Xenoblade Chronicles – Taking a short break (spoilers)

46 hours in. Just hit Sword Valley. Fatigue is starting to set in, you know the drill.

I won all the bets I made in the last post, so testicles the world over can heave a sigh of relief. Not only was I proved right, but I was proved right in the very next gaming session after I wrote all that. It’s like Xenoblade Chronicles looked over my shoulder and went “Okay, okay, you figured it all out. No sense hiding anything any more,” and just spilled its guts.

So yeah, Fiora is the same as Nemesis, only she’s a Mechon with amnesia now, and still probably dead. Dunban, Reyn and Shulk are determined to get her back somehow, but this leaves me with the same problem I had right at the beginning: I don’t care about Fiora. I don’t want her back. I don’t want to see anyone pining over her. I don’t mind if I never find out what happened or how she turned into a Mechon.

Which also brings me to the same issue I’ve been having with Xenoblade Chronicles for the past 40 hours or so. I like the setting and the environments. I like most of the characters. The music is great in places, as is the voice-acting. I’ve made my peace with the battle system and I’ve even started dabbling in item-giving to raise Affinity. I’m happy with everything except the story.

And that is why I don’t dare take anything longer than a short break, even though I’m seriously tired now. I feel like I’ve already experienced the best the game has to offer. Like I wouldn’t be missing anything if I quit here and now. Settings, exploration, fights, characters… after 46 hours I’ve seen plenty of all of them. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that Sword Valley is either the last-but-one or last-but-two stage before the end of the game.

I’ll take the next couple of days off, play till the 60-hour mark and reevaluate things at that point.

Growlanser – Lost interest

I haven’t actually dropped Growlanser yet, but it’s going back on the shelf for a while. I still like the characters and the setting, and the story has just taken a rather interesting turn. If only I liked the battle system better things would be wonderful.

Unfortunately the following things are bothering me quite a bit.

1. The battle winning conditions grate on my nerves. On one hand I’m happy to have something to do other than “Beat everyone to death.” On the other, bigger hand, some of those battles are serious pains in the ar$e. “Hide behind the rocks, spring out, cut the ropes to the bridge on the left before Julian comes back, cut the ropes on the bridge to the right before the princess escapes, kill everyone except the princess and teleport away.” PHEW. And that isn’t even the most complicated battle so far.

2. Point #1 wouldn’t be so bad if the tempo of the battles wasn’t so terrible. First, once you enter a command, the character keeps carrying it out until they either complete it or you interrupt them. E.g. if you say “Kill the Boss” then they’ll attack the boss f0rever and ever, even if their HP is getting low or another character needs help. This is kinda bad, because I prefer being able to direct my party turn by turn.

Interrupting is also harder than it seems, because you have to do it right after someone has finished acting but before someone else starts moving, and you have to take cooldowns into effect.

More annoying than all that, though, is the dumbness of my party AI. If I send, say, Misha to attack an enemy, and Wallace is the least bit in her way, she won’t stop and ask for fresh instructions, or use magic or distance attacks. She’ll run in place for the rest of the battle unless a) there’s another enemy close by, in which case she’ll hit him instead, or b) I notice and ask her to do something else, or c) I manually direct her to move to Point A, then to Point B so she can get around him. It’s all too stupid for words.

Not to mention the animation of each person’s commands interrupts the counter for everyone else. So Misha will take two steps, *pause* MC attacks *unpause* Misha takes another two steps *pause* Ruise uses magic. Ruise comes back for fresh instructions. *unpause* Misha takes another two steps. Etc. etc. etc. The pacing is terrible.

It also doesn’t help that I got lost in a rather short dungeon and spent a lot of time wandering around fighting weak monsters over and over again, making me thoroughly sick and tired of the battle system.

Since I like everything except the fighting, though, I have two options. 1. Give up on playing Growlanser and read spoilers or watch a playthrough instead. 2. Take a break and come back later when I’m fresher and ready for more frustration. I’m going with Option 2 for now.

Xenoblade Chronicles – Move on, already! (spoilers)

Last time I checked I was 33 hours along. Just arrived at Prison Island, currently making my way to the top to watch the Emperor get killed. Shulk had a vision 20 hours ago that he was fighting Metal Face over there, but it’s taken this long for the vision to actually come to pass. Hopefully he can get this out of his system now we can start FINALLY having some new visions and some actual story progression.

Meanwhile it seems the Mechons in Xenoblade Chronicles and the machines in Final Promise Story are even more similar than I’d thought. Not only do they have similar designs and not only do they both “eat” people, but they are also both capable of absorbing the skills and personalities of the people they “eat”.

Xenoblade hasn’t spelled it out yet, but it’s pretty obvious that’s the direction they’re going in, simply because:

1. They make a big show out of the Monado not being able to harm humans. It can’t harm faced Mechon either. Put the two together already, Shulk.
2. We fight a faced Mechon named Xord, with a giant hammer. Later on we talk to an NPC named Desiree, who talks about her father who was also named Xord and who also wielded a giant hammer and who died fighting the Mechon. Put the two together already, Shulk.
3. Metal Face talks and acts a lot like Dunban’s cowardly friend in the prologue, I forget his name. It hasn’t been revealed to be him yet, but I’d bet my left testicle it’s him.
4. If that’s the case, then the new Mechon Nemesis is bound to be Fiora. I’d bet my right testicle it’s her (I don’t actually have any testicles but I’d totally bet them if I did).

