Xenoblade Day 2 – Masochism and Bad Design Choices

Hello and welcome to day #2 of my very own Xenoblade adventure. It’s me again, your friendly host, Zelda Informer co-founder and generally incredibly awesome and sexy person, Damir Halilović. If you haven’t, check out day 1 and get up to speed. However, please note that both articles, and all other articles in this series will contain a HUGE AMOUNT OF SPOILERS, so beware.

I did not make as much progress as I had hoped to today, partially due to my job, and mostly because no matter how much I TRY to like this game, it’s made of exactly the kind of stuff that makes my blood boil. However, I lasted through the few hours, and I don’t intend to stop playing yet, so I guess a tentative C is in order.

Before we get down to specifics, let’s bash the combat a little more. I must be really depressing living on the hairy legs of an eon-dead god, so everyone in this world is a big crybaby. Besides cutting up monsters, buffing your party and doing most of the work overall, you’ll have to run around and cheer them all up during the fight, because they get really sad if they say, miss or are low on health. All of the combat actions, including this, are accompanied by combat one-liners, you know the ones. There are maybe 20 of them in total and by the end of the game you’ll start repeating them in your sleep. If anything, they’re worse in this game than in most others. Another thing that slipped past me yesterday was the camera, which can be horrendous at times. Considering that Ocarina of Time perfected the Z-Trigger camera alignment back in ‘97, it’s a mystery why it isn’t punishable by death yet to NOT have this feature in your game.

The camera becomes an issue specifically when you want to use attacks whose effects vary depending on whether you stand in front, on the side or behind the enemy, and the enemy is four times smaller than you. And there are six of them. And you can’t tell which way your target is facing because it’s all a big mess. The sad thing is, the only little bit of improvement this whole combat system needs is the ability to pause the game when shit goes down and order your squad around (i.e. Knights of the Old Republic style). It’s really that simple, and I wouldn’t complain at all (Well, maybe a little).

Last point of order – silly names for today. Better to get rid of them right away and get on with it – Juju and Purple Wang, the former being a character who’s not particularly interesting and thankfully gets kidnapped real quick, and the latter is a monster. Seriously, purple wang. How didn’t QA or the ESRB pick up on this? I am deeply insulted, my innocent VIRGIN eyes can’t take such profanity! I just want to viciously murder cave-dwelling creatures and kill sentient machines without this filth on my screen!

Last time I stopped playing, the party was on its way to the knee of the Bionis, and by extension, Colony 6. In order to do that they have to pass through the same cave that leads to the Ether fuel deposits from earlier. The catch is that there’s a door open now that has been shut down earlier, and it’s explained that “it was most likely programmed to open in a Mechon emergency”, which is all nice and all, but how did the people travel between the two colonies on days that didn’t have a robot apocalypse to them? Or perhaps this whole thing is a daily occurrence and everyone involved is just making a big fuss out of it. If you were to play a normal citizen it’d be “Xenoblade Same Old Same Old”.

Also notable – whenever Reyn agrees with Shulk about something their friendship gets stronger and little hearts erupt above their respective heads, in a totally non-homo-erotic way, of course. Just two Homs bros bonding with each other.

So, leaving the door behind, I plunged (heh) the dark depths of the cave and murdered some spiders, crabs and purple wangs. A few minutes later I ran into a bunch of dead soldiers, which were apparently armed traders from Colony 6, on their way to Colony 9, apparently having the ability to walk through walls and closed doors. That did not help them much though, so Shulk and Reyn do the respectful thing and dump their bodies in a lake. Deciding it’s best to rest for the night, Shulk takes first watch. During the night a bunch of talk goes on which I can’t really remember that much, but the point was that Shulk finds out that he can actually change the future with the Monado. He also has a vision of Reyn being horribly mutilated by a giant spider. I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting into this guy’s friend circle anytime soon.

For some unexplained reason Shulk decides NOT to tell Reyn that he’s gonna get mauled to death by a giant arachnid, for shits and giggles I imagine. Couple more minutes of walking through the cave, and the couple (heh) run into a bunch of eggs. Having seen the vision, it’s obvious whose they are, but the big surprise is that they have Mechon parts fused in them. Why is that so? Would you like to know if the spider is some sort half-biological and half-mechon cyborg creature? So would I! The game kinda forgets about it, so it’s best if we do it too before it all stops making sense.

