Xenoblade Chronicles

 Wii
User Score
9.1

Universal acclaim- based on 1527 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,395 out of 1527
  2. Mixed: 51 out of 1527
  3. Negative: 81 out of 1527
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  1. aditya1101
    Oct 11, 2017
    7
    One of the best stories to any jrpg type game I've ever played, and definitely one of the most unique battle mechanics. I think this was a super underrated game for a long time (though it's hard to say that now that its achieved such a prestigious cult status). Definitely one of the classic Wii JRPGs, although my only major qualm is that it had a bit too much grinding and a bit too manyOne of the best stories to any jrpg type game I've ever played, and definitely one of the most unique battle mechanics. I think this was a super underrated game for a long time (though it's hard to say that now that its achieved such a prestigious cult status). Definitely one of the classic Wii JRPGs, although my only major qualm is that it had a bit too much grinding and a bit too many fetch quests.… Expand
  2. Najirra
    May 15, 2015
    7
    Xenoblade is one of the most difficult games I've ever had to put a rating on... it pushes and pulls at me from every direction, every aspect that I find important in a videogame is both genius in this game at certain points, but also terrible at others.

    The story is wonderful, nothing truly groundbreaking but what can you truly expect here? the world has become desensitized to    Xenoblade is one of the most difficult games I've ever had to put a rating on... it pushes and pulls at me from every direction, every aspect that I find important in a videogame is both genius in this game at certain points, but also terrible at others.

    The story is wonderful, nothing truly groundbreaking but what can you truly expect here? the world has become desensitized to storytelling as a whole, and there is very little left that hasn't been done before, regardless, it keeps you interested. It's one of the biggest selling points of the game as a whole in fact. This along with a world that is so vast, and not to mention interesting from start to finish, considering all of the game takes place on the bodies of two stationary titans.

    The characters are well written, not to same old emotionally unstable tripe one is used to in Japanese games these days, again nothing groundbreaking, but it is definitely a breath of fresh air in a JRPG.

    But now comes the tricky part for me... while all the above has virtually no flaws in this game, the overall feel of the game is that of an MMORPG. And this may sound like great fun to people, but it truly isn't. You see, MMORPGs are virtually never ending, and the stuff you do along the way playing them actually holds meaning, be it progression, itemization, but most importantly, it serves to expand the story of the world. Xenoblade utterly fails at doing this however. A game sporting over 450 sidequests, of which at the very least half of them are utterly pointless, menial tasks that serve no purpose but to serve as filler content. Truly monolith could have kept out at least this half, shortened the lifespan by about 50 hours, and pumped this game from being great to simply amazing. That's right folks, this is a game where the length is actually a downfall considdering how that length is generated. The other half that is good sidequests however, and do expand the world as a whole, are most welcome.

    The combat is another push and pull matter for me. Given that game is on the Wii, you can expect slowdown when the going gets rough, and while this may not be the most detrimental thing in the world, I couldn't help but ask myself "why on earth is this on the Wii...?". The biggest sin in this combat system however, is that it is incredibly restrictive. You control one character, you have virtually no control over the others except at certain points when certain conditions are met. This is heavily restrictive and I simply wish I could have just pressed one of the shoulder buttons to switch to another character on so many occasions. Something they will hopefully fix in the next installment.

    Overall, I do believe this game is great, certainly deserving of praise, but as much as I enjoyed it, I had an equal amount of moments where I wanted to throw it out the window. So why the 7? The story and characters completely make up for the horrid aspects of the game, add to that the music and decent combat system that will hopefully get fixed for the better, and you have my score.    … Expand
  3. SpenserReynolds
    Jun 2, 2015
    5
    I really cannot understand all the fuss about this game. I play tons of games similar to this, and this is solidly in my list of mediocre. The character development was incredibly lacking and the world became dull and unimaginative when I was at about 20 hours.

