# Xenoblade Chronicles FINALLY gets a US release



## Bloody_Inferno (Jan 27, 2012)

It's been out in Japan for over a year and a half, and got a Euro/Australian release mid last year, but looks like this fantastic RPG for the Wii is finally getting a US release on April 2 this year. Thank you Operation Rainfall. 

Can't say I'm excited as I've already been playing this game for months.  I can however rave on and on as it's one of the best RPGs to come out in the past few years (I've done a lot of that already actually). Highly recommended. Seriously.


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## SirMyghin (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks for the point, it is not too often you hear great title and Wii in the same sentence unfortunately, so I will have to check this out on release. Unfortunately I will be at work immediately though, but it will be there when I get back. Never played a Xenoblade game before granted.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jan 27, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> Never played a Xenoblade game before granted.



This is the first of it's kind so I wouldn't worry to much about it. The title (originally called Monado: Beginning of the World) is merely a moniker and an ode to Tetsya Takahashi who worked so hard on Xenogears and the Xenosaga series. His resume is also very impressive too.


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## SirMyghin (Jan 28, 2012)

Still don't know how I missed such a high rated RPG as xenogears in my playstation days... I used to play the hell out of RPGs


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## Qweklain (Jan 28, 2012)

This has been available for preorder for a month, maybe longer. You can only get it from Nintendo directly or Gamestop.


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## feilong29 (Jan 30, 2012)

Wasn't there a Xenogears game for PS1 back in the day...? And then Xenosaga? I caaan't remember which is which... I didn't play thru any of them though... any relation to those older titles?


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## Alberto7 (Jan 30, 2012)

Finally! I've been wanting Nintendo to do a US release of this game, so I can finally play it (even though I live in the Middle East, my system is American... Which can suck at times). Pumped for this! Thanks for sharing!


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jan 30, 2012)

feilong29 said:


> Wasn't there a Xenogears game for PS1 back in the day...? And then Xenosaga? I caaan't remember which is which... I didn't play thru any of them though... any relation to those older titles?


 
Xenogears was for PS1. At the time, it was a completely original story from the Square dream team behind Chrono Trigger. It had one of the best mature storylines from any RPG even by today's standards, using religion and philosophy for it's theme. 

Xengears Perfect Works was a book that contained detailed info in the world of Xenogears. The book implied that the game was the 5th installment of a 6 part saga. 

A lot of the staff involved in the game left and formed Monolith Soft. Under that company, they released the Xenosaga trilogy (PS2). These games are the supposed spiritual prequels to Xenogears, though despite the common themes, there really weren't enough evidence to tie them together. Even the development team denied that notion altogether. 

What director Tetsuya Takahashi stated on the subject:



> It's probably more suitable to say that it follows the direction and style of _Xenogears_. [...] Now that we are under a different company, we figured we should start everything from scratch all over again. Though there are familiar faces that serve as important characters in _Xenosaga_, others are more like self-parodies, so we don't really want _Xenogears_ fans to overreact. Like movies, sometimes you have the director of the movie or friend of the leading actor appearing as cameos, so it's similar to that.


 
The story again, was great, but unfortunately that didn't cover up the fact that these game were mediocre at best (crap if you ask me). Which is a shame, as by Ep3 it lead to all sorts of DaVinci Code style twists and revelations. There's been a DS remake, basically a retelling of the first 2 episodes, and even an anime series. 

Xenoblade, aside from the Xeno prefix and same development staff, is a brand new game that has no relation to the above games mentioned.


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## feilong29 (Jan 30, 2012)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> Xenogears was for PS1. At the time, it was a completely original story from the Square dream team behind Chrono Trigger. It had one of the best mature storylines from any RPG even by today's standards, using religion and philosophy for it's theme.
> 
> Xengears Perfect Works was a book that contained detailed info in the world of Xenogears. The book implied that the game was the 5th installment of a 6 part saga.
> 
> ...



Wow I didn't know any of that! Thanks! I might have to find a copy of xenogears.


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## toiletstand (Jan 30, 2012)

dude this is awesome. i was never able to finish xenogears. and this looks like so much fun!


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## goth_fiend (Jan 31, 2012)

xenogears is by and far my favorite rpg of all time, really looking forward to seeing what this game brings new to the table, takahashi is an amazing game developer


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## habicore_5150 (Feb 11, 2012)

bit of a thread bump, but if nobody knows about this, apparently you can choose the box art for the game

Xenoblade Chronicles - Box Art Images for Fan Voting | Facebook

personally, i picked the fourth one out of the bunch


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## Bloody_Inferno (Feb 11, 2012)

Those cover art pics are really really cool! 

