Xenoblade Day Newt – I Got Better! Sort of…

Obscure Monty Python references aside – I was really looking forward to playing Xenoblade today. The winner for silliest name today goes to an item called Love Rack. The implications are pretty obvious and I shall comment no further upon it. Now to get the obvious out of the way – today was a good day for Xenoblade. There have been some good moments, some downright incredible ones. However I wouldn’t be a nitpicker if I didn’t nitpick so there are several complaints of various sizes. Unfortunately there are two HUGE disappointments near the end of today’s sitting that really hurt the game a lot, and I sincerely hope the latter is only a one time occurrence.

As usually, massive spoilers ahead.

For better or worse, I’m getting used to the combat and even though the issues it has don’t go away with simply getting better, enough practice will make it easier. Considering that is also true for swallowing knives and zapping your testicles with electricity, I do not consider this being a point in the game’s favor. Ninja Gaiden is a fabulous example of a simple to learn but difficult to master combat system with an insanely steep difficulty curve. Xenoblade’s combat is more alike mastering cutting down a tree with a herring (Ok I’ll stop with these now), i.e. it’s not your skills in combat you’re honing, but your skills in overcoming the combat system flaws.

There are other minor things that would really have benefited from some polish before the game’s release. I could list them and elaborate on them… so I will!

The first one that struck me two days ago already is the party change notification. Every time somebody joins or leaves your party, a standard message box appears showing the change, so far so good. However, it is the only dialogue box that has to be exited by pressing the B button, rather than A, the standard one. Hell, most of those windows get closed by pressing any of those buttons. This one being the only one to use specifically the B key is simply weird.

The second one, a tad more significant, is the fact that you can’t actually pause the game in combat other than hitting the home screen. This might not seem like a problem, but during today’s play I ran into a short, but difficult fight which required some starting luck and perfect execution at my level. Every time the supporting monsters targeted the healer, it was pretty much an instant fail because it’s hard to rely on the tank to taunt all of them by himself. Now here comes the problem – I had to wait every single time for my party to get killed in order to restart the fight. I couldn’t load my last save because you can’t open the menu in combat. No big deal you might still say, just stand still, but as usually you’d be wrong. As long as there’s energy left, party members will resurrect you, and since the fight is going bad it’s going to be interrupted by quite a lot of future visions, so the “wipe and go again” phase can drag on for about 1-2 minutes, which gets tedious if you have to repeat it more than 2-3 times.

One last details that struck me today was walking through poisonous water. You get damaged periodically as is custom, but the sound made with each tick is that of punching someone, making me imagine hobbit swimming in these waters punching the characters in the testicles every few seconds. The waters aren’t actually poisoned!

I’ve also learned since yesterday that some areas have different monsters during the night than during the day, which is perfectly fine. However, spawning a level 75 monster on top of my head without any warning the moment the game’s clock reaches nighttime IS NOT. World of Warcraft did this right 7 year ago – when you spawn a monster, it’s inactive for a few seconds to give the player a chance to notice so there are no excuses for this BS.

Lastly, before we get into the specific events that occurred today, I’d like to do two things – firstly, re-state just how INCREDIBLE the score in this game is. Hell, even if this game was 10 times worse than it is, it’s STILL worth playing for the music alone. Best RPG music in years, period. Secondly I’d like to address some feedback I’ve had on the previous two episodes – yes, these are impression articles, and I am fully aware that every game, especially one of this length has to be fully experienced before a final verdict is reached. However, that’s exactly what I’m doing here, I’m forming an opinion step by step, evaluating the qualities and flaws of the game, no matter how small. Most of you will call me silly for calling the game out on the party screen B-button confirm thing above, but just because I noticed and mentioned it doesn’t mean it will carry weight in the final verdict.

When I play a game, I don’t just plow through it, I try to observe and understand it. Every single thing in a game has carefully been crafted by a team of designers, I try to understand why they made the choices they did and try to understand them through those choices. Why did the camera switch to Shulk’s face in that cutscene the moment it did? Why do these monsters wear these clothes? There aren’t generators for those things, those were conscious decisions, and as another well known article has proven before, extremely small details can completely change the understanding of a game (or movie / song / book for that matter)

My job is to call the game out on all its bullshit, praise it for every little thing it does right, and document all of it. Your job is to use your head and reason instead of formulating your opinion based on the color of the score box on Metacritic. Alright, that about covers it, let’s get down to business!