Reyn gets kidnapped by the spiders and pulled up onto the floor above. Shulk runs out and sees Reyn on a high ledge running away from said spiders. Sure enough, there are some vines that you can climb to get your ass up there. Another few seconds of pursuit and you reach the scene from Shulk’s vision. The spider queen attacks, all seems hopeless, and suddenly Shulk manifests a shield around them to protect them from the attack. This is where he finds out that he has the power to change the future. All is well until the actual fight starts. The boss itself doesn’t really hurt, but there are 6-8 small spiders skittering all around the room. I believe I already mentioned how shitty the targeting system is, so needless to say, I died.

Now get this – when you die in this game you get healed up and teleported to the nearest landmark, which act something akin to checkpoints. In this case, that was just before the vines that Shulk climbed to help Reyn. But now, REYN IS BACK IN THE PARTY! Alive and healthy! In no danger at all! So why the hell did I have to go back up into the queen’s lair? I’m sure their original path wasn’t gonna take them through there, so why not just continue? Nope, I had to climb up, run inside and re-engage the boss. Thankfully the game doesn’t make you watch cutscenes again but skips straight into the action. This time I did the wise thing and went straight for queen, killing her with relative ease.

The notable thing about the fight is the fact that Shulk got his trademark ability of future vision. Every now and then the game wll show you a black & white slow motion display of the boss kicking your ass, and a timer showing in how many seconds that will happen. You can then of course prevent said disaster by using the right skill to counter it. If that sounds all dandy to you then re-read again: The game will stop mid-fight to show you (probably for the 6th time) the boss performing one of his special attacks in slow motion on one of your party members. This will happen 2-10 times depending on how good you’re doing in a fight and how long it’s taking. Pacing and flow are obviously a dirty words in this game.

Next thing you know, I’m out in the plains again, killing more rabbits and endangered dodo birds. The two heroes see a black smoke rising nearby and rush to check it out. Turns out that it’s a wrecked buggy, and Shulk gets a vision of a kid being stomped by a bunch of rhinos. The pair obviously want to help said kid before the vision comes true, but they don’t know where to look. All Shulk made out was that “there’s some water nearby”. Before I get to why the game failed at this particular point, let me just express my worry about the Monado becoming an all-powerful deus ex machina. I sure hope it doesn’t come to that.

Either way, after such a scene one would expect to frantically run around the field, looking for small lakes, rivers and such, perhaps find a treasure or two along the way, slay some monsters, get a level or two… but no. The game shoots itself in the knee because the arrow to your next destination shows you directly where to go. You find the boy (Juju), kill the beasts attacking him, and fix his buggy. He offers you rest in his shelter. Sounds like a deal to me!

At the shelter, Juju gets scolded by a pair of (jiggly) tits and some woman attached them. Apparently Juju’s sister is a Brittish version of Penelope Cruz called Sharla, a medic from Colony 6 which, surprise surprise, has also been attacked by the Mechons. The camp I was in is the last safe spot for the survivors of the attack. After hearing about the attack on Colony 9, everyone makes the logical decision that those were the same Mechons and that Colony 6 is now clear / poorly defended and can be taken back, instead of considering he possibility of… you know.. there being two separate forces and that each attack was independent of each other? Anyway…

Sharla keeps mentioning all the time how Reyn is sooo similar to her husband-to-be who might or might not have died in Colony 6 during the attack (Hey, girl’s gotta have a plan B, right?), and the superb voice acting is once again shattered by some cheesy “these-have-been-recorded-separately” transitions. Juju insists to go to Colony 6 and retake it, but gets told off by Reyn, after which he does what all kids of his age do – he doesn’t listen. The sound of the buggy is heard outside and everyone rushes out to find Juju heading off to Colony 6 all by himself. Natural selection at its best.

Unfortunately, instead of signing a Darwin Award, the trio decides to follow him. Shulk had a double vision of both Juju and Sharla being mecha-tentacle raped (I just explained why this game is popular in Japan), and in an unprecedented moment of good judgement, actually tells Sharla about it… Or at least the part concerning Juju, he again doesn’t mention her being involved in the accident. Perhaps it’s just me, but I do not comprehend such decisions. He saw it happen half a dozen times so far, and he still holds back when it comes to TELLING people?

