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[Xenoblade Chronicles] is a pretty good game. Good enough to get a Wii U sequel.
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Also the main character is awesome.
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I hated FFXII....so, so, SO very much. It bored me to tears: atmosphere, characters, combat, story...everything.
Xenoblade is everything I could want in an RPG. Great characters, story that keeps me interested, and combat that is super fun and gets me to, and here is the kicker, seek out battles.
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I love how people are using the resolution a game is running at to justify it's worth.
for a while i was using a 2048x1152 monitor to play PC games on, making all my games instantly 6.67% better than 1080p games... which are usually just an upscaled 720p therefore like hojillions better. 540p1080i4k3D.
Honestly though, I would compare the game to... vanilla World of Warcraft. Before they got really casual with things. Where it was still lightyears ahead of most bullshit MMO mechanics, but where there were still quests and like that required you to hit up the internet since you'd never figure it out otherwise.
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The only things I don't like about Xenoblade are: Shulk and Fiora looking like twins, lack of a bestiary, no hard mode for ng+.
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Yeah...this really bugs me.
I mean, I get that people are used to 360/PS3/PC graphics now, but I just don't get it. The game has a wonderful art style and despite the limitations of the Wii, I've been more impressed with each new area than I have been in an RPG in ages. Sure, it doesn't have the technical beauty of, say, XIII; but it (IMO) beats it in style (well, Academia in XIII-2 was amazing...as was Eden in XIII; but getting off point). I mean, seriously, every new area I've stepped into, aside from maybe Colony 6/Ether Mines has been more impressive than the last. Colony 9 looked great. If you can get past the bad opening, you get a feel for the actual direction of the art in the game. Then you get to the Leg and the huge vista, sweeping views and massive draw distance (if you can see it, you can pretty much go there); it's awesome. Then you get to the swamps and initially they feel cluttered and ugly (if you go during the day), then night hits and its wonderful; particularly deeper in the swamps. Then you get to the Makna forest and realize that, sure, this isn't a "current" generation game, but it also couldn't have been done on the xbox/ps2/gc at all. You see the amazing waterfall (that you can swim to, btw), a fully realized forest that you don't see in JRPG's much, that feels lush and alive. Then you hit Eryth Sea at night during a starfall and welp. Seriously, I can't think of any other game I've played in...I don't even know how long, that every new area impresses me like Xenoblade does; "last gen" graphics or no.
I guess I'm just different than other folks. I've been playing games too damn long, too many of my favorite games came from the last few generations or "ancient" pc games. I can still play VII and not be bothered by the block characters at all. A new game looking better, to me, doesn't make an older game look "bad".
If Xenoblade had come out last generation, it would have been hailed as the best looking game of the whole generation (minus the admittedly, inexplicably bad looking opening sequence). For me a game doesn't suddenly look bad just because something new looks "better". To make a terrible analogy; my 31yr old wife doesn't look any less beautiful to me just because I saw a 19yr old model on a magazine.
Yeah, I dunno. I realize that I'm easy to please; at least in comparison to many around these parts. But I just have to roll my eyes so hard whenever people go off about the graphics being like an xbox; because that's 100% pure bullshit. Straight up, no debate needed.
As an aside; what the hell happened to the tone of this thread in the last day (I'm pretty sure I actually know...)? It had been gone for so long with relative peace and harmony; the occasional person dropping in to complain about something, but most of the discussion was about the actual game, and helping others with things in it. Then it just turned into a debate/bitch fest overnight. I know that's the natural order of all threads in G&T, but come on.
Also I loved XII and Xenoblade so hi5 @Gyral
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I still played entirely too much MH3 and Xenoblade is still great in spite of this
I find this to be a mildly ironic statement from the creator of BoDVII and CStW.
I mean, if someone asked if they should play FFVI, how many people would list the graphics as a con? Very few, I imagine.
It's not a fair comparison.
I wouldn't list graphics as a con in FFVI, but I sure as fuck would list graphics as a con in FFVII
It needs to be mentioned, pro or con.
No, that's not a fair comparison because you'd be comparing 2D to 3D. FF6 still looks pretty good as far as 2D RPGs go. Xenoblade looks old as far as 3D RPGs go. Not ancient like say a PS1 RPG, but it definitely looks older than something like FF13 or even a lower budget 360/PS3 game like Dark Souls, Tales of Vesperia, or Valkyria Chronicles.
I agree with you that art style is more important that technology (and Xenoblade has a great art style) but that doesn't mean that technology isn't important.
And it's not THAT ironic. We take our graphics very seriously which is why we're constantly trying to improve our graphics with each new game. Rain-Slick 3 looks a lot better than Cthulhu Saves the World which looks a lot better than Breath of Death VII. And eventually, we want to make games with graphics that match or even exceed the best 16-bit RPGs like Chrono Trigger.
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That said, this and NSMB are the only two Wii games I own so I can't really compare it myself. :lol:
Water does not form right angles like that!!!
I also like how every tree looks identical. La~zy.
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That's exactly the thing.
It's on the Wii, it can't look much better without sacrificing stuff like viewing distance.
Criticizing a Wii gaming for looking "bad" is like buying a used car and complaining that it doesn't go as fast as the latest Ferrari.
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I love Xenoblade, I have poured a crazy number of hours into it, the environments are fairly amazing and I love the aesthetics of the game.
But the fact that it looks like someone slapped a fuzzy censorship mosiac over the character models is a con.
