Epic, brilliant, and emotional.
The game takes place in its entirety on two giants: the Bionis and the Mechonis, a world of organics, and a world of machines. The center of the story involves an energy blade called the Monado--which mysteriously will only cut what the user wants it to in their heart. In true jrpg fashion, the beginning of your quest starts with simple revenge against the machines that attacked your hometown. The story evolves constantly, and in the end, it involves the finer makings of the universe. You never know just quite who the real villain is, which leaves room for plenty of plot twists and treachery.
I thoroughly enjoyed the music in this game. Sometimes I listen to the soundtrack in its entirety while playing Minecraft. The field music is exploratory and soothing at the same time, and the battle music is epic. There's lots of guitar and strings in the beginning, and then later a more electronic feel takes the music. Each section of the world has its own theme for the day/night cycle.
Exploration is key in this game. Each chunk of the world is massive, and many areas look different at night. There's a weather system in play as well. You can fast travel to different landmarks, and as many as fifteen or twenty of them can be in one area. You can also change the time at will in the menu screen.
Battles happen in real-time. If your character is the right distance, they will auto-attack the enemy they are targeting. You have a selection of "artes" that you can allocate to different slots. You can perform an arte at any time, the only bar being a cool-down period per arte. As you auto-attack, the gauge for your talent arte fills up. Every character has different artes and talent artes, and special combinations can lead to your favor in battle. For instance, if you "break" an opponent, another character can immediately "topple" them, which makes un-damageable foes, well, damageable. There are many other statuses and ways to hurt impenetrable foes, but this is an example.
Healing can only be done with artes--there are no items for battle. Most mobs you can take without healing, but for especially challenging foes a healer may be necessary. When you complete a battle, your health will regenerate fairly quickly and your artes will be up for the next battle. This makes every battle an all-out effort, and later on in the game you'll be able to take on enemies much higher level than you.
There are certain sections of the game that you get locked-out of when you progress the story. This can be frustrating for completionists, but any of the items you lack you can find an NPC somewhere in the world that has it for trade. There are plenty of sidequests, and the ones that you can get locked out of, either through progression or completion of other quests, are labeled with a clock icon in the menu.
Equipment has many options. You have weapons, a helmet, armor, gloves, and boots, and each can potentially have slots where you can shove stat-boosting gems. Each character, NPC, and location has affinity, and the more you have, the more options you have for customization. Having high affinity with characters can result in affinity links, where other party members can learn a skill that's specific to a character, as well as unlocking "heart-to-hearts," cutscenes between certain characters that are littered throughout the world. Having high affinity with a location or NPC will result in more quests available, and more items for trade.
I fully recommend Xenoblade Chronicles to those who love relaxed exploration and brilliant story. I'm glad I got to play it, as it was originally unavailable in my region.