Xenoblade is not only hands down the best jrpg for the Wii but quite possibly the best jrpg of the generation.
Tetsuya Takahashi, the creator of the excellent Xeno series, has said he poured his soul into making this game and it shows in evey way possible its simply mind blowing, with so much to say about this game I will start with the story, which is in one word excellent. It all starts with two massive behemoths fighting and ending their battle after years of fighting. Many years later humans living in one of them are fighting Mech, robots with the goal of killing evey human being.
After a series of events Shulk, our hero is set on a revenge mision armed with the Monado, the only sword capable of killing the mechs. Yes you may find a couple of cliches here and there but theres also plenty of great narrative, plot twists, untimely deaths all unified to make a story you will enjoy filled with emotion and unexpected turns. And dont worry, cutscenes arent hour long affairs.
Not long after starting Xenoblade, you will be introduced to the first of the many massive landscapes just waiting to be explored. Your adventure is filled with these massive places to visit with a great deal of variety and they all feel very much alive. It is quite impressive to see this vistas on the wii, which is admitedly an undepowered console and it all looks so great that it may give you chills. I dont know how but Monolith was able to pull it of .
There are some downsides to it all, like the character models that dont look too hot and pop ins, but once you see these places you will forget about any minor graphical downsides. And the best part is that there are no loading times except for when you enter a cave, there are no invisible walls, if you fall off a cliff you may get to the place you want to go or end up dead and the art style is gorgeous. Theres also rewards for exploring the world, like getting exp every time you discover a new place and collectables that when you gather enough youll get some nice new equipment or gems.
Then theres the battle system, which is in real time and has plenty of strategy involved to it. Some attacks work better attacking from behind, other from the side or up front. These attacks, called arts have many different types of effects, from slow or break and they all can be leveled for a better performance and of course as you level up you will get even more. It may be hard to picture so to make things simple the battle system works, it is great fun and theres also plenty of strategy to be found. But beware of lv70+ monsters waiting for you to challenge them, as in the beginning of the game your ass will be kicked but if you choose to return to challenge them with proper levels and equipment, you will be rewarded.
The music in Xenoblade is just perfect, I rarely like most videogame music as most of the times it is there just for the sake of it. Not so much here, you will cherish every track the game has to offer and you will be impressed with it. You can also choose between english and japanese VO, the latter being better but the former isnt that bad too.
At last but not least I will just mention the little and extra things, things that make xenoblade a perfect gaming experience and it shows that monolith saw these game from every angle and left no stone untouched. Warning, you may hear me talk a little too much.
Theres a massive amount of side-quests to take on with plenty of variety and challenge. You can save anywhere you want and if you die you just return to the last checkpoint which is always near the place you died and you dont even have to see again any cutscene. Theres no painful backtracking, you just have teleport to the anywhere of the many checkpoints in the world map. Theres a gem crafting system for you to forge new gems to add to your equipment. Theres also a relationship system in which you grow emotionaly to your main characters or other people from other places. A night and day system, chain attacks in battle, no use of items and revives, after battle your characters heal themselves and in battle you can revive them as long as you have at least 1 bar in your battle gauge, equipment that you can actually see in cutscenes, mini bosses in each area which if you defeat youll get some nice extra equips, achievements, collectables, skill trees, a 60+ hour adventure.......damn I cant go on I need to catch a breath XD.
So in conclusion Xenoblade Chronicles is the best jrpg in years and one of the best rpgs you will find. Theres so much to love about it that a 10 pages review wont be able to cover it all. If you like rpgs in general you should do yourself a favour and buy this gem. Developers should take note as Monolith has raised the bar for console jrpg by striping away all the things that hold back the genre and adding plenty of new things plus the things we all love about jrpgs to create a experience that feels fresh and original but at the same time will make you remember the golden age of jrpgs. Congratulations Monolith and Tetsuya Takahashi, you have created a new classic jrpg.