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Xenoblade |OT| The Adventure Begins

G

gamergirly

Member
Lafiel said:
The game looks pretty nice in the screen shots in the adriansang article. But i'm somehow worried the game will look blurry as on my HD-TV.:lol
Click to expand...

It wouldnt be the first one. I just want a great story(which it seems to be heading in that direction)
 
D

DJmizuhara

Member
wrowa said:
Yeah, you advertised your stream some posts before already; you don't have to mention it every few posts...
Click to expand...
Sorry about that, it's just we put a lot of effort into the streams with live translating and podcasting but unfortunately we don't get much love.
 
M

Mockingbird

Member
DJmizuhara said:
Sorry about that, it's just we put a lot of effort into the streams with live translating and podcasting but unfortunately we don't get much love.
Click to expand...

I tried watching a bit ago but to be honest I can't even hear the translation 50% of the time because the game volume is much louder.
 
J

jRPG

Member
DJmizuhara said:
Sorry about that, it's just we put a lot of effort into the streams with live translating and podcasting but unfortunately we don't get much love.
Click to expand...

You've got some love from me! Really enjoyed the stream, and especially the translations, it's not something you regularly hear on these kinda streams. When this finally arrives here, I'll know what to do on that huge boss too :D
 
Shouta

Shouta

Member
So, because my friend is being stingy with his Wii (of all the damn times to want it back), I'm playing my copy on the Dolphin emulator. I'm digging it so far, solid vibe. I took a bunch of screenshots. Some of the dimensions are a little weird because of some fiddling I had to do to actually take them but I'm running the game at 1920x1080.

Didn't want them resized so I just uploaded them there. Only minor spoilers for the first 20 minutes or so.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4e9f01b18341560fc74064dd4c81b78a4d517aa63badb3a1
 
A

Aeana

Member
I've been playing for a while, and frankly, I'm impressed. Based on the battle video, I was thinking I probably wouldn't like the game very much. I thought I had canceled my order, and wasn't going to get the game. Things didn't turn out that way though, as I had apparently forgotten to cancel and it shipped out anyway. That was such a blessing.

  • Music is amazing. I sat at the title screen for a good 10 minutes just listening to the song, and watching the time change in the background.
  • Story is pretty ehhhhh so far, but it might pick up a bit. To be honest, I haven't even seen that much of it yet because of the next point.
  • There are SO many quests to do in this game, it's nuts. I've spent a good 2/3 of my time with the game doing these optional quests. Most of them are pretty standard 'go kill such and such' or 'find this item' quests, but there have been a few unique ones too besides that. Some involve some really difficult unique monsters that I had to try several times to beat. They're really fun to do, though.
  • On top of doing the quests, it's really fun to just walk around and explore. The world seems to be pretty large, and it's all seamless. It doesn't seem to have as many 'zones' or anything like FF12 did. Although when you go into a cave or something, it still has to load. I was really surprised when I walked up to a body of water and started swimming in it. The world really seems to be built like an MMORPG. Exploring is pretty rewarding, too, as there are item orbs scattered around that seem to be randomly placed. Sometimes they can be quest items, or stuff to sell, or even better, items to be added to the collepedia. When you fill out a genre of items in the collepedia, you're rewarded with a gem that you can slot into your equipment to improve your stats.
  • Combat. This is what I didn't think I'd enjoy. It looked slow and boring in the videos to me. Turns out there's a lot more to it than I thought. In addition to the standard auto-attack, which is like FF12 or any MMORPG, you have arts you can use. Each has a cooldown (no MP or anything) dictating how often you can use it. The cool thing is that most of Shulk's arts are positional. He has one that does more damage from behind an enemy. He has one that reduces the enemy's defense if used from the enemy's side. And so on. I find that this really makes the battles exciting, especially if you have Rein in your party, as he has tank abilities in order to keep the monster focused on him so you can do your thing as Shulk. Battles go much faster than I expected if you use your arts effectively.
  • The progression systems don't really seem to be anything special, but they are at least useful. You can spend AP to level up your arts individually, and you can also select a skill tree to build passive abilities as you earn SP.
  • The world seems to really be alive. This reminds me of Radiata Stories right away. Each NPC in town has their own routine, and their entry on the bond graph gives some information about it. The bond system hasn't really shown itself to be very important yet (among NPCs; it's quite important for party members), but every named NPC is added to it when you talk to them, and you can increase your levels with them by doing quests.

