Xenoblade Chronicles

No, I haven't, because I can't play during weekends because of terribly dark and troubled circumstances*

. I'm now at the mines of colony 6.

I'll probably have more to talk about monday, if the new stuff I just bought for Team Fortress 2 won't distract me too much.

Also, I consider those names to be spoilers.

Oh come on! They're on the character page of the xenoblade website!

I'm the kind of guy that sees a first trailer, decides to buy it then and there, and refuses to hear anything else about the game until he can experience it first hand.

BTW, does Riki have some Shock and Awe spells? I do like electric-based attacks, even if it's just visually different from other magic attacks. =D

Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!

So.............how are the sales doing in Europe? What numbers does No A even want in order to convince them anyways? Prickly little businessmen....

edited 21st Aug '11 2:41:00 PM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I heard it had a good first week, but don't take my words for it:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36680/Saling_The_World_Xenoblade_Chronicles_Sees_Big_FirstWeek_Sales.php

Fantastic Supreme Überkaiser Emperor Folt of The Infinity and Beyond" ... "The First"!

..."saling"?

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Placing in at 4 is understating the desire for it, as it has sold out entirely.

Its been awhile since I played the Japanese version, and still waiting on the Europe one, but I think he does. *

He has a flamethrower attack where he spins in place, burning everything in sight.

But Melia's the mage; she has the Fire, Ice and Lightning spells, as well as Air, Water (the weakest) and Ground.

edited 21st Aug '11 6:08:44 PM by Izaak

Alright NOA, you have enough reason to localize the damn game now, so make an announcement already.

No A:NEVAH! The first 4 letters of this game's name is xeno! Which reminds people of the word xenophobia! America will never stand for any game this much associated with xenophobia!

But seriously though, BRING THE DAMN GAME OVER! It's already translated!

---

So when is The Last Story and Pandoras Tower being released?

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

"2012"

My copy just shipped from 365games. I am so fucking hyped. Amazing review scores across the board, a Shimomura soundtrack, and a giant-ass seamless world?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

360 Gamertag: Electivirus. 3DS friend code: 5412-9983-8497. PSN ID: Electivirus. PM me if you add me on any.

I will watch and wait for now and see what Nintendo's response is. (Besides I would have to hack my Wii)

Apocalypse: Dirge Of Swans.

Well, went a bit ahead with it. I just got arrested by the High Entians.

What I love most about this game is the optional bossfights. There is absolutely nothing like exploring a little, and then suddenly running into a unique monster that you might actually beat (most will kick your ass unless you are twice your current level). The ensuing fight is so fraggin' epic, and the l00t is always phat.

Like that one time where I was fooling around a little on the Bionis Leg, looking for my Nopon quest target that was somewhere on the Leg, but I still haven't found him. What I did find was some sort of altar with a bunch of Arachno Pods (spider egg sacks). No real enemies, just the Pods. I simply thought 'Free exp!' and started to smash them.

Until suddenly, from the cliff under the altar, this really, really big-ass spider climbed up and seemed pretty pissed about our current endeavours. The thing was level 32, while my party was only 29, and had less then optimal members in the battle party (Dunban, Sharla and Shulk as party leader. For bosses, I usually bring Reyn for tanking duty. Thank god I had Sharla, though).

The fight was epic. At the end, the whole party had less then 700 HP, Sharla already used most of her healing and Dunban had aggro that he wouldn't be able to handle much longer. In a somewhat desperate move, I did a Team Attack, on which I lucked out for a 5 chain attack. Spider put up her legs on in air, and I got myself on heck of a sweet weapon for Reyn (a jagged glaive with a shield covered in green scales), and the coolest cap imaginable for Shulk (the Chrono cap, or 'goggles that do nothing'. Well, except for awesome stats, that is). Both items are still in use, 10 levels later.

That's the kind of moments why you play this game. Navigation is still a nightmare, though. I should seriously start using a notepad to put down persons, unique monster I still couldn't beat, and where and when I can find them.

EDIT: Chrono Cap has now officially been replaced by Ruby Glasses. Apart from even more awesome stats, Shulk now really pulls off the Adorkable look.

edited 25th Aug '11 12:24:17 PM by Kayeka

Well, I bought it today, played it for several hours and stopped (for today) in that one cave (I forgot the name, something with "P"), after Shulk (geez, what a fucking dumb name) got a vision that Reyn (geez, what a fucking dumb name) gets attacked by a giant spider. So far, I really like it. The battles are pretty fun, but can get confusing sometimes. It's also pretty fun to explore the region, kill random enemies and get their loot and do side quests. I think I did that more than any story-related stuff.

While I can understand why one would find character customization overwhelming, it doesn't really bug me. I just trust that my decisions won't totally fuck me over later. Which may be naive, but whatever.

Fighting mechons is a really annoying hassle without Monado. And sometimes even with Monado.

BTW, am I the only one who, when seeing the face of the mechon-with-face, feels reminded of Eva-01?

edited 26th Aug '11 2:39:18 PM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

So, what is the gameplay for this like? I'm more interested in The Last Story right now, but I haven't really heard much about Xenoblade, so...

I just want something to come out in America.

Welcome to th:|

Imagine an MMORPG, but single player. You can bring three party members for the battle party, and take control of whichever was assigned as leader. During the fight, you can freely move your character wherever you want. When you get close to the enemy you are currently locked on, you will give him a regular attack automatically.

