E3 2014: Xenoblade Chronicles X

God what a fucking stupid name. As if the word "Chronicles" wasn't bad enough. Anyway it's a good thing the Treehouse featured some lovely footage of the characters running across massive open plains because the trailer shown during the digital event was really horrible and didn't feature anything like that. Loved the running in the previous game and looking forward to more in this new one and checking out all the vantage points.

Got my commemorative coins!

Remember NOE's promotion where you register Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower and Last Story and you'll get a 3-coin collection with the game titles engraved on them? Well mine just arrived in the post the other day!

It's just an ornamental thing but still it's nice to feel like a valued customer. Thanks Nintendo!

Pandora's Tower is better than Last Story and Xenoblade

I've only just beaten the third boss but I've decided already. The other two games I found very hard to stay interested in for long but this one keeps me coming back. Last Story in particular is definitely the weakest.

Reviewers may be saying that Pandora's Tower is the weakest but don't be fooled! It's the most accessible and interesting one of the lot.

Now Xenoblade alright you could say it's just a different kind of game and that's fair and it can be very exciting at times.

You might have seen Pandora's Tower described as being like Zelda or like Castlevania. Well, it's true. There's a strong flavour of both these games in Pandora's Tower.

Xenoblade vs. Last Story, which is better?

For my American readers who are hugely excited about these games coming out I'd just like to say this brief thing. Before either of these games came out I could see that most people here were more interested in Last Story than Xenoblade but were interested in both.

Now it turns out that everybody prefers Xenoblade.

Xenoblade in Ireland costs EUR12.98 in GAME now

A while ago Matthew Castle of Nintendo Gamer magazine (formerly NGamer Magazine) posted a pic on his twitter of Xenoblade Chronicles originally costing £39.99 in GAME cut down to £9.98 in their recent sale. The link is here:

http://twitpic.com/7xshe8

I went to a local Irish GAME branch and took my own pic of the cover that was on display there. Here it is:

There you have it, from EUR24.99 cut down to EUR12.98.

It's a new copy and everything! If there's a list of reasons you're not getting this game, price doesn't belong on it.

Xenoblade Chronicles is now more readily available in Cork

When Xenoblade Chronicles released in August I couldn't see it in any of the local shops. Now lately when I visited them I was able to see a few display cases in HMV, GAME and Gamestop. If you want a copy keep your eyes peeled because it's usually just the one or two display cases in the corner of the Wii sections of these shops but they are there!

If you have a look online you'll see that there did seem to be stock shortages but after a while they came back in stock and became more readily available. Perhaps that's what happened with local shops too but it's not really the best way to judge it to be honest.

Xenoblade is apparently a rare game now, one week after its release

Today I went to the shops for the first time since I got Xenoblade last week and I could not see hide nor hair of it in any of the game shops I usually frequent. I guess I'm glad I have my copy but it really shouldn't be the kind of game that's hard to find.

There aren't even any instore ads about it. It's like they refuse to acknowledge its existence. Actually I've seen this kind of thing plenty of times before but it ought to be abundantly available.

So yeah, if you've been wanting to get Xenoblade but are holding out on it... well I don't know if that's the best idea.

Xenoblade's gameplay, battle system and considerateness to the player.

You can run across the vast landscapes of Xenoblade without ever having to fight an enemy you see unless it's to move the story forward, then you have to fight it eventually. When you want to fight an enemy you have to target it first.

When it comes to attacking, everyone will attack by themselves. They'll attack, wait a moment, then attack again, all by themselves.

The input you have with regards to attacking is to select special attacks on the real-time menu that'll deal extra damage or cause status effects.

You can also interact with your team mates by chaining attacks, picking them up if they get knocked down and by warning them about a bad vision you had during battle, giving you a chance to select an action from their menu that'll hopefully prevent it from happening.

Now the ways this game is considerate to the player!
- You can skip and pause cutscenes.
- You can skip to any previous landmark you've been to by selecting it in the map, which is a menu option that's available from the start.
- When your party gets wiped out you respawn close by.
- When your party gets wiped out you don't lose anything at all since your last save, not even money.
- You can save everywhere.
- After a battle, everyone in the party automatically gets restored to full health.
-(I'm sure there's others I can't think of right now)

Xenoblade First Impressions Part 2: I'm finally enjoying the game

When the game came out on Friday I took at home and played it for a while, being utterly confused and frightened. Now after playing it for several more hours I'm somewhat less confused. I got my ass kicked several times but learned something new each time about battling.

I won't go into the battle system too much but one really cool feature are these visions you get during battle of the immediate future where someone gets gravely injured and you get a chance to prevent it from happening all the while a special timer counts down. It feels really good to do this.

I love the way the characters talk during battle. The voice acting functions quite well and you get used to it. I think it's funny to imagine them all say things in cockney rhyming slang (they don't for the record!) and the monster or boss would be thinking to itself "wh-what the hell are these guys saying...".

Speaking of bosses I just beat a mechanical one with big tentacles. It took me a looot of trial and error...

The big red sword Monado is featured in a big way in the story and the characters talk about it a lot. Now I know why the classic controller pro released with it was red! Xenoblade is still a better sounding title though.

The game more than delivers on the promise the trailers showed. It really is "Super Landscape Running Adventure" with its vast landscapes and high cliffs into big lakes of water. Gaur Plains is a particular standout moment so far!

There are a lot of other deep stat affecting system thingies that I've yet to learn more about. I've a big need for those tutorials. They're not intrusive in a bad way though which is cool.

