for everybody.

I am incredibly picky on game stories, particularly for RPGs and especially for JRPGs. WRPGs, when they have a focus on story, have excellent stories (...Dragon Age 2 aside). Some people dislike Mass Effect's story but it's well written and the characters are incredibly well developed. Plus having the games so interconnected definitely makes them feel continuous, unlike other RPG sequels where you have to start from scratch and rely on a "canon ending" from the predecessor.

JRPGs to me usually fall victim to so many cliches and formulaic developments to appeal to a target audience that they can't really portray serious issues well. Plus the plots end up being terribly twisty and turny that they end up making little sense. Plus lore is something they seriously miss out on. Even in non-story focused WRPGs like Fallout or Elder Scrolls they have tons of lore to fill in the gap. JRPGs just seem to throw you into a completely foreign environment and you have to roll with it, maybe with some excerpts in loading screens to help educate you about this strange world your in. JRPG plots are also incredibly linear, where you have no choice over your destiny. While some WRPGs do it well and others don't, you still feel like you can pick your destiny (again, depending on the game).

In the end JRPGs seem so preoccupied with flashy art design and stupidly complex mechanics that they seem to fall flat on solid stories, deep characters, and strong lore.

As for your list, almost all those things are probably better done in a solid WRPG, exception probably being music and maybe story. I appreciate a great open area when there's stuff to do, I do like gazing at the environments now and then but only if they look good. Xenoblade's graphics looked far from impressive, especially after being emerged in Xbox 360 graphics. An area like Skyrim has a gigantic open world, filled with stuff to do, and the environments look pretty damn good. Unfortunately games that generally bank on the "HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS OPEN WORLD" thing end up falling flat on story, mainly because Bethesda kinda cornered that market and Bethesda are about as good at writing stories as Mr. McGoo is at playing basketball. Dragon Age Origins though was able to give you a great story, pretty nice graphics and music, open endedness in plot and character development, and a pretty substantial amount of content (my runthrough took 20+ hours for the main game, the expansion took me about 10+).

But that's my JRPG rant.

 

[Zarcon]

The game is, admittedly, a bit slow to start. Seems to be the case with most JRPGs really.
Once more things get introduced it gets neat.

You know how so often a game will depict that the main character has this awesome ability, but it's usually relegated to plot events only and has no impact on the gameplay even when it should?
Xenoblade actually incorporates the awesome ability as part of the gameplay.
It even uses it to remove some of the annoyances that side quests typically have.
I found that pretty dang neat personally.

From a visuals standpoint it's also pretty impressive.
There's grass almost everywhere when there should be grass. Instead of just textured ground and one or two lonely pieces of grass here and there.
And design wise a lot of the areas are just nice.
Satorl Marsh at night is a personal favourite there.

Plot is pretty typical early on. It reaches above average to good status by the end I think.
They do a pretty decent job of explaining the setting of the world and it's history in small bite size pieces instead of 5 hours of exposition like some games are guilty of.
Characters are developed decently with more development optionally via conversation points on the map.

Gameplay is...hit and miss. It's more management of characters, skills, and abilities than active combat.
Not that it isn't there, just you'll enjoy the micro part of it more if you're into that sort of thing.

It has it's flaws of course, but the reason why so many people like it is probably because it deviates quite a bit from the usual JRPG fair as of late.
If you can manage, do give it another shot. It's a good game, perhaps not the absolute best, but it's worth playing through at least once.

 

[Hells Malice]

JRPGs to me usually fall victim to so many cliches and formulaic development

Yeah like that one game...
Mass Effect, where you play that badass in space, who does shit
or Red Dead Redemption, where you play that badass in the old west, who does shit.
or Dragon Age, where you play that badass in the medieval ages, who does shit.

The character variety is stunning! Aside from that rainbow of main character diversity, you've also got the paper thin side characters in all those games filling out some random stereotype (or, dare I say, cliche). Like Wrex being the big angry asshole, or that old guy in Red Dead Redemption that exploits you to make a profit, I forgot his name or exactly what he did, I just remember him and everyone else being paper thin. The characters either never develop or run outside of their strict stereotype, or are simply left behind and forgotten rather quickly.

Making characters that don't fit SOME kind of stereotype or cliche, in this day and age, is pretty much impossible. Doesn't mean they can't be unique or interesting based on how the writers play that cliche with different backgrounds and story variables playing into that character. The difference is that jRPG characters are at least interesting and quite often not EXACTLY how they appear. Most wRPG characters take about 10 seconds from meeting them to know EXACTLY who that character is. There's nothing left to find out, they're playing their cliche/stereotype to the letter.
Lore IS something a lot of jRPGs lack, but for most wRPGs, lore is ALL they have. Deep lore is nice but it sits secondary to a lot of other aspects of a game.

