As a European, I was lucky enough to be able to play the Nintendo-published, MonolithSoft-developed Wii role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles last year. It ended up being my favourite game of 2011, and many North American gamer friends were suitably jealous that I had been able to play it through while they hadn’t. I didn’t feel too guilty, though, because North America has its own branch of Atlus and doesn’t have to depend on other publishers to bring titles like the Persona series over.
But I digress. Xenoblade Chronicles is out tomorrow — April 6 — in North America, and here is why you should play it if you’re an American. Or even if you’re not.
The Japanese role-playing game genre is often accused of stagnation and a lack of innovation. This is, in fact, not particularly true — even the much-maligned Final Fantasy XIII was trying things which other role-playing titles hadn’t attempted before. Okay, they weren’t always successful, but it was at least attempting to innovate.
The real issue is actually that for whatever reason, Japanese role-playing games (and, to a certain extent, Japanese-developed games in general) have lost the resonance they once had with the core gamer audience in the West. Players are quick to judge them as clichéd and derivative before moving on to whichever game starring men in armour with guns is the flavour of the week. Specific attempts by Japanese developers to create games that appeal to Westerners end up having limited niche appeal despite their quality (see: Platinum Games’ Vanquish, which isn’t an RPG but demonstrates the point effectively) or end up being laughable attempts to pander to the Japanese image of what a Westerner supposedly wants (see: The Last Remnant).
Xenoblade Chronicles is a remarkable game because it nails that balance between Western and Japanese sensibilities, making a game that combines the positive aspects of WRPGs (freedom, exploration, a degree of sort-of-non-linearity) with those of JRPGs (stronger storytelling, more memorable, well-defined cast members, a firm sense of being unafraid to continually up the ante). The result is quite brilliant, and a significant step forward for the genre in one possible direction it way wish to take in the future.
The game casts players in the role of Shulk. Initially, he seems like every other teenaged JRPG hero, but a number of aspects make him stand out. He doesn’t whine. He’s not moody or angsty. He’s just a guy, but he has a personality. He has friends, too, who form your early party in the game, and these, too, don’t fall into the trap of clichéd character archetypes. This pattern continues throughout the course of the whole game. Even the “small furry thing” character introduced later in the story isn’t typically irritating — he’s quirky and silly, sure, but his character is defined well, and he proves to be more than just a means through which to provide silly slapstick gags.
The diverse, likeable cast you find yourself travelling with over the course of Xenoblade Chronicles’ lengthy adventure provides several highlights to the game experience. Firstly, and most simply, they’re a good ensemble cast who help drive the story forward. That’s not their only function, however. As you might expect from an RPG, they each have their own role to play (natch) in combat, and finding the best combinations of three characters to take into battle is a key part of the experience. This affects not only your battle effectiveness, but also one of many stats that the game tracks in the background — Affinity.
Affinity is, quite simply, how much characters like each other. Characters with high Affinity with one another fight better alongside each other, but as their relationship develops, they also have the opportunity to participate in numerous “Heart to Heart” events that are scattered around Xenoblade Chronicles‘ vast world. These short sequences provide the opportunity for two party members — not necessarily including protagonist Shulk — to spend a little alone time with one another and get to know each other a little better. These typically involve multiple-choice conversations, providing the “correct” answers to which will give a big boost to the pair’s Affinity with one another. (Giving “incorrect” answers often provides very amusing exchanges and still gives a smaller Affinity boost, however, so you shouldn’t feel like you have to reach for the walkthroughs immediately.)
Affinity doesn’t just affect combat and unlock Heart to Hearts, however; there’s a host of little touches in the game that it affects, most notably during and after combat. Rather than simply yelling individual stock “battle victory” phrases, characters will often have short conversations with one another. This banter between characters is a real highlight of the experience, and while you will have heard everything they have to say a good few times by the end of the game, they remain entertaining and endearing.
Speaking of combat, Xenoblade Chronicles’ battle system is a refreshing change from the turn-based systems that Japanese role-playing titles usually adopt. You control a single character out of the three in your active party, and are able to freely move around during combat. You and your party lock on to a single enemy at a time and automatically attack it, though many battles involve multiple assailants. In order to gain the upper hand in battle, it becomes necessary to make use of the unique skills the character under your control has.
