Xenoblade - New Monolith RPG for Wii

Yeah I'm really feeling it.

I'm totally calling Dickson "Shulk Hogan". The resemblance is too strong to be coincidental.

He reminds me more of a long lost member of Spinal Tap

Well I just got my arse handed to me, by "something with a face".

I guess I really need to go back and try and get my head around timing, counters, topples and breaks.

Anyone have any suggestions, video guides, resources that I might benefit from viewing?

Having spent a lot of time swapping, trading, and a significant number of side quests, I really don't want to chuck it all in and start again.

I'm enjoying the game so far. I'm still trying to fully understand a lot of the mechanics. So I hope I not skipping any important side quests or tasks.

I am enjoying it but man it looks like arse. I feel like I am playing a PSX game....I take that back I looked up videos of Tomb Raider 1 on the PSX and it looks a lot better. Less going on but smother textures.

And, while I know it is port of a Wii game and the Wii doesn't have a second screen, could they not have utilized the lower screen a bit? Heck even a constant map would have been nice.

Still I am enjoying it but it will not win any awards.

I am exerting all the self-control I can to make sure I finish Bravely Default before starting up Xenoblade 3DS. I did fire it up just to see how well it translated, and it actually looks better than I expected, especially considering it's running at roughly half the resolution of the original Wii release.

farley3k wrote:

And, while I know it is port of a Wii game and the Wii doesn't have a second screen, could they not have utilized the lower screen a bit? Heck even a constant map would have been nice.

This is my only real complaint. It's nice that they shuffled the character stats down onto the bottom screen, but I would have preferred that the ability bar moved down there so that I could tap powers to use them instead of having to d-pad over to them.

I put in 6 hours on the 3DS version this weekend which is actually a ton of gaming time for me for a weekend. My 30 hours of experience on the Wii game really made it easy to get into this. Like almost every recent JRPG I've played in memory it is a painfully long process to get comfortable with the battle, skill, and crafting systems - but I got to skip all that with this. I had quite a bit of fun playing.

This didn't look great on the Wii and I thought the smaller screen may hide some of that ugliness on the 3DS, but no, it is a total jagfest. I understand re-doing all the assets may have been too much of an ordeal, but it would have gone a long way if they could have done some anti-aliasing (or if there is anti-aliasing I'm not seeing it). I'm guessing the game is pushing the 3DS to the limit so it wasn't an option though. I'm also a bit disappointed by the 3D. The New 3DS head tracking is great so I leave it on but basically the 3D affect is just the field of view - no objects really "pop" in front of other objects on what looks like a different layer. The only time I've seen anything that feels like a "layer" is subtitles and text.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
farley3k wrote:

And, while I know it is port of a Wii game and the Wii doesn't have a second screen, could they not have utilized the lower screen a bit? Heck even a constant map would have been nice.

This is my only real complaint. It's nice that they shuffled the character stats down onto the bottom screen, but I would have preferred that the ability bar moved down there so that I could tap powers to use them instead of having to d-pad over to them.

This is an actual example of good game, bad 3DS game. I'm totally happy with that though. It's fantastic.

PoderOmega wrote:

I'm also a bit disappointed by the 3D. The New 3DS head tracking is great so I leave it on but basically the 3D affect is just the field of view - no objects really "pop" in front of other objects on what looks like a different layer. The only time I've seen anything that feels like a "layer" is subtitles and text.

What do you mean? I like the way that the 3D is implemented: far away things look further away, and the UI text floats on top of that (with things like flying text over enemy heads appearing to be over their heads instead of floating on top of it all).

*shrug* I think it looks ok. Certainly not a whole lot worse than I remember the Wii version looking on a big plasma TV*. Agree about the bottoms screen stuff though, very under-utilized.

PoderOmega wrote:

I'm guessing the game is pushing the 3DS to the limit so it wasn't an option though. I'm also a bit disappointed by the 3D.

Given the sheer size of some of the zones (Bionis Leg alone is HUGE), that wouldn't surprise me.

*If you want to be really depressed though, look up a lets play of the Dolphin "hi-res patched" version...so good ....

Picked up the new 3DS version over the weekend and sank about 10 hours into already while re watching game of thrones episodes. I think the game actually looks pretty good for what it is, the only thing that really hurts it is the low resolution but all the art assets seem to be there. I think I stopped playing the Wii version about 15 hours in, I hope I stick with it much longer this time seeing as I bought it twice now. I actually find the story to be super interesting but I think I got bogged down by side quests. My brain can't seem to let those go and just do the main story line for some reason.

