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Xenoblade |OT| The Adventure Begins

T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I've become increasingly disenfranchised with both WRPGs and JRPGs in recent years, going back and replaying my old classics. Hopefully this will hit the blend of both I've been needing.
 
L

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
brandonh83 said:
Bad move. Haven't played a better RPG since. Not even close.
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Play more rpgs! :lol

Although i admit, xenosaga episode 3 was the last great "story-driven" j-rpg for me. Haven't played a better one since.:D
 
S

sfried

Member
The_Technomancer said:
I've become increasingly disenfranchised with both WRPGs and JRPGs in recent years, going back and replaying my old classics. Hopefully this will hit the blend of both I've been needing.
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Have you tried Etrian Odyssey yet?
 
T

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
excelforward said:
Here's to hoping it holds up to it's fame. Saga ep. 1 was fantastic. Saga ep. 2 nearly killed my will to live. Never bothered with 3.

*fingers crossed*
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Considering the quality of Soma Bringer is probably way more accurate an estimate of Xenoblade's quality.
 
C

CryingWolf

Member
anaron said:
Not sure whether to post this here or the other thread but the latest Iwata Asks is up featuring a pretty lengthy interview with Takahashi and Takeda on the development of the scenario, characters and world of Xenoblade.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/06/08/xenoblade_scenario/
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I was just reading that. I love some of the things they're saying about their overall philosophy on designing RPGs.

But for a game, Takeda recognized from his own play experience that if you you have the game's main character go against what the player wants to do or make some sort of movement that one could describe as "betrayal," players will think "I don't want to do that." Iwata noted here that this is the moment when the main character, who was the player just moments earlier, is suddenly no longer the player.
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With RPGs, explained Takahashi, one technique for making sure players don't hate the main character is to make the character silent, something that's easy to do. However, for Xenoblade, Takahashi wanted to allow the character to speak while still making the player form a strong tie with him.
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Interesting stuff.

Also, I really like the sound of this stuff:

Xenoblade's world isn't just massive. Iwata noted that in most games, the larger you make a world, the more sparse the world becomes. But for Xenoblade, Takahashi wanted the world to be both massive and densely packed.

One of Takahashi's goals was to make it so that when you went to the ends of the map, you wouldn't find yourself without anything to do. He made sure that there was always something wherever you went, be it a quest or a powerful monster. They also included points in the world that will make you think "Wow, there's such a beautiful place in this world.
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Iwata summed up this philosophy best: "There is always some sort of return for the player taking some action."
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It makes me very happy to read this stuff.
 
D

dsister44

Member
Sammy Samusu said:
:lol


Sample 4 - AMAZING!

TVCM - "What will happen to us from here on out?"
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Wow i really wasn;t expecting that track, nice blend of orchestral music with rock. I have never been hyped for a game because of it's music before

Abel said:
Quoted for great justice! +1

Between the story, music, battles (omg epic boss battles!), it was just amazing all around :D

Now the bigger question is, will there be a "To Be Continued..." at the end of Xenoblade? :lol
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If it sells well I am sure there will be a sequel. The primary motivation for Nintendo purchasing Monolith Soft was to have a team to create new franchises. Unlike disaster (awesome game) I see this becoming a long running nintendo IP
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
sfried said:
Have you tried Etrian Odyssey yet?
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Oh yeah, thats kind of what I mean. EO 2 is one of my most played DS titles, and I can still play SRPGs like Disgaea and SMT: Devil Surviver.
But I'd hardly call EO a modern RPG, its as oldschool as a mortarboard. I find it really hard to get into the modern "evolutions" of the genres, like KOTOR and Star Ocean 4. I'm currently working through Mass Effect and while the story is enough to keep me going, the fundamental movement and combat just feels....off, I'd much rather go back to a game of Geneforge or something.

