|
 Yes, it's that time of year again! Let's play Xenoblade Chronicles, one of the greatest JRPGs to be made. What is Xenoblade Chronicles? Xenoblade Chronicles is the latest JRPG from Monolith Studios, the creators of the Xenoblade and Xenosaga series of games. It is bloody fantastic. Aggregate scores for the game currently sit around 93%, with most people using phrases such as ‘Best JRPG of the decade’, ‘one of the greatest games ever made’, ‘my hands have turned into crab claws because of this stupid wiimote’. From the games thread, here’s my favourite description of the game from user Levantine; "Xenoblade is the best JRPG of this generation at the least; it may be the best I've ever played, period. This is the game that Square Enix has been trying to make for the last ten years and failing every time. It's the game that the last two Final Fantasies wish they were. It has well written, realistic (especially for a JRPG) characters, a story that seems very down to earth and relate-able but at the same time manages to surprise at multiple turns, a combat system that takes the best aspects of MMO's and never really lets you get bored, and a quest system that any new RPG coming out should adopt immediately. It has taken most, if not all the tedium out of the genre while keeping all the fun (and numbers) intact. It's not without its weaknesses but they are so minor and so cosmetic I'm not even sure every player will notice them. For the record, I put nearly 110 hours into the game before I beat it - none of it was grinding either. Just exploring and finding poo poo and expanding the story through optional cut-scenes between characters and extra quests. The best part is you can skip all of that extra stuff and still have just as much fun with the game. Xenoblade is literally as little or as much as you make of it. Play this game." This game is the natural evolution of JRPGs, and it has made them look like a drat good prospect again. It has reinvented so many elements that had caused the genre to stale – it is a breath of fresh spring air after years of chewing on the FFXII cd tedium and disappointment. The characters have depth, the story takes unexpected twists and turns. It deals with vengeance, racism, loss, love, responsibility, righteousness. It has huge motherfucking dinosaurs in it. Some are just chilling and eating plants, some run up to you and try and eat your face. The world is lush and varied – consistently beautiful despite the limitations of its platform. The battle system is drat fun and the game is perfectly curved to reveal an amazing degree of depth without ever overwhelming you. There is no grinding! Why don’t you play this on Dolphin? Although gorgeous in HD, dophin is a beast and my laptop would start crying if I tried to play and record on it. The wii version is what 99% of people will be playing, so that’s what you get. It’s still gorgeous and great fun. How long is the game? About 70 hours without grinding or 100% sidequests. I won’t be showing when I go out hunting for every item and kill 5 of the same monster so the LP will probably end up about 50 hours. Updates will be 1-2 a week at 20-30 minutes each. Usually more, but I’m setting expectations low. Is it really that good? Yes. It isn’t flawless, it won’t be the best game ever made, but it is excellent. It’s definitely in my top 5 games, and it’s my favourite game of 2011. Is there anything I should know before playing or watching the game? Nope. It stands on it's own. You don't need to have played or know about any of the other games the developers have produced, despite their similar names. (Xenogears). You should know that I am pretty terrible with gauging how loud the audio is and what it sounds like so speak up if there's a problem. You guys are my ears! I'm like Mozart; instead of putting my head on a piano I'm smooshing my face into a keyboard for aural feedback. Any thread rules? Yes. No spoilers. No spoilers in tags. No spoilers in any way shape or form. No being a dick and posting spoilers pretending you are guessing. I would really appreciate it if you guys could stick to this, please. Here's something help you with this;  Updates ahoy!                                                                                                                                                           
Lethemonster fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 5, 2014 |
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 10:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 00:05 |
|
|
       Lethemonster fucked around with this message at 21:27 on May 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 10:20
|
|
|
Nice! I tried playing this a while back but JRPG's and me didn't get on too well back then. I'm only now sort of able to play them for extended periods but this is one game I'd rather watch someone who knows their poo poo play. Looking forward to more. Edit: Also seeing as the OP text hasn't explained it, how is this LP being presented? Commentary? Subtitles? I realize there's a lot of plot and cutscenes in the first video but even during the little tutorial sections I might have expected a more condensed explanation of things instead of briefly skipping through all of the tutorial windows. v v That's what I was thinking. Sundowner fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jul 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 11:15
|
|
|
Yeah, have you accidentally uploaded the uncommented video? 