I quite enjoy wRPGs for their gameplay. ME2 (1 was lacking), Fallout games, Dark Souls (western style >_> it counts), etc are all fun as hell and enjoyable for quite a while, but i'll be damned if they have anything other than a shallow story with paper thin characters.

If you want an example, then Valkyria Chronicles 1 is your game. Play the game, and then buy the design archive. The amount of detail, care and soul that went into that game is staggering. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[Zarcon]

If you break down any character or plot enough they all become cliches or stereotypes.
Take this trollbait image for example.

Spoiler

You can't really deny any of these if you break down the characters that far. (Except for maybe Wrex, he's not quite murderous sociopath, ahaha.)

If you go into a game, any game, with a subconcious intent to "spot the cliche" then you'll find it.
I'll go so far as to even say you might be overly focused on it, even if you don't intend to.

This goes for plot and game genres too, break down any of them enough and they can all sound like cliches.

 

[Midna]

http://tvtropes.org/

I hope you've been here before. Otherwise, I just ruined your life

 

[Cyan]

I liked Xenoblade gameplay and visual.
Though, what I dislike is that 80-90% of the time, you are doing a sub-quest or walking the map again and again.
There's very few story in proportion to walking everywhere and fighting.
The game is good, but it's not the best game ever.

Maybe it's the feeling I had because I spent 240H on it, with everyone capped at lv99 before going to the last boss for the first time.
I still have few quest to find (I did all I could find).
Story is good, but I found there are many cliché and it's often easy to guess what will happen.

What I liked is the visual and feeling of free world. Too bad there's nobody walking randomly on the maps to make it more lively.
Like if it was a MMORPG or a real world where everyone is doing his own life.


edit:
Oh, and I hope there's a Classic Controller Pro bundled with Xenoblade US too.
If you don't have a Classic Controller, buy one for this game! You can't appreciate the game with a wiimote+nunchuk. The controls would be bad.

 

[PolloDiablo]

I really like the OST of this game

 

[T-hug]

I just started playing Xenoblade this morning but only got 20 minutes in or so and had to stop because my son just won't let me use the Wii Remote he always wants to put it in the Mario Kart steering wheel thing. He is only 2 and can't play the games but HE HAS TO HAVE THE REMOTE or he goes wild.
I'm going to buy a second one today and take the batterys out so he can have that why I get my Xenoblade on!

 

[Guild McCommunist]

If you break down any character or plot enough they all become cliches or stereotypes.
Take this trollbait image for example.

Spoiler

You can't really deny any of these if you break down the characters that far. (Except for maybe Wrex, he's not quite murderous sociopath, ahaha.)

If you go into a game, any game, with a subconcious intent to "spot the cliche" then you'll find it.
I'll go so far as to even say you might be overly focused on it, even if you don't intend to.

This goes for plot and game genres too, break down any of them enough and they can all sound like cliches.

Well I understand that BioWare do rely on character archetypes but there's a few issues with that.

Duncan dies within like the first hour of the game and basically never comes up again. Hard to consider him a main character or a "mentor" when he's only in the game for a short time and his impact is negligible.

I wouldn't consider Jolee a mentor either, he's more of just the "grumpy old man" and you never find yourself idolizing him or seeing him as a mentor. I haven't played Jade Empire so I can't say anything on those characters.

Wrex isn't really a murderous psychopath, he's just Wrex. Plus over time he develops trust and loyalty to you (depending on how your confrontation with him goes) and certainly isn't the "psychopath" like... Canderous? They're all more so "the overly badass character". Jack is more of a psychopath than a bitch, I don't think anyone wants to pursue a romance with her.

Also the charming male leads are better referred to as "Carth in X", since almost all of them are basically reskins of Carth but either in ancient fantasy times or a different futuristic setting or god knows what. BioWare is notorious for it's pitiful "Carth" characters.

If you wanted to further it there's also the "strong independent female lead" such as Bastilla, Miranda, or Ashley. There's also the "broody emo character" which can also be seen as Jack, Fenris, and whatever that cat lady from KOTOR was.

While their archetypes are essentially the same, they still each have different stories about them and their character comes down to deep facts rather than catchphrases and a few "characteristics" that they overplay the entire game. JRPGs typically have the "headstrong" character whose afraid of nothing and ends up shouting a lot, the "ditsy chick" (yes that was a Dixie Chicks pun) whose usually oblivious and usually jailbait, the dark emo character for the fangirls (yes BioWare has this too), and plenty of other archetypes. Still, being able to independently pursue character friendships and romances and usually have deep stories and traits about each character is a staple of BioWare games.