Without a doubt, Xenoblade Chronicles has turned out to be one of Nintendo's most surprising
new franchises.
Just five years ago, Nintendo had no plans to release the game in North America at all
and even after fans successfully petitioned them to go ahead with a US release, a limited
print run meant that the game disappeared from store shelves almost immediately.
For a while, it seemed like that would be the end of it.
Today, however, the story could not be more different: Xenoblade's main character made
it into the latest Super Smash Bros. roster, a new game in the series is scheduled to hit
the Wii U later this year worldwide, and the original game has been ported to the New Nintendo
3DS, with a digital release ensuring that the game will now be easily available for
those who want to play it.
This is very good news, because it just so happens that Xenoblade Chronicles is a great
game that deserves as wide an audience as possible.
While it's clear that considerable graphical compromises had to be made in order to port
this massive game from the Wii to the New 3DS, the game's sprawling environments and
epic scale remain impressively intact even in handheld form.
Xenoblade Chronicles opens in the midst of a timeless battle between two giant, sword-wielding
gods called the Bionis and the Mechnois.
After one final strike, their fatigue and wounds finally take their toll and they both
become motionless where they stand, forever locked in combat.
Eons later, the gods' corpses have given rise to various forms of life; the human-like Homs
and other organic creatures live on the Bionis's body, while the Mechonis is home to the Mechon,
vicious robots who relentlessly attack and feed on Homs.
The Homs' only hope in their fight against the Mechon is the Monado, a mystical sword
that allows its wielder to see visions of the future and is the sole weapon capable
of destroying the Mechon.
Without spoiling too much, the story begins in earnest after a Mechon attack ravages Colony
9, the hometown of main character Shulk and his childhood friend Reyn.
The friends set off seeking revenge against the Mechon that laid waste to their hometown,
naturally getting caught up in something much, much bigger along the way.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an epic in every sense of the word, which is appropriate for a game
that takes place across the bodies of two giant gods.
The story is a long, dramatic one with many twists and turns, and you always have a sense
of how hopeless the odds seem for your small band of heroes.
It's pretty dark, too; while it's not especially gory, death is a prevalent theme in Xenoblade
and the game is not shy about showing the ruthlessness with which the Mechon murder
their human victims.
Thankfully, while Xenoblade's story is generally pretty serious and heavy-handed, the characters
are so genuinely likable and go about their journey with such a real sense of camaraderie
that the game never buckles under the weight of the story's heavy themes.
Shulk and his crew are mostly just regular, flawed people trying to deal with a situation
that's much bigger than all of them, and you can't help but get caught up in their cause
and root for them to pull through.
Xenoblade's characters aren't just players in a story; they come off as fully-realized,
established people within their world, which is evident in all the natural, friendly banter
they share during their journey.
You can just tell that Shulk and Reyn have been best friends since childhood from the
way they talk to each other; the characters' relationships simply feel natural, and they
bring a breezy sense of friendship and fun into what is otherwise a compelling but heavy
story.
Just like the characters, Xenoblade's world and setting are incredibly well-realized and
are just bursting with imagination and inspired art direction.
The colorful, exotic environments are simply gargantuan and beg you to explore every last
inch of them, but vitally, you always have a very specific sense of where you are in
the world relative to where you came from and where you're going.
When you first make your way up to the Bionis' Leg and see the massive Gaur Plain sprawling
out before you with all of its cliffs, valleys, and mountains, you can't help but feel awestruck
and maybe a little intimidated by the scale of it all.
When you realize that those environmental features are actually part of the game world
and not just background decoration, it's more impressive still.
But when you look above and behind you and see the giant figure of the Mechonis looming
ominously in the distance, you get a very real sense of the scale of your journey and
how far away your destination actually is.
It's pure escapist fantasy, something JRPGs in particular are meant to excel at, and Xenoblade
absolutely nails it.
While Xenoblade's story, characters, and overall presentation are pure JRPG, the gameplay is
thoroughly rooted in Western RPG design philosophy, with battle and quest systems that feel something
like a cross between an offline massively multiplayer RPG and Final Fantasy XII, which
was also deeply Western in its gameplay design.
There are no random encounters in Xenoblade - instead, monsters and other enemies appear
naturally in the environment and you choose whether or not to engage them.
Targeting a monster reveals its name and level, so you know immediately how strong you are
in relation to it and can choose to fight or flee accordingly.
Of course, some monsters - especially those stronger than you - will give chase the moment
they sense you.
This leads to a lot of thrilling, tense situations where you're exploring and suddenly come upon
an area teeming with high-level monsters, forcing you to proceed with caution if you
want to explore further.
