Xenoblade -- Major Details From Famitsu, Scans

- "The world setting, story and other elements have no relation (to past Xeno games). It's a completely new title." - Xenoblade director Tetsuya Takahashi
- Takahashi feels that past Monolith titles have focused on events and scenarios, and this development path was a dead end
- Xenoblade started off with the dev team examining the origins of the RPG genre, and creating a game that was simply fun
- Why does this game have 'Xeno' in the title? "I wanted to to have some sort of common point with the games I've made."
- "Xeno" has the meaning of "different nature" or "uniqueness"
- the 'blade' portion of the name is explained in the game's ending
- background story involves two golds that fought a great battle tens of thousands of years ago
- the end of this battle resulted in two giant corpses, which happen to be the setting for this game
- "It seemed like it would be enjoyable to adventure on top of the body of a giant god." h
- Mr. Takahashi was inspired by Soma Bringer for his giant god idea, and started to work on design documents right away
- a model of the two gods (one with wings) was created in order to better give a sense of what's going on
- the two gods are frozen in battle, with swords clashing against one another
- the model was created before game development began. "It was of great help when explaining the project to Nintendo."
- the entire game takes place on the two gods, and you'll find nothing but ocean surrounding them. There's not even any outer space to speak of.
- the game world is about the size of Japan
- areas of the world open up as you explore
- you'll be able to go inside one of the gods
- verticality is a big part of Xenoblade. "From the start of the project, we thought it would be interesting if we could make use of a vertical construction."
- Areas of the world correspond to parts of the gods' bodies
- you'll also experience different weather and varied monster ecolog
- you can head to the top of one of the gods to see an aurora
- the people that live on the different gods are fighting with each other
- one god is a home to organic life (where the main character is from), and the other is home to mechanical life
- story beginning: "It's simple -- the fight against mechanical life that threatens the peace of mankind."
- the game kicks off in a cave on the foot of one god
- your aim is to make it to the god's head
- the game keeps track of where you should be going for both the main quest and side quests
- use warps to transport back to older areas
- specific systems in place to keep you from getting lost
- seamless world movement: "We've put effort into this, because we felt that in order to show a living world, we needed an overwhelming sense of scale, like that of an MMORPG."
- gain experience for exploring special areas that include monsters that can't be defeated at first. Level up and return to take these foes down.
- enemies visible in the game world, encounter one and you seamlessly transition to battle
- nearby enemies can join in on battles
- journey with two AI-controlled characters
- select special skills (called Arts) for your AI party members
- your character performs attacks automatically
- Arts - attack skills, recovery skills and more
- 50 to 60 hours of gameplay
- Takahashi promises you won't spend endless amounts of time grinding or engaging in event scenes

Link

Scans:

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Sounds interesting to me. I can't wait to see the final product.

Its releasing Spring 2010 so hopefully that means sometime near summer/winter in North America.

Looks very promising. Will this game make it to the West. I hope so.

I would normally be super-excited for a game like this, but I'm not going to hold my breat for a North American release. I'm still waiting on Soma Bringer.

EDIT: Wow I hate the character design. The rest of the graphics look really nice though.

Looks really nice.

And ya, I'm not digging the characters all that much (big ugly swords don't help at all :roll: ) but the environments look really sweet

"the game world is about the size of Japan"

Thats freaking huge for a game. Unless i'm missing something here, that would make it bigger than Daggerfall. It kind of worries me.

Me want this in the worse way!

Yay. :D

This game looks better and better every time I see it. I am now officially hyped.

This game looks better and better every time I see it. I am now officially hyped.

psychobrew

I would normally be super-excited for a game like this, but I'm not going to hold my breat for a North American release. I'm still waiting on Soma Bringer.

EDIT: Wow I hate the character design. The rest of the graphics look really nice though.

JAB991

This is the same game as Monado, which is already scheduled for a 2010 release in North America.

[QUOTE="JAB991"]

I would normally be super-excited for a game like this, but I'm not going to hold my breat for a North American release. I'm still waiting on Soma Bringer.

EDIT: Wow I hate the character design. The rest of the graphics look really nice though.

_BlueDuck_

This is the same game as Monado, which is already scheduled for a 2010 release in North America.

I want those god models so badly, I don't even collect figures but those two would look amazing in 1:32 scale. After all, whats more interesting than a god complex? A DOUBLE god complex!

This game looks like it was designed for the Wii specifically, the areas are small in scale but make up for it by featuring a relevant and interesting centerpiece. It also uses lighting very well. The characters look cheesy and that's ok. The fact that this game could be compared to Mario & Luigi 3 (the newest one) is quite a benefit.

Verticality sounds like another Temple of the Ocean King, something that used to be common in rpg's. Once again, this focuses on two verticals at once. I imagine late game areas are going to be jarring in how different the torsos and heads of the gods are.