As soon as I started today’s session I noticed something weird. The next destination pointer, by design or accident, wasn’t there. The game has a handy system of short story summaries to quickly bring you up to speed after a short break like now. If there’s something important or new in those summaries, a notification icon will be on the screen where usually the arrow pointing you to your next destination is placed. However due to some inexplicable reason, it remains there even after you read the notification. Might quite possibly be a bug. Either way, the notification was all I had, and it said that the party was on its way to Colony 6 to rescue Juju! Fuck yeah!

Where exactly Colony 6 was however, was left unexplained. Karma’s a bitch, right? Yesterday I complained about the destination pointer killing off exploration (The part where you had to find Juju), and now it’s gone and I’m left to fend for myself looking for an even less specific location in a much bigger area! All I can say is… about fucking time. This was he most fun I had in this game up to this point. I explored the whole Bionis’ Knee, slaughtering innocent birds and frogs alike until my endless thirst for revenge was stilled. Looking back at it thought, might have just been plain ol’ psychopathy. Who needs a reason for murder these days anyway, right?

In my pursuit to explore a cave hoping to find new things to murder and wear their genitals on my head like a hat, I accidentally found Colony 6. Damn it I thought, that much for the fun… Shortly after I’ve gotten a theory – for every awesome scene in this game there are two to three cheesy ones. The conversation that ensued upon entering colony six falls into the latter. As I’ve said in the past, the English voice acting is superb, with a few hiccups here and there, it just seems at times that the emotions / intonations in the voice don’t match the intended message.

Penelope Cruz explains that there’s a very complex tunnel of ether mines below the Colony, and that it’s the safest way to get into the Colony. A few minutes later I arrived at the entrance and entered said mines. After a quick stop at a pair of midget merchants, there’s another short cutscene which is supposed to be Sharla having a panic attack after seeing that the mines have been infested with Mechon as well. It doesn’t really pull it off properly, the whole reaction as well as the comfort Reyn and Shulk offer feel quite forced and awkward.

Leaving that behind however, the trip through the mines made one thing painfully clear – the camera behavior in small areas in this game is the leading cause of cancer in the world. I have found out that it is apparently more tolerable with a classic controller, but I have to make do with a nunchuck + wiimote combo. It took me a couple of minutes to go through the mines, but eventually another cutscene interrupted my idyllic wildlife murder spree. A gunshot is head in the distance and Penelope Cruz quickly deduces that it has to be her husband, him being the only person in the world to ever use a rifle and all.

To her disappointment the person fighting off a small group of Mechons turns out to be Mahatma Gandhi. He explains that Penelope’s husband was with him, and they attempted to pull off a super plan to get rid of all the Mechons in the Colony. Unfortunately their plan backfired and they were knocked unconscious… When Gandhi woke up, he found only the rifle of his friend lying there, but he was nowhere in sight.

Let me take a minute to re-iterate this. Two men had a plan to drive out an army of invincible sentient robots by themselves, which failed miserably (No surprise there), but it didn’t just fail, it failed in such a way to leave them unconscious in a hallway. Gandhi obviously didn’t die, but insofar we didn’t really see much compassion from Mechons, which begs the question – what exactly WAS the plan, and what ACTUALLY happened there?

No, I will not be making a rape joke, I’m not that cheap.

Gandhi explains shortly after that Juju might still be alive, as well as the other colonists. For some reason left unexplained, the Mechons take all prisoners into the central core of the mine, presumably to fry them before eating them. Nothing like some ether topping, right boys? All four quickly decide to go to the central core and save the day. Hooray!

Gandhi recognizes the Monado, and is quite unsurprised that the sword only one man could wield in the history of ever is being wielded by a 16 year old androgynous kid. Speaking of which, Shulk has a vision of Gandhi dying (peacefully) but decides once again to keep his mouth shut. A bit later he tries to actually stop the party from venturing into the core to avoid said death, saying that they ought to formulate a plan, observe the Mechons more, rather than rush in head-first. Wow, what a stupid, illogical and irrational thing to suggest! Gandhi gets pissed (heh) and goes ahead anyway, and Shulk’s friend slap him around a bit for not speaking up when he FREAKING FINDS OUT THAT SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE!

