(no subject)
So, Mike's playing Xenoblade. I'm not playing it because I have too much work to do to take on such a lofty RPG at this time, but I'm enjoying watching him play it.
At first I was disappointed that this would not have any spiritual connection to the previous Xeno titles, but now that I've seen some of it I can say with certainty that there is a great deal of calling back to previous themes, it just isn't literal. There is not a character named Uzuki running around or anything like that. But the parallels are there.
The game starts very similar to Xenogears in that a young man finds the mysterious ability to control a force that is somehow both technological and god-like. The Mechon entities have the mysterious and invulnerable qualities of the Gnosis from Xenosaga. The Monado sword is pretty much the Gears, or the KOS-MOS, in this game. A technological force beyond human control. It being a sword makes it much less convoluted to fit into an RPG-style story. We're not carrying giant robots around in bite-sized capsules or anything like in Gears and Saga.
The action-packed cinematic cutscene style that made Xenosaga so enjoyable is present, but the story scenes are of much tolerable length. Finally the team seems to have learned their lesson in that regard. Still, watch the first major plot point (Mechon attack on Colony 6) and it's extremely similar to the attack on the Woglinde at the beginning of Xenosaga.
So, story-wise you're in for a darker and more mature story that the Xeno team is always happy to give you, minus all the presumptuous religious referencing. That is not to say that there is not a similar theme present of Man VS God, but it's much more subtle and not so dredged in misappropriated Judeo-Christian mysticism.
While I wish they would have created another hard sci-fi RPG (those are few in number), the archetypal setting and characters make it easy to quickly get on with the story without a lot of fucking around with exposition. They have avoided the polarizing effect of Xenogears and Xenosaga by finally learning how to edit down their wild scope of ideas and create a marketable product. I always knew Takahashi and co. had it in them to make a game like this. Too bad it couldn't have been Gears/Saga, but at least they got another chance.
Game-play wise I think you can refer to just about any review and see that it does a lot of things that have been done badly before, but gets them right. It plays similar to FF12 with the MMO-like field, but it isn't boring as hell.
The voice acting is so lovable. It was dubbed in Europe, so the voice actors speak Brittish-English and they are very good, too. I know it's just a cultural difference, but from my perspective as an American, it makes the game that much more charming and unique.
Like I said, haven't actually played the game first-hand and I've only watched Mike play through the first major story part, but it looks really cool and I suggest everyone get it. It's a really cool game that almost didn't come out in the US.
At first I was disappointed that this would not have any spiritual connection to the previous Xeno titles, but now that I've seen some of it I can say with certainty that there is a great deal of calling back to previous themes, it just isn't literal. There is not a character named Uzuki running around or anything like that. But the parallels are there.
The game starts very similar to Xenogears in that a young man finds the mysterious ability to control a force that is somehow both technological and god-like. The Mechon entities have the mysterious and invulnerable qualities of the Gnosis from Xenosaga. The Monado sword is pretty much the Gears, or the KOS-MOS, in this game. A technological force beyond human control. It being a sword makes it much less convoluted to fit into an RPG-style story. We're not carrying giant robots around in bite-sized capsules or anything like in Gears and Saga.
The action-packed cinematic cutscene style that made Xenosaga so enjoyable is present, but the story scenes are of much tolerable length. Finally the team seems to have learned their lesson in that regard. Still, watch the first major plot point (Mechon attack on Colony 6) and it's extremely similar to the attack on the Woglinde at the beginning of Xenosaga.
So, story-wise you're in for a darker and more mature story that the Xeno team is always happy to give you, minus all the presumptuous religious referencing. That is not to say that there is not a similar theme present of Man VS God, but it's much more subtle and not so dredged in misappropriated Judeo-Christian mysticism.
While I wish they would have created another hard sci-fi RPG (those are few in number), the archetypal setting and characters make it easy to quickly get on with the story without a lot of fucking around with exposition. They have avoided the polarizing effect of Xenogears and Xenosaga by finally learning how to edit down their wild scope of ideas and create a marketable product. I always knew Takahashi and co. had it in them to make a game like this. Too bad it couldn't have been Gears/Saga, but at least they got another chance.
Game-play wise I think you can refer to just about any review and see that it does a lot of things that have been done badly before, but gets them right. It plays similar to FF12 with the MMO-like field, but it isn't boring as hell.
The voice acting is so lovable. It was dubbed in Europe, so the voice actors speak Brittish-English and they are very good, too. I know it's just a cultural difference, but from my perspective as an American, it makes the game that much more charming and unique.
Like I said, haven't actually played the game first-hand and I've only watched Mike play through the first major story part, but it looks really cool and I suggest everyone get it. It's a really cool game that almost didn't come out in the US.