But Xenoblade is looking really good. After a lot of self-introspection, I think the problem recent RPGs in general have had for me is that movement in 3-D space just feels wrong, slow and annoying. Even at a run characters move so slowly, and it makes getting anywhere a chore. In contrast, if the character movement shown in that trailer is any indication, this game looks much better, imo. Even the part-turn based/part real time combat, as it appears, looks really fun.

And of course this is from a guy known for his great stories and it has a high emphasis on freeform exploration through awesome looking environments, two of my biggest desires in any RPG.
 
F

Fritz

Member
B

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
Didn't even know of this game's existence until now. The FF12 fanboy in me has me hard, and the videos displayed on this page alone have me shooting volcanoes in my pants.
 
C

Culex

Banned
Taxman said:
Holy crap when he jumped off... I wonder if you survive if you hit land.
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I'd love to know how the developers are streaming the world. Even the loading times between areas is minimal. I always thought the Wii has serious RAM issues, so how the heck are they able to pull this game off?
 
Dwight Schrute

Dwight Schrute

Member
Culex said:
I'd love to know how the developers are streaming the world. Even the loading times between areas is minimal. I always thought the Wii has serious RAM issues, so how the heck are they able to pull this game off?
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Dude, that's magic. You can't understand magic.
 
S

Somnia

Member
Man it looks good and the music is fantastic. I really hope they announce this for a US release along with Last Story at E3.
 
F

faridmon

Member
Wow, jaw dropping amazing. That's huge, huge world. pic si not a word I often use, but walking in that seamless world............


EPIC
 
C

CryingWolf

Member
I am so happy for this game, after the massive disappointment of Final Fantasy 13!

If this doesn't come out in the US, it will break my heart.
 
T

thefro

Member
Love the music in those gameplay videos.

I've got pretty high expectations for the E3 trailer for this from Nintendo, the pieces are there for them to really blow some people away who haven't been following this one.
 
S

selig

Banned
music is so beautiful. reminds me of the good old days of gaming where everything was better.

btw. did someone here say "city building"? Can some elaborate?
 
K

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
Er... I'm all for gorgeous overworlds with a nice sense of scale and good music, but the games looks like a chore to navigate. It takes so much time to go from point A to point B! And it's so empty all the time... Ugh.
 
Alex

Alex

Member
The last 8 months or so has seen some some of the most variety and mechanical improvements/deviations in in ages, from both coasts provided you're not locked into one platform or some such nonsense. If you picked then to skip anything, you picked a bad time. Risen (PC), Dragon Age (PC), Resonance of Fate, Strange Journey, Demons Souls, Mass Effect 2. Even Nier turned out to be a pretty smart deviation and really fun B-tier title. So, so much good stuff after such an iffy drought.

I mean if you had posted like "Well, the last RPG I played was FFXIII and now suicide seems like a reasonable idea", see, I could've understood that, that would make sense to me!

Those videos look really, really good to me. I just wish there was a bigger run down of what actual mechanics we're looking at rather than just the scope and some bits of fluff.
 
X

Xelinis

Junior Member
Looking at all these videos and listening to all these music samples, you can tell just how much love and effort Takahashi poured into this game. Day 1.
 
C

Cep

Banned
Bel Marduk said:
I hope this track is an area theme or something and not a cutscene :D Like I said before, the ACE+ stuff is the best stuff so far. I also really like the song at 1:12 in this vid.

Btw, two new gameplay vids from someone who has the game :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v00DGXlZdCc&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRbUyYvPtHA&feature=player_embedded
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Dear god!

Alex said:
Those videos look really, really good to me. I just wish there was a bigger run down of what actual mechanics we're looking at rather than just the scope and some bits of fluff.
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I cannot wait until J-Gaf gets their hands on this, they are usually pretty good at explaining these things.
 
W

WillyFive

Member
Culex said:
I'd love to know how the developers are streaming the world. Even the loading times between areas is minimal. I always thought the Wii has serious RAM issues, so how the heck are they able to pull this game off?
Click to expand...

Something in-between smart programming and not listening to the hate.
 
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