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 12:01
|
|
|
Yep, looks like it's silent, though one gets the feeling that wasn't intentional. But, all the same...been waitin' on this, and it's great to see you're finally getting this baby up and going.  I have a request: May you record a video that's just the opening screen, prior to pressing start and having the title appear, with just the open field and the Monado, going through the entire day-night cycle and playing out the entire musical piece? No particular reason other than that it's one of the numerous beautiful yet unobtrusive things about this game that's worth showing off. 
Mazed fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jul 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 12:20
|
|
|
I am so excited to see this. I agree about showing the title screen for a bit, it's very relaxing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 13:02
|
|
|
Huh... It has commentary when I play it from my dashboard. Goddamnit! Just like last time! I was super witty and everything... Oh well, take two. Edit: IM HAVING FLASHBACKS. LPPSTD. Edit Edit: This is a link to my test video which has the commentary, but wasn't resized yet. So if you want you can watch it in it's original squish-ratio while the 'final' version uploads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-LPDiHQSRg Lethemonster fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jul 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 13:14
|
|
|
Heeeeeeeyyyy.... It may have been someone else, but, weren't you doing an LP of this quite some time ago? I recognize the dog in your avatar being used as a talking head for all the sidefetchquests. Oh well, ground-floor of this one. This is a fantastic game that I cannot praise enough.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 14:39
|
|
|
It was Lethemonster, which is also why the OP says "Yes, it's that time of year again!" I'm assuming. Apparently she wanted to restart it. I think the OP could be a bit more obvious about it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 15:43
|
|
|
I own the PAL version of this game along with a homebrewed Wii which with to play it, but I'll be damned if I don't regret buying the NTSC version when I had the chance. What a fantastic game this is.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 16:40
|
|
|
Oh gently caress yes. Lethemonster, you will always be awesome to me for having made the original LP, inspiring me to pick up the game myself last year. I love it to death. (I will attempt to exhibit some self-restraint and not  on mechanicschat at the slightest provocation.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 16:49
|
|
|
You seem a bit quiet? I don't think it's your mic or your audio, I think you're just speaking softly. Obviously you shouldn't be yelling at every little thing, but speaking up a bit would probably be for the better. It seems kind of like your commentary lacks confidence.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 16:52
|
|
|
I actually enjoyed it. For a game like this I feel the soft spoken commentary kinda works well with it but I can understand the lack of confidence or perhaps it's more inexperience with effectively speaking to yourself. It took me a while to get the feel for knowing what I was saying is going to be heard by others. The best advice I was given (that I rarely follow because I'm terrible) is to speak as if you're trying to let someone at the other side of the room hear you, even if you are speaking softly or not trying to be frantic and upbeat, it will help to keep that sort of thing in mind. I think that has more to do with enunciation and how you articulate. Then again I could be getting to territory about talking into a stick.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 17:03
|
|
|
Oh awesome. I was thinking about replaying this recently, but I don't have a tonne of time on my hands. Well, play New Game + to be specific. Still, awesome, I am happy this is here.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 17:17
|
|
|
Thanks guys. I was actually being quiet because I thought that would be a safer bet than blasting peoples ears off. I'm going to try having the mic on the table and talking normally next time, to try and avoid the overly juicy way I seem to talk. I am very experienced at talking to myself, just not while being recorded. I will be taking quests requests! If you have a quest or quest line you particularly liked, PM me or message me on youtube and I'll check it out and most likely throw it in. There's many hundreds of quests in this game so doing them all would be a) soul destroying b) boring and c) ruin the natural flow of the game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 17:20
