A Fight For The Future!


Xenoblade Chronicles
(Nintendo Wii)

(C) 2010, Nintendo

Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo

US release: April 6, 2012
JP release: June 10, 2010
EU release: August 19, 2011
AU release: September 1, 2011

Players: 1
Genre: RPG



Story

The story of Xenoblade takes place on two warring worlds named Bionis and Mechonis and depicts a clash between Homs "Humans" and Mechon "Machines" there are many twists and turns along the way and the story starts you in the middle of a battlefield with a good deal of cutscenes and action to keep you entertained, however after the prologue the story slows down for awhile before picking back up, but make no mistake the you'll likely never find the story to be boring.

The story revolves around a young scientist Shulk and his friends Reyn, Dunban, and Fiora and a sword known as the Monado which has the power to destroy mechon. You'll soon realize that the Monado will play a huge role in Xenoblade's story. There are so many plot twists and surprises during the story that it never feels stale!



Gameplay

The gameplay in Xenoblade Chronicles feels like a mixture between traditional JRPG gameplay and MMORPG gameplay with many "quests" and the unique appearance of most weapons and armors your characters can equip!

The battle system in Xenoblade Chronicles feels like a simplified Final Fantasy XII battle system as your characters auto attack and you simply control the character movement and which art to use and when, but there are quite a few strategies to use as some arts are always critical from a certain position such as attacking a monster from behind or toppling or dazing an opponent.

A monster's level is very important "even more than stats" so be careful when dealing with monsters who are stronger than your party. If a monster is more than 4 levels above yours "denoted by a red tag where enemy info is shown" you'll most likely die.

The quests in this game are similar to those in popular MMORPG's and are mainly fetch, collect, or defeat specific monster quests, however there are some that involve defeating special bosses or exploring areas that are locked until you start certain quests. The amount of quests is staggering 480 or so to be precise and can take over 100 hours to complete all of them!

There are also unique monsters that appear during certain times of the day or during specific weather that are far stronger than the normal monsters in a given area, but always drop a golden treasure chest and give you an affinity coin when defeated so killing these monsters can be worth the effort!

The skill tree is another unique feature that allows your party to gain stat boosts and other beneficial effects during battle by using affinity coins to link party skills, which will be very important later in the game.



Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Xenoblade Chronicles are very impressive as small details such as wind blowing grass and trees around and beautiful lighting effects that change as the time of the day changes, but what is so amazing is how massive the games world is and the level of detail Monolithsoft put into each and every area!

The character models are fairly decent though they look like they belong in a good looking PS2 game, they're still detailed and certainly don't affect my opinion about this game's graphics.

The soundtrack in Xenoblade Chronicles is perfect in every way and adds so much to the game. I was hard pressed to find any music tracks that I didn't like in Xenoblade Chronicles, but my favorite would be the awesome boss theme!

The sound effects in the game are a nice touch as you can hear wind, thunder, waterfalls as well as other natural sounds while traveling around the fields and towns.

Bottom Line

With an amazing story, fantastic gameplay, and nearly perfect visuals and soundtrack Xenoblade Chronicles pushes the Wii hardware to its limit and is one game hardcore Wii owners shouldn't pass up!

Score

★★★★★★★★★★ 10/10

10- Perfect This game is nearly perfect, and has little if any flaws, and is a blast to play!

This review can also be read here