Iva Demilcol
Member
This thread is a direct sequel to this other thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1326554
Playing Xenoblade right now is a good change of pace since I recently played Persona 5 for 170+ hours and I’ve been playing Souls games one after another since 2011, I believe. No more castles and dungeons and dragons nor urban fantasy either, let’s go to the future this time. I don’t mind spoilers usually, except when I do, so maybe tag your spoilers? I’m not going to do that though, since I’m kind of describing my experiences with the game.
At first, I was greeted by an amazing intro: 2 Titans –the Mechonis and the Bionis- (maybe gods) have been fighting each other since they appeared in this world/universe until they somehow stopped… it reminded me of certain comic book crossover: Marvel vs DC (I’m showing my age here). Several centuries later, mechanical things are still fighting living organisms and it’s time for the tutorial! I’m not controlling the main character but this 30 something year old man that everyone calls Dumbass (probably because he goes to fight the mechons without any protection like the rest of the soldiers); the game introduces Dumbass and his fighting buddies in a cutscene: Wiser and older Axel Rose and this evil-looking guy who the game wants me to believe that died but that I don’t believe so because like Dumbass and wiser and older Axel Rose, he has a special design too, so he’s important; also this guy uses claws to fight… something very important to keep in mind (Isn’t it dumb that I already figured out a character that “died” is going to be important because he doesn’t wear npc clothes? The only game that I can think of right now where all characters dress like common soldiers at the beginning is Suikoden IV… even though the game is awful, at least they did that right), alternatively: maybe the game doesn’t even want to try to hide that there’s something going on with this guy.
Anyways, the tutorial is pretty annoying: they over explain simple functions like how to start a fight and by the end of each tutorial message I’m so annoyed I already forgot what they were trying to explain to me. I got super frustrated that I can’t control my character directly and Dumbass attacks automatically with only the ability to move a little and change targets. The tutorial is over and they want me to believe that Dumbass and wiser and older Axel Rose died. One year later into the game story and now I’m controlling this “hot” blond guy that I thought was the son of older and wiser Axel Rose (I was wrong, though). I get to fight some monsters in the starting area and a friend joined me… Reyn? iirc, this guy, I think I’ve heard his voice before… is the actor the same guy that made the voice of Psycko (or whatever he’s called) in Crysis and Creighton the Wanderer in Dark Souls II? Well, I hate his voice already, it must be him. Shulk and Reyn go back to Colony 9. Reyn has to go back to his duties as another soldier who doesn’t look like a soldier and I get to explore the starting area… I see this game is going to trigger my OCD: tons of shiny things outside and several “quests” consisting of going out, kill 2 bunnies, etc.… perfect for an MMORPG (sigh), but the battle system finally made sense: it’s Contact all over again, now I’m feeling it! (Contact is a game developed by Grasshopper for the Nintendo DS, its battle system is pretty similar to Xenoblade’s: you enter a battle stance and the character attacks automatically and you control what special attack to use and when I want to execute it. Also, the game is quite funny and very Earthbound-like; I love it, even though I had to restart the game twice because I wasn’t enjoying it at the beginning). I also got beaten by a lizard-like thing while exploring at night and I learn two things: 1) different monsters appear at different times of the day and 2) once I get my ass kicked I don’t lose progress in the story. That’s neat, actually.
It took me three nights in-game to just explore the starting area, the commercial and residential districts; I accept quests like a mad man but I finally head to where the story wants me to go and I finally discover that wiser and older Axel Rose and Dumbass are still alive, although Dumbass is in pretty bad shape because his sword, the “Monado”, a very powerful weapon that kind of act by its own almost killed him too after the tutorial ended. I got told to go outside because I’m so pale, and now I’m controlling a teen female character: Fiora. My first task as Fiora is super progressive: go and deliver the lunch to Shulk, she’s obviously not good at it either since when I finally meet Shulk is nighttime already “enjoy your lunch Shulk”. Then we go back to the military district because the pieces of the Bionis’ armor are falling from the sky… did I mention we are living in the Titan now? that’s awesome. Back in the lab where Shulk works for the military (even though he doesn’t look like it either) I witness how stupid Reyn is because he tries to hold the Monado that almost killed Dumbass and he almost kill Fiora with it. Shulk decides to accompany Reyn to a cave where he can get fuel for a mecha that an idiot crashed into a house… they depart only after Reyn promises to Fiora that he’ll protect Shulk from danger because apparently Fiora is too worried that Shulk is going to scratch his nails or something. When we finally reach the entrance of the dungeon, we find Fiora there because she’s more intelligent than us and used the in-game system to warp to a landmark (a very convenient way to fast travel once you discover a landmark) while we just walked. She also delivered the containers for the fuel that we forgot in the lab; yes, it made me facepalm in real life too. We explore the dungeon and get beaten by a big caterpillar three times because I don’t understand how I can coordinate my team special attacks using the three characters. Fuck this, I don’t need it, let’s get going to complete this story quest.
