I just spent four hours pumping my affinity with colony 9 to four stars, just for desiree to not give me shulk's quest because apparently I haven't hit that magical "between four and five stars" bar yet. fuck you desiree
that was possibly the least fun i've ever had in a video game
about 15 minutes of that was me exclusively setting the time in the financial district to different times in order to be able to meet jackson and finish his awakening quest
holy shit this video game's subquest system is fucking terrible
Is Desiree talking about her friend Betti? Try going to the residential district at 3PM and talk to Betti. It has to be after 3, or else she just talks about that painter guy. And hopefully you get an affinity blip where she says she's worried about Desiree. That was the final catalyst for me. Otherwise... yeah, you haven't hit that magical bar yet.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Yeah, you guys are right, the whole NPC/quest system could probably use some improvements, but..that is literally it. The game nearly has no other flaws everyone would agree on.
Seriously though, a lot of the game really is flippin' amazing, and I would seriously not hesitate recommending it to anyone. Which is why the dumpy quest system stands out when the rest of the game is great.
Well... that and the item and equipment screens. They're not horrible or anything, but I do find myself upgrading my gear only about once an area in one fell swoop, just so I don't have to spend more time than I have to. There's just something I don't much like about it.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
oh holy christ re-equipping your characters, i forgot how much of a terrible pain in the ass that was
it's mostly because it compares modified (with slotted gems) v. unmodified, so it's impossible to tell what piece of armor is more durable than another if you're running ether defence/ muscle gems without unequipping all the relevant gems and re-comparing unslotted v. unslotted
of course that gets fixed once you realize to always run exclusively strength gems on shulk/ether gems on melia and sharla/ status gems on riki/etc, but reyn and dunban are always pains in the fucking ass to figure out whether or not one armor is more durable than the other (especially if you're smart and run a bunch of -weight abilities on dunban, figuring out if a piece of armor is putting you over 0 total weight or not is a huge clusterfuck)
and then of course, even then transferring all the gems to your new armor is always an annoying pain in the ass regardless
also, there's no way to store and access items, which makes the grindfest quests even worse because 90% of the time you've just fucking sold whatever you need five minutes beforehand
also buying weapons/armor is annoying since you have to equip what you buy out of screen as opposed to what literally every other JRPG since like 1995 has had with a dressing room option that gives you the option of auto-equipping what you just bought
the maps having no zoom function, landmarking, or 'set as destination" options is infuriating with how fucking big and icon-heavy the maps are, especially since the fact that the resolution of the maps is at like 100x2 or whatever makes every icon an amorphous blob
basically anything with an interface in xenoblade chronicles is probably poorly designed and fucking annoying as hell
I don't know man, these are all pretty minor quibbles. Every single game has little things that annoy you like that, the question is how much they really affect the overall experience..and in Xenoblade's case, the answer to that is "barely, if at all".
Rent sounds angry. He's wrong about comparing armors (the armor stats you're shown when you view the armor's additional details are base stats, compare using those). And he's wrong about selling things (why are you selling random shit? you never need money after the first few hours and when you do, order your items and sell the oldest stuff first to avoid quest issues). Oh, and when you've equipped new armor your old gems will be marked with a black 'E' (since they're still in your old armor). Just re-equip those. Not exactly rocket science.
I also wonder why he's buying armor (guess he could be buying for 7th? nobody else needs armor from shops) and equipping Melia with ether gems (+electric damage is far better, use armor slots to give her survivability or aggro control).
-Talk to X. Where is X? Who knows, hope you like walking around the entire city. And you better pray it's during the right time as well.
The affinity tree (forest more like) isn't the most intuitively designed, but you can search people in their respective towns and look up their times with relatively ease if you remember their relationship trees. It's a bit of a hassle if you're not familiar how to navigate, but once you use it often it shouldn't be a problem. If he/she is around during the day, don't set the time at 6am in the morning since they take a bit of time to get to their location. Recollecting their locations doesn't hurt.
-I said I love the kill quests, but only if I actually know where the monsters are. If I don't... see above. Example: I needed some drop from a creature in Eryth Sea, tried to do it on my own. Went out hiking all over, targeting everything, but not finding anything. Finally had to look it up, and found where it spawned. It was in an area I had been and searched... in the day. Said monster spawns at night...
