The importance of Xenoblade Chronicles

[Jumpin]

Xenoblade was a fairly good RPG, but it was not as good as a lot of people make it out to be. It wasn't even the best of last year, as Radiant Historia (in my opinion) was clearly superior. I also did not think it was as good as past Xeno games - due to a story and setting that was nowhere near as interesting. The Xenogears and Xenosaga universe is much more vast and much more interesting.

The main quest is alright, but a lot of the side quests were fairly chorish; and the rest are mostly automatic because you'd get them along the way anyway.

The battle system had a lot of unnecessary components, and it became a game of spamming various commands. Running around the field was not something that was very fun. It also didn't allow for much control at all over more than one character; similar to Final Fantasy 13.

The equipment system was a simplified version of Final Fantasy 8's system which required considerable more time on it to accomplish much less - plus refining materials required going into a specific place in a town, rather than just doing it in the menu anytime anywhere. The junction system is also not as robust as FF8's, some equipment you get will allow for fewer junctions, whereas in FF8, as you develop your GFs (which replace equipment in FF8) you gain more junction slots, more skills, and more options.

Essentially, Xenoblade does things adequately, and while I can't say I am necessarily disappointed in the gameplay (as Xeno-games are usually weaker in these areas) I was hugely disappointed in the story. One positive thing I can say about it though, is that if you play along the main story, the game flows better than any other of the over-sized world RPGs since probably Xenosaga Episode 3, and is probably better than most of those types of games overall. It is one of the better oversized world RPGs, but there are lots of better RPGs that came out this generation, and Xenoblade is overrated when compared to games like Radiant Historia, Dragon Quest 4, 5, 6, and 9 and others. But if you compare it to RPGs like World of Warcraft, Skyrim, FF13, and other sorts of padded/repetitive over-sized world type games, then yeah, it's a lot more fun, and much more solid. Much of Xenoblade did remind of of Gran Pulse in FF13, except with other people, and not completely pointless.

Monster Hunter isn't an RPG either, it's somewhat of an action/fantasy-hunting game; and the main reason it is popular is because it is an engaging local-multiplayer game. Single player Monster Hunter is almost depressing to play if it's not to advance your game to play alongside friends later.