And after we got the fuel, Colony 9 is being attacked by a gigantic float of mechons, one of them looks different than the others: it has a face. The party goes to the military HQ and in their way you see how humans… I mean “Hums” get obliterated by the mechons (they eat them apparently), you also see the military getting annihilated by the enemies as well, you have to go and get that mecha that’s laying in the residential district if you hope to fight back. We get separated: Fiora goes for the mecha and we promise to meet her at the other side… somehow. In our way there we meet Dumbass, who’s using the Monado again (because the Monado is super effective against mechons and harmless to humans), but he’s not in good shape and he can’t resist the power of the Monado any longer so he drops it… and Shulk saves the day when we find out he can use the Monado as well and can see the future thanks to it (which is a big deal in the game). Shulk is learning how to use the powers of the Monado but he’s doing well fighting the mechons until the group meets that enemy that has a face… and fight with claws (like certain character that supposedly died), also the Monado doesn’t work that well with him either… I don’t know Monolith… perhaps the Monado doesn’t work because those mechons with faces were humans once? Why do you look at me like that, did I ruin the surprise? Anyways, the game asks me to do successive special attacks using my current party, yeah, that mechanic I didn’t understand how to use in the last dungeon... Still, finally learned what it was about this time and successfully fight against that mechon-hum hybrid only interrupted by some cutscenes: one of them shows me Fiora will die when she fights against evil-looking-guy-that-fight-using-claws, and then she actually comes and saves us using the mecha to fight the mechon with face and she is killed as we saw in Shulk’s vision. The attack is called off and the mechon that totally isn’t the evil looking guy from the past goes away. We see some final cutscenes in which Shulk promises he’ll get revenge for Fiora’s death… yes, the death of that character that blond guy didn’t know he loved until she gets killed by the bad guy (I wonder where I’ve seen that before).
And then it’s finally time to depart your hometown. At that point the game asks me if I want to save the game. I say yes and realized I’ve played the game for 5:30 hours. And that’s the end of my first gaming session with Xenoblade Chronicles. Right now I’m 14:30 hours into the game so, expect more comments soon. But now I wonder: How much time will it take you to beat this game? I’m just curious since I already feel I’ve spent too much time doing sidequests.
Playing Xenoblade right now is a good change of pace since I recently played Persona 5 for 170+ hours and I’ve been playing Souls games one after another since 2011, I believe. No more castles and dungeons and dragons nor urban fantasy either, let’s go to the future this time. I don’t mind spoilers usually, except when I do, so maybe tag your spoilers? I’m not going to do that though, since I’m kind of describing my experiences with the game.
At first, I was greeted by an amazing intro: 2 Titans –the Mechonis and the Bionis- (maybe gods) have been fighting each other since they appeared in this world/universe until they somehow stopped… it reminded me of certain comic book crossover: Marvel vs DC (I’m showing my age here). Several centuries later, mechanical things are still fighting living organisms and it’s time for the tutorial! I’m not controlling the main character but this 30 something year old man that everyone calls Dumbass (probably because he goes to fight the mechons without any protection like the rest of the soldiers); the game introduces Dumbass and his fighting buddies in a cutscene: Wiser and older Axel Rose and this evil-looking guy who the game wants me to believe that died but that I don’t believe so because like Dumbass and wiser and older Axel Rose, he has a special design too, so he’s important; also this guy uses claws to fight… something very important to keep in mind (Isn’t it dumb that I already figured out a character that “died” is going to be important because he doesn’t wear npc clothes? The only game that I can think of right now where all characters dress like common soldiers at the beginning is Suikoden IV… even though the game is awful, at least they did that right), alternatively: maybe the game doesn’t even want to try to hide that there’s something going on with this guy.