And this is where I get to the heart of the matter. Consider this a PSA for RPG developers – use the destination arrow / marker with caution. Roaming the fields trying to find something means you kill more monsters and get more experience. The case in point here is the fact that I had to reach a bridge where idiot Juju crashed his buggy once again, but the way is heavily guarded by Mechon. After getting my ass handed to me on a plate a few too many times, I tried an alternate route only to get living bajeezus beaten out of me by level 50 enemies. Eventually I found a way via some ledges that lead around the Mechons and shrugged it off as a poorly-executed stealth section.

Juju is found and the tentacle monster attacks. What follows is a very awesome and very interesting scene for many reasons. In order to save Sharla, Shulk fights the tentacle monster, with the cutscene changing rapidly between his visions of the next few seconds, and the real world action, where he dodges tentacles and pincers lightning-fast matrix style. This really intrigues me because it gives you a very basic demonstration on how probably most super heroes of such type see fights. It honestly gives Shulk a great deal of depth as a character. It’s very much like most overpowered characters, e.g. Alucard from Hellsing, Neo in The Matrix, Samus in Metroid… but in the making. I sincerely hope the game won’t squander the opportunity to explore his character more in this direction.

I won’t lie – this next fight nearly made me quit the game right there and then. You fight the tentacle Mechon along with 3 tentacles sprouting from the ground acting like separate monsters. I died. I died a lot. The game interrupted with future visions A LOT. The fact that warning your party members about the impending ability only worked when it willed to do so, and did absolutely nothing at other times. Finally I somehow managed a lucky break, killed the 3 tentacles and got the Mechon to 50%, at which point the battle ended and it shifted to a platform above. I healed up and faced it again a few seconds later, now fully mobile and alone. I died even more. I can hardly count how many times I did. Also, remember how the game throws you back to the nearest landmark if you die? This one was very very far away. It was painful.

Eventually I gave up and backtracked for a while, killing monsters to fill the 2 level difference gap between my party and the boss. Fifteen minutes later, I one-shot the bastard. I found out three things – small level differences make a huge impact in this game, the future visions only happen when you suck in a fight as I only got one in the winning round and last but not least, the combat system can go suck on a big one yet again. Having abilities that are more effective when utilized from a certain side of the enemy are great and all, but if you want to have time please refrain from Barinade-like enemy designs on which you can’t differ the chest from the back.

Anyway, as the Mechon is defeated, another faced Mechon appears, and speaks in a pleasant Brittish accent. No kidding, I love the voice acting in this game. He now kidnaps Juju as if knowing that I really want him and his shrieking voice as far away from me as possible and after a must-lose battle flies off to Colony 6, my next stop. Speaking of must-lose battles in RPGs, those are great if you have a character you particularly hate and wanna see his face turned into a bloody pulp. And for me that’s all of them, all the time.

And that’s basically it. The two fights against the tentacle Mechon took much more time out of me than intended, and the last thing for the day was a dream of Sharla’s in which we see her boyfriend just as the attack of Colony 6 began. I can honestly say that the game frustrated me quite a bit today. The combat is honestly broken and needed a lot more polish. Even with the best equipment the game can offer at the time, all slots filled with gems and equal levels, a band of random mobs matching your party count can still take you out if you’re not careful, and that’s not a bad thing per se, but when “careless” is replaced with “can’t get the camera to face the way I want” or “accidentally targeted and hit the level 75 20 feet away”, then it starts being annoying.

I understand and fully endorse a game’s intention of having a greatly detailed and substantial combat system, but considering the nature and speed of Xenoblade’s gameplay, having to worry about enemy positioning, their abilities, numbers, your own cooldowns, party member’s health, PARTY MEMBER’S MOOD and by extension, location, your own location relative to your target for side-dependent abilities, topped off with the mental note you gotta have for your healer’s cooldowns as you can’t switch the character you control in combat, borders a bit on too much BS. Oh and let’s not forget the fact that you have to make sure all of your party members have the Monado enchant to be able to damage Mechons if you’re fighting those, at all times. Given all that I believe it’s also obvious how the future visions mid-fight can break concentration and flow, throwing you off balance so to speak.

Perhaps I lack the multitask brain that die-hard RPG fans poses for that sort of thing, but I firmly stand to the same thing I said yesterday – less is more. See you tomorrow.