Why Xenoblade Chronicles Rises Above The Rest

After the rallying cries from RPG and Nintendo fans for months and months, Nintendo finally released Xenoblade Chronicles outside of Japan. While Europe had to wait just over a year, the US had a long exhausting wait of nearly 2 years, a wait that also built the hype of Xenoblade up out or proportion. However I am here to tell you that the wait and the hype was all worth it, because Xenoblade Chronicles delivers on all fronts of what makes a great RPG.

Because the game is still new in the US, this write up will remain as spoiler free as possible, so read at ease if you have yet to play the game. I am currently 23 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles, so I feel this is a good enough time to talk about some of the things that make this game so great and worth playing if you have a Wii. When starting up the game we are greeted with an epic battle scene unlike anything previously seen on the Wii, I dare say it was a bit unexpected given the hardware and what RPG fans usually end up with on the system in terms of attention to detail and presentation. The way the story is initially set up is one of betrayal, death, and large scale warfare, and as the story progresses we are introduced to some ghastly villains that are quite honestly some of the most menacing, heartless, and convincing creatures seen in an RPG in this console generation. While most RPG's struggle to get the player to feel the emotion and motivation of the characters they control, Xenoblade does a good job of making you hate the enemies, and at the same time you understand the hero's drive to defeat his opposition. 

The world that Xenoblade sets out to create is more unique than you would initially imagine, one that sparked my imagination and made me wonder to what it would really be like to live in such an environment. At the very start of the game before you gain control of your character for the first time, it is revealed that the game world used to be nothing but a vast ocean, until two titans came into existence and fought a battle that lasted what seemed a lifetime, then suddenly they became lifeless and forever locked in combat. The world of Xenoblade takes place upon the titan of Bionis, and the enemy force is invading the world of Bionis from the other titan, Mechonis. The grand scope of this world is breathtaking as you explore Bionis, gazing off into the sky to see an enormous blade or some other piece of armor hovering over the world. The game makes things more obvious for you by actually making you aware of what location you are on, be it the leg, arm, back, waist, making it that much more surreal that you are actually traversing a creature the entire game.

Metal Face, one of the most menacing villains in RPG history

In terms of how this world is used for gameplay, it at first feels a bit constrained but by the four hour mark you reach an area that is comparable to a PC MMORPG in terms of its beauty and size. When I reached this area for the first time I felt like a kid in a candy store, roaming around off the beaten path to discover hidden items and enemies, waterfalls and towering monsters that could crush my party in a single blow. Very rarely do RPG's give me this sense of discovery and longing to explore the land, and Xenoblade realizes this as the game rewards players that venture into the corners of the world with item's that can be used to unlock rare equipment and gems to further customize and improve your weapons and armor. The locations are incredibly varried and beautiful to look at, each with a distinct color scheme and atmosphere, so each area feels much different than the last. The games musical score is one of it's other standout elements, evoking emotion through storytelling and adventure when exploring the game world.

With a world so big, there are certain RPG mechanics that could bring the game crawling to a halt, that being the staple elements of combat and questing. Luckily, these are two of the games strong points, and they never slow the game down one bit. Combat is handled in a real-time action-based system, meaning your characters automatically attack with their normal attacks, and you are free to move around the battlefeild. Special abilities are handled by an action bar on the bottom of the screen, where you may select from 9 different abilities which are customizable by the player. Each ability is on its own seperate cooldown timer, and chaining certain abilities together produces beneficial bonuses to players during combat. Battles are fast and frantic, and while they don't give you direct control over your two AI companions, they do a good enough job so that you can rely on them even in the most challenging of battles. The combat reminds me a lot of a blend between Final Fantasy XII and White Knight Chronicles, which also happen to be some of my favorite battle systems in RPG's today. Fans of grinding in RPG's will also feel rewarded three times as much because you don't just earn XP for your characters, but you get AP and SP which are used to furthur unlock new skills and abilities for your characters.

Some battles are best left for later!

Questing is done in a way that never feels like a chore, and that's a good thing because Xenoblade has so many quests you will easily feel overwhelmed as your quest book fills up. Let's say you take on a quest to retrieve five mushrooms for someone at a camp, once you get all five mushrooms the game will automatically give you the reward and credit for completing the quest without having to backtrack all the way to the quest giver. In the event that you do need to go back to a previously visited area, the game makes this task extremely easy for you to do by providing countless way points for you to fast travel to, and with a game world as vast as this, it is a welcome addition.

One of the most important aspects of any RPG to me is feeling a sense of progression with your characters, because after all, you spend countless hours training them so it's good to see yourself go from being a weakling to a total powerhouse that can wreck anything that stands in your path. Though it should be noted that Xenoblade chooses to make you feel like a total bad ass right from the start thanks to the inclusion of the weapon called the Monado, a large energy blade weapon capable of tearing most enemies to shreds. Besides that though, every piece of armor and weapon in the game changes the appearance of your characters in not only the gameplay, but cut scenes as well. These weapons can further be enchanted by equipping gems which can be obtained in a variety of ways, but the most typical way is to craft them using one of the most enjoyable crafting systems I have ever stumbled upon in an RPG, and I must admit I am not one for crafting things in my games. You simply take crystals you find by harvesting them from around the game world and combine them together to make their stat percentages combine to equal over 100%. So lets say you have a strength crystal worth 50% and another worth 80%, if you combine them together you will have a crystal worth 130%, but when crafting there are different variables that can raise this up to 200%, and if you manage to do that it will raise the rank of the resulting weapon gem. It's hard to explain it without seeing it in action, but take my word for it that this is the most fun I have had in recent memory when it comes to the once mundane task of crafting items in RPG's.

Being 23 hours in to the game it's hard to believe that I have only starched the surface of what Xenoblade has to offer thus far. There are many aspects of the gameplay that I have yet to even touch upon because the game is just jam packed with so much content and things to do. I feel as though the characters in the game have already shared so many experiences in battle and relationships that I just can't wait to see where my journey takes me next. It's a shame that many RPG fans will never get to experience one of the finest RPG's to come along this generation, whether it's due to not having the hardware to play it on or the money to buy the game, but if you have the chance be sure to get your hands on this game and find out why it deserves all the praise.

Have you played Xenoblade? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think of it!