Xenoblade (Wii)

[nakamura]

Not denying there is depth there but at times it feels scrappy. It is like that wanted to make it fast paced to be exciting at the expense of finess. I have selected heal for instance and had no cursor to select a character I want to heal.

[Silvergun X]

I've found the combat looks a metric ton more chaotic than it actually is.

The AI controlled characters are actually very, very good at performing their role, so once you know what role in the party your character plays, everything just completely slots together and works.

Regarding characters you meet in the first 10 hours:

->Open Spoiler<-

I found that Reyn and Sharla's AI work brilliantly together. Reyn will tank the hell out of everything and Sharla will immediately cast damage immunity on him whenever she can so he starts off every fight as a complete sponge.

I'm controlling Dunban, with Shulk and Reyn in the party at the moment and we're completely chewing through unique monsters / boss monsters. As long as I'm buffing the party up with strength+ at the start, and making the most out of Gale Slash -> Strength Down / Physical Def Down, and topping break inflicted enemies, it just becomes so easy.

It also helps that all 3 of them have multiple red coloured spells, so chain attacks are often dealing 50,000+ damage right now in 3-4 hits which is just mad!

[Sketcz]

Wait, chain attacks are actually useful? I purposefully avoid them, since they eat 3 bars on the charger, each of which could be used to revive a downed ally. When fighting tough monsters I don't even enter battle unless I have 3 revives.

So I just chain red attacks and the multiplier goes way up, does it?

[SuperBeatBoy]

Yes Sketz.

Sometimes i use chain attacks to topple tough enemies enemies and then rape them in the butt.

[Silvergun X]

Wait, chain attacks are actually useful? I purposefully avoid them, since they eat 3 bars on the charger, each of which could be used to revive a downed ally. When fighting tough monsters I don't even enter battle unless I have 3 revives.

So I just chain red attacks and the multiplier goes way up, does it?

Pretty much.

When you're using a chain attack, the more skills you use of the same colour in a row, the more powerful those skills become.

Reyn has a red coloured skill that exists purely to deal a phenominal amount of damage. I've forgotten it's name, however I've maxed it out through intermediate level right now.

If you can chain two red attacks beforehand, and use that particular skill as the third red attack, the damage it deals is insane (approximately 25k~30k from that single hit alone depending on whether the enemy is debuffed or not).

You can do the same with any colour. For instance, with heals being blue skills, if you chain two other blue skills beforehand then use a healing blue skill as the third skill in the chain, that particular heal is going to be extremely powerful. With

->Open Spoiler<-

Sharla's

party heal skill, I imagine it would be theoretically possible to use this chaining mechanic to heal the entire party to full health in one go with the all-heal skill.

I also think talent arts are affected by the current chain too.

[fatbatch]

This is back in stock at Amazon. I've ordered one even though I probably won't be able to play it til the Wii-U appears.

[Cornflakes]

Pretty much.
...
I also think talent arts are affected by the current chain too.

Talent arts, the grey ones, can act as a joker. For example you have two character doing a red attack, third does a talent art, the next character can do any colour he/she likes, this mean you can swap colours, during a chain attack, until it reaches max, miss hitting the b button or if the character relation is low and option to extent chain attack is not given.
Chain attack are useful for later unique high level (>100) monsters, so it is useful playing around with it.

[Fader209]

This is back in stock at Amazon. I've ordered one even though I probably won't be able to play it til the Wii-U appears.

The cheeky buggers have put the price up to ?33.80 since yesterday. Only 10 left in stock too!

[Silvergun X]

Talent arts, the grey ones, can act as a joker. For example you have two character doing a red attack, third does a talent art, the next character can do any colour he/she likes, this mean you can swap colours, during a chain attack, until it reaches max, miss hitting the b button or if the character relation is low and option to extent chain attack is not given.
Chain attack are useful for later unique high level (>100) monsters, so it is useful playing around with it.

Very interesting information, I didn't know this. Thanks for sharing!

[SuperBeatBoy]

I'm in love with this game. This is what FFXIII should have been. The world is bloody massive, it has that mmo feel about it while not being overbearing, if a lvl 76 enemy spots and you are level 21 just leg it, hard enemies are quite easy to flee from. Still can't believe this game got a 5/10 here.

I've given it 10/10 on here, its the best game on the wii without a doubt.

[abigsmurf]

Colony 6 question:

->Open Spoiler<-

I've just beaten Xord, can I do all the Colony 6 quests that I keep getting premonitions for now or do I have to go through the marsh?

[jimtendo]

RE: abigsmurf

->Open Spoiler<-

Colony 6 are still in the makeshift refugee camp aren't they? you can still keep doing quests for them even if you progress through the Satorl Marsh. You will know (when the time comes) when the Colony 6 story arc will shift gears as it will give you an option to either progress the story along, and thus any unfinished Colony 6 stuff will be gone, or to delay the said action so you can finish off whatever quests needed.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I'm still exploring the bionis leg and doing quests. Over 10hrs i've been playing it so far and i still feel like i'm scratching the surface.

['Press Start']

Frontier Village may just be the most beautiful town ever in an RPG. The level of detail is stunning and as usual the sound track matches the visuals perfectly.

Some of the best use of colour for a while too. amazing.

[Btang84]

There are many beautiful locations in this game. My favourites are: Bionis Leg for the fact that it's scale is overwhelming the first time you reach it and it'll take you forever to fully explore let alone level up your characters to beat all the mobs in the area; Satorl Marsh is also very cool and looks astounding at night.

Have clocked a good 50 hrs plus which is unheard of for me in a JRPG. What I do love about it is that the story is epic and is well-told but without the ridiculous long cutscenes that normally blight these games. I've no time for 15 minute story cutscenes and this game manages the storytelling very well indeed.