|
|
|
Yesss, this again. I got a Wii/Xenoblade because of the last thread and I dare say it was worth it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 17:39
|
|
|
I am unbelievably stoked for this! I loved your last run at it almost as much as I love Xenoblade Chronicles. Oh lord this game is a masterpiece, guys.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 17:50
|
|
|
You know for a second I thought I was in a god drat time loop and then I actually read the OP. Also I don't remember ever seeing the first run finished, but maybe that's because I got distracted watching dumb anime or something. Anyways, can't wait to watch this again. Maybe now I can play mine alongside you and figure out how not to epicly suck at this game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 19:11
|
|
|
You know how you're playing a game and you think, "This would be so much better if they just included tiny detail."? This game does. Seriously, I find it very difficult to find a mechanic in the game which isn't implemented in a helpful and reasonable way. You're never fighting the system to be able to do what you want, as the recent Final Fantasies seem to like doing, and that's half the battle right there.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 19:45
|
|
|
Okay, now that I've watched the vid rather than just pre-emptively gushing... My 2 cents on the audio levels is that both your own voice and the game audio in the background behind it could stand to be a little louder. In other words, if your own voice is a little louder, you wouldn't need to duck the game audio as much to be clearly audible (you should still, of course, duck it enough to be clearly audible). That way the viewer could better appreciate the battle music and some of the party chatter, just as a background thing rather than a focal element. Right now they're a trifle too quiet for me to really hear them at all. Also, I've got to admit that I've never paid too much thought to the actual names of some of the items, but you're absolutely right about dance apples.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 19:57
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 23:21
|
|
|
Great to see this back, as for the audio it ok.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2013 23:26
|
|
|
Piping up as another goon that bought this game and enjoyed it because of your first attempt at LPing it. Thank you for introducing me to this, Lethe. I still listen to the soundtrack quite often. I love how ponderous and weighty the Bionis and Mechonis are in that intro. It makes sense that something so big that people have a city on its calf has to take a few seconds to wind up for each strike.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 00:34
|
|
|
I still have Dance Apple1 on my computer  I do dare say that is a 'jazz' apple. I played about with the idea of just picking up where I left off but a) I had over written all my saves and b) I felt it was quite messy and I could do a better job with it and c) I work night shifts with literally nothing to do for 8 hours! Revenant Threshold posted:You know how you're playing a game and you think, "This would be so much better if they just included tiny detail."? This game does. Seriously, I find it very difficult to find a mechanic in the game which isn't implemented in a helpful and reasonable way. You're never fighting the system to be able to do what you want, as the recent Final Fantasies seem to like doing, and that's half the battle right there. There is one thing in the game that I don't like/understand mechanics wise. I will be showing it off in 2/3 videos and then running away screaming. The rest of the game is amazing. I don't know why but I find the game with these graphics far more engaging than other more openworldy games or RPGs with much higher standard graphics. Maybe there is something fundamentally different in how the game end up being presented, or maybe it's just because it looks more like the games I first played. (Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy 7/8/9, etc) Ashsaber posted:Piping up as another goon that bought this game and enjoyed it because of your first attempt at LPing it. Thank you for introducing me to this, Lethe. I still listen to the soundtrack quite often. I like the fact the creation myth boils down to 'Two giant things popped into existence and immediately started beating the poo poo out of each other. Then they got tired and went to sleep'. I have a good backlog of videos made up, they just need commentary recording. Only recording means turning off my wall of fans which in turn means heat death. I want to LP damnit, but I'm scared of evaporating!
