Hmm. Dunno. I’m only 6 hours in, and I only started figuring the game out in the last hour or so.

In fact, maybe it’s too soon for me to write this post, because I don’t really have much to say about Xenoblade Chronicles right now.

Uhh, the graphics are okay. Like, late PS2 kind of okay. The Wii has never really been a graphical juggernaut. The character designs are something on the fugly side, especially with those weird noses they’ve got.

The sound/music is… whatever. Nothing notable, for better or worse. The voice acting is okay, if a little slow. Some of the dialogue is as cheesy as hell (“Oh Shulk, I’m so glad we’re friends!”), which I actually look forward to because it breaks up the monotony.

I couldn’t make head or tails of the battle system before, but now I’m starting to get the hang of it. The only other auto-attack RPG I’ve ever played was Contact for the NDS (terrible game, btw), which was far less complex, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on for the longest time. You can’t call it an Action RPG because you’re not doing much, but it’s not exactly turn-based either.

There’s this bar with commands at the bottom that you can execute. Half the time I’m busy watching that thing instead of paying attention to the fights. I can’t even tell what’s going on when I do look, next thing I know Shulk and Reyn are half-dead and need healing. I heal, I mash a few other commands while waiting for the heal gauge to fill again, heal some more, and then we continue in that vein until something drops dead. Hey, it works. I just got a medic named Sharla on the Gaur Plains, but I haven’t done much with her yet. If she works out like I’m hoping, I’ll be able to take a more active role in battle with Shulk.

Then there’s all these Arts and Skills and Affinity and Trades and Slots and Gems and other bizarre stuff going on. I fiddle with them here and there. Not going to spend too much time with them unless the game forces me to, though. I also accept all quests without reservation, but I don’t go out of my way to do any of them. Go kill your own Field Ponio, you slacker.

Story~~~~ From what I understand there’s these humans and then there’s this machines named Mechons who eat humans. The Mechons look and act an awful lot like the machines from Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, especially the eating people thing and the blue-and-gold designs (brown-and-gold in SYM). Not sure what’s going on there, but the resemblance is uncanny sometimes.

Anyway, right now I’m on a rather odd wild goose chase for revenge. It’s odd because my in-game characters are really into it but as the player I frankly cheered when the incident they’re seeking revenge for happened. I was like that 4-panel shot with those IGN guys. One second I’m just sitting there, blah blah, the next moment… oh no they wouldn’t… they did! Hell yeah, they really did it!!! AWESOME! This game rules!!!

…And now they want to get revenge? I dunno if I’m down with that. Whatever happened to forgiving and forgetting? Well anyway, I’ll play a little longer and see if the story takes a different direction soon (if you know, please don’t spoil). I’ll give it another 6 hours and then decide whether to finish Xenoblade Chronicles or not.