    I will say that I did enjoy those first 20 hours though. Mostly, and to an extent. I did not LOVE them. The idea of the    I really cannot understand all the fuss about this game. I play tons of games similar to this, and this is solidly in my list of mediocre. The character development was incredibly lacking and the world became dull and unimaginative when I was at about 20 hours.

    I will say that I did enjoy those first 20 hours though. Mostly, and to an extent. I did not LOVE them. The idea of the universe was cool and the fields were cool and I had hopes that the game would continue onward in this direction.

    I started to dislike the game more and more the further I went in. The plot was boring, predictable, and unimaginative. I saw most of the plot twists coming a mile away, and the one I did not see coming I didn't see much reason to care about (I will not explain why due to spoilers, but I certainly can explain) and on top of that- all shock and splendor circles around one magic weapon. Like, the whole plot just about, which is boring when you find out it doesn't do anything you didn't expect it to and the game goes on about it for 50-70 hours.

    Toward the end of the game, without spoilers, the grind becomes not just your every day JRPG grind, but an intense circling around one location for hours and hours with enemies that supply little EXP and too much defense for their level. They are also the same enemies over and over. I respect the grind (most game I play are just a grind) but this was just stupid toward the end.

    I played this game for 65 hours and only enjoyed about 20 of those. I was probably about 90% through the game and went out of my way to do a pretty fair amount of side quests. This game was just... very disappointing. I can't help but feel like people that love this game haven't played very many in the genre and just don't know what they were given.

    "Best RPG of its generation". I couldn't even agree that its one of the best games on the wii, to be quite honest. Maybe the wii market just didn't get enough stuff like this and took what they could get?    … Expand
  4. ukzgod
    Sep 24, 2013
    6
    I really tried to like this game, i invested a good 7-8 hours before i put it down.
    Although the start seemed quite promising after an hour or so i knew i wasn't going to like it. So what killed it for me? Basically everything felt really shallow, slow and repetitive. The side quests just became an annoyance after a while. Usually i try to finish most RPG's with all secrets items you    I really tried to like this game, i invested a good 7-8 hours before i put it down.
    Although the start seemed quite promising after an hour or so i knew i wasn't going to like it. So what killed it for me? Basically everything felt really shallow, slow and repetitive. The side quests just became an annoyance after a while. Usually i try to finish most RPG's with all secrets items you name it. But the amount of pointless MMO type quests packed into this is just ridiculous.
    I was hoping the storyline would save the game and despite my initial drawbacks to play it, i would have ploughed through for stories sake. But sadly it didn't deliver on this front either, It just felt very shallow and fake like it didn't really know where it was headed itself.
    You might enjoy but don't go in with very high expectations    … Expand
  5. TitaniumDragon
    Jan 25, 2013
    5
    This game has a ridiculously high metacritic score. You will find tons of adoring reviews.

    Every one of these is utter garbage. Xenoblade is tripe. The game is deeply, deeply, deeply flawed. Its just bad. Where to begin? Firstly, most people go to RPGs for the story. This game has a terrible story. The SETTING is cool - indeed, it is a major selling point for the game - but sadly,    This game has a ridiculously high metacritic score. You will find tons of adoring reviews.

    Every one of these is utter garbage. Xenoblade is tripe.

    The game is deeply, deeply, deeply flawed. Its just bad. Where to begin?

    Firstly, most people go to RPGs for the story. This game has a terrible story. The SETTING is cool - indeed, it is a major selling point for the game - but sadly, while the WORLD is cool... the characters inhabiting it are not. The game commits the cardinal sin of having a deeply boring cast. Shulk and Reyn are boring generic characters whose quest is driven by revenge, Melia is a generic princess who is coming to see what the other people see, and Riki is just an annoying little thing. Dunban and Sharla are okay, but they're unexceptional. The other characters in the world are mostly quite boring, with only a handful holding any real interest.