Anyways, the tutorial is pretty annoying: they over explain simple functions like how to start a fight and by the end of each tutorial message I’m so annoyed I already forgot what they were trying to explain to me. I got super frustrated that I can’t control my character directly and Dumbass attacks automatically with only the ability to move a little and change targets. The tutorial is over and they want me to believe that Dumbass and wiser and older Axel Rose died. One year later into the game story and now I’m controlling this “hot” blond guy that I thought was the son of older and wiser Axel Rose (I was wrong, though). I get to fight some monsters in the starting area and a friend joined me… Reyn? iirc, this guy, I think I’ve heard his voice before… is the actor the same guy that made the voice of Psycko (or whatever he’s called) in Crysis and Creighton the Wanderer in Dark Souls II? Well, I hate his voice already, it must be him. Shulk and Reyn go back to Colony 9. Reyn has to go back to his duties as another soldier who doesn’t look like a soldier and I get to explore the starting area… I see this game is going to trigger my OCD: tons of shiny things outside and several “quests” consisting of going out, kill 2 bunnies, etc.… perfect for an MMORPG (sigh), but the battle system finally made sense: it’s Contact all over again, now I’m feeling it! (Contact is a game developed by Grasshopper for the Nintendo DS, its battle system is pretty similar to Xenoblade’s: you enter a battle stance and the character attacks automatically and you control what special attack to use and when I want to execute it. Also, the game is quite funny and very Earthbound-like; I love it, even though I had to restart the game twice because I wasn’t enjoying it at the beginning). I also got beaten by a lizard-like thing while exploring at night and I learn two things: 1) different monsters appear at different times of the day and 2) once I get my ass kicked I don’t lose progress in the story. That’s neat, actually.
It took me three nights in-game to just explore the starting area, the commercial and residential districts; I accept quests like a mad man but I finally head to where the story wants me to go and I finally discover that wiser and older Axel Rose and Dumbass are still alive, although Dumbass is in pretty bad shape because his sword, the “Monado”, a very powerful weapon that kind of act by its own almost killed him too after the tutorial ended. I got told to go outside because I’m so pale, and now I’m controlling a teen female character: Fiora. My first task as Fiora is super progressive: go and deliver the lunch to Shulk, she’s obviously not good at it either since when I finally meet Shulk is nighttime already “enjoy your lunch Shulk”. Then we go back to the military district because the pieces of the Bionis’ armor are falling from the sky… did I mention we are living in the Titan now? that’s awesome. Back in the lab where Shulk works for the military (even though he doesn’t look like it either) I witness how stupid Reyn is because he tries to hold the Monado that almost killed Dumbass and he almost kill Fiora with it. Shulk decides to accompany Reyn to a cave where he can get fuel for a mecha that an idiot crashed into a house… they depart only after Reyn promises to Fiora that he’ll protect Shulk from danger because apparently Fiora is too worried that Shulk is going to scratch his nails or something. When we finally reach the entrance of the dungeon, we find Fiora there because she’s more intelligent than us and used the in-game system to warp to a landmark (a very convenient way to fast travel once you discover a landmark) while we just walked. She also delivered the containers for the fuel that we forgot in the lab; yes, it made me facepalm in real life too. We explore the dungeon and get beaten by a big caterpillar three times because I don’t understand how I can coordinate my team special attacks using the three characters. Fuck this, I don’t need it, let’s get going to complete this story quest.
And after we got the fuel, Colony 9 is being attacked by a gigantic float of mechons, one of them looks different than the others: it has a face. The party goes to the military HQ and in their way you see how humans… I mean “Hums” get obliterated by the mechons (they eat them apparently), you also see the military getting annihilated by the enemies as well, you have to go and get that mecha that’s laying in the residential district if you hope to fight back. We get separated: Fiora goes for the mecha and we promise to meet her at the other side… somehow. In our way there we meet Dumbass, who’s using the Monado again (because the Monado is super effective against mechons and harmless to humans), but he’s not in good shape and he can’t resist the power of the Monado any longer so he drops it… and Shulk saves the day when we find out he can use the Monado as well and can see the future thanks to it (which is a big deal in the game). Shulk is learning how to use the powers of the Monado but he’s doing well fighting the mechons until the group meets that enemy that has a face… and fight with claws (like certain character that supposedly died), also the Monado doesn’t work that well with him either… I don’t know Monolith… perhaps the Monado doesn’t work because those mechons with faces were humans once? Why do you look at me like that, did I ruin the surprise? Anyways, the game asks me to do successive special attacks using my current party, yeah, that mechanic I didn’t understand how to use in the last dungeon... Still, finally learned what it was about this time and successfully fight against that mechon-hum hybrid only interrupted by some cutscenes: one of them shows me Fiora will die when she fights against evil-looking-guy-that-fight-using-claws, and then she actually comes and saves us using the mecha to fight the mechon with face and she is killed as we saw in Shulk’s vision. The attack is called off and the mechon that totally isn’t the evil looking guy from the past goes away. We see some final cutscenes in which Shulk promises he’ll get revenge for Fiora’s death… yes, the death of that character that blond guy didn’t know he loved until she gets killed by the bad guy (I wonder where I’ve seen that before).
And then it’s finally time to depart your hometown. At that point the game asks me if I want to save the game. I say yes and realized I’ve played the game for 5:30 hours. And that’s the end of my first gaming session with Xenoblade Chronicles. Right now I’m 14:30 hours into the game so, expect more comments soon. But now I wonder: How much time will it take you to beat this game? I’m just curious since I already feel I’ve spent too much time doing sidequests.