Obviously, the trio now has no choice but to follow. After entering the central core I find out, to my dismay, that I’m on the very top, and need to reach the very bottom, where the Ether river flows. The sections are actually very interesting, and since the core is a huge open cave, the camera isn’t being an issue. Each level I had to traverse had a different little gimmick to it, and I even managed to keep the upper hand in a fight that went very much out of control. As a matter of fact, winning it was quite a blast, even though it was messy as hell. I’m gonna use this however to bash at the chain attack. Once a chain attack is started, each party member takes turns to cast abilities, and you select which ability each member will cast. This is all nice and dandy, but the issue arises when you consider abilities whose damage and effect is determined by the character’s position.

This has two-fold issues. For the first one, let’s say that I position Shulk behind a monster and use the chain attack. My first attack would obviously be the backslash as it does insane damage when used from behind. I will then use two abilities from my other two members, and if I win on the quick-time event, I get to attack with Shulk again and continue the chain. However now I don’t have the backslash anymore. I have two strikes that have status debuffs and increased damage FROM THE SIDE, but I can’t adjust my position. The second issue also has to do with positioning, namely the positioning of your team mates. In the previous scenario, at least I can position Shulk for the initial backslash. But if I were to play with Sharla I’d be SOL.

After a nice descent and some platformer-ish sections, I reach the bottom of the core. Now, the following is without a doubt the most awesome part in the game so far. Turns out Juju is still alive and is being kept Ocarina-of-Time-Ganondorf-Battle-Zelda-Crystal-Style stasis field. The big faced mechon, revealed to be named Xord gives a simple explanation as to why the other colonists aren’t present, and why the protagonists are standing knee-deep in blood. He was hungry. I love this guy.

After a GENUINELY DRAMATIC cutscene leaps and bounds ahead of the earlier emotional breakdown Sharla nearly had at the entrance to the mines, you have to fight the monstrosity. This is where I’ve come to notice the menu issue during combat, as Xord is accompanied by a small party of Mechons, and if you focus on killing them, he’ll just spawn another bunch. The issue is that Mechons with a face can’t be damaged by the Monado, and by extension your party members with the enchant that lets normal weapons damage Mechons as well. You have to apply break, followed by topple to knock the fat bastard off his feet and pound his ass into oblivion. Sounds easy enough, Shulk has the Break ability and Reyn has Topple, which he actually uses after Break. But you can’t apply break either, because fuck you, that’s why. You have to apply it via a chain attack, which means you have to pound at him doing 1 damage with each swing until you’re all charged up and can unleash a chain attack.

The issue were the small party of Mechons that accompany Xord that I’ve mentioned earlier. If they end up targeting Sharla instead of Reyn (Healer and tank respectively), it’s pretty much futile. Luckily, you only have to bring Xord down to ~80% for the battle to end, which amounts to just one chain attack. The issue was keeping everyone alive and healthy until then. Also in a good mood, because if you don’t remind your part that there’s a 15 meter high giant robot trying to squish them they kinda doze off and become sad about their exes leaving them or whatever.

What follows is unfortunately a disappointment, but the game still has time to redeem itself in this regard. Gandhi shows up in a mobile artillery to save the day and tries to push Xord down into the Ehter river. He succeeds but gets pulled down himself, just as Shulk saw in his vision. He is determined however to change the outcome and manages to grab Gandhi’s artillery with some sort of claw before it falls down. Seriously, what IS that machine which he used? It initially looked like a simple mobile crane, but the grappling claw at the end SHOT OUT like a bullet and grabbed that artillery LIKE A BOSS. Whatever it is, I want one.

Just as things seem to go well, Xord makes one final effort to ruin everyone’s day (and making mine) by still holding on to the artillery. Gandhi simply leaves his vehicle, gets on land, and Shulk releases the cable, plummeting Xord together with the mobile artillery into the Ether. Nah, fooled ya – he takes his sniper and shoots Xord in the face (peacefully of course), shaking the whole construction and falling down together with Xord.

