Xenoblade Day 4 – Insert Witty Title Here

Hello and welcome to yet another episodes of Xenosucks Xenoblade! I am your host Damir “Demigod” Halilović, and with me as my co-host are my imaginary friends Hannibal Lecter and Nate. We continue today with our daily (Soon perhaps to turn into semi-daily, more on that later) dissection of the newest hit RPG title for the Wii. As per usual, I will keep on nitpicking, calling the game out on its BS, and people will still clog out common sense and spew my inbox with angry messages, not realizing that they’re pouring oil into the fire. I love my job.

Be aware once again that there are spoilers ahead, so steer away if you want to shut out the voices in your head telling you to burn the cat of the fat neighbor kid who stole your piece of cake on your own damn birthday party and always smells like stale milk, while at the same time filling your head with echoes of their own laughter at your very own insecurities and flaws until every last shred of your self-esteem has degenerated and seeped into the black depths of your soul where it joined the big, black, pulsating tumor representing your pent up rage, sadness, bitterness, envy and self-loathing, always reminding you that your mother does not love you, you will not succeed in life and there will be no warm hand to hold your own as you reach old age, dying of bowel cancer, eyes filled with contrite tears, sad and alone in your dark, moist, low-end apartment… I had a point there somewhere…

Back to Xenoblade though, last time we’ve left of “inside” of the Bionis. Thankfully this section is pretty short, so the anus spelunking jokes won’t get out of hand. All you basically get to do is run around a greenish, glowing area for a bit, eventually reaching a yellow lake. A yellow lake that periodically shoots streams of yellow liquid into the ceiling. This is really easy, I don’t even have to come up with any jokes myself.

In order to get out of the… “third lung”, I have to ride that stream to the upper level. After getting back outside, an interesting cutscene is triggered. The assembly of what appears to be a faced Mechon is shown, with a girl sitting into what’s apparently a pilot seat. There’s some tramp overseeing the whole thing that goes by the name of Lady Meyneth if I got it correctly. I’m sure any resemblance to Lady Meth is coincidental (I’m not the only one who saw that, right?). From what I managed to gather souls are transferred into the frames of faced Mechons via some cliche torture procedure no doubt.

Next we see another Lady, Melia, fighting off a dragon with a host of armored wing-people soldiers. Obviously, everyone a horrible mutilation-induced death off-screen so horrible that later on there are no traces of their blood, yet alone corpses. Not really, everyone BUT Melia suffers that tragic… hilarious, but still tragic fate. She just ends up being knocked unconscious. I am really starting to wonder what it is with unconsciousness in this game – first Gandhi now wing-princess. It’s like the monsters get a cliff-note saying “THIS CHARACTER IS IMPORTANT FOR THE GAME, DO NOT KILL OR OTHERWISE HARM. Oh and she will totally end up killing you 2 hours later.”

One of the soldiers fighting with her was named Damil though. The world will never know that one less-than-minor character was one letter away from being the main protagonist. A badass, sexy, handsome, witty and intelligent version of the main protagonist who’d need less than an hour to complete the whole game. Such tragedy.

Once I resume gameplay, I waddle through a thick forest, murdering a giant frog, and on my way to the Nopon village (Small ball-like merchant creatures) I run into Melia. Penelope Cruz suggests that she needs some ether to get back on her feet and says she requires some pure water ether to create a shell of it for her gun. This surprised and perplexed Reyn, because he is a goddamn retard. It’s not like she’s been doing it THE ENTIRE TIME DURING COMBAT. Oh and by the way, Sharla heals you by shooting you with a healing bullet, in your face. That’s almost too awesome to comprehend really.