However, while “Machines are absorbing people!” was the only major twist Final Promise Story had, I’m expecting better things of Xenoblade Chronicles. They have some other things going on like the Monado and Alvis and whatever that giant Kimahri-clone on Prison Island is, and I bet the Mechons are going to turn out to have been not-so-evil after all. In all my life I’ve only played one (1) RPG where the bad guys at the very beginning were the same bad guys at the end.

But seriously, I’ve had enough of Alcamoth and enough of Eryth Sea. Things were moving along so briskly before, but everything just came to a standstill once I arrived at the top of the Bionis. Also this whole Melia palace intrigue stuff just dragged on too long. Way too much time was spent on a character I really don’t like and really don’t intend to use. I’ve been getting some good use out of Riki though, once I got used to his annoying voice. My main parties now are Shulk/Dunban/Riki and Dunban/Riki/Reyn.

Apart from Xenoblade Chronicles, I have also been making good progress in Growlanser and Trails of Zero, which I started a few weeks ago but didn’t get into until just this weekend. I’ll give an update on one or both of those next time.

Xenoblade Chronicles – 20 hours gone

I’m still on the fence about whether I like Xenoblade Chronicles or not. Whenever I think I’m starting to get into it, some stupid cutscene pops up that irritates me to no end. First there was there whole Xord thing, then the whole Metal Face thing, then after running for ages and ages I made it to Makna Forest and had to put up with first Alvis, then Melia, then Riki all pissing me off.

Plus I now have two more party members to deal with just when my party was starting to gel. I’ve been shuffling Shulk/Dunban/Reyn/Sharla around and getting through things just fine. Got some affinity built up, got some Skill Links set up, learned lots of Arts, figured out how to use everyone. Now they’ve tossed two more characters in there. What on earth do they expect me to do with those? See, this is why I like games that let you switch party members into battle at will.

Story-wise, I haven’t actually made any progress since last time. Well, it’s hard to make progress when there isn’t much of a story in the first place. First we’re seeking revenge on a particular Mechon named Metal Face. Shulk had a vision that he takes down Metal Face near a tower. So we’re climbing a giant robot in order to find that mythical tower. I started climbing about 12 hours ago and I’m still climbing now. And people complain about the giant tower in Persona 3…

I would be further along, but I went back to Gaur Plains and the Bionis’ Leg to do some running around and exploring. I love that scenery, it’s so lush and verdant. I also did some swimming around in Colony 9, exploring the anti-air batteries and almost getting taken out by rabid level 71 flamingos. Satori Marsh was okay except for the dark swamp. Makna Forest though, I can’t wait to get out of there. At least it’s prettier than that hateful Ether Mine. In general I’m enjoying having lots of ground to cover and places to explore if I choose to do so. I also love being able to warp backwards and forwards at will.

I’ve also gotten the hang of the battle system at last. I still spend 80% of the time staring either at my HP or at the commands in the bottom, but now I can tell from my party’s yells and cries the sort of stuff that’s going on. After that I just have to make sure my level is the same or higher than the enemy’s (though I have taken down the occasional stronger monster) and that my arts are up to date. If I find nice armor I put it on. If I don’t, I don’t. Simple enough.

So far, story = 0. Characters = 5 (would be 8 without Riki and Melia, and I hate that I had to spend 5 hours rescuing dumb Juju). Graphics = 6. Music and voice acting = 6. Battle system = 6. That’s about right. I’m not too crazy about Xenoblade yet, but I don’t hate it either. I’ll be happy if it ends around the 40-hour mark though. I think fatigue is starting to set in.

Growlanser – So far, so good

Growlanser is one of those series I’ve always heard of but never played. For some strange reason I’ve always believed the Growlanser games were SRPGs. I confess I approached this PSOne remake with more than the usual excitement because of that, but while it’s slightly disappointing that is not the case, I’m still having a good time so far.

The battle system is more like a severely watered down Grandia, or a more crowded (but no less slow) Trails in the Sky. Enemies can be seen on the field and there is no battle transition. When you give a physical attack command, the character has to run across the field until they are within range before delivering the attack. There is also a cooldown period for each attack before the next one becomes available. Magic has both a charge time and a cool-down period but better range and multi-hit abilitites for the most part. Both phys attacks and magic do pathetic damage so far, possibly because weapons are so expensive that I rarely update.

The story and the characters are really good so far. I’m loving my little party and their interactions, and the character I expected to turn evil (Ariost) has been pretty good so far. Everyone gets along, everyone works together and no one has made any cheesy “power of friendship” or “you are not alone” speeches yet. Even the clumsy ditz character with a crush on my main character hasn’t pissed me off much.

It also seems like my emo-looking main character might either be possessed by evil or have an evil twin brother or both. There’s something really interesting going on in that regard that I’m very eager to find out more about. It also seems like MC’s little sister, one of the first non-annoying video game sisters I’ve encountered so far, is going to end up dying at the end in order to save everyone. She said as much quite early on. Can’t wait to see how that plays out.

In short, Growlanser clears all the important hurdles for me so far, and the first 10 hours have passed by in a flash. I wish the battles were a little faster and less crowded, and I wish there wasn’t so much backtracking (the teleport spell is a life-saver). Apart from that I’m having a really good time. I hope to be able to say the same thing next time I write about this game.