All in all, I'm having a good time so far. It's really nice to be pleasantly surprised.
 
Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess

Member
Aeana said:
I've been playing for a while, and frankly, I'm impressed. Based on the battle video, I was thinking I probably wouldn't like the game very much. I thought I had canceled my order, and wasn't going to get the game. Things didn't turn out that way though, as I had apparently forgotten to cancel and it shipped out anyway. That was such a blessing.
Click to expand...
thanks aeana! i hear the camera kinda sucks, is it true?
 
A

Aeana

Member
Twilight Princess said:
thanks aeana! i hear the camera kinda sucks, is it true?
Click to expand...
I struggled a lot with the camera when I tried to play with the remote+nunchuck combo. I switched to the classic controller and it's been fine after adjusting a few of the options.
 
Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess

Member
Aeana said:
I struggled a lot with the camera when I tried to play with the remote+nunchuck combo. I switched to the classic controller and it's been fine after adjusting a few of the options.
Click to expand...
thats really nice!
now that the camera issue's settled, (aside from a few flat fruits) i can't think of anything bad about this game!
i hope we get a north amercan release date this e3!!!
 
A

AceBandage

Banned
We'd better get a date, or I will find Reggie and take his name and kick his ass.

As a side, switching the actions on those two really comes out wrong...
 
W

Wichu

Member
Wow, the scale of the environment and the music are really stunning.

This and SMG2 will make me start playing Wii again :)
 
A

Aeana

Member
The_Technomancer said:
Yeah, Aeana, are there any bad points to the game, any flaws that annoy you?
Click to expand...
Most of my gripes with the game so far are with the interface. Some information isn't as easy to get at as it should be, and buying equipment and comparing all of the stats across all of my characters is a hassle. The lack of real control over allies during battle is also pretty crappy. You can only give three different orders in the heat of battle. You can switch to other party members once a battle is over with, but not during. Chain attacks are the only way to directly control what your characters do, and that's not available very often.

Oh, and I don't like how there don't appear to be any usable items, and my only healing spell is junk. But I expect that to get sorted as I go further into the game (I hope).

Beyond that, things have been pretty good.
 
E

EDarkness

Member
I picked up the game and so far it's pretty fun. Running around and exploring is awesome. I think I've spent the majority of my time doing that. So far, I'm enjoying the combat at lot and the Unique Monsters are hard as hell, but definitely a challenge. Going up against a level 5 UM at level 8, and getting my ass handed to me was an eye opener. Luckily they don't seem to aggro. Though, while exploring I got aggro'd by some fish that hit me for 12k damage. That kinda sucked. Heh, heh.

Though, I am stuck.
I'm at this part where the town is getting attacked, I have the cool sword now, but every attack I do does 1 point of damage. The information at the beginning of the fight said use a chain attack, but when I do nothing happens. I'm guessing I missed something in the translation and that part just happened to be something important.
Anyone have any tips?

Good game so far. Though, the biggest issue for me is that fact that in 16:9 it has huge black bars. The manual tells you use full screen mode on your TV, but it's really unacceptable how it is now. All my other Wii games fit on the screen just fine. It's a little annoying.
 
P

Penguin

Member
EDarkness said:
I picked up the game and so far it's pretty fun. Running around and exploring is awesome. I think I've spent the majority of my time doing that. So far, I'm enjoying the combat at lot and the Unique Monsters are hard as hell, but definitely a challenge. Going up against a level 5 UM at level 8, and getting my ass handed to me was an eye opener. Luckily they don't seem to aggro. Though, while exploring I got aggro'd by some fish that hit me for 12k damage. That kinda sucked. Heh, heh.

Though, I am stuck.
I'm at this part where the town is getting attacked, I have the cool sword now, but every attack I do does 1 point of damage. The information at the beginning of the fight said use a chain attack, but when I do nothing happens. I'm guessing I missed something in the translation and that part just happened to be something important.
Anyone have any tips?

Good game so far. Though, the biggest issue for me is that fact that in 16:9 it has huge black bars. The manual tells you use full screen mode on your TV, but it's really unacceptable how it is now. All my other Wii games fit on the screen just fine. It's a little annoying.
Click to expand...