Again, a bit of memory goes a long way. A bestiary would have been helpful, but most animal names are pretty descriptive unlike some RPGs. Quests for unique monsters usually have a specific location or landmark where they can be found with a time frame if it's required. Some of the later quests have you exploring the area for unique monsters, secret locations, heart-to-hearts, collectables etc. anyway.
-Unlocking Shulk's 4th tree. Talk to a specific person, who only shows up at night. Oh except she's not offering the quest. So I have to talk to her friend, who's on the other side of town, during the day, and get the little affinity blip. Oh except it's not working, I have to talk to her at a very specific time at the end of the day, when she's not otherwise ogling some painter. Oh but it's still not working, I simply don't have enough affinity to begin with, so back to hunting for quests.
I don't think you have to talk to Betty. She wants some career advice, which she will ask you when you have enough affinity, which should happen as you naturally progress through the game. If you maxed all three of Shulk's skill trees before obtaining enough affinity in colony 9 to trigger the quest, then you have what you might call a problem.
Some of the critique sounds like critique I've heard of Skyward Sword. They are confused how it works and are reluctant to explore and adapt to the inner workings. Once they post on a message board to complain about it and find out it's actually pretty easy, they'll complain it didn't explain it properly or how they don't like it anyway because they've been doing it wrong all this time and it now has a permanent stigma. If it's too streamlined they'll complain it has too much handholding. It's, like, why are you gaming if all you do is find niggles of imperfection in a game that's many, many hours long?
Some of the critique sounds like critique I've heard of Skyward Sword. They are confused how it works and are reluctant to explore and adapt to the inner workings. Once they post on a message board to complain about it and find out it's actually pretty easy, they'll complain it didn't explain it properly or how they don't like it anyway because they've been doing it wrong all this time and it now has a permanent stigma. If it's too streamlined they'll complain it has too much handholding. It's, like, why are you gaming if all you do is find niggles of imperfection in a game that's many, many hours long?
I complain about Skyward Sword because it's dull, dull, deadly dull.
There are definitely things in Xenoblade that could be better, but it's the best JRPG I've played... ever, really. If new game + set all enemies to Lv99 I'd be replaying it regularly, because I love the combat once you get a high level team working well together, but by that point there aren't many enemies that are still challenging.
Have people noticed that some quests lower affinity? Because that's what fucked me the first time around: I actually ended up delaying Shulk's fourth skill tree because I'd solved certain quests in ways that lowered my Colony 9 affinity. I couldn't get it at until more Colony 9 quests unlocked. When I did managed to unlock the fourth tree I had barely started on it when the fifth rolled around.
Some of the critique sounds like critique I've heard of Skyward Sword. They are confused how it works and are reluctant to explore and adapt to the inner workings. Once they post on a message board to complain about it and find out it's actually pretty easy, they'll complain it didn't explain it properly or how they don't like it anyway because they've been doing it wrong all this time and it now has a permanent stigma. If it's too streamlined they'll complain it has too much handholding. It's, like, why are you gaming if all you do is find niggles of imperfection in a game that's many, many hours long?
I complain about Skyward Sword because it's dull, dull, deadly dull.
There are definitely things in Xenoblade that could be better, but it's the best JRPG I've played... ever, really. If new game + set all enemies to Lv99 I'd be replaying it regularly, because I love the combat once you get a high level team working well together, but by that point there aren't many enemies that are still challenging.