And that's ok! It's not a perfect game, it has some problems, problems that fortunately only detract minimally from what is a great experience, but you don't have to jump down someone's throat just for bringing up a perfectly valid criticism.
I wasn't implying that you don't take your graphics seriously; in fact my "ironic" statement was implying the opposite, for the reasons you stated.
We're just gonna have to agree to disagree then because I feel strongly that the art style of a game can keep it above its technological limitations. I think Xenoblade, seriously, looks better than XIII or XIII-2; for the same reason I think WoW looks better than Rift. The latter in each of those statement definitely have more going on under the hood and are powered by more technically advanced engines and require more advanced hardware. However in both situations I think the art direction for the former games trumps the technical aspects of the latter games by a large margin and I wouldn't use the graphics as a "con" in either situation when presenting it to another person.
I'm fully aware that its a subjective perspective. I will argue to my death that, again, while you can argue objectively that the engines and technology powering current gen RPG's is unquestionably better than Xenoblades, the actual quality of the graphics is entirely subjective and, I, personally, don't view the graphics in Xenoblade as a con, and wouldn't present it to someone as such.
EDIT: And to go back to something I said previously; compared to games more of its level of technology, I think Xenoblade looks better than any Xbox/PS2/GC game out there. I don't hold the technological limitations of previous generations (which the Wii is, technologically) against them. Personally. I'm not saying no one would or should, I'm simply saying I don't. Again, thats why the graphics in FFVII don't bother me. Why the graphics in Kings Quest V don't bother me, etc. And I wouldn't list the graphics of those classics as 'cons' because, in theory anyway, who you're speaking to should be aware of the generation in which the game they're asking about exists.
No, these are actual design flaws and "you just need to remember stuff!" does not excuse them.
And see I judge the technology of games based on other games that come out at the same time. To give an older example, I remember thinking at the time that Phantasy Star IV's graphics looked mediocre because it came out at the same time as Final Fantasy VI. Now, sure PS4 is a classic game and one of the best looking games on the Genesis but the graphics just couldn't compare to the stuff that was coming out on the SNES at the time. Likewise, when I play Xenoblade, I'm not comparing it to the PS2 era (against which, it looks great) but against games that I've bought in 2011 & 2012 for the PS3, 360, and PC.
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SpeedTree is neglecting the 2D Sprite marketplace!
Hrm...ok. I mean, fair enough, the Wii, while technologically last generation-ish (kinda middle ground), did come out this generation, so I guess that's a fine way of looking at it.
I suppose it's just a mindset thing. I just know, seeing as a game is on the Wii, it will have certain limitations, just like a game that was released on the PS2 would be. Dark Cloud 2 is one of my favorite, not only PS2 games, but games in general, ever. If I were recommending it to someone, I'd certainly point out it was on the PS2, but wouldn't really feel any need to warn them about the graphics being last gen, because it's implied in the fact that it's on the PS2. That's what I mean by last gen graphics not being a con to me; that wouldn't be a "con" as much as it would just simply be a fact of reality of the hardware the game is on. Thus, if I were to recommend Xenoblade to someone, I would just assume that the graphical limitations of the Wii are readily apparent, and no "warning" needs to be given, and thus, to me, not a con.
I don't discount the views of those who have a hard time with prior gen graphics. I mean, I absolutely don't understand it, but it's not invalid. Sure, I can look within a gen and see disparity within; I just don't compare cross gen.
How would you go about it then? Have a real-time map of every NPC moving in it? You can't have the people in town linking to a specific location on the affinity tree, since they tend to go to different places during their active day. If the developer's intent is to not show the location of NPCs at any given time, then that's their call and not necessarily a design flaw. It's like saying not having quick travel is a design flaw or that having save points is a design flaw in all subsequent games. I'm sure the ladies and gents at Monolith Soft had a lengthy roundtable discussion and decided this was the way to go. A bestiary, I'll give you that, but as I said, uniques that are part of quests do share their locations and unnamed animals can usually be found in more than one place in an area.
See: the old saying "Seemed like a good idea at the time".
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I'd have to humbly disagree.
To be fair, Majora's Mask didn't have nearly as many quests. Most characters had like one event associated with them and you generally did it near them, rather than get it, go off and do it some other place, then return to talk to the original person.
Majora's Mask:
-Has only 20 people to keep track of. Colony 9 alone is double this.
-Actually does give a generic location where the person may be found. May not be entirely accurate since they may move around, but it's at least a start in the right direction.
-Shows a time bar to indicate when you should talk to them to continue their story. Knowing you need to talk to somebody between 2PM and 3PM is a lot more help than simply saying they're active between 6AM and 6PM.
I walk into Frontier Village. While climbing the tree, I pick up quests from Pepa, Hoko, Tuzu, Minana, and Rasha. Rasha tells me to talk to Cherri, and Pepa asks me to talk to Lupa. After an hour collecting their things in the wild, I need to return to Hoko and Minana. They have the "luxury" of being in the affinity chart, telling me what 12 hour window they're active in, and the nearest landmark noted in the quest notes (which is often than not not that helpful or accurate). Meanwhile, I have nothing to go on in terms of finding Cherri or Lupa.
Yes. This is a design flaw.
I can tell you exactly how I would go about fixing it though. Increase the range where the ! marks appear on the map by a factor of 50. Have them show up on the full map in addition to the minimap.
Do not give me quests in batches and then tell me to remember where each and every person in addition to the exact time it was when I talked to them. I do not have a photographic memory.
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other thing they could've done: instant warped you once you found the item for the npc to the npc (like they actually do in certain sidequests), or at least given the option