I like 2 and 4 best.


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## brutalwizard (Apr 4, 2012)

pre-ordered and super exited for friday


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## TheBigGroove (Apr 6, 2012)

why does it have to be on the wii? the sauce is weak...


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## brutalwizard (Apr 6, 2012)

loving it so far


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 6, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> loving it so far



Are you playing it with the English voice actors? If so, I'm curious if they prepared a new dub, as opposed to keeping the British voice acting dub from the previous localisation.


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## brutalwizard (Apr 7, 2012)

British voices


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 8, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> British voices



I see. Cool thanks. 

Tough I must confess, after 20 minutes into the game, I switched the language to Japanese.


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## brutalwizard (Apr 9, 2012)

have to say so far i am IN LOVE with this game


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 9, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> have to say so far i am IN LOVE with this game


 
Welcome to my world.  I've purposely held off FF XIII-2 and a whole heap of other games, just so I can concentrate on completing this monster. Lv72 and still going strong.


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## SirMyghin (Apr 15, 2012)

I am playing this now too, wife bought me a copy for our anniversary. Just started though, not far in. Trying to keep up with the myriad of quests


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## brutalwizard (Apr 15, 2012)

I just beat that xord boss guy, but i have only been playing like half an hour a day


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 17, 2012)

brutalwizard said:


> I just beat that xord boss guy, but i have only been playing like half an hour a day


 
That's pretty good progress for 2 or so weeks. It took me ages to get to that part probably because I got tangled with the 40 plus quests that was already thrown at me thanks to curiously talking to all the NPCs prior. 

As for where I'm up to...



Spoiler



Do you really think I'm gonna ruin it for you here? It's too good to spoil so get there yourself...


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## SirMyghin (Apr 19, 2012)

This game is a damned completionist's nightmare. that is all I have to say. Too many mindless annoying quests I require to finish!


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## brutalwizard (Apr 20, 2012)

This capitol city place is So neat


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 22, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> This game is a damned completionist's nightmare. that is all I have to say. Too many mindless annoying quests I require to finish!


 
 Yeah, tell me about it. It doesn't help when some of the quest givers/key figures only show up a certain time of the day (but at least you can control time - even if the game doesn't explain how). 

They do reward you nicely with nifty or useless items, character affinity points, and more importantly, experience bonus. Though at times, you get so tangled up with all the quests before you actually progress with the story but the trade off is that your characters get buffed up with experience and affinity. 

And if you're an item hoarder, some quests end up completing themselves when you already have the necessary items anyway. 



brutalwizard said:


> This capitol city place is So neat


 
 Which place are you talking about? Sorry, I'm a little confused here...


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## SirMyghin (Apr 22, 2012)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> And if you're an item hoarder, some quests end up completing themselves when you already have the necessary items anyway.



I really hate the inventory / gem crafting. As you seldom need money I never sell things. My level I gems got full and I had to spend an hour crafting to get rid of them. My level 2 gems are also close to full, haven't bothered crafting them yet though. Takes so long... 

Damn you limitted inventory!


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 22, 2012)

SirMyghin said:


> I really hate the inventory / gem crafting. As you seldom need money I never sell things. My level I gems got full and I had to spend an hour crafting to get rid of them. My level 2 gems are also close to full, haven't bothered crafting them yet though. Takes so long...
> 
> Damn you limitted inventory!


 
Don't get me started on the inventory and gem crafting...  Some gems are awesome, but there's a heap of terrible that I've just ended up getting rid of because I lost patience with selling them in some random shop. 

All the weapons/armour with no gem/gem options, I just get rid of.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Apr 25, 2012)

Ok, looks like I've gone to the point in the game where it can only be described as "just got real". 

350+ quests completed (and I may have missed one or two), all characters not far off from being fully powered, gem crafting is now to the point of fun and getting some cool and powerful gems. Looks like I'll be taking this all the way. 

Hopefully I can finish this by June.


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## Bloody_Inferno (May 28, 2012)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> Hopefully I can finish this by June.