This comes from the stream earlier so I don't know how to explain it exactly

Apparently Shulk has an attack, its the one where the sword is tilted at an angle going to the left, that is used to knock down the enemies, and then the dude with the giant shield sword has to knock em down completely, once that happens, they are open for attack. I think
 
J

jRPG

Member
EDarkness said:
I picked up the game and so far it's pretty fun. Running around and exploring is awesome. I think I've spent the majority of my time doing that. So far, I'm enjoying the combat at lot and the Unique Monsters are hard as hell, but definitely a challenge. Going up against a level 5 UM at level 8, and getting my ass handed to me was an eye opener. Luckily they don't seem to aggro. Though, while exploring I got aggro'd by some fish that hit me for 12k damage. That kinda sucked. Heh, heh.

Though, I am stuck.
I'm at this part where the town is getting attacked, I have the cool sword now, but every attack I do does 1 point of damage. The information at the beginning of the fight said use a chain attack, but when I do nothing happens. I'm guessing I missed something in the translation and that part just happened to be something important.
Anyone have any tips?

Good game so far. Though, the biggest issue for me is that fact that in 16:9 it has huge black bars. The manual tells you use full screen mode on your TV, but it's really unacceptable how it is now. All my other Wii games fit on the screen just fine. It's a little annoying.
Click to expand...

I think you need to fill the 3 blue bars at the top left, then hightlight the middle icon of the combat interface, and press up and it should change to the chain attack. Which when used should knock it over and allow you to pummel it. At least that's what I gathered from the stream I was watching earlier.
 
D

DarkPanda

Member
Thanks Aeana, that's the kind of info I've been waiting for!

Aeana said:
On top of doing the quests, it's really fun to just walk around and explore. The world seems to be pretty large, and it's all seamless.
Click to expand...

What are travel times like? The one thing I'm afraid of with this game is that it's going to take forever to get anywhere. Is there any kind of warp system, or are things just closer than you'd think?

Exploring is pretty rewarding, too, as there are item orbs scattered around that seem to be randomly placed. Sometimes they can be quest items, or stuff to sell, or even better, items to be added to the collepedia. When you fill out a genre of items in the collepedia, you're rewarded with a gem that you can slot into your equipment to improve your stats.
Click to expand...

That sounds awesome. I'm usually not one to fill out in-game encyclopedias just for the heck of it, but if there's in-game rewards for it I'll gladly hunt down every little obscure trinket.

Combat. In addition to the standard auto-attack, which is like FF12 or any MMORPG, you have arts you can use. Each has a cooldown (no MP or anything) dictating how often you can use it. The cool thing is that most of Shulk's arts are positional. He has one that does more damage from behind an enemy. He has one that reduces the enemy's defense if used from the enemy's side. And so on. I find that this really makes the battles exciting, especially if you have Rein in your party, as he has tank abilities in order to keep the monster focused on him so you can do your thing as Shulk. Battles go much faster than I expected if you use your arts effectively.

The lack of real control over allies during battle is also pretty crappy. You can only give three different orders in the heat of battle. You can switch to other party members once a battle is over with, but not during. Chain attacks are the only way to directly control what your characters do, and that's not available very often.
Click to expand...

Combat sounds a lot more fun than I expected, sort of like a cross between FFXII and XIII then? The lack of control over the party is a bummer, as that's a complaint I have with FFXIII too, but as long as battles go quickly and the arts thing is engaging, I can deal with it.

The world seems to really be alive. This reminds me of Radiata Stories right away. Each NPC in town has their own routine, and their entry on the bond graph gives some information about it. The bond system hasn't really shown itself to be very important yet (among NPCs; it's quite important for party members), but every named NPC is added to it when you talk to them, and you can increase your levels with them by doing quests.
Click to expand...

This sounds neat. I've never played Radiata Stories, but one of the things I loved about Majora's Mask was that everyone schedules and real lives, and there are very few other games that have done something like that.
 
A

Aeana

Member
DarkPanda said:
What are travel times like? The one thing I'm afraid of with this game is that it's going to take forever to get anywhere. Is there any kind of warp system, or are things just closer than you'd think?
Click to expand...
Yes, there's a quick travel system. You can instantly teleport to any landmark you've passed. It's very convenient.
 