That would have started a fight if you said that to my face. :P
oh holy christ re-equipping your characters, i forgot how much of a terrible pain in the ass that was
it's mostly because it compares modified (with slotted gems) v. unmodified, so it's impossible to tell what piece of armor is more durable than another if you're running ether defence/ muscle gems without unequipping all the relevant gems and re-comparing unslotted v. unslotted
of course that gets fixed once you realize to always run exclusively strength gems on shulk/ether gems on melia and sharla/ status gems on riki/etc, but reyn and dunban are always pains in the fucking ass to figure out whether or not one armor is more durable than the other (especially if you're smart and run a bunch of -weight abilities on dunban, figuring out if a piece of armor is putting you over 0 total weight or not is a huge clusterfuck)
and then of course, even then transferring all the gems to your new armor is always an annoying pain in the ass regardless
also, there's no way to store and access items, which makes the grindfest quests even worse because 90% of the time you've just fucking sold whatever you need five minutes beforehand
also buying weapons/armor is annoying since you have to equip what you buy out of screen as opposed to what literally every other JRPG since like 1995 has had with a dressing room option that gives you the option of auto-equipping what you just bought
the maps having no zoom function, landmarking, or 'set as destination" options is infuriating with how fucking big and icon-heavy the maps are, especially since the fact that the resolution of the maps is at like 100x2 or whatever makes every icon an amorphous blob
basically anything with an interface in xenoblade chronicles is probably poorly designed and fucking annoying as hell
And it's still better than any main line Final Fantasy game the came out since the PS1.
Algertman on
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RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
Oh boy Rent's here to tell us we're all wrong for liking this game and to show us the One True Opinion
Don't get me wrong, it's a great fucking game and i love it
but the amount of hyperbolic "this game is fucking flawless, it has literally no problems" opinions are stupid. no, the game has flaws. it's just masked them by being better than most in a lot of areas and also being a JRPG on the wii with a history that gives it a "this game never had a chance" narrative. so we get a bunch of people who become annoyingly insular and xenophobic to negative opinion, just like Alpha Protocol etc
Oh boy Rent's here to tell us we're all wrong for liking this game and to show us the One True Opinion
Wait, did I click on the 999 thread by mistake? :P
Wii should arrive at the repair shop by the end of today, according to UPS. Thankfully they have a place on the east coast so it didn't have to go all the way to WA. My next two weekends were already booked solid (yay new Magic release), so I'm finally going to be able to not think about all of the time I'm not putting into this...
I'm about 10 hours in, great game so far. Got a question about the timed quests and about one kill quest on Bionis Leg.
I have about 10+ timed quests in my log now, at what point will these not be able to be completed? I don't want to spend the next 5+ hours of play running around doing them all and would like to mix side quests with the story, how much further can I go, I'm at the part after
Juju is taken by Metal Face #2 and I have to go to Colony 6
The kill quest I can't figure out is the one for a UM in the Sky Stage area of Bionis Leg, I've been there during the day and night and have not seen anything in that spot, I've gone up the hill a bit as well and only saw much higher level monsters there.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
Hah that's where I am too Myiagros. I have the same question about those timed quests actually. I started doing them because I don't want to miss out. I do like that (similar to your spoiler):
Juju is captured, the characters aid hurry up, yet I'm running around like an asshole ignoring him. Suck on it Juju! I'll get to you when I'm ready. They'll wait!
It's nice having three party members with one who can heal though. Makes things much easier.
As far as the complaints go, the only thing that annoys me is the inability to find people. I didn't realize the affinity chart had information about placement so I'll try to use that. Takes forever to load the damn thing though.
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RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
There was one person from Colony 9 that I couldn't find on the Affinity Chart, unless I just overlooked them, some old lady gave me a quest to deliver some food to her son who was training to fight his brother, combed over the Residential District and never found him day or night.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
There was one person from Colony 9 that I couldn't find on the Affinity Chart, unless I just overlooked them, some old lady gave me a quest to deliver some food to her son who was training to fight his brother, combed over the Residential District and never found him day or night.
he's at night in the residential district, he's practicing punching a tree
he's inside the residential district, in the middle of it, in an alcove
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited April 2012
Oh, boy, a graphics whore with a platform:
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
I didn't realize the affinity chart had information about placement so I'll try to use that. Takes forever to load the damn thing though.
it doesn't, it just has time of day active
It specifies the landmark of people in non-towns on the quest objectives screen I believe. It's not perfect, but I think it's more elegant than having dots and names cluttering the menu map, so you can turn your brain off and go to the dot for every non-story related quest, instead of exploring the quest hub and remembering the locations of NPCs. There is a balance and I think they got it right.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
I'm about 10 hours in, great game so far. Got a question about the timed quests and about one kill quest on Bionis Leg.