Thankfully, even if you do get wiped out, you're simply returned to the nearest landmark
with all your gained EXP and loot intact; in this way, Xenoblade rewards exploration
and experimentation without penalizing party wipes.
Some may see this as too forgiving, but I particularly loved being able to explore the
furthest reaches of each area and take on tough bosses with the assurance that dying
wasn't a big deal.
When you do start fighting enemies, the battle system's Western RPG design sensibilities
become immediately apparent.
Combat is not turn-based and instead happens in real-time.
You have full control over your character's movement at all times, and when you target
an enemy, your character automatically attacks them at regular intervals provided they remain
in range.
These auto attacks generally don't do much damage, though, which is where Arts come in.
Arts are special attacks unique to each character that gain bonus effects and deal more damage
depending on when and where you use them.
Shulk's Back Slash, for example, inflicts a lot more damage when he's positioned behind
an enemy, while his Slit Edge will reduce an enemy's physical defense - but only when
used from the side.
In this way, positioning and timing are very important in getting the most out of Arts
and winning battles.
Each character's Arts are often designed to work best when used properly in combination
with other characters; for example, as a "tank" character, Reyn has a lot of Arts designed
to draw "aggro" from enemies, which is basically a fancy MMO term for "attention."
A basic strategy you'll learn early on is to have Shulk use Back Slash after Reyn has
used his Mad Taunt Art to draw an enemy’s aggro away from Shulk, thereby leaving its
back wide open.
Arts can be used any time an enemy is in range of them, but you can't just throw them out
repeatedly; each Art has a cooldown period it must go through before it can be used again.
In this way, Xenoblade does away with the concept of magic points entirely while still
having a system in place that limits your Art usage.
I've still just barely scratched the surface of the battle mechanics; it's honestly staggering
just how much depth there is in Xenoblade's battle system.
I haven't even touched on other things like Tension, Affinity Cries, or Skill Trees, but
I only have so much time for this review!
One of the coolest mechanics introduced a little later on is the Monado's ability to
see the future as it relates to gameplay.
When facing bosses and tough enemies, you'll sometimes see a vision of the future in which
the enemy lays waste to a character or the entire party with a devastating super attack.
You then get a short amount of time to organize your efforts and do whatever is necessary
to prevent that attack from being carried out, thereby changing the future.
It's dramatic, looks really cool, and is a fine example of how Xenoblade is very good
at marrying its story and world concepts with its gameplay.
Fortunately, even though you only have direct control over the party leader while the game
controls your fellow party members, your AI-controlled teammates are surprisingly efficient, using
the appropriate Arts depending on the situation at hand and generally making you feel well
supported.
The lone exception is the game's magic-based character; the AI is so bad at controlling
her that if you're going to use her at all, you basically have to make her the party leader
and control her yourself.
This is basically my only real complaint about the battle system, though I will point out
that, overall, there's a lot to keep track of in Xenoblade's battles and the harder ones
can get chaotic very quickly, with lots of things happening at once and seemingly at
random until you put in the time and effort to figure everything out.
Xenoblade's battles demand a lot from the player - maybe too much at times - but fortunately,
good old-fashioned grinding can often see you through tough battles if you just can't
seem to master the battle system.
Outside of battle, there's a ridiculous amount of things to do and see apart from advancing
the story, and Xenoblade is happy to reward you for doing them while also making it as
convenient as possible.
Simply exploring the game's massive environments often rewards your party with experience bonuses
as you discover landmarks and hidden areas, and it's fun to see your levels and stats
grow simply for venturing off the main story path and exploring a little.
There are over 400 optional side quests that can be taken on by talking to various non-player
characters you meet along your travels.
These range from simple monster-killing and loot-gathering quests to more involved distractions
that require you to run errands for several people or help make amends between two NPCs
who aren't getting along.
While the former quests tend to be pretty dull and they all feel very similar, you can
thankfully complete most of them just by going about your normal business.
The best part is that you'll usually reap the experience and gold rewards immediately;
the vast majority of Xenoblade's quests don't require you to return to the quest-giver to
complete them.
Those that do are made enormously convenient thanks to "skip travel," which lets you warp
instantaneously between many landmarks across Xenoblade's massive game world.
This makes the frequent backtracking you'll have to do for side quests incredibly painless,
fast, and enjoyable.
Furthering this trend of player convenience and empowerment is the fact that you have
full control over the game's day-night cycle.
NPCs will go about their daily routines independently of your actions and certain monsters only
appear at specific times of the day or night, but you never have to wait - simply change
the in-game clock to the desired time and go.
