June was a busy month!  Kicking off the month for me was Jeanne d’Arc, one of those fairly old games that I’ve always wanted to play on my newly acquired PSP. I’ll try not to delve too deep because well… the game is almost four years old.

Still proud to have a poster of this cover.

The verdict? It’s pretty decent. It’s one of those games that you don’t really mind playing but also don’t think too much of afterward. The story is extraordinarily cliche; every twist can be seen from a mile away. The soundtrack was decent but suffers from the same thing as Star Ocean 4 – no outstanding tracks that I liked in particular.

The battle system was fairly interesting, deviating slightly from the standard with skill customization, regenerating MP, Burning Auras and the ability to completely opt out of the game’s rock-paper-scissors Affinities. The most unique part of battle though was probably also the most unbalanced: Transforming. There is a fine line between challenging and ridiculously easy in the game, and Transforming basically pushes you across it – especially when you can do so multiple times in one battle when you acquire multiple gems for your Armlet bearers. Granted there are some cases where it does feels like they balanced around Transforming (the optional stuff in particular is probably a good example, if you’re attempting it at the appropriate level), for the most part this is not the case.

There was some other stuff I hated about it but I don’t even really care to recall them. Moving on…

Note the strange absence of the tag “Tactical Espionage Operations”.

Next up was Peace Walker. Pretty fun – especially if you like kidnapping recruiting people to build your base, because there is a TON of that. The boss fights were also a blast, though a tad lengthy in some cases. Not too much else to say about it really… It’s a pretty solid game for the PSP, and designed appropriately as the missions are (with the exception of boss battles) typically short and sweet. If there was anything to gripe about it, it’d be the fact that it was on the PSP and not one of the major consoles.

Last but most definitely not least, Xenoblade. I’m feeling a bit reviewy and ranty so get ready for something a bit lengthy and probably all over the place. I’d also suggest taking a look at this article if you want a decent overview of the game itself.

First things first, the most noticeable and prominent feature of the game is the the setting. Everybody in the Xenoblade world lives on one of the two gigantic gods: the Kyoshin and Kishin.  Traveling across these vast “worlds” is quite a breathtaking experience (and yes, you do get to travel across both of them) and is a testament to the vision Monolith Soft had for the game – a massive world, filled with life and tons of content. It’s the kind of world that incites the player’s desire to just go off course and explore every nook and cranny. I’m pretty sure this was mentioned in an article somewhere but it’s true – in Xenoblade, if you can see it, you can go there.

I think an appropriate, fairly recent game to compare it to would be Final Fantasy 13.  Whereas FF13 was designed to be extremely linear. Remember the Archylte Steppe? Or to put it in more familiar terms: the huge, wide open area filled with quests and monsters that the game thrusts upon you after so many hours of linearity? Many areas in Xenoblade are similar to that – right off the bat, which was really just a breath of fresh air. Not only are they as expansive as the Steppe, but they all have built-in transportation (that you don’t have to unlock like Cie’th Waystones) in the form of Landmarks, scattered across each area in more abundance than Waystones. All you have to do is find them, and you can teleport back to that Landmark via the map whenever you please.

Helping greatly enhance the Xenoblade experience while you’re caught in your wanderlust is the music. Although Shimomura and Mitsuda have few tracks credited to them (they’re great), the soundtrack does not suffer from their absence in the rest of the OST. Why? The ones who contributed greatly to it (ACE+ and Manami Kiyota) did a spectacular job covering the bulk of the game.

I previously enjoyed ACE+’s work on the Japanese MMORPG Emil Chronicle Online (known back then simply as the group ACE and the indivdual Kenji Hiramatsu), who proved then that they could create environmental pieces really fitting of whichever area you happened to be exploring. They applied the same philosophy to the areas of Xenoblade, whether it be the upbeat tunes of the sunny and lush “Gaur Plains” (one of my absolute favorites) or the desolate piano notes of “Snowy Mt. Valac / Night”. They’ve also rocked out some excellent battle tracks like “The One Who Gets In Our Way” and “Mechanical Rhythm”.

The other half of the soundtrack comes from Manami Kiyota, who (correct me if I’m wrong) seems to be a complete newcomer to composing – credited as a performer on the Black Mages’ third album and the 2004 Final Fantasy Song Album. Kiyota covered most of the tracks that were used for cutscenes – ambient, atmospheric stuff – the majority of which I can’t really say I liked or disliked just because a lot of the situations they’re used in just need some non-intrusive music to set the mood. However, there is one very notable track by Kiyota which made me look forward to her next work: “Xanthe” – the final boss track. It’s one of those tracks that isn’t up in your ears, shouting “This is the final battle!” (not that I don’t enjoy that) but still manages to be epic and amplifies the pressure on you in the game.

Onto the battle system!  While it does have some unique facets, let’s focus on the common items first. From the start, you can see many similarities between Xenoblade and MMORPGs: seamless battles, auto-attacking, a hotkey bar for your Arts (all of which have some sort of recast time), enemy ‘conning’, and Hate (even incorporating taunts and hate reduction abilities). But that’s where the resemblance ends.

You can read all about the rest of the details of the battle system here (same article), because I don’t want to blab on about the game’s inner workings.

I felt right at home with the way things were set up in Xenoblade, especially since a lot of the hassle of a normal RPG isn’t there:

• Normal fights are short and sweet.
• You can save anywhere you please.
• There was no need to worry about MP or healing up after a battle.
• Retreats from normal battles are as easy as running the hell away.
• Dying just sends you back to the last Landmark you saw (no penalties!).
• Dying during a boss battle lands you right back in front of said boss, minus the cutscenes!
• For the most part, the AI is competent – they’ll generally revive and heal you as needed, and work with what skills you assigned them.

