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[Triforce King]

Hello everyone this is Triforce King here, and I would like to share my story of how I became a fan of the Xeno series. Ok so in the year 2010, I saw a tiny bit of information about a game coming to the Wii in Japan that had a open world feel to it. That game will eventually be called Xenoblade, but at the time I was more excited and focus on games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and The Last Story than Xenoblade. So fast forward two years later, in the year 2012 where the movement Operation Rainfall was a huge success. The three most popular JRPGs on the Wii, that the United States of America was hungry for has finally reach our shores. So the order of the release dates arrange from Xenoblade Chronicles to The Last Story and finally Pandora's Tower. At first I didn't like the Xenoblade Chronicles's battle system, it looked too much like a MMO type of battle system, which I thought was stupid at the time, because I didn't like those type of games because it didn't look like a turn based strategy game like Fire Emblem or a stealth strategy game like The Last Story, but after awhile I started to get curious about the game, from watching Giant Bomb showing off some parts of the game, to reviewers who already got the game before its release date, are giving it nothing but high praises. I also saw the American trailer of the game, and the demonstration trailers that talks about the buffs and debuffs, gem crafting etc. So after all of that, I made up my mind that I will buy the game and give it a try. So I bought the game on the first week of its release. I have played and beaten this game in a year in a halves time, and I must say that this game, that I have played is one of my most favorite games of all time! I was amazed by how the battle system was so deep, that the characters are so endearing, that the story is so deep and philosophical, that the world is so beautiful and rich with color, that the game has this notion of if you can see it, you can go there, and that the music is absolutely amazing. Looking back, I'm really happy that I picked up this gem. Thank you all for listening to my story of how I became a fan. So please, I would like to know your stories too of how you got introduce into the series and became a fan.

 

[selicyc]

A lot of the series characters are endearing. Even Shion from Xenosaga, despite becoming what she is in Episodes II & III, has her moments. As for me, I've been around the Xeno universe for a long time, getting my start with Xenogears all the way back in 2000. Granted, 10 year old me didn't quite catch everything the game had to offer, but the world was fascinating to me and it played sort of like a Final Fantasy game, and that was good enough for me.

Now that I'm much older, I can appreciate it for what it is. The psychological, philosophical and religious themes that line the plot, the music, the battle system and Gears, the character development, everything. Really, the only gripes that I have with it is that some of the plot threads weren't tied up and that the second disk is nothing more than boss battles and character narration. Feels kind of unfinished, but I still love it nonetheless. Oh, yeah and those ...

RIDICULOUSLY LONG CUTSCENES.

They would jabber on for nearly an hour before you got control back. And if you died, you couldn't skip the cutscene so you had no choice but to watch it again. Thankfully, we were able to skip cutscenes in Xenosaga, which made dying before reaching a save point a little bit easier to bear with.

But even then, I still wouldn't trade my experience with Xenogears for anything. Glad that Operation Rainfall was able to garner enough support for Xenoblade, too. Would have been very sad had that not come stateside.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

The year: 2012. For the majority of this year, I was deployed in Djibouti, Africa. I was oblivious to anything regarding video games or society in general. I missed out on a ton of stuff that year, but oh well.

When I came back, around end of 2013 early 2014, I met a guy who was just as in love with video games as I am. We started to chat, he asked me what my favorite genres were. I told him adventure games and JRPGs. He asked me if I had a Wii, and I said "of course". Then he asked me if I had played Xenoblade. I told him I had never even heard of it. Then he told me all about Project Rainfall and the Big Three that game over. I immediately went home and researched them, and promptly ordered them from Amazon.

Xenoblade is easily my favorite RPG of all time, and is one of my Top 5 games of all time. It's SO GOOD. It does everything an RPG should, plus a lot of stuff that most RPGs don't do. Fast travel? Auto heal after battles? Changing the time instantly? These are all things games should do, but most don't. The world is huge, the characters are amazing, and the music is the best in any video game ever. And that's not even mentioning the story and the actual gameplay, which are both top-notch.

I'm extremely interested in going back and playing Xenogears and Xenosaga now that I've experienced Xenoblade. And Xenoblade X is my most anticipated game of all time. More than Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess and Oblivion combined! I simply can't wait!

 

[the8thark]

I thought about buying Xenoblade Chrinicles for WiiU but I didn't get it Day 1 and missed out. Day 2 it was sold out everywhere. So I went "meh" and got on with my life.
Fast forward to now and XCX is releasing soon. And I'm pretty hyped for it. I think I'll pre-order it. A risk as I've never played a Xenoblade game before. But I shall take the risk. Actually I think the Nintendo Direct about it happing in an hour or two shall really help get me interested in the series.

I will say so far it looks like one of the best (in my opinion) WiiU games. It looks on par with Mario 3DW (great game, just not my thing), Captain Toad and Hyrule Warriors. But with a lot more content. The whole fact that there is an option to part download the game (for disc users) to speed up the loading of the game in parts proves that this game will be massive. Hard to tell if the game really is that massive or it's just poor unoptimised programming. As a comparison after a Vanilla release and 5 expansions World of Warcraft is only 32 GB. I know that is larger than one 25GB disc. But my point is if XCX is 2/3rds the size of what WoW is today (that's 21.3 G, then it'll be super massive.

I have not taken a risk on a new IP in ages. Usually I just preorder games based on previous games in the series. And how I enjoyed them. Sometimes I get a good game and other times I don't (SSB4 is one time where I didn't get a good game). But for XCX I an basing this of the great reputation XC for Wii had. Only time will tell if I will like the game. But hopefully I will.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

I had heard about operation rainfall but at the time I had no interest in those games. I also followed a youtuber named cjzero01 and he would mention the game from time to time on his videos. Then in 2014 I sorta wanted to get another Wii game since the last game I got prior was the Kirby collection. This is purely by chance, but I decided to look into Xenoblade Chronicles for whatever reason. I saw that my gamestop had it in stock for $50, so I decided to go for it. This was again for no reason other than I wanted another Wii game and I know cjzero01 liked it, never looked at a review or anything. This then became the absolute best reckless decision I've ever made. And funny enough, the week I bought it was the same week Shulk's Smash 4 trailer came out. So I was really on a Xenoblade high at that time. I also did end up getting the other two rainfall games and loved them as well.

Also, I had heard about Xenosaga during middle school, but I payed no attention to it since I didn't own a PS2 and the game didn't appeal to me [it looked pretty anime and I wasn't a fan of anime at the time]. And I may have heard about Xenogears at some point but it was unfamiliar to me.