Shulk goes off on his own to find some pure water ether crystals. They are apparently found at waterfalls, and Dunban suggests that he saw a waterfall on the way to this place. I thought to myself “yes of course, it’s 20 meters away, I can hear it roaring”. However, the game doesn’t like its players to use their brain too much apparently, because the waterfall I saw was obviously a hallucination, and the one I have to go is 5 kilometers away, at the entrance to the area. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Considering I don’t have a party now, the trip to said waterfall can be summarized as follows: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

After eventually making it to the spot a cutscene is shown where the blue haired dude from the last Metal Face encounter reveals himself to Shulk. His name is Alvis (and the Chismunks) and he’s a badass, or so the game wants you to believe. He’s one of those mysterious characters that appear and disappear on a whim, talk in codes and generally have their heads so far up their own asses that they scientifically qualify as loops. They get attacked by Telethia spawns, manifestations of the creature that killed Melia’s men, and surprisingly, whenever Shulk sees a vision of their attack, they do something else. Unfortunately, the game didn’t let Shulk question his visions for even a moment before giving the reason – Telethias can read minds, but have no fear, the Monado can block that effect! It can also open wine bottles, beer bottles, clip your nails, scratch your hard-to-reach places and microwave food! All that for only $19.99 plus deus ex machina tax.

Oh and Alvis can wield the Monado as well, which kinda makes Dunban less of a badass, and that’s bad.

After the fight Reyn arrives at the scene, having come in search of Shulk. Alvis pulls a Batman disappearance move and the others return back to revive Melia. Hooray!

Obviously realizing just how much of a pussy Shulk is, the first thing she does when she awakes is slap him. That’s when I started to like her. After a bit of a chit-chat where she, by the way, makes it COMPLETELY obvious that she’s not a… ugh… Hom… blargh, that word makes me cringe every time I have to use it with a straight face, and no one catches any of the hints, they find out that the best way to the black tower from Shulk’s vision is over a vast sea stretching over the Bionis’ back (One sweaty mofo). Thus, they all proceed to the Nopon village as that’s the shortest way to said sea.

Upon arriving there, we meet the elder of the Nopon, Chief Pineapple Dunga. You will find his voice funny at first, as did I. By the end of this section however you’ll fast forward through his dialogue lines, as did I. He agrees to let our heroes take the ride to the sea, but they decide that they ought to stay and pry into other’s people business, namely Melia’s. They figured out that she has some trouble (But still not that she’s a High-Entia), and they wanna know what’s up.

To make a long and quite boring story short, little Miss. Airhead realizes that a gigantic Ether dragon that killed an entire squad of more qualified soldiers and can read your goddamn mind is PERHAPS just LITTLE BIT too much for her alone and allows you to accompany her. Chief Pineapple realizes with his elder insight that the only thing this band of divine heroes needs is an annoying little comedy-relief character. Thus he bestows upon them the great hero of the Nopon… the Heropon. I initially though that it was just a coincidence, but then said Heropon introduced the party to his Wifeypon and littlepons who call him daddypon. How much more cliche and unimaginative can you get, seriously?

All of the business with the Nopon were essentially forced Japanese anime-humor style scenes which at this point felt rather awkward, and it was quite a relief to be rid of the place. The only thing I really liked there was the structural design, so there’s that.

The Telethia, being wounded, is apparently located at a place with a very high Ether concentration. That information translates to me the same way every other location specification does – follow the on-screen arrow.

After a few minutes of walking through the jungle I reach and begin fighting the Telethia. Twenty seconds later I’m back at Nopon village, because I got my ass handed over to me and there was no landmark to teleport to closer than the village, and even that is very far away. I’ve spent some hour getting my characters leveled up, and did eventually find some obscure landmark relatively close.

Once I engaged the boss again, it didn’t really take long for it to go down. It’s an easy fight once you get the hang of it. I might take this opportunity to note down just how hard I find it to actually switch party members around, since I play with Shulk, use Reyn as a tank and Sharla as a healer. Everyone else just feels like a third leg.

After the fight, they finish of the dragon by pumping it up with Ether so hard that it implodes. So essentially they recreated the gluttony murder from Se7en. Why did we go through the 10 minute ordeal of chipping at its health then in the first place?