I have about 10+ timed quests in my log now, at what point will these not be able to be completed? I don't want to spend the next 5+ hours of play running around doing them all and would like to mix side quests with the story, how much further can I go, I'm at the part after
Juju is taken by Metal Face #2 and I have to go to Colony 6
The kill quest I can't figure out is the one for a UM in the Sky Stage area of Bionis Leg, I've been there during the day and night and have not seen anything in that spot, I've gone up the hill a bit as well and only saw much higher level monsters there.
Don't worry, the game will be really, super obvious about it when you can't do it anymore. There'll be a dialog that says something like "Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you want to finish up business here first?"
If all else fails, there is a pretty decent "Point of No Return" guide on GameFAQs I've found. Don't have the link handy, but if you just read the titles to determine where the points actually are, they don't spoil anything other than maybe location names (and I don't think there's any super-spoilery locations anyways)
Edit: Wow, that article hurts my brain. Also, I'm sorry, but NES and SNES were not "the cutting edge of technology." They were the best out there because they had no competition. Guarantee you Nintendo cut costs on parts - they ALWAYS do.
I'm about 79 hours in and I'm really quite fond of the game. It definitely has some things that nag at me but it's been the most fun ride I've had so far in the year. The questing doesn't bother me that much but I've never been fond of games with a time-of-day dependence and this game can be rather specific about things. It's not a game breaker, though.
I'm not sure if I should care about some random football player's opinion on a game. I think I'll choose not to.
Hmm, putting gems on Dunban to decrease the weight of armour, sounds goood...except running him around naked is better until you get lancelot armour and level vi gems.
Xenoblade Chronicles is an amazing game. The characters are engaging, the storyline is epic, and the fresh combat blends MMO style cooldowns with the feel of an old-school, turn-based RPG.
However.
The graphics. Dear god, the graphics. I can’t decide whether the technical capabilities of the Wii make me want to projectile vomit or take a 12-gauge to my television, and it makes me angry enough to mail a severed unicorn head to Nintendo’s main office because this game deserves better. It deserves better than gasping fish mouths bobbing up and down through beautifully crafted dialogue. It deserves better than jagged edged fuzzy textures comprising a breathtaking landscape set within the body of a fallen god. IT DESERVES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU’VE FORCED THIS GAME TO BE, NINTENDO.
<deep breath>
I honestly believe that Xenoblade Chronicles could have been this generation’s Final Fantasy VII. Not since I was a child have I been as absorbed by a world; not since the heyday of JRPG’s during the SNES era have I spent my time away from a game solely consumed by thoughts of playing that game, anxiously awaiting whatever new plot wrinkle might be revealed. This game is that good, and it does it all in spite of the absolute turd monster of a graphics engine the Wii poops out on screen.
I have to commend the folks at Monolith Soft. They’ve done the best they can with what they have available, and you can see the vision they’re so desperately trying to make a reality. The ideas on display in Xenoblade Chronicles are nothing short of amazing. We’re talking Shadows of the Colossus crossed with Final Fantasy amazing. Unfortunately, and through no fault of Monolith Soft, the Wii laughs at their dreams. It takes those dreams and flushes them down the toilet of GameCube-era hardware Nintendo likes to call cutting edge.
I for one am sick and tired of it. I’m tired of Nintendo having these awesome franchises and brilliant developers and shafting them with an absolute garbage can of a system. I’m tired of seeing Mario relegated to kitschy ideas because there’s no horsepower under the Wii’s hood; I’m tired of seeing Link fighting through the Temple of Brown Textures and Jagged Edges; I’m tired of seeing games like Xenoblade Chronicles, games with a world vision that dwarfs the imagination and fills the mind with awe-inspiring jaw dropitude, get thrown under the bus by Nintendo insisting on Grandma Waggle Party IV as its core demographic.