It makes about as much sense as instantly warping between places you've been, but who
cares?
Xenoblade is happy to ignore common sense and realism when doing so benefits the player,
and it's something I wish more RPGs did.
For such a complex game with so much to keep track of and focus on, Xenoblade does everything
it can to make itself as easy to play as possible.
All told, though, sometimes Xenoblade does feel too dense for its own good.
The sheer volume of things to accomplish and places to explore can feel overwhelming when
you kind of just want to get on with the story.
While the pacing is always in your control and you can choose to advance the plot whenever
you want, it's very hard not to feel like you're missing out if you ignore the optional
content and focus on the story... but there's so much side content to complete that if you
try to do it all, the story comes to a screeching halt and the pacing really suffers.
In reality it's best to find a middle ground where you do some side content and advance
the story when you're ready, but it's very difficult to find what feels like the right
balance.
If you ignore most of the optional content and the EXP rewards that come with them in
favor of pursuing the story, you'll be under-prepared for some difficulty spikes later in the game,
but if you do everything, the story will advance at a snail's pace and you'll level up so much
that you'll be able to breeze through almost anything the story throws at you.
It's true that Xenoblade's unprecedented scale is part of its unique identity, but there
is such a thing as a game being too big and having too much to do, and the game could
have used a little focusing and scaling back in this regard.
One of the absolute high points of Xenoblade Chronicles is undoubtedly its soundtrack,
which is just as sweeping and epic as the game it accompanies.
Manami Kiyota, Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda, and the three-member team of ACE+ have done
such a wonderful job that Xenoblade Chronicles 3D simply demands to be played with headphones.
The music perfectly punctuates the game's many emotional moments and gets you fired
up for all the exploring and fighting you'll be doing in Xenoblade's rich, fantastical
world.
Meanwhile, the game's voice acting is uniquely British in nature, with the characters all
sporting different local variations on thick English accents.
Some will undoubtedly be turned off by these accents as well as the often hammy, over-the-top
delivery - and the characters are way too chatty during battle - but I actually find
the English voice track to be incredibly solid.
Conversations flow naturally and the actors deliver even the most over-the-top emotional
outbursts with genuine sincerity.
Unfortunately, whereas the Wii version included the option to use the Japanese voice track,
Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is limited to just the English one, so if you're not a fan of
it then you're out of luck.
You're also out of luck if you were hoping that Xenoblade Chronicles 3D would look anywhere
near as good as the original Wii version.
Textures, colors, and overall clarity are unilaterally worse in the 3DS version, although
the character models generally look pretty decent.
Sadly, despite the "3D" in this port's title, the game's stereoscopic 3D adds almost no
depth to the visuals and can safely be ignored.
With or without the 3D, though, there’s no question that Xenoblade’s graphics took
some major hits in the porting process, and because of that, they fail to do the game's
incredible world design and art direction justice.
Ironically, though, the massive scale of the game's environments and the impressive draw
distance remain mostly intact, making it kind of incredible that this port exists at all
despite not looking that great.
The frame rate manages to remain pretty smooth and stable as well which, again, is impressive
considering the many technical limitations facing this 3DS port.
All told, it's abundantly clear why Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is exclusive to the New 3DS
models; this port simply could not have been done on the older models, especially when
you consider that the smart, console-quality controls require full use of the New 3DS's
extra shoulder buttons and C-Stick.
While Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is mostly inferior to the original Wii version thanks to the
significantly downgraded visuals and missing Japanese voice track, Nintendo was kind enough
to add in a music player and character model viewer for this port.
Music tracks and character models can be unlocked with tokens earned by spending Play Coins,
collecting StreetPass tags, and by touching the Shulk amiibo to your New 3DS once per
day.
While these are nice additions and the StreetPass and amiibo functionality are welcome, they
don't really add as much as the steep visual downgrade takes away.
Ultimately, though, I like Xenoblade Chronicles 3D despite its drawbacks compared to the Wii
version.
It’s an excellent if slightly overstuffed game that all JRPG fans should check out no
matter which system that happens to be on.
There's simply no other JRPG quite like it.
The 3DS version's downgraded visuals, disappointingly shallow stereoscopic 3D, and missing Japanese
voice track clearly make the Wii version the definitive one if you're able to track it
down, but if that's not an option for you, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is definitely worth
picking up - and hey, having Xenoblade to play on the go is pretty awesome in its own
right!
Thanks for watching, and be sure to stay tuned to GameXplain for more on Xenoblade Chronicles
3D and all things gaming.