D

D-Pad

Member
Watching all of the streams of this game in action, particularly watching the huge fields and exploration, I can't help but feel I'm going to be sorely disappointed when Zelda is finally shown next week.
 
B

Bentendo

Member
D-Pad said:
Watching all of the streams of this game in action, particularly watching the huge fields and exploration, I can't help but feel I'm going to be sorely disappointed when Zelda is finally shown next week.
Click to expand...

Well, that ruined my day.
 
D

desu

Member
Shouta said:
So, because my friend is being stingy with his Wii (of all the damn times to want it back), I'm playing my copy on the Dolphin emulator. I'm digging it so far, solid vibe. I took a bunch of screenshots. Some of the dimensions are a little weird because of some fiddling I had to do to actually take them but I'm running the game at 1920x1080.

Didn't want them resized so I just uploaded them there. Only minor spoilers for the first 20 minutes or so.
Click to expand...

How is it running? And if it runs well, how are your settings?
 
D

Diffense

Member
D-Pad said:
Watching all of the streams of this game in action, particularly watching the huge fields and exploration, I can't help but feel I'm going to be sorely disappointed when Zelda is finally shown next week.
Click to expand...

That's flashed across my mind too, the thought that zelda won't be able to compete with a world "the size of Japan" that's so open and explorable.
I consoled myself by remembering that Zelda will have the puzzling and extremely well designed dungeons that Xenoblade probably lacks.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
Game is real good. Feels soooooo much like Xenosaga. Just with more gameplay between cutscenes ;)

Only complaints are your AI friends are dumb as bricks, and unfortunately sometimes you actually need them to do stuff so it's either you waiting around hoping they do it or spending your tension gauge (which you should be saving for awesome chain attacks or reviving people) to actual issue direct commands and tell them to do what they are supposed to be doing already if their AI wasn't so dumb. I'm holding out hope that as you get further this becomes less of an issue as you get all the means to handle everything yourself.

And I wish you could run faster since the world is so big when you're not quick traveling.


Otherwise, battle system is like FFXII x .Hack with more depth, world is awesome, and the writing is the best since the renaissance. Lots of great cutscenes. Love the auto-play for non-cinematic cutscenes. Love save anywhere. Love death not being punishing. Music is good, but not great so far.

Graphics will be a point of debate probably for graphics people. The scale and animation are good at the expense of psp-looking characters, textures, and visual quality. I love psp games so personally I think it looks great. Detailed graphics are overrated.
 
K

kiryogi

Banned
Shouta said:
So, because my friend is being stingy with his Wii (of all the damn times to want it back), I'm playing my copy on the Dolphin emulator. I'm digging it so far, solid vibe. I took a bunch of screenshots. Some of the dimensions are a little weird because of some fiddling I had to do to actually take them but I'm running the game at 1920x1080.

Didn't want them resized so I just uploaded them there. Only minor spoilers for the first 20 minutes or so.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4e9f01b18341560fc74064dd4c81b78a4d517aa63badb3a1
Click to expand...

You have a drive that can read Wii DVDs?
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Bebpo said:
Game is real good. Feels soooooo much like Xenosaga. Just with more gameplay between cutscenes ;)

Only complaints are your AI friends are dumb as bricks, and unfortunately sometimes you actually need them to do stuff so it's either you waiting around hoping they do it or spending your tension gauge (which you should be saving for awesome chain attacks or reviving people) to actual issue direct commands and tell them to do what they are supposed to be doing already if their AI wasn't so dumb. I'm holding out hope that as you get further this becomes less of an issue as you get all the means to handle everything yourself.

And I wish you could run faster since the world is so big when you're not quick traveling.


Otherwise, battle system is like FFXII x .Hack with more depth, world is awesome, and the writing is the best since the renaissance. Lots of great cutscenes. Love the auto-play for non-cinematic cutscenes. Love save anywhere. Love death not being punishing. Music is good, but not great so far.

Graphics will be a point of debate probably for graphics people. The scale and animation are good at the expense of psp-looking characters, textures, and visual quality. I love psp games so personally I think it looks great. Detailed graphics are overrated.
Click to expand...

Wow, that sounds completely amazing besides the AI deal.

How's the story and characters?
 
W

wrowa

Member
The positive first opinions about the game are making me glad - anticipating this game doesn't seem to be a waste of time, yay.
 
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