Woofels   19 January 2012

JRPG's over all this generation have taken a-bit of strain and nothing really awe inspiring has come out in a good couple years, however Xenoblade Chronicles changes that and really is a reason in itself to buy a Wii!

Story & Setting

While once again the tried on true method of the world/human race is in danger and you with your team of people go out to stop it. How ever Xenoblade manages to put a fresh feel on this with an extremely well thought out world, engaging story and likable characters who while feel a-little like anime arch-types (the Shonen hero, the idiot friend, the bad ass older guy etc...) are not bound by them and thus making them people you actually want to play with and not kill.

The Story unfolds on the world of Bionis which is a huge titan that thousands of years ago was engaged in battle with another titan Mechonis. Long story short their battle ended up over the year life began to pop up on Bionis using it as land.

Eventually war breaks out between humans and machine type race that ends with the humans winning thanks to a sword called the Monodo. The story follows a boy named Shulk who's town is attacked by the Mechon and kill his childhood friend, he takes up the Monodo and goes out to get revenge on the machine who killed her.

Thus unveiling the mystery behind the Monodo and world.

While the story sounds simple is actually very deep and very well written, it's nice to play through a game were your like "Oh god this guy is an enemy, he appears as a friend but wills tab us int he back" i know this because iv seen in 100 times before and then it doesn't happen.

Really it just draws you in and keeps you interested!

Gameplay and World

Here is where the game really starts to shine! First off the world is massive. Iv walked onto maps and had my jaw drop going how the hell did they put this on Wii. It actually feels a-little daunting at first seeing this massive open plane and you can run and explore everywhere.

Exploration is a big part of the game and yields some awesome rewards to those that take the time to search, you can how ever spend hour upon hour upon hours of side quests and not even dent your side quest list. This is a-bit of an annoyance but makes for great replay value.

The battle system is sort of like the [censored] offspring of White Knight Chronicles & Final Fantasy XII. Your characters will auto attack the enemy while your left to select from your special moves that align along the bottom.

[img]http://static2.videogamer.com/videogamer/media/images/wii/xenoblade_chronicles/screens/xenoblade_chronicles_2_605x.jpg[img]

Each of these can have different effects, like attacking from the back boosts damage or attacking from the side causes slow etc...

as you fight your team gauge will build as well that when full lets you pull off a team attack which basically means you can chain all your special moves together for massive damage, this can be done up to 15 times a row.

There is a lot to this battle system as well with regards to factors like aggro which causes monsters to target a certain player, tension which will determine how quickly characters calm down or get aggro. To start going into everything would take another 20 pages

As i said earlier there are side quests a plenty in this but also some side games like building up a colony that inevitably makes you run around to collect items but your treated to some nice scenes and a lot of awesome items at higher level colony.

As with most JRPG's there are also character moments called Heart to Hearts which delve deeper into each character.

Graphics, Sound and Presentation

Honestly graphically despite the world being massive it looks like something that could of run early ps2 era. Character faces are pretty expressionless but they do a good job off carrying emotions from body language and excellent voice acting.

The sound work in Xenoblades is great in both English & Japanese, with the English having a British accent and some really funny British war cry's :p The music is stunning as well with me often humming along to tunes.

The game does present everything very well put together though and i haven't had any issues with something feeling out of place .

Conclusion

While i would not recommend this to people as their first ever JRPG because the size of the world and the depth of the battle system, I will how ever say this.

If you a fan of JRPG's there is absolutely no excuse not to own this game, go get a Wii now, take the next few days off work and hang up the "Do Not Disturb" sign!