I've always been a fan of JRPG. The gameplay, the characters, the stories, all of them are very memorable. One of the most popular JRPGs is Square Enix's Final Fantasy franchise, which never ceases to entertain me. Nintendo has made their fair share of JRPGs as well, but this one probably puts any of their previous titles to shame. You rarely ever hear of Nintendo making any full voice acting games, aside from Star Fox, Kid Icarus Uprising, Fire Emblem, and a few other's that I have probably forgot to mention. I present to you, Xenoblade Chronicles, developed by Monolithsoft, published by Nintendo. First let's start with a little bit of background history. Xenoblade Chronicles was released in Japan in the year 2010, along with two other neat JRPG games, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower. Fans across the world who played these games absolutely loved them! JRPG fans on the west coast couldn't wait for localization in Amereica...but at that time Nintendo of America said they had no plans whatsoever to localize these three games in the states. This outraged quite a few Nintendo fans. Later, a group of dedicated JRPG fans gathered together to create a support group called "Operation Rainfall." Their goal: To bring Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower to the U.S. of A. About a year later in 2011, all three games had been licensed by Nintendo of the United Kingdoms. OP Rainfall caught wind of this pretty fast, and tried to persuade Nintendo once more but of course, their answer was the same: "No." Eventually in 1202, Nintendo of America caved into Operation Rainfall's demands and began making plans to release all three games in the U.S., starting with Xenoblade Chronicles. And thank God they did. Now on to the gameplay. If you've ever played Final Fantasies' Twelve and Thirteen, Xenoblade's gameplay mechanics are a combination of both of them. It's like Twelve because the combat occurs within the realtime free roaming maps, meaning that you don't transition from the field map to a battle stage every time you encounter an enemy, but it's also like Thirteen in the case that your attacks recharge overtime without the use of MP and other party members acting from the CPU. The game's story takes place on the gigantic bodies of two great titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis, which were engaged in battle over millions of years ago which ended in a stalemate. The story focusses on the main protagonist, Shulk, voiced by Adam Howden, an eighteen year old mechanic who is studying a mysterious weapon called the Monodo, said to be the very weapon that the Bionis used to fight the Mechonis. After his hometown is attacked by the relentless Mechon, and his childhood friend killed, Shulk takes up the Monodo to fight back, and is granted the power to see into the future. What sets this game apart from most JRPGs is that the maps are HUGE!! Maybe even bigger than the forge world map in Halo. This provides hours of exploration for the player to embark on, with tons of the strongest enemies in existence for JRPG fans to challenge themselves against. Seriously, if any of you Zelda fans thought that Lake Hylia was huge, the Erith Sea makes that look like a kiddie pool. Two of my favorite maps are the Gaur Plains and the Mechonis field. The Gaur Plains has a huge lush grassland that is breath taking, and the machines field has a lot of complex pathways to take using elevators and conveyor belts. The games musical score has some of the most extraordinary classical, rock and orchestral music ever to be heard. Even Yoko Shimormura, the music composer for the Kingdom Hearts series created some of the music in this game. Two of my favorite tracks are Unfinished Battle, composed by Yoko Shimormura, and Mechanical Rhythm, composed ACE+. With a strong, solid gameplay, tons of enemies, a fantastic story, epic music and a strong British voice cast, how can you simply not want to take a crack at this game? Even if you only get one game for the Wii, I highly recommend Xenoblade Chronicles. Yeah, it's not an HD game, but this goes to prove that you don't need perfect graphics to create a really enjoyable game. While playing, I ask that you just take a break for a moment, and focus the camera on the far off image of the enormous, breath taking structure of the Mechonis in the sky. If that were in the real world, I could stare at that for hours. I give this game a 1000/10.