Xenoblade is pretty good

Sorry I haven't much to say about it now but I'm enjoying it a lot more!

The problem I had with the small text, remedied by changing it to widescreen. I can see it a little better now:)

More soon!

Xenoblade unboxing and first impressions

Today I got Xenoblade with the red Classic Controller Pro. A couple of things worthy of note:

- The instruction manual has a message of thanks for buying the game :)
- There are two instruction manuals: One in English and a massive thick one for every other European language. I liked the fact I got an English one on its own.
- The Classic Controller Pro is red with a red lead.
- The boxart on the game case is reversible like Sin & Punishment 2's was and the other side shows the most popular voted alternate artwork of the main character looking over the vast plain.
- The default X-axis camera is fucking backwards :( but there is the option to put it back to normal, even if that option says "reverse".
- The text is far too small to read, which is a big problem I had with Monster Hunter Tri. I don't care if it's to do with the tv, mine's a 24" standard def which is a decent size. The game should be made with that in mind.

So far, in terms of your average modern day RPG with its typical themes, setting, presentation, characters and gameplay conventions and mechanics I would say it's crafted as well as it can be. It has the same kind of things you'd see in say, a PS2 Final Fantasy game like XII. The thing is though you have to actually be interested in this kind of thing and so far I don't think I am. I would say it's strictly for fans of that genre. They should buy this. It's got the "cool n' stylish JRPG factor".

Shopping for a Xenoblade preorder

Today I went looking around for preordering Xenoblade. I want to get the red Classic Controller Pro bundle so I went shopping around.

First I went online. GAME's site has the bundle alright but Gamestop's site doesn't even acknowledge the game's existence. I didn't look at any other site.

On going into the actual shops I saw an ad saying that the bundle is exclusive to GAME. So I preordered it there. All's left now is to wait for Friday!

If you're ever looking for Nintendo advertising in GAME, don't bother even glancing at the front windows of the shop; they almost never have ads for Nintendo stuff there. Instead, look on the aisle pillars. That's where it's usually found. It's usually the case that the ads or displays are facing towards the rear of the shop, so you could go into the store without noticing them. It's crazy to think but you often have to search for ads featuring Nintendo goods rather than the ads catching you, which I'm used to by now but it is a crazy crazy thing. Every single video game store I know is like this.

Xenoblade gets an official "Let's Play" on its official YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/XenobladeWii
Have a look at this site. This should get a nice bit of hyping up going. It'll certainly get me hyped up for it since I haven't been thinking about the game itself much; I'm just thinking about its release date because I am planning on buying it.

I don't know if the stuff here is spoiler free since I haven't watched any of it yet but I like to think there's plenty of landscape running!

Xenoblade being released a little sooner than planned in Ireland

According to Nintendo of Europe's schedule and recent press release, Xenoblade (Super Landscape Running Adventure I like to call it)  is being released in Ireland on 19th of August. There's a bundle available with a red classic controller pro, which I'd get if I didn't have two of them already. Is it time for me to start getting excited about the game? Perhaps... I'll have to start reading the Iwata Asks feature about it.

Americans are still getting excited with the Project Rainfall and everything. Now if I was American I'd be getting excited about releasing Another Code R and Last Window.

Can we add Another Code R to Operation Rainfall please?

Everybody online is getting excited about getting the Last Story, Pandora's Tower and Xenoblade localised in America. More power to them but I would ask them to root for games like Another Code R as well.

Don't forget about other games that didn't get released over there; they are pretty good!

Loads of Xenoblade footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CUNNyNK-4w

Lots of footage here. It's even more footage of the characters running across landscapes for nearly twenty minutes. I can't wait to play Xenoblade Chronicles, or as I like to call it: Super Landscape Running Adventure.

Xenoblade's alternative art cover winner

The voting's over and now we see that the first one with the lone character looking over a vast landscape won.

I didn't vote for this but it is my other favourite. Thank goodness the ghastly third one didn't win.

Vote for alternative Xenoblade cover art before May 25 in Nintendo of Europe promotion

Here's the site that'll be around for less than two weeks. You vote using your Facebook or Twitter account. Hurry!

http://microsite.nintendo-europe.com/xenoblade_cover/index.php?locale=enGB

Since this site will only be up for a small while I thought I'd share the choices on offer.

This one's lovely. The lone character looking over the landscape. It would remind you of Monster Hunter or Zelda. It's currently the majority favourite according to the site.

This one's gorgeous too. Everyone together looking over the landscape. It looks just like how a piece of Final Fantasy artwork would look. I had a hard time choosing between it and the first one.

This is the only one without vast landscapes or blue skies. I don't like it very much.

Lovely blue skies but no characters.

I eventually picked the second one. My mind associates it more with an RPG than the first one. I still really like the first one though. Man, this was a tough choice to make!

I'm guessing that by alternative cover art they mean the side that's normally blank when you turn it inside out which is the same idea that Sin & Punishment: Successor of the Skies had.

Xenoblade is being released in Ireland by Nintendo as "Xenoblade Chronicles"

This is quite nice! Let's slap our hands down on some tables to get excited for this and let it be heard that we get excited about RPGs being released in this part of the world!

Here's the official website with a familiar trailer:

http://www.xenobladechronicles.co.uk/

 It's a nice enough trailer though what with all the characters in a group running across landscapes like that... Right now I'd like to call the game "Super Landscape Running Adventure".

Just kidding! But hey it would be nice if the added "Chronicles" part of the title was an early April Fools Joke.

I'm going to go on youtube and watch some gameplay videos of the Japanese version.