The Bodies of the Gods: Thoughts on Xenoblade: Chronicles

As the sun sets on the aging Wii, the system is set to experience one final blast of gaming goodness; the JRPG renaissance of Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower. The first game of this trilogy of games to finally reach North American shores, after an overly lengthy wait, is Monolith Soft’s excellent Xenoblade: Chronicles. After getting to what I am assuming to be the halfway point in the narrative, I thought it was high time I put some of my thoughts to words about this very unique game.

Xenoblade tells the story of a young man named Shulk, and his journey to exact revenge on the machine that killed his friend. Wielding the powerful sword known as the Monado, Shulk and his party set out on their quest across the dead titan, Bionis. While the game does not forge new JRPG story territory, the characters you experience this tale with are likeable and well written and while they may not break any stereotypical RPG tropes (the wise healer, the thick-headed tank, etc), they are decent enough. The characters and story are well development along predictable lines, but it is the setting and art style that really steal the show; the world where the people live in Xenoblade: Chronicles are actually the long dormant bodies of two massive titans (the Bionis and the Mechonis) standing in an endless ocean, locked into eternal combat. This unique setting gives the game a surrealist vibe, and I for one love how different it is.

The combat, unlike its turn based forefathers, is fast paced and all about managing your cool downs and positioning. One thing that may turn people off is that your AI controlled companions fight on their own (very well I might add) while you control your own character. Sure it would have been nice to have more control over your party, I don`t know how Monolith Soft could have done it within the confines of the current battle system; it feels more like a western MMO (think WoW) than a traditional JRPG. If you where a fan of Final Fantasy XII`s battle system, then you will feel right at home here.

The British voice acting is something that I find really neat about this game. I know some of the references may be lost on me, and I admit that I don’t know the inherent implications of the various regional accents and dialects of the UK, but the British voice talent adds another very unique layer onto an already unique gaming experience. It also helps that the voice work and localization is very well done, and helps to get me even more excited for The Last Story.

Xenoblade Chronicles is a game that is big in scope, content, and heart and is easily one of the better JRPGs I have ever played. It boggles my mind that it has taken this long for a modern JRPG to see the light of day, and for this game to finally be released over here in North America, but I am glad it is here. Xenoblade, with its excellent localization and voice work, has me excited for the North American release of The Last Story (June 19^th) and has me crossing my fingers for an eventual North American release of Pandora`s Tower.

A Few Reasons Why Skyward Sword Pisses Me Off

1.   Fi is easily one of the most irritating video game characters to come along in a long time. Not only does she constantly reiterate everything you are told seconds after reading it, as if the people playing the Zelda series for over twenty years have no idea how these games work. She also beeps along with the still annoying low heart beep, which does nothing but fill me with resent and a mind numbing irritation. I hate her, and I hate whoever thought she was a good idea.

2.  The over world is dull and empty. I thought the oceans in Wind Waker and Phantom Hour were lazy, and Skywards sky feels the exact same way. Flying around an empty expanse to get each level gets old fast, and the few things interspersed in the nothingness are uninteresting and not worth your time.

3.   The story has no real climax. Go and do this x3, go and do something else x3, travel through time and beat the game; it`s boring, repetitive, and lazy. It`s a real shame too, because the story in Skyward Sword was said to be such a prominent aspect of the game and is a lot more overt than in previous Zelda titles.

4.   It is the same Zelda game we have all been playing since Ocarina of Time, hell, since A Link to the Past and I for one am ready to see the series do something new. Sure the game is selling well (3.11 million globally according to VG charts), but compare that to Skyrim (10.30 million globally) or to the fact that only about 3% of the Wii`s 95.2 million consoles user base bought the game should say something to the top brass at Nintendo.

Super Mario 3D Land, Part 2: The Game

Now that a bit of history has been covered, it is time to see how Super Mario 3D Land stands as a game on its own. There may be spoilers in my following ramblings, so be warned. Yet at the same time, is anyone really expecting Mario to do anything other than save Princess Toadstool? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Just as Super Mario Galaxy 2 streamlined level design, so too does Super Mario 3D Land. The levels in 3D Land are streamlined and lineal affairs, with Mario running towards and away from the screen in the best 3D seen on the system yet. Each stage also has three golden coins for you to collect, and if you are on the ball you can collect all three of them in your first run. 3D Land’s stages follow the design we saw in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and this abstract level design gives the player a great variety of levels, challenges, and things to see. But this variety only persists through the first 8 worlds of the game (essentially play-through 1), and soon you find yourself playing through the same stages over and over again as you adventure through the special worlds (play-through 2). While the levels do get different groups of enemies, power-ups, and even time limits during this second jaunt, replaying them over and over again does become a drag after a while.

For me, music can make or break a game for me and it was a pleasant surprise that Super Mario 3D Land has some of the best Mario music yet. The plethora of Mario 3 remixes, and how the music changes based on whether you’re above ground (clear and boisterous), underground (muffled and reserved, or a great remix of the classic underground music), or in the water (think of the typical tropical vibe video games have used throughout the years) is a great way to provide the player with a surprisingly immersive soundscape. After a year of amazing music, 3D Land was a nice way to cap everything off. This is a soundtrack I would like to get my hands on.

Players will have to get used to how Mario controls in 3D Land. While the game is presented in the same vein as Mario 64 and Galaxy 1 and 2, Mario doesn’t move nearly as fast as you would expect him too. The inclusion of a run button (Y) obviously lets Mario run around the levels faster, and as you would expect, using the momentum from running is key to helping Mario make many of his death-defying jumps. The return of Tanooki suit is something fans have been wanting ever since Mario 3 (leaf and all), and it plays just as you would hope and expect: Mario can extend his jump distance by using the suit to glide for short distances, and the iconic racoon tail can smash blocks to reveal hidden areas and dispose of those incessant goombas who block your path to the Princess.