But the most important part of all....THEY TELL YOU WHERE TO GO FOR QUESTS. Second most goes to enemies on the world map, which is a monolith stable but holy cow nobody but Monolith or Nintendo seem to care about doing that anymore.

Please Reggie, don't let us down. Treehouse don't tell us you're too busy with Pokemon gen 5 to delay this forever. Cammie, don't tell media this is hardcore.

This would be the first original Nintendo epic in the style of LoZ and Metroid we have seen in a very long time.

I just want to know what the gameplay is like and how well they (if) localize this.

I don't think it's 'if' this game is localized, but 'when.' I love the environments, and some of the designs. So, this game would be something I'd keep an eye on.

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

thedude-

But this one actually has a confirmed North America 2010 TBA release date, unlike those games.

Looks quite impressive, visually. Like the artstyle and the character design isnt half bad either but c'mon... huge swords? Original....

It looks good but the battle system sounds like WKC battle system.... game was a letdown.

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

thedude-

Plus the only game made by Monolith that hit America since Nintendo made them a first party developer was published by Atlus.

Namco and Nintendo seem absolutely dead set on declaring those games won't sell in America.

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

But this one actually has a confirmed North America 2010 TBA release date, unlike those games.

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

SirSpudly

Plus the only game made by Monolith that hit America since Nintendo made them a first party developer was published by Atlus.

Namco and Nintendo seem absolutely dead set on declaring those games won't sell in America.

On the other hand, Nintendo came to Monolith's Baten Kaitos Origins' rescue and published it here in North America when Namco failed to do so. Awesome game P.S.

[QUOTE="SirSpudly"]

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

Plus the only game made by Monolith that hit America since Nintendo made them a first party developer was published by Atlus.

Namco and Nintendo seem absolutely dead set on declaring those games won't sell in America.

On the other hand, Nintendo came to Monolith's Baten Kaitos Origins' rescue and published it here in North America when Namco failed to do so. Awesome game P.S.

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

thedude-

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

Tri-Enforcer

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

Looks a hell of a lot better now than it did at E3 last year.

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

Looks good and interesting. I've never played a Xeno title before so I'm intrigued by it. Plus I loved Baten Kaitos, even with it's terrible voice acting. :P

I absolutely love RPG's and the Wii's definitely been lacking good ones. I'll be keeping an eye out for this and hope that it turns out good. The images certainly look promising though.

Can't wait for it's release!

looks kinda like crystal bearers... i bet it will get a US release, but not do so well in both sales and scoregarrett_duffman

Crystal Bearers had potential, but was ruined by executive meddling. Hopefully Monolith with be given the chance to produce a game we RPG fans really want.

[QUOTE="Tri-Enforcer"]

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

thedude-

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

Again, I'd just like to point out that the game is already set to be released in North America at some point

http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=112478

It's listed as Monado but as we all know it was renamed Xenoblade (and if you don't believe that check out this link: http://www.nintendoeverything.com/31986/)

[QUOTE="_BlueDuck_"]

[QUOTE="JAB991"]

I would normally be super-excited for a game like this, but I'm not going to hold my breat for a North American release. I'm still waiting on Soma Bringer.

EDIT: Wow I hate the character design. The rest of the graphics look really nice though.

elbert_b_23

This is the same game as Monado, which is already scheduled for a 2010 release in North America.

What? The sword looks the same, the characters looks the same (the outfits might had change), and the environment looks the same (but much better now). It the same game and as of now it will come to NA.

[QUOTE="thedude-"][QUOTE="Tri-Enforcer"]

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

Again, I'd just like to point out that the game is already set to be released in North America at some point

http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=112478

It's listed as Monado but as we all know it was renamed Xenoblade (and if you don't believe that check out this link: http://www.nintendoeverything.com/31986/)

Very, VERY, interesting concept that they got going on here.

I am certainly interested.

[QUOTE="Tri-Enforcer"]

[QUOTE="thedude-"]

You never know with Nintendo. Fatal Frame and Disaster are still never coming to the US.

garrett_duffman

This game has much higher production values, looks better, and may have better controls since it will be like a traditional RPG. This is so U.S. bound.

I still don't know about this game. I've never been into RPG's, but the concept sounds really interesting to me with the game taking place on the bodies of the gods. The scans look pretty good (enviroment wise), but I like many others have said before me.... am not into the whole "big sword" thing.

I think I'll have to see some gameplay before I jump on the bandwagon. That'll be the deal breaker for me

The envirements look really good. It doesn't look like MH3, but its scope is much bigger so thats ok.

The character models don't really bother me so I'm indifferent about it. The models aren't bad looking by no means, just could be better. Like I said...it doesn't turn me off. However the environments look absolutely fabulous and the enemy types look good as well. I just want to see it in motion to see how the animations look. They say it plays like a traditional RPG, so we pretty much know how the gameplay will be like.