This ladies and gentlemen, is the turning point which I hoped the game would take. If Gandhi had died there and then, Shulk would start questioning his visions, because now it’s quite possible that it was him who brought up this particular vision by trying to avoid it. It’d create a great dilemma for the character and add a superb layer of depth to the story, showing us both sides of the coin that is seeing into the future without much context. Reyn however jumps and grabs Gandhi’s hand in the last second, saving him.

This is the thing that I’ve mentioned earlier that I sincerely wish the game will explore sooner or later as it’d be a fabulous twist and development for Shulk’s character, which really seems very bland at this point compared to say, Dunban, who had 1/10 the screen time, but still feels more fleshed out. Hell, even Xord felt like more of a character with his twisted sadistic persona than Shulk at this point, especially after a small nod that he wasn’t “like this” before, i.e. that he wasn’t always a Mechon.

After a more or less happy reunion (colony slaughtered, remember), the the crew decides to use an old service elevator to get back to the surface. Now you might remember me complaining about the stupidly high speed that the characters run at, noticeable in small areas such as houses? Well, an elevator that’s been called to a certain floor can be added to the list of things breaking the sound barrier in this game. We’re talking speeds that could make a 5 square meter big elevator reduce a building to rubble.

In an honestly unexpected twist, Xord survived, and intercepts the elevator to finish off Shulk & Co. Admittedly, he’s falling apart and can barely stand on his feet, because apparently Ether isn’t good for your tan, and it ends up being a rather easy fight. It did however give these Mechons an aura of dread that many villains lack these days. The feeling that you’re facing off against something extremely superior that can only be defeated by a combination of superhuman effort and mostly dumb luck. Before his final breath, Xord reveals several interesting pieces of information, namely that the Monado’s true power hasn’t been unlocked yet, something which isn’t that much of a shocker, and the fact that he was at some point “turned into this”, implying that he was a different type of creature before. I find this particularly interesting because he claims that he has become truly enlightened when he was turned and that “it was a nice ride while it lasted”.

This creates another opportunity for the game to break free of the generic black & white boundaries and notions of “good” and “evil”. Perhaps the Mechons are merely fighting for survival, or resources for survival? Perhaps it wasn’t them that started the war? Perhaps the Mechonis wasn’t necessarily the “evil” one and the Bionis wasn’t the “good” one. I am talking about these what-ifs a lot this time, and I really hope that they end up being in the game at least partially. It would be very disappointing if it were to remain in the cookie-cutter form of “robots evil, hero has super power to see the future, defeats evil robots, saves the world”. Considering the vast potential I showed you the game has at this point, it’d be a downright embarrassment if the worst case scenario I just mentioned came to pass, and if it does, no one is allowed to bitch when I claim that the game is a mediocre disappointment.

As the heroes exit the mines, they mention Metal Face, the Mechon that they met in Colony 9 and are actually after. Surprisingly enough (not) he shows up, and brings along half a dozen Xord copies, pretty much screaming “overkill” to the heroes. The aura of dread the villains have that I mentioned earlier gets multiplied now as it is shown that Xord, and his lookalikes are nothing compared to Metal Face (I must NOT make any more naming jokes, they’re getting old). Just as the heroes are about to be proven expendable, they get saved by Dunban and Biker Hogan. Dunban has a new sword which can somehow cut Mechons, even though it’s been clearly stated that ONLY the Monado can do that. This is explained by the sword being really, really REALLY sharp. Seriously. Also made from Mechon armor, which is just slightly less stupid.

So what did Dunban and Hogan do to save the day? Absolutely nothing of course, they just stalled the situation for a bit. A few minutes of said stalling later, and they all get saved in the last second (again) by Ryu from Breath of Fire 4. Or well, a dragon that looks very much like Ryu from Breath of Fire 4. This dragon is apparently more dangerous than a small army of Mechons and Metal Face makes a run for it. The dragon is shown to report back to a blue haired dude which I assume is a member of the High Entia race, a race of apparently angel-like people that live on the head of the Bionis.

Around this time Shulk has a vision of what I assume ARE the High-Entia, a bunch of new characters and an epic fight with Metal Face on a tower. He decides that they should go to that tower, and Biker Hulk Hogan is the only one who apparently knows the way. And that’s where the fun begins. In order to get up to the head, they have to, I kid you not, “go around the thigh, along the lower-back of the Bionis and then proceed inside of it”. I WISH I was making this up.