But so far so good… Melia agrees to guide the party over the sea and to Prison Island, the place where Shulk saw the black tower in the vision. It turns out that the sea lies directly above the Noko village, and when I say above, I mean above. From what I could gather this whole place is actually under ground. In order to go up, a water stream similar to the one found in the “third lung” has to be used. It was extremely perplexing seeing Reyn protest against entering the stream, considering he did the exact same thing a few hours ago, and it wasn’t even close to clean spring water. I am really starting to think that all the blows he’s getting to the head are messing with his memory quite a bit.

Yelling inappropriate words into my TV has been an unknown to me until the following two scenes happened. First off, as soon as they stepped onto the shore, Shulk asked Melia whether or not she’s curious about what they want at Prison Island. Melia respectfully denies that notion, saying that other people’s business are not of her concern. The other party members then proceed to BULLY her into BEING CURIOUS, forcing her to listen to the story. To make it even more ridiculous, after the whole ordeal she had to sit through, she shrugs it off with a simple “lol k” reaction.

The second wtf moment of that 10 minute span was when the heroes looked around the area they found themselves in. Originally Melia said that they will need a guide, as the sea is unfathomably vast and there are many places to go to. As soon as they finished bringing her up to speed against her own will, they look around. “What’s that hovering thing over there?”, asks one of the group members. “That’s Prison Island” replies Melia. What the fuck was that? It’s the most noticeable structure in a 100 mile radius. “Oh, alright”, continued another party member, “how do we get in?”. Apparently, they need permission from the emperor of the High-Entia in order to enter the island. Ok, sweet I guess, let’s go look for the capital of wheverville and find this emperor. Sure, the game remarked, the capital is right there next to Prison Island.

You have got to be kidding me. What is the point of hyping up the size of the sea if you’re going to put me right next to the only two landmarks on it that I need? Despite making yet another obvious hint at her royal and racial background, everybody still thinks Melia is just another chick who has a fetish for walking around dense underground jungles fighting dragons. Obviously thinking isn’t the strongest part of this game’s main character crew.

Using a series of teleporters I eventually reach the floating city and Melia is welcomed by a host of royal guards dropping on their knees. After promising to get them an audience with the Emperor, and ORDERING that very same armed host to treat the player party as royal guests and see to their every need, the character STILL DO NOT FIGURE IT OUT! Just how thick can you get before you’re classified as dangerous to yourself and others? And it’s not just Reyn or the I’m-one-evolutionary-step-above-a-plant Nopon, bu Dunban as well, even though he’s the only one still showing some form of reason and intelligence, and frankly gives off the impression that he’s as embarrassed to be in these situations as I am watching them.

Turns out polygamy is the latest hit with the High-Entia and Melia is the daughter of the “first consort”. The whole Telethia thing was a trap planned out by the “second consort” or “sloppy seconds”. But that’s a mystery! Basically Melia goes to the throne room to talk to her father and get an audience for Shulk & Co. There we find out that there’s been a slight issue in communication and the party hasn’t been getting oil massages from hot Entia chicks, but have instead been thrown into jail. The guards must have misheard, it’s only a slight difference in pronunciation anyway, right?

The gang is busted out of their five star suite by none other than Alvis, who is apparently some sort of high seer / prophet BS and must asses whether or not Shulk has a pure enough soul to wield the Monado otherwise he will herald the end of- Good god can you believe all this melodrama? The story keeps stalling on these intermissions ever since I’ve left Colony 9. The only true confrontation with the Mechon has been in Colony 6 and it was the best part of the game.

And that’s where I left off… one interesting thing to point out is that I’ve picked up a chest item for Shulk, and it ended up being sleeveless. I was surprised to find that he actually has a rather big shoulder tattoo. Not because it’s awesome, but because I always thought of him as a hipster, and tattoos are so mainstream.

We’ll see where the story goes from now, but the fact is simple – despite some interesting characters, especially among the villains, fabulous music and a good premise, the story is really playing out like an ordered list of RPG story cliches. I sure as hell hope it kicks into second gear sometime soon. That’s it for today, stay tuned for more in the near future.