So this is what I say to you Nintendo. It’s time to s*** or get off the pot. You used to be great at hardware; hell, you were one of the companies that STARTED video gaming as we know it. Remember the NES? Remember the Super Nintendo? Those were cutting edge systems, and you did great games the justice they deserved. In today’s world, technology has evolved to the point where it’s not acceptable anymore to give us dross when we know there exists the capability for diamonds. It’s not acceptable to shackle an obviously talented team like Monolith Soft to the ball and chain of the Wii because you want to sell waggle. Either take your hardware seriously, or get out of the game entirely and let those more capable take over.
I’m asking, no, I’m begging you, Nintendo. Cut those shackles. Let Mario, let Link, let our beloved heroes of youth soar like we know they can. Let us visit the worlds they deserve to inhabit.
Chris "Warcraft" Kluwe is the Minnesota Vikings' punter, Tripping Icarus' bass player, and Andrew Reiner's hand model.
It's probably not a "popular" opinion, but I don't entirely disagree with him. I understand Nintendo's point of view in some sense, but the Wii at this point is a travesty graphically. Nintendo left NO headroom in the system. It was basically maxed out on day one. Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess look as good or better than anything release since...that's not good.
I think his point about Mario is eh, whatever, it's Mario, I don't think he needs to be HD. But imagine a hypothetical Metroid Prime 4 on an HD system? You don't think that would be amazing?
What's worrisome is that, depending on which rumor you believe, the WiiU is doing nothing to even address the issue. It's just another iteration of the same hardware architecture with the knobs turned up to 11 jiggawatts. If that's the case, it too will be maxed out on day one and have no headroom, because graphic technique and the capability to produce high end content will have far outstripped the WiiU's capability to display it (just like it did with the Wii).
That said, I still do really believe graphics aren't EVERYTHING, which is why I still own a Wii and play games on it, and will own a WiiU...but I still understand the authors sentiment. Nintendo could do better, and it wouldn't hurt their desire to suck in the waggle grandma demographic, and wouldn't raise development budgets by that much. We'll see though, at this point it's all conjecture. Until real WiiU unit specs start surfacing, it's all a guess.
The thing is, the Wii can do pretty great graphics. I've played the likes of NSMB, Skyward Sword, and Rhythm Heaven on my 50'', and they all look sharp as hell. But I don't know what's going on with Xenoblade, but that opening did it no favours. It was... blech. I've acclimated to the graphics, and walking through the likes of Makna Forest or Eryth Sea is absolutely amazing.
It's just a delicate situation. Objectively I'd have to say the graphics are middle of the road, but on the flip side I'd never hold it against them, because the game knows what it is and what it's trying to do.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
That said, I still do really believe graphics aren't EVERYTHING, which is why I still own a Wii and play games on it, and will own a WiiU...but I still understand the authors sentiment. Nintendo could do better, and it wouldn't hurt their desire to suck in the waggle grandma demographic, and wouldn't raise development budgets by that much. We'll see though, at this point it's all conjecture. Until real WiiU unit specs start surfacing, it's all a guess.
It would raise hardware costs. It's not about development budgets.
Look at it this way - Wii launched at $250. PS3 launched at $500 (lolz) and 360 launched at $400. Which one sold the most? Hell, even with PS3 and 360, I think the lower-end models ended up doing more sales because of the cheaper price (could be wrong there).
As much as I wish Nintendo had made Wii more powerful, I think they knew what they were doing. Motion controls were probably already a tricky sell (at least before it became a big fad) without slapping a $400 price barrier on there.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
$50 extra bucks of graphics hardware would have made the Wii a significantly better machine. They could have sold it at $300 price point, still sold a gajillion of them, but the system would have had headroom to grow and not literally be maxed out on day one.
$50 extra bucks of graphics hardware would have made the Wii a significantly better machine. They could have sold it at $300 price point, still sold a gajillion of them, but the system would have had headroom to grow and not literally be maxed out on day one.
I don't believe that, not to the demographic they were targeting. $250 was already considered expensive for the system.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Well, those people are going to be surprised when the WiiU is more than $250 bucks. With that tablet controller, there is no way that thing is $250 bucks at release.
Well, those people are going to be surprised when the WiiU is more than $250 bucks. With that tablet controller, there is no way that thing is $250 bucks at release.