    Worse still, there is a ridiculous amount of filler. Indeed, the game is mostly filler. There are sidequests galore, which are necessary to unlock many skills, but if you do them you end up hilariously overlevelled - I often was 10-15 levels above the level of the area after the start of the game. If you skip them, some of them are timed lost forevers, and the rest are even more tedious once you've left the area as there's just no reason to run around for them. This also spaces out the time it takes to actually get through the story - you do some story, then A BILLION SIDEQUESTS, then another hour of story, then A BILLION MORE, ect. Its terrible pacing.

    The areas are nicely designed, but even there the game falls down. The areas look decent (though the graphics are not great - and it isn't just that it is on the Wii) but the areas are ENORMOUS. This sounds like a good thing, but it is actually really terrible as it takes a very long time to simply cross the areas. Oh, and the game rewards you for exploring, with better rewards than the quests, so you'd better do it - and worse still, there are teleporters which let you quick travel back through the areas, which are mandatory for making doing the sidequests tolerable, but you can miss some of them, meaning you end up finding them later while on your way back from some inconvenient to get to area. Joy.

    The combat is bad. The AI is not very smart - in fact, it is quite dumb - and there's no control over it. Some characters are just useless under AI control, while others work quite well, so its clearly just incompetence. Unfortunately this also means you never want to control some characters, as their AI is good enough, and other characters you can't put in as NPCs in your party because they don't behave intelligently. The only good thing is the "changing the future" thing, which adds in some actual interactivity.

    So yeah. The game is huge, extremely long, but a very empty and not terribly fun experience. Avoid it.    … Expand
  6. Herpyderpy
    May 22, 2015
    6
    Cool game but way too highly praised for what it does. Except for world and music, which are really great, there isn't much I could find to like in this game.
  7. papermanda
    Apr 16, 2015
    7
    There are several elements in this game that, by comparison, go unnoticed by new RPG fans, and are thus, overrated. The amount of tedious side-quests that prevent the player from advancing the plot can be frustrating for people that prefer more plot-based RPGs. There are no buildings to enter and explore - only endless, sprawling landscapes to run across. The grinding in this gameThere are several elements in this game that, by comparison, go unnoticed by new RPG fans, and are thus, overrated. The amount of tedious side-quests that prevent the player from advancing the plot can be frustrating for people that prefer more plot-based RPGs. There are no buildings to enter and explore - only endless, sprawling landscapes to run across. The grinding in this game resembles a MOBA strategy, more than it does RPG leveling-up. There are complaints that the game's graphics don't look "good enough", but the graphics will never make up for the lacking plot. There are tons of "bad looking" video games circa 1986 to 2001 that have much more amazing plots and character progressions. This game, overall, bored me, and I found myself complaining about it instead of being able to enjoy it because it was flat and unimaginative.

    Many people claim that Xenoblade is the best RPG of this generation. There is no way to prove this, because it is the ONLY RPG of this generation. The people that rate this game on the high end of the scale are rarely known to have played Final Fantasy VII, or Xenogears, for that matter, because they are younger and do not know what a classic RPG looks and feels like. That being said, again, there is little comparison being made using this game against the RPGs it came after.