Man, now I want to look into getting Dolphin running on my computer. There's got to be a way to get it running and using a 360 controller, right? I won't be able to rip the game myself, but I have the disc, so...

Chaz wrote:

Man, now I want to look into getting Dolphin running on my computer. There's got to be a way to get it running and using a 360 controller, right? I won't be able to rip the game myself, but I have the disc, so...

Yeah, Dolphin works fine with the 360 controller.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Man, now I want to look into getting Dolphin running on my computer. There's got to be a way to get it running and using a 360 controller, right? I won't be able to rip the game myself, but I have the disc, so...

Yeah, Dolphin works fine with the 360 controller.

You can also get textures to replace the button prompts with 360 or Playstation buttons.

Damn you buggers, now I just need to check the compatibility of my DVD player interms of the ripping software...

Also, prettiness.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

What do you mean? I like the way that the 3D is implemented: far away things look further away, and the UI text floats on top of that (with things like flying text over enemy heads appearing to be over their heads instead of floating on top of it all).

With the 3D it just feels like I am looking out a window but everything is on the same plane (except for the text like I mentioned). I'm not really sure how to describe it but games like Starfox and Etrian Odyssey certain objects look like they are on a separate plane - they are clearly closer to me then other objects. If I play around with 3D slider in other games I can really see the difference, but Xenoblade not so much. It isn't bad or anything.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Damn you buggers, now I just need to check the compatibility of my DVD player interms of the ripping software...

Mine's not compatible, or I would've tried to jump through the hoops to get Xenoblade running in HD prettiness on my pc. Ah well.

Farscry wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

Damn you buggers, now I just need to check the compatibility of my DVD player interms of the ripping software...

Mine's not compatible, or I would've tried to jump through the hoops to get Xenoblade running in HD prettiness on my pc. Ah well. :)

I know it's in the gray area, kinda, but if you have the physical copy, then it seems like acquiring the ripped version via other means would fall under fair use, wouldn't it?

After watching that SD vs HD video, now I really want it running on my PC.

Chaz wrote:
Farscry wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

Damn you buggers, now I just need to check the compatibility of my DVD player interms of the ripping software...

Mine's not compatible, or I would've tried to jump through the hoops to get Xenoblade running in HD prettiness on my pc. Ah well. :)

I know it's in the gray area, kinda, but if you have the physical copy, then it seems like acquiring the ripped version via other means would fall under fair use, wouldn't it?

After watching that SD vs HD video, now I really want it running on my PC.

Outsourcing?

Essentially.

Back when I first started playing this on the Wii, the combat system seemed really complicated and hard to grasp. Now that I've dumped a bunch of time into an MMO, it's considerably easier to understand. I have an understanding for what roles the characters fall into, how to play them, and how and when to use the various powers. It's nice and makes the beginning smoother.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Back when I first started playing this on the Wii, the combat system seemed really complicated and hard to grasp. Now that I've dumped a bunch of time into an MMO, it's considerably easier to understand. I have an understanding for what roles the characters fall into, how to play them, and how and when to use the various powers. It's nice and makes the beginning smoother.

I am having an easier time of it as well, although I have still yet to play an MMO. But I haven't had to retry a single boss and I remember struggling the first time around. I've had a few wipes but it's usually because some high level enemy saw me and killed me in one hit.

Alright, I'm ready. I finished off Tomb Raider, and I'm ready for something to distract me from finishing MH4U (and to be honest, are you ever really *finished* MH, or do you just play forever?)

I think Xenoblade will be it. I started it once, but I wonder if I should just re-start so that I remember how to play? I think I made it to the next colony in my initial attempt. I added a woman to my team, I think? Did I meet a spirit tiger? Or am I conflating The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles together? Where am I?

Spirit tiger is from The Last Story.

If you were on your way to the next colony, you would have at least recruited a woman in very short shorts with a big gun named Sharla.

Oh yeah! That's it. Should I just pick it up from there? Or start again?

That depends. Do you have trouble picking combat systems up after you've been away from them for awhile? Xenoblade isn't crazy complicated, but it's a bit more complicated than the Attack-Defend-Item setup of your typical Final Fantasy game. The good news is that you can die pretty much infinitely without penalty, so if you want to just jump in and start trying to relearn the systems without fear of losing progress.

I am enjoying the game but I am a bit annoyed by a few quests where you have to seek out the quest giver after doing the main quest to get the rewards. It has happened twice - once when taking some kid biscuits and another with getting kids to like each other - both in Colony 9. I don't really keep track of where the quest giver was so I have run around a lot of colony 9 trying to find them. It felt very out of place since all the rest of the quests are just complete when you get the item.