 
Looks like it's taking longer than I'd hope. Level 87, and I'm to the point where I can just finish the game and be done with it, or level up more and complete more and more quests and reveal all Heart to Heart points. Some are the usual fetch a bunch of items, but some others are actually dig deeper to a lot of the side stories that you encounter throughout the game's course. And there's a heap of high level unique monsters all over the place now. I thought I saw one at about Lv 130. 

Anybody else still playing this?


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## SirMyghin (May 28, 2012)

I have to pick it back up again, still around level 30 I think, going up Bionis's back or something. I get away from games when I go to work and it takes a while to get back into them again.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Aug 11, 2012)

Ok so I _finally_ completed the damn game.   Level 99 and over 460 quests done... may have missed a few. 

My thoughts (trying to keep as spoiler free as possible):

Storywise, Xenogears and Xenosaga cast a large shadow over this game. It's clear that Monolith really did focus on gameplay and the game setting over the story. I won't go into detail as that could go on forever (plus spoilers galore), but the previous Xeno games show more rich storylines over this game. Still, gameplay wise, this trumps it's predecessors. The exploration is immensely rich and there's a truckload to do to keep the player busy. And the Xenosaga games sucked in terms of gameplay anyway. 

The game+ is pretty neat too, though choosing which non equipped items and extras was a horrible chore and you have to do the 470+ quests again.


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## brutalwizard (Aug 11, 2012)

I am glad to hear you finished it. I lost my wii to hard times long before i got to Finnish it.


AWESOME JOB MAN!!


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## SirToastalot (Jan 27, 2013)

Nintendo released a little teaser of a possible Xenoblade/Xenogears sequel for Wii U.
There is a multiplayer mode, big transforming mechs and huge environments.

Stoked!


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## Alberto7 (Jan 27, 2013)

^ That... looks beyond amazing. ... I need a Wii U and Xenoblade, and then this. And The Wind Waker HD remake, but that's for another thread .

I've been wanting to play Xenoblade for so long, but having started school again and living at my aunt's is proving difficult in terms of dedicating any amount of time to video games (which is perhaps not a bad thing ).


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## SirToastalot (Jan 27, 2013)

Xenoblade is definitely worth playing, it's no exaggeration when folks are throwing out statements about it being the best RPG of this generation.

It's definitely a time drainer; even without all the sidequests you're looking at 60+ hours. It may cut into your studying time a fair bit...

There's a lot of speculation regarding this 'X' RPG being a direct sequel to Xenoblade (is that Shulk at the end of the trailer?!) or a spiritual successor to Xenogears (lots of mech piloting and combat).

Hopefully Nintendo are building towards a strong showing at E3. This 'X' Monolith Soft title should garner a lot of attention.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jan 27, 2013)

That teaser was amazing. 

Are they actually tying the Xeno series together?


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## SirMyghin (Jan 27, 2013)

Still haven't finished it, just came out with the bird chick topside and somesuch.


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## SirToastalot (Jan 28, 2013)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> Are they actually tying the Xeno series together?



Some people think that the biggest clue lies in the 'X' at the end. It's shaped like the X from the Xenoblade logo, but uses the same red tint as the Xenogears logo. Maybe they're reading into it too much...



SirMyghin said:


> Still haven't finished it, just came out with the bird chick topside and somesuch.



Have you only reached


Spoiler



Makna Forest


?


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## SirMyghin (Jan 28, 2013)

^ 1 past that, the next world so to speak.


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## InfinityCollision (Jan 28, 2013)

SirToastalot said:


> Xenoblade is definitely worth playing, it's no exaggeration when folks are throwing out statements about it being the best RPG of this generation.


Eh... I don't know about that. Mediocre to downright bad party AI, minimal replay value, and it's far too easy to outlevel everything if you do any questing (you'll lack for AP, but it won't really matter). Character writing has some definite weak points and battle mechanics have some issues (a glitch with damage ranges, the rather broken nature of certain skill links, excessively steep level correction, etc). I enjoyed it, but I don't have much desire to revisit it. If quests didn't give EXP then I'd probably be more inclined to play it again since I could do quests in parallel with the story and postgame content that way rather than being forced to choose between doing quests as I encounter them and having any sort of challenge in battle content.

This should not be taken to mean that I didn't enjoy Xenoblade, mind you - I played the hell out of it, including solos of the postgame "superbosses" with various characters aside from that damn rabbit. I love the Xenoblade world, but there's still some hints of the old Xeno flaws. I just don't think it tops the list for an entire generation. Maybe if you just limit it to Wii games.

