Xenoblade Chronicles

Oh my god what the …

It turns out that Xenoblade Chronicles fucking rules and has sucked me in hard. I don’t really know what I was expecting but I think the wide bottomed, Kingdom Hearts-esque characters made it feel like we were in for a bog standard fairy tale story. But I’ve been shocked at the story far, gasping and guffawing like a rube at a county fair. I was shocked at the death of Fiora so early on in the game and I was even more taken aback by Shulk’s blind calls for revenge. It’s a surprisingly adult story in a way I find a lot of games miss. But there are no punches pulled here and the deeper I go into the story the clearer it gets that there may be no happy ending.

There is something so modern about this game that I had to watch some footage on it’s earlier releases. I had thought this game originated on the (New) 3DS but it was actually the wii! Crazy! I wasn’t able to put my finger on why it felt so new until I switched my focus to Resident Evil 2 Remake… There is no penalty when you die, no lecture about what you are doing wrong and there isn’t a paragraph telling you that you can switch to a lower difficulty but that when you do you won’t be able to switch back so you have to be really sure and - hey look, I know you’re frustrated with this thing that you clearly are doing wrong but can I make 3 separate confusing suggestions to you in this moment…? No? Okay well do you want to continue?

When you die in Xenoblade - you come back and that’s that. Respawned at the last landmark you reached with all of your money and items. And since this game manages health for you there is no limping back to the nearest town to find a bed, praying you don’t run across a random battle that wipes you out again. You come back and you move on. Incredible. The way it handles health is also pretty intersting. This may be something other JPRGs have done but none that I’ve played. You only lose health in battle, and there are no items to take. You can manage health with magic but that’s it. Once the battle ends, you regain all of your health and lose any status effects. It’s always pushing you forward, never trying to hold you back.

I can’t stop thinking about how much this all reminds me of Monster Hunter. The living, breathing world full of small and large monsters roaming around, mostly minding their own business as well as the little monster interrupting a fight a with a larger monster, complicating things and making it just a bit harder starts to really sign the post card. Gem crafting with monster parts, slotting them into armor and weapons, the vague names for these gems and often confusing descriptions are all very reminiscent of the Monster Hunter franchise. God, it even has layered armor!

In this article from 2012, Kat Bailey spends some time talking about the parallels between XC & MH (vindicated!) but also with MMOs of the time. This isn’t something I’m really familiar with so I’ll take her word for it. She does a good job drawing in threads from other games of the era, games that I certainly haven’t played (like any of the Final Fantasy games mentioned). What I do know is that it’s got its hooks in me, and it did it quick. I’m constantly in awe of the technical aspects of the game. The draw distance is pretty good, the map is huge, you’ll keep going and going before it needs to load you into a new area. There is a day and night cycle along with random weather events (which can be linked to side quests) and each area is more breathtaking than the last. Sometimes you’ll climb up a hill or move up through a series of cliff sides and you’ll get to a vista and in the distance a giant orangutan will just be strolling along or you’ll see a mountainous tortoise covered in trees crawling about. It’s a very thrilling experience that leads right into grand adventures!

Currently I’m moving up the leg of Bionis to he waist in hopes of getting to the spine so we can climb up to the head. There is a fabled ancient race that is supposed to live up there, according to legend, and we think they will be willing to lend some help to defeat the Mechons.