I think I got slightly past Prison Island before I gave up on the game. It's easily one of the games I've enjoyed playing the least, mostly because the main character (Shulk?) is incredibly annoying. He's easily the most annoying main character in a game I've played. The evil metal faced person whose name eludes me was ridiculously annoying too. And the plot so far being mostly "I want revenge on the person who killed the girl I liked" was quite horrid too.

Apart from that, it's a nice game.

Ok, Hold on here, I am only 15 hours in, and I love this game already.  You are telling me it gets MUCH better?  See I don't know if I can handle that.  I feel the sense of wonderment that I did the first time I played Earthbound.  OH man 5 o'clock can't come fast enough, SOOOOOOOO psyched to rip through some more Xenoblade.  

Thanks Operation Rainfall. 

I think I got slightly past Prison Island before I gave up on the game. It's easily one of the games I've enjoyed playing the least, mostly because the main character (Shulk?) is incredibly annoying. He's easily the most annoying main character in a game I've played. The evil metal faced person whose name eludes me was ridiculously annoying too. And the plot so far being mostly "I want revenge on the person who killed the girl I liked" was quite horrid too.

Apart from that, it's a nice game.

I agree that Shulk's movtivation is lame in the beginning. I mean, we're on this grand adventure for the first ~30 hours because the character's motivation is to destroy a bunch a robots (I'm mad and have no actual plan! Let's kill them all!)? Definitely not the best way to start things off. You definitely notice the story start to drag at Makna Forest, just because the whole "revenge" theme is so shallow and straight-forward. Thankfully there's some subplots along the way, like the High Entia subplot before Prison Island, that keep things from getting too stale.

However, you said that you ended right after Prison Island? Because that's where I found myself actually interested in the main story again. Shulk finally stops being Kratos (You bad! I kill you!) once you realize who the silver faced Mechon is. I mean, I'm definitely a lot more interested in pushing further into the story to find out more. Before all this I actually wondered if XenoBlade would have made a better anime than a game (because let's face it, this is one cut-scene happy game...), but now I'm finally on a point in the game that I can get behind (I'm in the mountain area) and am excited to play more.

Yeah it doesn't seem to make sense. The issues he had were non-issues for me (Shulk's motivation was actually there rather than just a mopey kid)

You in the mountains now? Nice! Did you like the stuff on Prison Island then? Interesting to say the least, and the music which played during the scene with Metal Face and the Emperor is awesome!

I agree that Shulk's movtivation is lame in the beginning. I mean, we're on this grand adventure for the first ~30 hours because the character's motivation is to destroy a bunch a robots (I'm mad and have no actual plan! Let's kill them all!)? Definitely not the best way to start things off. You definitely notice the story start to drag at Makna Forest, just because the whole "revenge" theme is so shallow and straight-forward. Thankfully there's some subplots along the way, like the High Entia subplot before Prison Island, that keep things from getting too stale.

However, you said that you ended right after Prison Island? Because that's where I found myself actually interested in the main story again. Shulk finally stops being Kratos (You bad! I kill you!) once you realize who the silver faced Mechon is. I mean, I'm definitely a lot more interested in pushing further into the story to find out more. Before all this I actually wondered if XenoBlade would have made a better anime than a game (because let's face it, this is one cut-scene happy game...), but now I'm finally on a point in the game that I can get behind (I'm in the mountain area) and am excited to play more.

Uh, I haven't found out who the Silver Faced Mechon is. It's possible I didn't finish Prison Island, then. All I remember is deciding to stop the game unless Prison Island was interesting, and then it just ended up being Shulk screaming at Metal Face again, so I stopped playing. Mind you, I haven't played the game since a month after the EU release, which is nearly half a year now, so my memory might be slipping a bit.

You've convinced me, though, I'll play the game again later at some point. I have other games now, but when they're done, it's Xenoblade time.

Shulk's motivation is to get revenge but also find out the truth about the Mechon. I mean, what other motivation could he have had? Most people are in the shadow about the reasons for the attack by that point, and it's not even explained till a little later from where you're at now Smeags.

It's still a shallow one, that's all I'm saying (and to be clear, you're probably right. It may not be shallow for Shulk as a character, but for the player, and the whole of the XenoBlade universe... it's not the best motivation to go out on). I mean, it's kind of silly when Shulk is talking to the Emperor when he's try ing to gain access to Prison Island. "So why do you want to go there?" "Revenge.". That's it. No more, no less. And like I said before, the different subplots througout the first 30 hours (Sharla and Juju, Melia's assassination attempt) helped to hold up the story... but you know something's a bit off when the subplots are much more interesting than the main plotline... which is that Shulk is mad and wants to kill Metal Face. That's it. It wasn't even "find out the truth about the Mechon" until the events at Prison Island (which I agree have made the main story much more intriguing), and at that point there's also the mystery about Alvis (the dude hasn't been trustworthy since his first apprearance ), Zanza's true intentions, and the mysterious characters on Mechonis (including the Silver Faced Mechon).

So yes, the story definitely picks up after the events of Prison Island... it just took us 30 hours to get there. Also, I won't pretend that the story is the only reason I'm playing this game, as the enviornments and battle system are definitely great and worthy of praise. I play games to play games, and I wouldn't continue if I wasn't having a good time with it (Example: I ended up just watching YouTube videos of Metal Gear Solid 2 because I didn't like playing it ). So I've enjoyed myself. So even if I wasn't totally satisfied with the story at first, I was still enjoying everything else. Now the story has caught up with the rest of the game, and the experience is that much better.

Yeah, at least he wasn't whiney. Still a good guy (which is nice), but his motivation for such a grand adventure was pretty meh overall.

But now, now I'm really interested to see what's happening. There are bigger things going on in this world than I was initially aware of, and it's definitely interesting. The story has definitely picked up, which I'm glad to see.

Those giant manta rays in the initial parts of the mountain are tough (I was level 43 when I started, and even one of them gave me trouble). It's amazing what 1-2 level boost (now level 45) can do to change a battle.

It's still a shallow one, that's all I'm saying (and to be clear, you're probably right. It may not be shallow for Shulk as a character, but for the player, and the whole of the XenoBlade universe... it's not the best motivation to go out on). I mean, it's kind of silly when Shulk is talking to the Emperor when he's try ing to gain access to Prison Island. "So why do you want to go there?" "Revenge.". That's it. No more, no less. And like I said before, the different subplots througout the first 30 hours (Sharla and Juju, Melia's assassination attempt) helped to hold up the story... but you know something's a bit off when the subplots are much more interesting than the main plotline... which is that Shulk is mad and wants to kill Metal Face. That's it. It wasn't even "find out the truth about the Mechon" until the events at Prison Island (which I agree have made the main story much more intriguing), and at that point there's also the mystery about Alvis (the dude hasn't been trustworthy since his first apprearance ), Zanza's true intentions, and the mysterious characters on Mechonis (including the Silver Faced Mechon).

So yes, the story definitely picks up after the events of Prison Island... it just took us 30 hours to get there. Also, I won't pretend that the story is the only reason I'm playing this game, as the enviornments and battle system are definitely great and worthy of praise. I play games to play games, and I wouldn't continue if I wasn't having a good time with it (Example: I ended up just watching YouTube videos of Metal Gear Solid 2 because I didn't like playing it ). So I've enjoyed myself. So even if I wasn't totally satisfied with the story at first, I was still enjoying everything else. Now the story has caught up with the rest of the game, and the experience is that much better.