Overall, Super Mario 3D Land is a joy to play. While the repetition of levels does drag the experience down somewhat during play-through 2, the overall experience is solid. The inclusion of a second, harder game after the initial credits is great and is something I hope more and more developers do (see Irrational’s 1999 mode for Bioshock: Infinte), and helps to give the game longer legs. Super Mario 3D Land is easily worth the price of admission, and is a great show piece of what the 3DS can do in the hands of competent developers. If nothing else, this has me excited to see what else Nintendo does with their 3DS and to see where this evolution of Mario will take the world’s favourite plumber.

Wii 2? No, Wii U

While I may not be a fan of the name Wii U, the idea behind it and its controller are almost too good to pass up. It looks like we are finally getting that interaction Nintendo has been trying for since the days when you could plug your GBAs into the Game Cube. It is also awesome to see a bigger focus on the hardcore gamer, and that we are going to see things that we want to see on this new console. With a strong list of third party support already, and having John Riccitiello come on stage and state EAs commitment to the system, it is looking like Nintendo is going after everyone with this new console.

I hope in the coming few days of E3, some firsthand experience with this new console and its new controller pop onto the web.

Find Mii

So I’m weak and was unable to wait for Nintendo`s inevitable redesign of the 3DS. After playing a demo unit for a couple of minutes the other week while I was out with a friend, I picked one up. I have to say that I am really impressed so far with the little 3D machine, and with Pilotwings Resort; the 3D is a cool addition to handheld gaming, and I hope developers make good use of the feature. I am also impressed with the number of free games that came already on the system. Face Raiders is a ton of fun; using the room you`re in as the stage for the game is awesome, and the idea of collecting your friends and families faces to use in the game is something new. The AR Games are cool, if only for the novelty of shooting a dragon that has grown out of your desk; I hope that in future firmware updates, Nintendo will update the AR Games and release more cards. But what is really surprising are the games found in the Mii Plaza.

The Mii Plaza is an application where you can see all the Miis you have collected with the spot pass feature of the 3DS. Spot pass lets your system connects to others how might have their 3DS with them, and download things such as Miis to your own machine. The Miis you have collected on your travels can help you collect puzzle pieces that form 3D pictures, or you can use them in the little RPG included in the Mii Plaza called Find Mii.

In Find Mii, you take the Miis that you have collected through your travels, and use them to rescue the Mii that you first created on the system. This first Mii, the one you use as your system profile, was the king of the land and has now been captured. It is up to your army of little people to save the king, and collect a bunch of hats along the way. While I have not been able to try this out yet (I not collected any Miis yet), it seems like a fun little game. It is nice that Nintendo included it with the system; this could have easily been a title for the yet released e-shop for a couple of bucks.

I am excited by what I have seen of the systems capability, and I hope that Nintendo fosters an environment of experimentation with this new 3D technology. The addition of visual depth to the screen opens a whole new world for companies to explore, and I hope people use it in interesting and exciting ways.

Black and White and Awesome

I was in the seventh grade when Pokémon Blue and Red came out in North America. I remember reading an issue of Nintendo Power where they had an article on the rampant success and popularity of a game called Pocket Monsters over in Japan. An old friend of mine had a copy of Pokémon Green that he had got when he was over in Japan visiting family, and after playing it briefly one day I hopped that this game would eventually come over here. It was not until 1998 when Nintendo released Red and Blue over here. My good friend and I got them day one, at that started a love of those little creatures that has survived to this day.

It’s now been 13 years since the release of Red and Blue (15 since the original Red and Green), and Nintendo has recently released Pokémon Black and White upon the masses. It seems that Nintendo and Game Freak are starting to realize that the series has to start evolving, and they have taken a few steps with this new release, but is it enough?

The storyline in Black and White seems have received more attention than previous outings. While you still go around and collect all the badges, thwart the evil plans of some team or another, and eventually become the Pokémon master, Nintendo has made you more involved in it all. This time, you meet most of the gym leaders before ever fighting them and help them stop the plans of Team Plasma and learn a bit about them as people. Instead of playing out like a “my first RPG story,” the game seems a bit more focused on telling a half-decent narrative. I am really enjoying how this journey is the story of you and your friends growing up. The story focuses on the fact that everyone has to grow up, and that there are going to be trials and tribulations along the way. While this is set against a back drop of battling monsters and saving the world the message is still there, and Nintendo and Game Freak have found (or at least finally realized) one of the series biggest strengths; this is game that kids grow up with, so why not tell a story to go along with that?

Along with this improved narrative, everything from the graphics to the music has been done with a level of polish not seen in the series since Silver and Gold on the Game Boy. One of the biggest additions for me is that the monsters actually move around on the battlefields and are no longer static sprites. This adds so much more personality to this huge collection of creatures, and provides something to watch while the battles are going on. It is hard to imagine that Nintendo and Game Freak took this long to throw this into the game, but I am glad that they finally did; this change was something I never knew was lacking in the series until now.

While Black and White does offer some significant steps forward for the series, they still feel like the same old game with that new layer of polish with what we have come to expect from each new entry: new map, new cities, new gyms, it’s all here, but it’s also the same things we have seen for the last 13 years. It seems strange that a game with such robust online features (features I have yet to use thanks to the DS Lite’s archaic Wi-Fi capabilities) still feels so much like the games that have come before it. What do Nintendo and Game Freak have to change about the series at this point? I really don’t know, and at the same time I wonder if they feel that they have to change anything at all. With Black and White selling over a million copies day one in North America, and also topping sales charts in the U.K., I don’t think we will be seeing Nintendo or Game Freak making too many changes to the Pokémon formula for some time.