    The music in this game, on the other hand, deserves a 10/10.    … Expand
  8. IndieLover
    Jun 4, 2012
    6
    A game of two halves. Starts off really good, slowly building into some large levels which are great for exploration but, as the combat gets more complicated, it degenerates into a mess and the later stages just become a tedious procession of button mashing of the same few actions. This would have benefited from having turn based combat instead of the real time version implemented. GoodA game of two halves. Starts off really good, slowly building into some large levels which are great for exploration but, as the combat gets more complicated, it degenerates into a mess and the later stages just become a tedious procession of button mashing of the same few actions. This would have benefited from having turn based combat instead of the real time version implemented. Good graphics and sound, shame the game became not fun.… Expand
  9. Dziver
    Jul 9, 2012
    6
    RPG is my favorite genre and this is the first and the only RPG I would ever give under 7. Combat system tries to be creative but it feels really clumsy and boring. It's like D&D system without pause or character swap. You need to press right and left to select skills from the bar which is reaaally annoying in a long run. I mean why could they just have used skill wheel instead of skillRPG is my favorite genre and this is the first and the only RPG I would ever give under 7. Combat system tries to be creative but it feels really clumsy and boring. It's like D&D system without pause or character swap. You need to press right and left to select skills from the bar which is reaaally annoying in a long run. I mean why could they just have used skill wheel instead of skill bar. Enemies can be avoided by going around them even at situations where you're clearly supposed to kill them to get past them and sometimes they won't even react if you run directly towards them. You need to push down C and use all of the other buttons to adjust camera angle all the time because the game can't do it properly. Heck at one time I think I got some sort of "can't see a **** achievement in the middle of a battle. Game mechanics take forever to figure out, the tutorial doesn't feel like it's enough. Mainly because common things like stun, knockdown, etc. are named daze, topple or something else you've never seen used in any other game. Quests are "kill X parrots" style like in MMOs without any further depth or interesting storylines. As you get in higher level areas you just keep seeing same enemies with different names and in different colors. Characters are uninteresting and the story is mediocre. I know I could've spelled this all better and in better english but I honestly don't feel like I should waste any more time even thinking about this game.… Expand
  10. Kirisoul
    Jul 16, 2012
    7
    Xenoblade takes the Wii and really makes it work! The graphics are solid(though definitely not the best such as Metroid Prime 3 or Galaxy) and the music is among the best soundtracks I have ever heard. The gameplay is fast and interesting and overall the package is just great. But despite all these factors, it just doesn't feel particularly memorable. The quest system feels like aXenoblade takes the Wii and really makes it work! The graphics are solid(though definitely not the best such as Metroid Prime 3 or Galaxy) and the music is among the best soundtracks I have ever heard. The gameplay is fast and interesting and overall the package is just great. But despite all these factors, it just doesn't feel particularly memorable. The quest system feels like a skeleton, often asking you simply to kill some monsters or gather materials on the field. These are not Zelda side quests with interesting back stories or lots of unexpected twists and turns. The first 15 or so hours can leave one wishing for more interesting characters, and the cutscenes, while nice, don't feature lip syncing which is a real letdown. This is balanced out by the amazing British accents in the game though :) Overall, a solid JRPG that simply doesn't standout too much to this weary gamer who has probably played a few too many JRPGs in his life.… Expand
  11. maxvest
    May 13, 2012
    5
    Guys, I was really disappointed by this game and apparently I am completely alone. Maybe I bought into the hype/review scores too much, but I really wanted a meaty JRPG to drop some time into this summer, and it isn't this one. I've enjoyed the music, and the ability to switch on the Japanese audio track was an unexpected bonus. This is the end of the plus column for me.

    The following is    Guys, I was really disappointed by this game and apparently I am completely alone. Maybe I bought into the hype/review scores too much, but I really wanted a meaty JRPG to drop some time into this summer, and it isn't this one. I've enjoyed the music, and the ability to switch on the Japanese audio track was an unexpected bonus. This is the end of the plus column for me.

    The following is what I wish someone had told me before I bought the game: The first thing you'll notice is that the graphics are terrible. Graphics certainly aren't everything, but these are so dated, blocky, and low res that it's actually distracting. The menu system is also a giant step back; you have to go through a bunch of layers to do basic things like make an equipment change. The battle system is fine, I guess, although the camera can have trouble picking the right height. I feel like I don't really have much to do once I initiate a battle with any one of the dozens of identical creatures milling about. The Eurodub is marginal, although the Japanese one is decent. And I'm still relatively early on in the game, but the characters are standard fare if you've played a bunch of these things and there's nothing compelling me forward. Ultimately, the game feels like it dropped through a time warp from the year 2000. Although I loved PSO Online and Final Fantasy X at the time, I expect more now -- and not only on a hardware level. Dragon Quest IX is a great game, and far more hardware-constrained than Xenoblade Chronicles. There have been so many lessons about character design, narrative, play control, and interface design that I thought had been learned over the past decade that just aren't put to use here.