EDIT: Myghin, if you want to know about the damage glitch -


Spoiler



The damage range for any weapon can be no larger than [low, low+99]. Doesn't impact most weapons, but some weapons with large damage ranges that initially appear desirable are actually pretty bad as a result.


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## SirToastalot (Jan 29, 2013)

SirMyghin said:


> ^ 1 past that, the next world so to speak.



I'm a bit beyond your current spot, but still nowhere near to completing. It's been a bit on and off for me since August 2011!



InfinityCollision said:


> Eh... I don't know about that.



Maybe I should have added a J to RPG! Perhaps there hasn't been much competition, especially with Square dropping the ball continuously.
Your points are very valid, it's still a great game despite those niggles. I'm enjoying it for what it is.
Ni No Kuni might steal some of the praise away though.

I've actually found Xenoblade to be quite difficult - maybe I'm not paying enough attention to the number crunching aspect.


Spoiler



Currently stuck on the first incarnation of Egil, despite having a five level advantage! Argh.



Out of curiousity, what do you think of this mysterious 'X' RPG?


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## InfinityCollision (Jan 29, 2013)

SirToastalot said:


> Maybe I should have added a J to RPG! Perhaps there hasn't been much competition, especially with Square dropping the ball continuously.
> Your points are very vaild, it's still a great game despite those niggles. I'm enjoying it for what it is.
> Ni No Kuni might steal some of the praise away though.


Fair enough, there weren't a lot of great JRPGs this generation.



> I've actually found Xenoblade to be quite difficult - maybe I'm not paying enough attention to the number crunching aspect.
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...





Spoiler



The face-off in the fortress? Those two fights can be pretty rough, though I was underleveled at the time... Egil was red to me but I pulled it off. Setup was probably Shulk/Dunban/Sharla, but I might've had Riki in there somewhere. Not sure about gear, never bothered staying up-to-date on it. Anything with gem slots works, really. Gems weren't anything special; max Agility, whatever Strength/HP/whatever I could throw in, some haste/double attack gems if I had them. Sharla probably had purely Ether and HP, maybe a hate down gem if I had those at the time.



Worth noting that a pretty powerful setup (skill links, gems, etc) opens up in the next area... There's a missable element though, and it isn't borderline auto-win like the two "true" gamebreakers. Most notable aspect of this particular option is that you'd never need a dedicated healer for a yellow or lower enemy again, aside from maybe enemies with spikes if you don't gem/link for that. Very high damage output and still pretty strong in terms of survivability. I can spill the beans on them but only if you want to know about it.

I will say I never really did any real number crunching aside from some testing to pin down the damage glitch - everything else I did was by intuition, no guides aside from some postgame questing/gear collection stuff, and I only figured out the damage glitch after beating the main story. Not a significant glitch really either, just limits the potential of certain weapons.

It might be more accurate to say that difficulty drops off as the game progresses. The earliest fights can be difficult due to lack of a dedicated healer unit (the spider fight can be hell if you're at all underleveled), and midgame still has some fights that can be difficult. After the point where you're at, I never lost a single story fight and only lost a couple of unique fights to gimmicks. Worth noting that I almost always played Shulk though - not playing as either him or Melia can really up the difficulty depending on your setup. For example, I did the tomb boss as Dunban/Shulk/Sharla and while I did win first try it took _forever_ because Shulk was too stupid to use the right art. I went out of my way to avoid overleveling as much as possible; most bosses were yellow to me.



> Out of curiousity, what do you think of this mysterious 'X' RPG?


I'm interested, but I don't know if I'll end up playing it. That's more down to me spending very little time on video games these days than anything else though.


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## SirToastalot (Jan 30, 2013)

Wow, thanks for the excellent advice and offering to help. 
I am so lazy with RPG technique, but I'll slog it out for now. 
Apparently your favourite Rabbit-y friend can be turned into an effective tank/healer hybrid. 

Here's some fairly good analysis of the trailer from the fellas at GameXplain:


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## InfinityCollision (Jan 30, 2013)

SirToastalot said:


> Apparently your favourite Rabbit-y friend can be turned into an effective tank/healer hybrid.


