Xenoblade Chronicles Review

Xenoblade Chronicles is a Japanese Role-Playing Game published by Nintendo. It's been a long time coming for those wanting this released in the North America, and its' finally here. Championed as the best JRPG of this generation, and one of the greatest of all time, people waiting to play this should not delay.

The story of Xenoblade revolves around two titan creatures, the Bionis and the Mechonis. Long ago, they fought and died, and their deaths allowed the creation of all living things on their lifeless shells. The world at the present day is a war between those living on each side. The journey of the game takes you across both of these creatures, exploring some of the widest areas in gaming history. Players will want to waste hours completing every square inch of area maps, only to realize they're barely 10 hours into the game. It's remarkable that such a feat happened on the Wii. These areas also look wonderful in terms of visuals as well as scope. Throughout various areas of the game you'll be able to see the other Titan to give you proper placement in the world, which is a really neat touch that will leave your jaw dropped every time you realize it, especially when you play through it.

The game's combat is reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII, an MMO style RPG where your party acts on their own and you choose your special attacks from an Arts bar. Throughout the game you get a variety of them, which you can level up and interchange between fights. Some can be used to daze enemies through cooperative attacks, while others do more damage depending on where you attack enemies from. You can also play as any character in your party, and while the game does try to push you away from doing so, is actually great to do since changing party members will help build affinity between them, as well as building a character's skill links and provides more gameplay variety. Every character plays right, if that makes any sense. There's no bad character to play as in the game, and while they have similar movement speeds and combat bars, you'll quickly adapt to their various tactics. It's also helpful that the game does have a rather catchy soundtrack.

One of the highlights of any JRPG and any Nintendo game is the music, and Xenoblade Chronicles is no exception. Each area and battle provides a newly orchestrated track that has a different feel to it than the last. While one may be epic, one is mysterious, while another is calming. They all perfectly fit the game, the areas they represent and the graphics, which is one of the game's middling points. The game has a lot of pretty vistas and jaw-dropping areas to look at, but the game also does have some ugly spots, most notably character faces and walls in some areas. While the faces look like something out of a mid-range PS2 game, the textures look like something out of a Nintendo 64 game trying for realism. It doesn't look good at all, and really brings down the game, if only ever so slightly.

One bad point I can bring up about Xenoblade Chronicles is the story, which is completely generic. While you have a great world, great characters and atmosphere, the threads around it are pretty dull and you'll definitely feel like you've seen them before. While the driving force behind Xenoblade Chronicles is the characters, the story will leave you wanting to do other things from time to time, even though they are mostly fetch quests. But those do inevitably help you raise affinity in areas, which can gain you more XP, which is always a good thing.

Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles is the best JRPG released this generation. While it has a somewhat clunky menu system that will lead you to an online guide or wiki, it is still a sight to behold, and will leave you wanting to come back for more until you do everything.


Score: 9 out of 10

+ Well Realized World
+ Awesome Soundtrack
+ Great Characters

- A generic story
- Involved to point to the point of Confusion
- Poor Menu Interface

Spelunky Review (Xbox 360)

Spelunky is an Xbox Live Arcade title for $15 that was originally released on PC in 2009 as a freeware title. The XBLA version has been revamped with new graphics, enemies, locations, traps and other goodies to make the $15 asking price a bit more palpable. Spelunky can be described as a rogue-like game, where levels are randomly generated and you are asked to traverse them. The premise of Spelunky is simple: Traverse a series of caves to reach Olmec's treasure and escape victorious. But more often than not, the player, and the title, are not successful in creating an enjoyable experience.

Spelunky can best be described as tortuous. The game will do everything in its' grasp to end your ruin, which will on average, be less than a minute. While the game isn't terribly long if you beat it, roughly 25-40 minutes depending on your luck, it will take you longer to do so than beating Battletoads for the first time. It's an apt comparison since the game is punishing at almost every turn. While you'll be able to escape the first area of the game after a couple of hours or so consistently, it becomes a strict test of trial and error that will test the time and patience of many players. Only for a few will the pain and frustration of randomized dungeons offer the tiniest sliver of glee.

Spelunky does offer some good, however. The art style is attractive, the music is catchy and upbeat. The controls are tight, and easy to understand once you get accustomed to them after a few minutes. There's a lot to do and see in Spelunky, if you survive long enough to see most of it. But overall, it's not something that I can highly recommend. The difficulty of the game is too punishing and really outweighs the enjoyment you'll have for this title over the long run. If you thought Super Meat Boy, another 2D platformer was too easy for you, then Spelunky is right up your alley. But for most people, this won't be the case.

Score: 6 out of 10

+ Great Graphics
+ Catchy Music
+ Good Controls

- Extremely Punishing Difficulty
- Too reliant on trial and error difficulty
- Randomized layout leads to unwinnable situations sometimes