Maybe, maybe not. They are using cheap technology again to cut costs (though the tablet cost may mitgate some of those savings). Either way, it's going to be the cheaper alternative against PS4 and Xbox-Whatever most likely.
But either way, Nintendo is in a better position this time. I mean, with Wii the company needed to build up consumer confidence. They had the DS, but on the console side their last two consoles were pretty much failures (at least in the realm of public opinion). So they have a little wiggle room on price this time *maybe*, since people may be inclined to trust them. But then, 3DS failed pretty spectacularly at its initial price point too.
P.S. - Speaking of N64 and Gamecube, for the last three console generations (and for pretty much every handheld generation) the least powerful hardware has prevailed (though you could maybe make the argument that PSX had a storage advantage over N64 and graphically the difference wasn't as great). Just food for thought :P
I can already tell Eryth Sea is going to drive me insane. It's pretty enough, sure, but oh my god all the slow, pointless swimming just to get from island to island
I made my way to some Hode Island that wasn't even a landmark and promptly got swarmed and overwhelmed by about 15 Hodes and Ogre things. Probably there was a unique in there too.
I can already tell Eryth Sea is going to drive me insane. It's pretty enough, sure, but oh my god all the slow, pointless swimming just to get from island to island
I made my way to some Hode Island that wasn't even a landmark and promptly got swarmed and overwhelmed by about 15 Hodes and Ogre things. Probably there was a unique in there too.
Eh, most major stuff is on the islands connected by teleporters..and if you wanna reach something on the "bottom floor", just get to the nearest island floating in the sky and jump down.
I can already tell Eryth Sea is going to drive me insane. It's pretty enough, sure, but oh my god all the slow, pointless swimming just to get from island to island
Explore the teleport system first and then go cliff-diving for the rest.
I made my way to some Hode Island that wasn't even a landmark and promptly got swarmed and overwhelmed by about 15 Hodes and Ogre things. Probably there was a unique in there too.
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Is Desiree talking about her friend Betti? Try going to the residential district at 3PM and talk to Betti. It has to be after 3, or else she just talks about that painter guy. And hopefully you get an affinity blip where she says she's worried about Desiree. That was the final catalyst for me. Otherwise... yeah, you haven't hit that magical bar yet.
In 'Merrica, we speak 'Merrican!
Seriously though, a lot of the game really is flippin' amazing, and I would seriously not hesitate recommending it to anyone. Which is why the dumpy quest system stands out when the rest of the game is great.
Well... that and the item and equipment screens. They're not horrible or anything, but I do find myself upgrading my gear only about once an area in one fell swoop, just so I don't have to spend more time than I have to. There's just something I don't much like about it.
it's mostly because it compares modified (with slotted gems) v. unmodified, so it's impossible to tell what piece of armor is more durable than another if you're running ether defence/ muscle gems without unequipping all the relevant gems and re-comparing unslotted v. unslotted
of course that gets fixed once you realize to always run exclusively strength gems on shulk/ether gems on melia and sharla/ status gems on riki/etc, but reyn and dunban are always pains in the fucking ass to figure out whether or not one armor is more durable than the other (especially if you're smart and run a bunch of -weight abilities on dunban, figuring out if a piece of armor is putting you over 0 total weight or not is a huge clusterfuck)
and then of course, even then transferring all the gems to your new armor is always an annoying pain in the ass regardless
also, there's no way to store and access items, which makes the grindfest quests even worse because 90% of the time you've just fucking sold whatever you need five minutes beforehand
also buying weapons/armor is annoying since you have to equip what you buy out of screen as opposed to what literally every other JRPG since like 1995 has had with a dressing room option that gives you the option of auto-equipping what you just bought
the maps having no zoom function, landmarking, or 'set as destination" options is infuriating with how fucking big and icon-heavy the maps are, especially since the fact that the resolution of the maps is at like 100x2 or whatever makes every icon an amorphous blob
basically anything with an interface in xenoblade chronicles is probably poorly designed and fucking annoying as hell
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I also wonder why he's buying armor (guess he could be buying for 7th? nobody else needs armor from shops) and equipping Melia with ether gems (+electric damage is far better, use armor slots to give her survivability or aggro control).