Riki's fucking awesome as both a character and a party unit and has great utility. My only complaint with him is that his AI doesn't like to use his AoE attacks unless you're fighting multiple enemies. I was actually referring to one of the superbosses though - near the end of the game a unique monster named Despotic Arsene spawns in the bunnits (bunnivs? I forget) near the exit to Satorl Marsh. It's not the highest level enemy in the game, but it's by far the most evasive and it does quite a bit of damage. Dunban _might_ have the agility to pull a solo off with his accuracy/evasion aura + Jaws of Death for the talent art, but I think I recall him coming up short. None of the other melee units can get a high enough hitrate even at max tension and Melia/Riki lack the necessary defensive capabilities. Sharla could probably bore it to death given a day or two, but I'm not crazy enough to try that.

I can kill dragons and behemoths with a single character, but a rabbit? That takes three 

EDIT: One thing I really love about the game that I've somehow not mentioned yet: the soundtrack is superb


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## SirToastalot (Jun 14, 2013)

Slight bump. Here is another teaser trailer for the mysterious 'X':



Robots, robots and more robots! 
The draw distances are astounding - it's refreshing to see the Wii U's inferior hardware being pushed for once.
The only small downer here is the music. The vocals sound a bit shaky.

Apologies if I'm repeating content from a E3 2013 related thread.


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## Alberto7 (Jun 14, 2013)

Don't worry. The more that trailer is posted the happier I am . That's honestly one of my most anticipated coming releases for the Wii U. It looks incredibly good. Contrastingly enough, one of my favorite things about it is the music . Matter of taste I suppose.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 14, 2013)

SirToastalot said:


> Slight bump. Here is another teaser trailer for the mysterious 'X':
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I loved everything about that trailer. I especially loved the transforming mecha  and the fact that storywise, it really doesn't reveal anything and open to speculation until it's release. I'm so getting this. 

As for the music, I've coincidentally accustomed myself to Hiroyuki Sawano's work on the Sengoku Basara and Gundam Unicorn animes and as much as I adore the Xenoblade soundtracks.. hell all Xeno soundtracks really... I'm curious what Sawano will come up with.



InfinityCollision said:


> One thing I really love about the game that I've somehow not mentioned yet: the soundtrack is superb



I've been praising the soundtrack all over this forum.  Type "Xenoblade" on the search option and you'll see all my posts before Operation Rainfall even began. /hipster mode


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## SirToastalot (Jun 15, 2013)

Alberto7 said:


> Contrastingly enough, one of my favorite things about it is the music . Matter of taste I suppose.





Bloody_Inferno said:


> As for the music, I've coincidentally accustomed myself to Hiroyuki Sawano's work on the Sengoku Basara and Gundam Unicorn animes and as much as I adore the Xenoblade soundtracks.. hell all Xeno soundtracks really... I'm curious what Sawano will come up with.
> 
> I've been praising the soundtrack all over this forum.  Type "Xenoblade" on the search option and you'll see all my posts before Operation Rainfall even began. /hipster mode



I really enjoyed the Xenoblade soundtrack as well. I listen to it when I need a relaxing break from the usual diet of technical death metal...

It's a shame that Yasunori Mitsuda and ACE+ don't seem to be involved in 'X'.
I'm not all that familiar with Hiroyuki Sawano's work, so I will definitely have to go in with an open mind.

Soraya Saga confirmed via some tweets that the two videos released so far are only teasers (duh) and that a future trailer will be the big reveal. 
Hopefully we get something similar to the early Xenoblade trailers - long and very explanatory.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 15, 2013)

SirToastalot said:


> I really enjoyed the Xenoblade soundtrack as well. I listen to it when I need a relaxing break from the usual diet of technical death metal...
> 
> It's a shame that Yasunori Mitsuda and ACE+ don't seem to be involved in 'X'.
> I'm not all that familiar with Hiroyuki Sawano's work, so I will definitely have to go in with an open mind.



Mitsuda only wrote one songs for Xenoblade (Beyond The Sky). Yoko Shimomura, ACE+ and Manami Kyota wrote the rest. Would have loved them to return (particularly the latter 2) as they wrote the bulk of the soundtrack and some of the best songs to boot.


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## SirToastalot (Sep 4, 2019)

Bumping for a good reason; Nintendo and Monolith Soft have got a Definitive Version for the Switch lined up for a vague 2020 release:



I really hope that this game is enjoyed by a larger user base this time round; as its release on the Wii (in the West) wasn't well timed and there were availability problems. The 3DS version was very blurry in the graphics department and only ran on the 'New 3DS' variant of the handheld.


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