What they don’t mention in that article though, is that recovery items are non-existent. You will be completely at the mercy of the recast timers of your heals. This can be a pretty big pain, because early on it limits your ability to use different party members well. A few characters get a light heal to provide minimal support, but the game’s true healer is Carna, so for pretty much all of the early game and boss battles you’re kinda stuck with her. Later on as you get more powerful, you’ll be able to switch her out with someone more offense oriented and get by with minimal heals on normal monsters at least. Bosses might be possible too, if you were to learn a certain secret Monado Art…

The inflexibility of the party doesn’t stop there. Although you can switch out Shulk whenever you please, chances are you’ll want to control him during a boss battle. The reason is simple – he has Monado, and Monado is immensely helpful 99% of the time. Even though you can see Visions while Shulk isn’t even in your party, he is still the best at preventing them, and even better when you’re controlling him since you won’t have to waste a Party Gauge bar every time a Vision comes up using his Monado Arts. It’s not like he’s a bad character though – he’s pretty awesome. He’s even one of the characters that comes with a light heal. I just wish things weren’t so bad without him.

Continuing on about the zero recovery items… should one of your party members fall, you can go up and revive them if you have a Party Gauge bar available. They can also revive you if you happen to fall and there is a bar available. But the moment you die and there are no Party Gauge bars left, it’s game over. But like I mentioned before, death isn’t that bad. An actual game over screen does not exist for Xenoblade.

While the game does have a ton of things to keep you on your toes during battle, most of it doesn’t matter while you’re just killing normal monsters, which kinda left me bored of fighting at some points. Since you have a limited Art set of 8 plus your Talent Gauge Art, without things like Visions to spruce up the battle I felt like there wasn’t much variety. The inability to switch characters mid-fight compounds this. Then again, I think I can say there eventually isn’t much variety for pretty much every RPG I’ve ever played, so I’m not sure how valid of a point this is.

Although it isn’t too wise to do it early on, switching the character you’re controlling does provide a fair amount of fun because every character’s Talents and fighting styles are somewhat unique – my favorite being Melia’s element summoning and releasing. Definitely give this a try when you feel comfortable enough to switch; it’s a nice change of pace.

There’s also a ton of stuff I didn’t mention still, like Gem Crafting and Skill Trees – both of which add a ton of depth to the customization of your characters. Skills will provide a variety of boosts to your characters, and you can share them with your other party members. Just how many you can share and equip will depend on your level, number of Unique Monsters you’ve slain, and the level of your bond with them. Don’t neglect this! Skills can unlock some powerful bonuses, like the ability to equip Heavy Armor! There are also more Skill Trees you can unlock by questing, which generally provide better bonuses than the original three you start out with.

With Gem Crafting, sometimes it’ll be hard to get the gems you want (especially when you don’t have a comprehensive wiki listing what drops what yet) but customizing your armor with gems is pretty substantial amount of your team’s power. This will become even more apparent when you’re fighting the numerous end-game Unique Monsters that far surpass the final boss’s level and even your own maximum level of 99.

What else am I leaving out… ah yes, the story! I’ve never been one to say much about the quality of the story of games, and I’m not about to start now. There’s only so much you can expect from an RPG these days. Xenoblade’s is fairly straightforward; you’ll find a lot of common tropes when dealing with the human(oid) characters in the game. This doesn’t stop it from being highly enjoyable though. What really sets the game apart from anything else is… scratch that. I can’t figure out a way to phrase this without totally giving away the best part. Sorry! Anyways…

In the placeholder post before this I mentioned that the game took me about 70 hours, but I played for a total of about 150. Or at least I think I played for 150… it’s probably a bit less like 140.  Stupid 99:99 timer limit! Anyways, the extra 70 hours or so was spent on my second playthrough, doing all the crap I had neglected the first time around like Questing (there is a TON of quests, even that might be an understatement) to build up my Kizuna Gram so I could Trade for rare items for my Collepedia, and rebuilding Colony 6 up to 100%.

This time was also spent leveling with the help of all the end-game monsters scattered throughout the world, and preparing to fight those extra Unique Monsters I mentioned earlier. My goal was to be able to beat the level 120 dragon at the peak of Mt. Valac. Scinder and I were definitely confused for a while on this one. Level 120? When the max level is 99? Eventually we learned that through some hardcore customization, we could overcome the level gap. Even with what I thought was decent prep, he was a serious challenge (at least the first time he was) and I was glad to have spent the time to be able to defeat him.

There was a time where I thought their decision to rename it from Monado: The Beginning of the World to Xenoblade was a bit odd. Sure, it has Tetsuya Takahashi behind it (the “Xeno guy”), but to name a game Xeno without it actually being related to the Xeno series we all love seemed a bit like blasphemy at the start. After putting that much time into the game, I can safely say that it was worthy of the rename. Some of common items between the games are fairly obvious. Mentioning some other aspects would be fairly spoiler-riffic though, so you’ll just have to figure that out for yourself.

Hopefully Nintendo decides Xenoblade is worthy of localization and maybe you’ll see it soon. I, on the other hand, have lost faith in decent localizations for the Wii. Ignition’s work on Arc Rise Fantasia was probably the nail in the coffin on that.

Coming up next, me oozing love for Deathsmiles and hating on anyone who hates the changes to P3 in P3P.