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
The affinity tree (forest more like) isn't the most intuitively designed, but you can search people in their respective towns and look up their times with relatively ease if you remember their relationship trees. It's a bit of a hassle if you're not familiar how to navigate, but once you use it often it shouldn't be a problem. If he/she is around during the day, don't set the time at 6am in the morning since they take a bit of time to get to their location. Recollecting their locations doesn't hurt.
Again, a bit of memory goes a long way. A bestiary would have been helpful, but most animal names are pretty descriptive unlike some RPGs. Quests for unique monsters usually have a specific location or landmark where they can be found with a time frame if it's required. Some of the later quests have you exploring the area for unique monsters, secret locations, heart-to-hearts, collectables etc. anyway.
I don't think you have to talk to Betty. She wants some career advice, which she will ask you when you have enough affinity, which should happen as you naturally progress through the game. If you maxed all three of Shulk's skill trees before obtaining enough affinity in colony 9 to trigger the quest, then you have what you might call a problem.
Some of the critique sounds like critique I've heard of Skyward Sword. They are confused how it works and are reluctant to explore and adapt to the inner workings. Once they post on a message board to complain about it and find out it's actually pretty easy, they'll complain it didn't explain it properly or how they don't like it anyway because they've been doing it wrong all this time and it now has a permanent stigma. If it's too streamlined they'll complain it has too much handholding. It's, like, why are you gaming if all you do is find niggles of imperfection in a game that's many, many hours long?
I complain about Skyward Sword because it's dull, dull, deadly dull.
There are definitely things in Xenoblade that could be better, but it's the best JRPG I've played... ever, really. If new game + set all enemies to Lv99 I'd be replaying it regularly, because I love the combat once you get a high level team working well together, but by that point there aren't many enemies that are still challenging.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
That would have started a fight if you said that to my face. :P
And it's still better than any main line Final Fantasy game the came out since the PS1.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great fucking game and i love it
but the amount of hyperbolic "this game is fucking flawless, it has literally no problems" opinions are stupid. no, the game has flaws. it's just masked them by being better than most in a lot of areas and also being a JRPG on the wii with a history that gives it a "this game never had a chance" narrative. so we get a bunch of people who become annoyingly insular and xenophobic to negative opinion, just like Alpha Protocol etc
Wait, did I click on the 999 thread by mistake? :P
Wii should arrive at the repair shop by the end of today, according to UPS. Thankfully they have a place on the east coast so it didn't have to go all the way to WA. My next two weekends were already booked solid (yay new Magic release), so I'm finally going to be able to not think about all of the time I'm not putting into this...
I have about 10+ timed quests in my log now, at what point will these not be able to be completed? I don't want to spend the next 5+ hours of play running around doing them all and would like to mix side quests with the story, how much further can I go, I'm at the part after
The kill quest I can't figure out is the one for a UM in the Sky Stage area of Bionis Leg, I've been there during the day and night and have not seen anything in that spot, I've gone up the hill a bit as well and only saw much higher level monsters there.
As far as the complaints go, the only thing that annoys me is the inability to find people. I didn't realize the affinity chart had information about placement so I'll try to use that. Takes forever to load the damn thing though.
it doesn't, it just has time of day active
he's at night in the residential district, he's practicing punching a tree
he's inside the residential district, in the middle of it, in an alcove
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/25/why-xenoblade-chronicles-makes-me-want-to-punch-a-kitten.aspx
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It specifies the landmark of people in non-towns on the quest objectives screen I believe. It's not perfect, but I think it's more elegant than having dots and names cluttering the menu map, so you can turn your brain off and go to the dot for every non-story related quest, instead of exploring the quest hub and remembering the locations of NPCs. There is a balance and I think they got it right.
Welcome to the derp.
Don't worry, the game will be really, super obvious about it when you can't do it anymore. There'll be a dialog that says something like "Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you want to finish up business here first?"