    I'm sorry to poop all over a thing that people seem to love, and I don't downvote popular things just to prove how independent and edgy I am. It's because I dropped $50 on a game that I wanted to like, but have no interest in playing further. Obviously the development team put a lot of work into this, but it doesn't translate into something very fun for me, and at the end of the day, that's all I want from a game. That why I've given it a 5, and put a differing opinion out here.    … Expand
  12. chevkraken
    Oct 31, 2011
    7
    Un bon RPG proposant énormément d'exploration, de quêtes, une bonne bande son et un assez bon scénario(bien que tardant à demarrer).
    Mais son interface lourde, son côté très répétitif, son aspect MMORPG, son chara design fade et son rendu atroce sur TV HD lui    Un bon RPG proposant énormément d'exploration, de quêtes, une bonne bande son et un assez bon scénario(bien que tardant à demarrer).
    Mais son interface lourde, son côté très répétitif, son aspect MMORPG, son chara design fade et son rendu atroce sur TV HD lui empeche d'atteindre l'excellence    … Expand
  13. Tomz75
    Oct 13, 2020
    7
    Un juego muy bueno, sin embargo, no ha cumplido del todo con mis expectativas.
    Hasta la mitad del juego me ha parecido genial, pero en cierto punto del juego, casi cualquier jefe nuevo aumenta radicalmente el nivel y el jugador se ve forzado a farmear porque te empiezan a hacer un daño ridículo, y la única forma de subir de nivel es matando enemigos durante horas o haciendo misiones    Un juego muy bueno, sin embargo, no ha cumplido del todo con mis expectativas.
    Hasta la mitad del juego me ha parecido genial, pero en cierto punto del juego, casi cualquier jefe nuevo aumenta radicalmente el nivel y el jugador se ve forzado a farmear porque te empiezan a hacer un daño ridículo, y la única forma de subir de nivel es matando enemigos durante horas o haciendo misiones secundarias, ambas opciones son aburridas, las misiones secundarias son simples y nada interesantes por lo que no sentí nada que me inspirara a hacerlas.
    El mundo está vacío y nunca me sentí recompensado por explorar.
    la historia y la banda sonora son geniales, sobre todo la icónica música de las llanuras de Gaur.
    Cómo dije el juego no cumplió con mis expectativas porque había gente que lo denominaba cómo el mejor juego de la historia.
    El juego en general está muy bien y si eres amante de los JRPG es un juego para ti, con buena trama, buena música, buena actuación de voz y un combate muy interesante, la única queja sería el aumento artificial de la dificultad y las horas de juego. no es un juego para cualquiera.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

1
#1 Best Wii Game of 2012
1
#1 Most Discussed Wii Game of 2012
1
#1 Most Shared Wii Game of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
92

Universal acclaim - based on 59 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 58 out of 59
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 59
  3. Negative: 0 out of 59
  1. GameCritics
    May 24, 2012
    80
    Xenoblade may not be the greatest JRPG ever, but it's certainly one of the best games on the Nintendo Wii.
    Read full review
  2. Quarter to Three
    Apr 19, 2012
    100
    There's a lot more to recommend Xenoblade Chronicles. The dialogue, the humor, the artwork, the prophecy system, the music, the variety of environments, the character progression, the crafting system, the crazy quest density, the quest quality, the memorable characters, the collectibles, the secrets, and so on. This is a landmark achievement in the genre. As of its release, you can no longer talk about great RPGs, or maybe even great games, without also talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.
    Read full review
  3. G4 TV
    Apr 12, 2012
    90
    Xenoblade Chronicles is the sort of precious jRPG that this recent console generation has sorely lacked. Despite some missteps and over-complication, the game stands out as one of the best in recent years. Xenoblade creates a world simply begging to be explored.
    Read full review
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