I’m definitely in the mood for roleplaying games this year, so Xenoblade Chronicles – a game I already have, unplayed, for the 3DS – came to mind. Of course, I couldn’t play the 3DS version when a newer, better, more complete version exists, so I had to buy that. Naturally, it has never seen much of a price drop but after a few weeks of checking sites for cheap copies an Italian version came up on eBay for £23, less than half the usual going price. Thankfully, it has an English option, and so here we are.

Going into a 50+ hour RPG can be pretty daunting. That’s a big ol’ time sink for a start, but it’s also “what if it’s too hard and I can’t complete it?”, or “what if it’s terrible?”. Reviews suggested the latter wasn’t likely to be true and being an RPG you can always grind levels for any hard bits, but very quickly I hit a bit of a wall – I hated the combat.

Traditionally, any JRPG to me has turn based combat. You could also (incorrectly) argue that games like The Legend of Zelda are RPGs (they’re not) and so are action based combat. Then you have western RPGs like Fallout 3 or Knights of the Old Republic which have their own systems with Action Points and semi-real-time combat. Xenoblade is different. And I didn’t like it.

You see, when you trigger a fight (ideally by sneaking up behind a baddie and slashing your sword at them) you move into what superficially appears to a be real-time fight where you can move as much as you want and attack when you want and physically dodge rather than (seemingly) hidden dice-rolls determining actions and success. Except it isn’t like that, as although you can use one of your various attacks (and buffs, debuffs and heals) each one has a cooldown. There’s a bar along the bottom of the screen with your moves listed, and you spend 95% of each fight looking at and selecting things on this bar rather than the action unfolding, and it’s just weird.

Or at least it was until something clicked: This is basically the same combat system as in Eternal Sonata.

Now I realise you, dear reader, are about to be shouting in the comments about how Final Fantasy have been doing this for years and how it’s used in Kingdom Hearts and it’s really common or something. But I haven’t played those to any degree. I have, however, played Eternal Sonata. Anyway, following this revelation, it was fine. Well, I mean, the game operating through a set of icons along the bottom of the screen was still a bit odd but gameplay-wise, all good.

With all that out of the way, what about the actual game, eh? Unfortunately that got off to a bad start too, as within minutes of actually taking control of my character, I’d unlocked twelvetentymillion quests. Which was more than a little overwhelming. And they just kept coming. Luckily, they’re dealt with in a really clever way, in a nice checklist which you can turn quest tracking on and off for with map icons and instructions and reminders. I believe this is a system from the later Xenoblade games which was backported to this remaster of the Wii original, where the old quest tracking system was essentially unusable. Yay for waiting to play a later version! So, like the combat, I was won over and ticking all the boxes became a fun obsession rather than an irritating chore like it appeared at first.

Xenoblade Chronicles is a big game. Sure, I mean that in that it’s a huge RPG, and I also mean in that it’s an epic storyline, but I really mean that the whole world is set on (and in) the body of two massive titans – Bionis, a creature of earth and nature, and Mechonis, a being of gears and metal. Areas explored and encountered are on the leg, or hand, or inside the chest of these creatures. In the distant past of the world of Xenoblade, these two giants fought, and ultimately both “died”. The Xenoblade of the title was the weapon of choice for the Bionis, and it’s this that Shulk – tiny human that he is – ends up wielding himself. Yes, somehow it’s a lot smaller when Shulk holds it, although like most JRPGs it’s still hilariously oversized.

Anyway, Doings are Afoot, and it seems that the denizens of Mechonis (mostly robots) have been sent to war with those (mostly humans) of Bionis, and they’re near indestructible without the power of the Xenoblade. So begins Shulk’s quest to avenge the apparent death of his friend, and he travels the world to reach Mechonis and defeat the Big Bad. Only, of course, there are more twists than a telephone cable and things aren’t as straightforward as it seems.

This plays out in a fairly standard JRPG way – reach new areas, get new friends (some of whom join your party) and foes (or are they?), fight increasingly more powerful baddies, complete side quests, rebuild a city, make embarrassed faces when any sort of physical attraction might be construed, get progressively more powerful yourself, augment your clothes and weapons with stones that boost various stats, and so on. You know the deal.

Fights are complex, with three characters to keep track of (although you can only directly control your leader), combos to try and build, and a system of staggering, knocking over, and paralysing baddies which require certain attacks in specific orders to achieve – and they’re necessary for some baddies or they just won’t take damage at all. All this while there is so much chatter. Reyn constantly yelling “Now it’s Reyn time!”, Sharla peppering every fight with “My rifle’s getting hotter!” and so on. It’s a bit much after 80 hours. There is some funny (for a while…) bants though, mainly involving Riki the catmouseturnipbear thing. Behold the “Riki Need Paws!” exchange:

I’ve made a few comments now where it suggests I didn’t like the game. I haven’t mentioned the slightly annoying fetch quests, or the sometimes dodgy graphics (mainly when close up or in caves), or the fact you often have to wait until a certain time of day (there’s a full day/night cycle in the game) to talk to people. You would be wrong – it was bloody brilliant, warts and all.

The plot, especially the resolution, is utterly mental. The twists along the way are whaaaaaaa? in the extreme. But it works somehow. The gameplay is solid, the just one more area carrot is strong. The areas, when there are big open vistas are gorgeous, with some very Breath of the Wild vibes. The soundtrack is great, the main characters are brilliant (although “Shulk” is the worst name in all of creation) and it’s just fun. I may have taken a very long time to come to the Xenoblade party, but after 90-odd hours of it I’ve definitely arrived and look forward to some Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Once I can find a cheap Italian copy, of course.

Oh, and to explicitly answer the two concerns at the start of this post – it was easy, and I did like it. Phew, eh?