Oh, and I also think I prefer the English dub. I usually always tend to use the Japanese dub if given the option, but something about this excessive accent is doing it for me.
They don't have to talk that much during battles, though...
Everyone! Let's Go!
Let me at 'em!
Yeah, I'm turnin' up the heat!
You're really getting into this, Reyn!
Powering up!
Now it's Reyn time!
It's over!
Man, what a buncha jokers!
slayn said:
I was under the impression that junk that had a use had a red exclamation mark? And yeah a lot of them are for quests where you turn in x of them but after you complete the quest its not like that item stops dropping. At which point it becomes junk again.
Played 5 hours today and just got to Bionis' Leg so here are my impressions so far.
So I'd say that the large scale enviroments are the main draw of the game for a lot of people and they definitely live up to expectations, even though I haven't even got to what I see as one of the 'main' zones yet, that being Bionis' Leg. Colony 9 is massive, with 3 different zones to the city itself and then all of the surrounding area to explore. After progressing the story to a point, I explored the entire area and managed to find a number of secret coves and little coasts full of new and dangerous monsters. One cave I found was full of level 25 bats, with my characters only being level 11 so I thought that was a fair level hike for enemies just within the first small area... but that was before I accidentally swam into a swarm of hostile level 72 Piranha's and then onto a small island of level 75 Flamingo's, again, hostile. So even the starting city and surrounding area hold some secrets that I won't be able to tackle until a long time in the future. I really can't wait to explore the larger areas of this game and along with the sidequests I can see exploration being my favourite aspect of the game.
Although I'm not normally one to tackle a multitude of sidequests in games, I already really love the quest system. It's easy to tackle multiple quests at once, so I've taken to just gathering as many of them as possible then completing them whilst I explore when the opportunity arises, rather than completing them in any kind of order. If you've done a lot of exploring already you can even complete a number of quests instantly if you've already collected the requirements. And there are certainly a lot of them too! I've already found a few NPC's who will have 5 quests to give you if you keep talking to them, so the list really fills up quickly.
The story is so already quite different to what I imagined it to be. Most of the pre-release information focused on the games different mechanics so I think I'd perhaps formed a rather stereotypical view of what the game would be about, in typical JRPG fashion. I'm already intrigued by
the mysteries surrounding the hidden functions of the Monado as well as the reason why Metal Face, and I presume the other talking Mechon, are different from the other mindless Mechon types. The vague visions of the future are also intriguing, especially the first one Shulk sees right at the start of the game, and the ominous character who appears to be attempting to guide Shulk in using the Monado.
The game's story definitely covered a lot more territory then I thought it would have at this point.
I will say that I absolutely love the voice acting. I think it adds itself nicely to the setting of the game and definitely doesn't seem quite as alien as it did/does sound in the snippets of gameplay on the Nintendo website. I think my personal favourite so far is Dunban, who's voice has an awesome mix of cockiness and sarcasm that really helps to establish his early character.
Some words of warning to others who will be starting to play the game in the next few days is to not rush through anything. A lot of the problems I experience and had to ask about were down to my not fully understanding the tutorials - and there are a LOT crammed into the first hour or so! The battle system is much more complex than it appears at first and it's important to understand everything the game tells you otherwise you'll face difficulty during the ensuing segment. I did find that if you have the right tactics, but still can't defeat a foe, that levelling up even just one level as well as levelling up skills, can bring the difficulty way down to make what seemed an insanely hard battle into a walk in the park. I think a lot of my problems also come from the fact that I'm not used to aggro and large mobs of enemies, especially since I've never been an MMO player.
I haven't played enough of the game to fully exploring the following aspects of the game, so I'll just group them all here. The soundtrack, so far, has been wonderful, with a particularly memorable piece playing during an emotional scene after some plot progression. I haven't delved at all into the characters equipment, gems and crafting, skill progression and attribute progression, but there is, again, so much to take in! When I play tomorrow the first thing I'm going to do is make sure my characters are ready to face the dangers of the plains and by the looks of things it's probably going to take quite awhile to sort through all the different menus! The Collectopedia is also a nice addition that really does seem to reward your for collecting with some nice gems to dish out to your characters.
I feel like I've rambled on so much already, but I still feel like there is so much more that I want to say about this game! I definitely feel that I've only just scratched the surface of this enormous game, somewhat nicely represented by the seeming insignificance of Shulk look up at the brooding remains of Mechonis were I left him when I stopped for the day. Can't wait to play more.
Thanks for the info/early impressions. It's great to hear everyone say that the environments lived up to expectations; I don't care about the story in RPGs (it's true), so the game's world was its biggest draw for me.
I can imagine it being a problem. I played the Japanese version on an SDTV, although connected via component so the image was really sharp, but I didn't have any problems. Still, I can imagine with the fonts they chose that it could be difficult to read with composite on a smaller TV, or from far away.
Well, at least then I'll get it during the day! Mail around here is usually 12:30PM. Much sooner than UPS's late night delivery.. and mail works on Saturday! Unlike UPS.
Thanks for the info/early impressions. It's great to hear everyone say that the environments lived up to expectations; I don't care about the story in RPGs (it's true), so the game's world was its biggest draw for me.
Normally I drive straight for the story when I play JRPG's, but with Xenoblade it already seems to be taking a back seat to my urge to explore and do sidequests.
Although that's definitely not to say that the story doesn't seem both engaging and intriguing.
Wow...just wow. Finally a game that dares follow in FFXII's glorious footsteps. I've been playing all day and I love everything about it. I love how huge the environments are, I love the music, I love the battle system, I love the quests (even if they are pretty repetitive, you tend to naturally complete them as you progress through the game). I love how you're not punished for dying.
What the hell is up with that jumping animation though? I like that you can jump and swim at all (can't really think of another sp jrpg that allows that), but they could have put a little more effort in making it seem a bit more natural at least. Still, if that's my biggest complaint so far, you know I'm nitpicking. Hope the rest of you guys get it soon so you can join this awesome party!
What the hell is up with that jumping animation though? I like that you can jump and swim at all (can't really think of another sp jrpg that allows that), but they could have put a little more effort in making it seem a bit more natural at least.
Wow...just wow. Finally a game that dares follow in FFXII's glorious footsteps. I've been playing all day and I love everything about it. I love how huge the environments are, I love the music, I love the battle system, I love the quests (even if they are pretty repetitive, you tend to naturally complete them as you progress through the game). I love how you're not punished for dying.!
I've never seen a non-4:3 SD, so I wouldn't know otherwise.
But I imagine any TV that doesn't require the image to be letterboxed will not have the same issue.
I've never seen a non-4:3 SD, so I wouldn't know otherwise.
But I imagine any TV that doesn't require the image to be letterboxed will not have the same issue.
I'm enjoying this but damn do I get my ass kicked every now and then, "oh hey that big frog thing is about 2 levels below me, time to kick some ass!" *1 minute later* "Why are you still alive?! oh dear i'm getting killed and why did those bats have to join the party?!"
I just took down a boss spider after it utterly stomped me the first time, you people aren't kidding when you mention that understanding the battle system is important
in retrospect I should have been using the newly obtained shield power in the first place
.
I absolutely love that deaths aren't that big a deal.
Though getting it in 4 days sounds a little bit crazy.