If all else fails, there is a pretty decent "Point of No Return" guide on GameFAQs I've found. Don't have the link handy, but if you just read the titles to determine where the points actually are, they don't spoil anything other than maybe location names (and I don't think there's any super-spoilery locations anyways)
Edit: Wow, that article hurts my brain. Also, I'm sorry, but NES and SNES were not "the cutting edge of technology." They were the best out there because they had no competition. Guarantee you Nintendo cut costs on parts - they ALWAYS do.
I'm not sure if I should care about some random football player's opinion on a game. I think I'll choose not to.
Their laser lenses certainly leave something to be desired. :P
It's probably not a "popular" opinion, but I don't entirely disagree with him. I understand Nintendo's point of view in some sense, but the Wii at this point is a travesty graphically. Nintendo left NO headroom in the system. It was basically maxed out on day one. Metroid Prime 3 and Twilight Princess look as good or better than anything release since...that's not good.
I think his point about Mario is eh, whatever, it's Mario, I don't think he needs to be HD. But imagine a hypothetical Metroid Prime 4 on an HD system? You don't think that would be amazing?
What's worrisome is that, depending on which rumor you believe, the WiiU is doing nothing to even address the issue. It's just another iteration of the same hardware architecture with the knobs turned up to 11 jiggawatts. If that's the case, it too will be maxed out on day one and have no headroom, because graphic technique and the capability to produce high end content will have far outstripped the WiiU's capability to display it (just like it did with the Wii).
That said, I still do really believe graphics aren't EVERYTHING, which is why I still own a Wii and play games on it, and will own a WiiU...but I still understand the authors sentiment. Nintendo could do better, and it wouldn't hurt their desire to suck in the waggle grandma demographic, and wouldn't raise development budgets by that much. We'll see though, at this point it's all conjecture. Until real WiiU unit specs start surfacing, it's all a guess.
It's just a delicate situation. Objectively I'd have to say the graphics are middle of the road, but on the flip side I'd never hold it against them, because the game knows what it is and what it's trying to do.
It would raise hardware costs. It's not about development budgets.
Look at it this way - Wii launched at $250. PS3 launched at $500 (lolz) and 360 launched at $400. Which one sold the most? Hell, even with PS3 and 360, I think the lower-end models ended up doing more sales because of the cheaper price (could be wrong there).
As much as I wish Nintendo had made Wii more powerful, I think they knew what they were doing. Motion controls were probably already a tricky sell (at least before it became a big fad) without slapping a $400 price barrier on there.
I don't believe that, not to the demographic they were targeting. $250 was already considered expensive for the system.
Maybe, maybe not. They are using cheap technology again to cut costs (though the tablet cost may mitgate some of those savings). Either way, it's going to be the cheaper alternative against PS4 and Xbox-Whatever most likely.
But either way, Nintendo is in a better position this time. I mean, with Wii the company needed to build up consumer confidence. They had the DS, but on the console side their last two consoles were pretty much failures (at least in the realm of public opinion). So they have a little wiggle room on price this time *maybe*, since people may be inclined to trust them. But then, 3DS failed pretty spectacularly at its initial price point too.
P.S. - Speaking of N64 and Gamecube, for the last three console generations (and for pretty much every handheld generation) the least powerful hardware has prevailed (though you could maybe make the argument that PSX had a storage advantage over N64 and graphically the difference wasn't as great). Just food for thought :P
Shouldn't: It's fifty bucks for a 480p game powered by hardware roughly equivalent to an old Xbox in 2012.
Still totally worth it if you ask me.
I made my way to some Hode Island that wasn't even a landmark and promptly got swarmed and overwhelmed by about 15 Hodes and Ogre things. Probably there was a unique in there too.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
Eh, most major stuff is on the islands connected by teleporters..and if you wanna reach something on the "bottom floor", just get to the nearest island floating in the sky and jump down.
Explore the teleport system first and then go cliff-diving for the rest.
Yes, and it's part of a quest.
It's basically Final Fantasy XII but a lot better. There's your should and shouldn't all in one sentence.
I hated FFXII. I like Xenoblade. I don't love Xenoblade. I can see how people who liked FFXII would be smitten by it though.
And calling it a great JRPG is a little misleading. It has a few JRPG elements, but it's more like a single player MMORPG than a traditional JRPG.
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