But first they have to traverse some misty marshes to reach said… lower back. Now, I am sure this will come back and bit me in the… lower back, but I did not fight any monsters in the marshes. The reason for this is simple – the background music was so incredible that I did not want the battle theme to interrupt it. Thus I don’t really have much to say about them. The environment is aesthetically pleasing, but nothing revolutionary, it’s been seen before in RPGs. A few minutes later I’ve reached the High-Entia ruins, and Biker Hogan decides to go back to the Colonies to help them defend and rebuild, but mumbles something about deceiving the heroes before leaving. It came off as a bit cheesy, will have to see what it means.

And thus we come to the catastrophic problem of today’s play session. This right here is where the developers seriously dropped the ball, and I can’t really figure out whether it was due to budget cuts or straight on laziness. Apparently, the only way to get past the ruins is to pass the ancient High-Entia coming of age trial. It is briefly explained that I have to find four symbolic items and bring them back to the shrine as offerings. I then proceeded to open my quest log to see what exactly those items are and how / where I might find them. The only thing that I found however is a short summary telling me what I already know, and a checklist of the items. As I was struggling to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to find the items, I notice, to my gigantic disappointment, that their location has been simply marked on the minimap.

Here’s the thing – one of the items, or orbs to be precise, was at an alter o top of a spiral rock called Alter of Fate. I am dying to know what that place is, who built it and what purpose it served. I want to know the same thing about the oddly shaped alter inside a cave where another orb was. And the third one protected by a tribe of what I made out were lizard men. You see, in old days, when minimaps such as these weren’t viable due to TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS, games had to come up with actual backstories to explain the player where to look and what he’s looking for. WHY am I looking for those orbs? WHAT is their purpose? HOW does this coming of age ritual work? WHAT significance does the collection of those orbs have in that ritual? HOW did the party know their location instinctively?

These are not small concerns. These are fundamental things that create immersion, that make the world feel alive A couple dozen lines of backstory instead of 4 lazy coordinates would have me exploring the marshes searching for the orbs, get a deeper understanding of the High-Entia, their culture, and have a much deeper experience that would give the marshes much more character. As it is now, the only reason I remember them is he music, as I am certain I won’t ever step into that zone again. Really, really sad.

That last notable thing, also a part of the above criticism, is the fact that this is the zone that switches monsters between the day and the night, and also where the high level bat spawned on top of my head and killed me 10 meters away from an altar. However, the funny thing is that you can actually CHANGE THE TIME IN THE GAME. So all I did was forward the clock a few hours, and BAM! it’s day again. I completely defeated the purpose of the dual-spawns mechanic and de-valued all of the hype about the marshes being very dangerous at night. Bye again immersion!

Once I collected all 4 orbs, I got back to the central temple area, where some lasers were shot into some pillars for some reason (Still bitter about the whole quest), and I got attacked by a giant bird. A moderately easy fight, no talk, no cutscene, just a lone bird whom I turned into thanksgiving dinner. As the heroes make their way to the elevator to take them up to the “entrance” into the Bionis, it turns out that it’s… broken. It’s broken and they decide to climb up the wall using nearby vines (Because it’s always vines). I am deadly serious about this… Why the HELL did they not do THAT right away? It wasn’t a magical seal that was holding them back, it was just a high wall they ended up climbing anyway!

The climb up is uneventful, and finally I found myself inside the Bionis, and saw that the floor, ceiling and walls were covered with very small, hair-like fungus. Oh my! As I moved forward the name of the area read “Third Lung”. This is almost making it too easy now, really.

And that’s where I called it quits for the night. I honestly don’t know what to make of the whole ordeal. The business at the core with Xord was incredible, yet the whole ritual business was horrifyingly bad. I can say that playing the game went from “chore with occasional sparks” to “bland with occasional fireworks”, and I definitely WANT to keep playing now. However, as before, the game is threading on very thin ice. It has the potential to be an incredible, character driven, deep drama exploring the notions of good and evil, but it is also showing symptoms of severe We-didn’t-give-a-fuck-ingitis.

Which one it’ll end up being, only time will tell. See you tomorrow! If there is no article tomorrow, direct your rage at Deus Ex 3 being the second coming of Jesus.

P.S. I have no idea who or what the final boss is, but here’s the music playing during the fight: