Excellent. A bit too late. But better late than never.
So... Dragon Quest X for 2013? ;_;
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/slsj/movie/index.html
To remind people why it's good news.
It's essentially the polar opposite of Xenoblade. From everything I've read and seen I would describe it a bit like a Japanese Fantasy Mass Effect 2 since a lot of it is streamlined. It seems that we only get to explore the - absolutely massive - hub city rather than a huge vast open world and outside that visit action and story areas, dungeons, and things like that - the castle itself is probably as big as some cities in other RPGs - much like we visit the different planets in Mass Effect 2, but with its own twists to make up for the lack of Bioware's multiple story paths and such, though I believe you get some choice on what areas to tackle first later on. The seamless battles are also unique and it too uses things like tanking and agro systems, in different ways to Xenoblade, while there are stealth, cover, and environmental destruction mechanics included in the mix alongside the various cool spell based functions. You still only mainly control one character (who can auto attack similarly to Xenoblade or require button presses to execute his moves) but you can also bring up a top down tactical view to occasionally order your teammates to do specific tasks, such as targeting a collapsible bridge with their spells. Your armor pieces and weapons affect the characters' appearance, and they show in the many real time cut scenes, again a lot like Xenoblade, though you can also customise the color and remove bits and pieces without affecting their stats. The game also includes a few online PvP and PvE modes, and I think a well implemented New Game + function. Another detail worth mentioning is that the characters will chat to each other during gameplay, which might sound annoying to those playing Xenoblade at the moment, but the Japanese version at least used it as part of building up the story and mood with many, many unique lines of recorded dialougue rather than just constant repeating of battle cries. I can't wait!
_/¯