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 01:14
|
|
|
I'm not sure if you LP'd this last year but I remember watching only the intro of the last LP and immediately quit out of the video and pre-ordered the game. I have yet to finish it (drat living so far away from my Wii  ) but it has been a blast so far. I'll probably watch this LP to see if I missed anything in the beginning.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 01:33
|
|
|
Lethemonster posted:I don't know why but I find the game with these graphics far more engaging than other more openworldy games or RPGs with much higher standard graphics. I feel the dame way. I played through FF XIII before this game, and while it had very pretty backgrounds, thats all they were, backgrounds. Here you get to climb all over them, and you have incentive to explore (exp, G, AP from finding stuff). There's even reason to backtrack at times. In FF you se pretty backgrounds and its just so much background noise if it isn't a setpiece, while here if you see something your first thougt is "How do I climb that" or "What goodies are over there". notreallyanedit: Oh, you said other openworldy games, oops. Oh well, what I said still stands.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 02:13
|
|
|
I wish getting this game was at all reasonable now for the kind of person who waits to see if certain games get good reception, like me. Over a hundred dollars for an english copy on most sites.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 02:16
|
|
|
JGBeagle posted:I'm not sure if you LP'd this last year but I remember watching only the intro of the last LP and immediately quit out of the video and pre-ordered the game. I have yet to finish it (drat living so far away from my Wii She is the same person and I also pre-ordered the game around the same time. I beat it last month while my computer was in for repairs, and I didn't give a drat about my computer the whole time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 05:55
|
|
|
I was going to say that you should have just kept all your old material (weren't you something like 17 updates in before you quit?) but then I realize that would be in poor form to just shove all 17 updates in the first post just to revive the LP. I'll be tuning in when you're back to the same point you were in the previous LP.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 06:24
|
|
|
I pre-ordered the game and I didn't even own a wii and it's all Lethemonster (and my friend who pointed me at the thread's) fault. I need to scavange my friends wii so I can play this again...
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 06:25
|
|
|
Heh, I stopped playing this game right around the time the first LP started, and now I've picked the game back up right as the new LP starts. Weird. Looking forward to this LP... again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 06:31
|
|
|
Glad to see this back. People like to claim that all the bullshit "fetch me 10 bear asses" quests are automated and you don't have to go back, but that's not true. If you got the quest from a person with a non-generic name, or the quest does not have a generic name, then you do have to go back and see them, which does involve NPC schedule wrangling. wdarkk, if you're reading this thread, stop, and go play the game. Seriously. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jul 17, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 15:13
|
|
|
I'm very excited for this. I've been wanting to replay this game recently, but I don't have another hundred hours to sink into it. This should be a nice substitute!
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2013 20:13
|
|
|
Update! Short, sweet, and slightly gross. Part 2 - Youtube Polsy Youtube I should make a banner for each update post. I'm trying to do it a bit simpler than last time because I got burnt out on tagging hundreds of tiny images and editing the backgrounds all the time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 17:02
|
|
|
Azure_Horizon posted:I was going to say that you should have just kept all your old material (weren't you something like 17 updates in before you quit?) but then I realize that would be in poor form to just shove all 17 updates in the first post just to revive the LP. I'll be tuning in when you're back to the same point you were in the previous LP. I think resurrecting a thread with old videos is a bit different from dumping a youtube playlist and riding off into the sunset. Plus people who still remember the old thread are probably more interested in new progress than a repeat from the beginning. Anyway I'll start following this again when the LP catches up to where it left off last time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 19:24
|
|
|
Elite posted:I think resurrecting a thread with old videos is a bit different from dumping a youtube playlist and riding off into the sunset. Plus people who still remember the old thread are probably more interested in new progress than a repeat from the beginning. Well I'm not saying it would be the same as a Youtube dump, but that it might be daunting for people who didn't follow the LP last time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 19:32
|
|
|
I'll be following this LP, because while I enjoyed playing Xenoblade, I just couldn't get into it to the point where I wanted to invest the time I knew it would need. I think I got about 10 hours in, and it just fell by the wayside. I don't know why that is! Maybe when you get to the point I was at, and then beyond, I'll see what I was missing and get inspired to play it again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 19:59
|
|
|
Is this a whole new play through or you just redoing commentary on your old videos?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 20:39
|
|
|
It looks like a new playthrough. Also, it's a bit disconcerting to hear you talk about Fiora's vomit-like jump noise when I can't actually hear said jump noise very well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 21:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 00:05 |
|
|
All new playthrough - don't have my old save data anymore and wanted to do a few things differently.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2013 22:20
|
|