Xenoblade Chronicles Review: Captivating Storyline!

Xenoblade Chronicles Review

Xenoblade Chronicles
Nintendo Wii
Monolith Soft
Role-Playing Game
April 6th, 2012

(Note: This review is a short and spoiler free version)

Opening Statement

When I first jumped into Xenoblade Chronicles I was full of excitement and couldn’t wait to start making my way through this title. Well I must say that the excitement stayed with me as I made my way through.

About The Game

Xenoblade Chronicles is a role-playing game exclusively for the Nintendo Wii console. It features a wonderful sci-fi/fantasy storyline in an open world for you to explore. It has a great uniqueness to it in terms of character building, and it also features a lovely battle system and character upgrade system. The storyline is, as I said, one that I found to be wonderful with such a great presentation that it will keep you engaged and determined to move forward. There are also a lot of side quests that you may accept should you choose to, though they are not always necessary and thankfully so if you want to keep the main story going.

The characters are very enjoyable as well and of good interest, and your main character is a wonderful lead. Each character brings their own uniqueness to the story and to the gameplay itself. It’s also nice to see the interactions between the characters as they do a good job with character development. There is also a feature in the game called the affinity that builds on character development. Character interaction can also be a key ingredient during battle as you can pass on words of encouragement.

The focus of the game revolves around a blade by the name of the monado. This blade has ancient powers including giving you the ability to see the future. This blade is also the only blade that can hurt the mechon, which is the name of the enemy that you are at war with in this game. They are a robotic race that makes for a very interesting enemy to fight against. I loved their style and the way they are presented in the game, you’ll have fun engaging in battle against them.

Gameplay – AI – Controls

You have two options to play through Xenoblade Chronicles, one by use of the wiimote and nunchuck, the other by the use of the classic controller pro. I started playing with the wiimote and nunchuck, and it did work out alright. I had a few issues with the camera, so I decided to try the classic controller pro. Since switching to that I never switched back, it’s far more natural and more of what I am use to. Using the second joystick to control a camera is the way to go.

The gameplay is a lot of fun and I like how the battles are set up. The battle system is most enjoyable and the game does a good job of walking you through it with numerous tutorials. When in battle you will automatically attack, however, you have a number of special attacks that you will use. Each one of these brings a specific amount of damage when you strike your enemy and each takes a specific amount of time(seconds) before you will be able to use it again. Each time you upgrade a special attack, the damage that it will inflict increases and the seconds before you can use it again decreases. It’s certainly a different look in terms of battle systems, but it’s still easy to use and can be a lot of fun also.

There are also chain attacks that you can perform with each member, and sometimes they are necessary for you to do. With some enemies you need to work with your party to topple an enemy in order to do extreme damage to it. There are also combo’s for you to perform that adds to the battle system as well.

The difficulty level is something that can sometimes surprise you and it can be intensely hard to defeat a random equal level rank or higher level enemy. You will be able to see the ranking level of each enemy as you engage into battle. But sometimes enemies that are of one rank lower or even equal ranking can prove to be a difficult challenge. It makes it a lot of fun and keeps you on your toes in anticipation of a difficult battle ahead.

Sound – Graphics

One of the very first things I noticed while playing Xenoblade Chronicles is that is was given a fantastic soundtrack to go along with the game. Absolutely great. It’s not just a great soundtrack that is thrown into a game, it feels as if it’s a great soundtrack that was built into the game and it really is wonderful. I will certainly be finding myself listening to this soundtrack away from the game as well. This makes your journey all the more pleasurable as you make your way through this game.

When it comes to the voice acting, I must also say that they did a wonderful job with that on most instances. The only issues I had dealt with the repetitiveness of the sound clips when in battle or during crafting of gems. Besides that it was very well done.

Visually this game looks absolutely incredible with a lot of great detail for you to see everywhere. This is certainly one of the best looking Wii titles. It presents you with so many lovely scenes for you to enjoy, this includes cut-scenes that are beautiful and full of action sequences that will grab your interest with ease.

Enjoyment Level – Fun Factor – Final Notes

Yet again, I found myself becoming very interested in a RPG and it did not disappoint me one bit. The majority of my enjoyment came from the intriguing storyline and the wonderfully presented cut-scenes that made this a lovely experience.

This is a must own title for Wii owners and especially so for those who enjoy a good RPG. If you are not the biggest RPG fan I still recommend you giving the game a try as the battle system is enjoyable, but most of all because the story is very captivating.

Score: 9/10