Most characters have more skills than it’s possible to hold in the “quickbar” at the bottom of the screen, so it becomes possible to customize the way they play to your own personal style. Some skills manage aggro, some attack areas, some provide more damage or inflict status effects when unleashed from beside or behind an enemy. Some skills are dependent on other characters doing things like knocking the enemy down or stunning them, and the AI which controls the other two party members does an absolutely astounding job of keeping up with what you’re doing and understanding the strategy you’re going for. It’s very rare that you will be cursing the game for causing you to fail — more often than not it’s a result of you either adopting a poor strategy, or simply needing to go and do something else for a while until you’re a little stronger. This doesn’t mean you have to resort to grinding, either — inevitably there will be some quests you have missed that you can go back and do, and returning to earlier-visited locations often throws up even more things to do.
Another great thing about the combat is that you can elect to control any of the game’s cast in battle, not just Shulk. Each character plays in a significantly different manner to all of the others, so if you find yourself getting bored of the same old skills over and over, simply switch to another character for a brand new experience. Fed up of tanking? Spend some time with Sharla, a ranged character with healing abilities. Or Melia, a magic-user who can summon elementals that either provide ongoing buffs or can be “unleashed” to deal direct damage. Or the aforementioned small furry creature, whose skill names are genuinely hilarious.
Perhaps the strangest but coolest innovation in the combat, however, is the fact that you’re occasionally presented with “visions” of the immediate future, usually when a character is either about to die or be afflicted with a debilitating status effect. A countdown timer starts, and you’re given the opportunity to either do something to take attention off the enemy’s target or warn another party member. If you do the latter, you’re able to pick one of the warned character’s skills to unleash — usually either a healing or aggro-management skill — and hope for the best. If you do the former, you have until the countdown timer depletes to do something very special, or your party member will suffer their grisly fate. It’s a neat system that isn’t overused.
Outside of combat, there’s plenty to do, too. Exploring each of the game’s massive zones rewards you with experience points and uncovers part of the map as you discover each sub-area. There are collectible items scattered around each area at random, with rewards on offer for collecting whole sets. Those who find item-hunting frustrating, however, may instead complete these quests by trading with other non-player characters. There are rare monsters to take down, loot to find, secret locations to discover. Xenoblade Chronicles‘ world is more than just a pretty backdrop for combat — it’s a rich, beautifully-rendered environment in which to spend time, and it looks gorgeous. This may be a Wii title, and it may have been even more lovely to see it in HD, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that the hugely-varied vistas you find yourself running and fighting over throughout the course of the game look simply magnificent. There’s a waterfall you’ll come across partway through the game which is genuinely breathtaking to look at, for example — you’ll know it when you see it.
If the game’s combat, quests and exploration aren’t enough for you, there’s also a deep Achievement system to delve into. Since these Achievements aren’t online-connected, they’re simply there as challenges for you to undertake, and all provide you with experience point rewards. In essence, they’re mini-quests (although some will take you the majority of the game to complete) and rarely feel as “gratuitous” as some examples seen on Xbox Live and PSN. Rather, they provide yet another means of getting an enormous amount of entertainment out of an already vast, sprawling title.
This isn’t even getting started on the deep crafting system, which allows characters to team up to create enhancements for their weapons and armour, with the results of their collaborative efforts dependent on their Affinity and compatibility with one another. Or the fact that the game allows you to change the time and fast-travel at will, eliminating a lot of the inconvenience and backtracking endemic to the genre. Or the colony-building minigame. Or the fact the voice acting is all British rather than American, giving the game a unique aural aesthetic in a genre typically dominated by whiny teenagers and squeaky-voiced females. Or the fact that when you’re all done, you can New Game+ it and do the whole thing again with your levels, Affinity and a suitably broad spread of awesome equipment intact — something I will be doing when North America gets its hands on the game tomorrow.
Xenoblade Chronicles is, in short, a magnificent evolution of the Japanese role-playing game genre. While it’s easy to dismiss it as “an offline MMO” or “a Final Fantasy XII wannabe”, the reality is something quite different. This is truly a game that is greater than the sum of its already-fantastic parts, and one which will have you bellowing “Now it’s Reyn time!” at your friends for months to come.
(Grab yourself a copy soon, though, as this is the kind of game that will get pretty tough to find pretty quick.)
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