During the fight, you can use Arts (powers). Rather then casting from a pool of Magic Points, as is usual for JRP Gs, you use an art and have to wait for a certain period of time before you can use it again, like in an MMORPG. This makes timing your Arts rather important, as using your power now will rob you of the ability to use it for the next period of time. Some arts work better under certain circumstances, like your position relative to your victim. Shulk's Backslash, for example, does double damage when used from behind.

Using Auto-attacks is not as powerful as simply spamming Arts, but does also fill the Talent Art gauge (for most characters, but let's not get too much into detail). Once full, you can release a Talent Art, which is an art that is often very useful, turning around the entire course of battle. This makes frequently using Auto-attacks a very good idea, besides some added damage while waiting for your Arts to reload.

Teamwork with your AI controlled partners is a pretty big theme of the system (and the game as a whole). While your team mates are not always as effective as a human player, they will more often then not get the job done (multiplayer would have kicked huge amounts of ass, though). During battle, you can help your party members by encouraging them when their morale is down, taking away aggro (an actual in-game term) when they can't take much more damage, snapping them out of status effects like Daze, Sleep or Confusion, reviving them when they go down and of course healing. This team effort is best shown when trying to inflict Daze on an opponent, which is a rather strong status effect. Daze can only be inflicted when the the target suffers from Topple (being floored), and Topple can only be inflicted when the target suffers from Break (broken stance? I don't know). Not a single character can inflict all three of these statuseffects on his/her own, and even if (s)he could, (s)he would never have enough time to execute the arts necessary before the former SE wears off. So quite often, you will have one team member inflict Break, another inflict Topple, and then the first character strikes with a Daze-inducing attack.

While being a good team player, the Team Gauge will be filled up. Apart from reviving party members and other useful stuff, a full team Gauge can be used for a Chain Attack. This means that time functionally stops for a while, and all party members can use an art right now, regardless of cooldown as a free action in sequence. Depending on factors like what Arts you have been using and your team mates affinity with each other, your team will get at least three free arts plus the whatever bonus attacks you get (I suck at this system, so I never got further then a chain of 6 attacks). This is a heck of a lot of damage and works wonders as a finishing move. Healing arts also do more healing during a Chain Attack, and status-inducing attacks have a better chance of actually inducing their status effect (jot that one down, it's important).

This system allows for as many different team roles to fulfil as there are playable characters. Reyn, for example, is a Grade A tank whose main job is drawing as much aggro as possible using various arts available to him tailored to exactly that purpose, taking the hits so that his friends don't have to and can do their thing. This will take a lot of switching between opponents to keep their attention on you, and timing your aggro-drawing powers so that they won't get bored of biting your heavily armoured ass. Shulk, on the other hand, is squishier, and will take advantage of Reyn's ability to get keep the opponents busy by moving around the battlefield and using Backslash from behind or Slit Edge (damage and lowers defence) from the side. He will do massive damage this way, but if he spams too much, the monsters munching on Reyn might start to consider Shulk a higher priority target, which will result in yet another bunch of lost hitpoints that are hard to recover as most healing Arts have relatively long cooldown time. You will be joined by several more characters with even more different styles of play, so if you feel like you've been doing the same thing for hours on end, it's your own fault for never switching.

In short: the battle system if friggin' awesome.

Having another party member be the Main Tank while your character is more like a Rogue (function wise) is a nice change.

Another nice touch I noticed in videos is that your party members will make rezzing you priority one if you drop. How intelligent are they otherwise? Brilliant? Serviceable? Game much easier in solo mode?

edited 26th Aug '11 5:58:48 PM by Recon5

There is nothing besides solo mode. Multiplayer would have been awesome, but alas. Sometimes, I find myself being more efficient in handling certain characters then the AI, but otherwise, it's all perfectly cool. The AI works just fine.

Well, it looks like I won't be able to play this game. I'm outside the distribution zone, and even piracy has failed me. Well, I still have my JP game....;___;

Sucks to be you.

60 hours in, been doing nothing but running through my major backlog of sidequests for the last three days. Still not feeling like I'm near the end already.

I really hope NOA decides to localize this game now...

Welcome to th:|

Don't try get over level 70 before the last boss. Despite the Level ??? the last boss has, he's unfortunately just 70+. If you over level, you'd end up having no difficulty at all.

HERE BE SPOILERS

Of course, there's three bonus bosses that you can fight after you beat the game. 4 if you count the giant Raptor in Makna Jungle.

• Level 99 Raptor - Makna Jungle: Instantly drops you whenever you physically hit it. I ended up using Melia's Starlight Knee to deal damage to this. Once stunned, you can wail on it with impunity.
• Level 100 monkey - Satori Swamp: I have no idea how you beat this. I couldn't even hit this.
• Level 100+ bull - Valak Mountain (where you fight Mumka): Ditto.
• Level 120 - Valak Mountain, mountain peak: Abaasy. Contact Kouli for this one. Of course, the only way to unlock him is to get through a long quest chain involving the High Entia Grave, a secret dungeon on Valak Mountain, and the Tephra Cave Ruins. I think.

edited 1st Sep '11 7:56:34 AM by Izaak

70, you say? Good, I'm only 47 at the moment. Still running loads of quests that are way below that level though.

Maybe on my next run, I will simply refuse killing anything that isn't quest-related to keep my level down a little.