Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 57: Xenoblade Chronicles

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well very few people voted last time but it seems like just enough fir an average rating - I will set a four vote threshold for inclusion in the ranking from now on. Also today is the first Xenoblade Chronicles game. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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Previous Results:
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.6 (21 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (33 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.58 (12 votes)
Undertale - 8.53 (40 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.38 (54 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.36 (27 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.35 (18 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.26 (36 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.13 (39 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.9 (23 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (31 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.67 (27 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Celeste - 7.62 (25 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7.25 (4 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (23 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7 (21 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (21 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Gone Home - 6.85 (17 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.66 (30 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.6 (27 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.15 (13 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.1 (13 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.79 (24 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.72 (29 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.91 (27 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.83 (12 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.43 (15 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.46 (15 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.32 (11 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - 2.71 (14 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.33 (9 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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6.5/10

I'm not as high on this game as most. I think the game's narrative kind of craps out after Seven joins, and what ends up being the endgame boss is less interesting than the conflict set up before it. Still, everything leading up to that is pretty good.

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9/10

The best shonen anime I've ever experienced

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6/10

The best shonen anime I've ever experienced

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7.5/10

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8/10

Generally very good but kind of falls apart towards the end.
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8.3

Pretty good.
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8 / 10

10

I was conflicted about the ending back when the game came out, but now after XB2 I love it and I'm hyped for 3!

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10/10

There's no way I can manage a semi-objective appraisal given my affection for the game.

(but even then, the story's really good!)

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6.5.

Final Fantasy VII - 8. A bit sad I missed this.

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7

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All 10 of them

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9.6/10

So much to love about this one (basing this on the Wii version). The characters have charm, the worldbuilding is unreal, the plot is familiar yet engrossing.

Only reason why I didn't give it a 10 is because of some pacing issues. I think the game is strong out of the gate, but it loses steam over the course of the journey. Also I never liked that they pulled the punch with Fiora.

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7

Serviceable but probably the weakest part of Xenoblade. Prevents it from being in very top tier of JRPGs imo.

8/10

Great world building, solid cast of characters, but I honestly didn't feel super invested in the plot after a certain point.

(Also Melia deserves better)

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7.5/10

I almost said this was classic "falls apart in act 3" syndrome, but in retrospect I might like act 3 better than act 2? Hard to say without replaying it, and I don't hate any of the acts, they're just a little uneven. The characters, the incredible setting, and a great act 1 earn it a pretty decent score in any case.

Also I'd like to change Gone Home to an 8.5 please, been thinking about that game again since rating it and my score was definitely too low.

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7

10

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6/10

Like most JRPGs it completely falls apart in the 3rd act

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9/10

10

A tale of revenge and war shrouded in a world(s) of mystery that absolutely hit all the marks in my opinion and capped off with mind-blowing revelations worthy of the "Xeno" universe. The cast is memorable with great chemistry and interaction. Melia, Dunban and Shulk are all top tier JRPG characters for me.

3/10

Uh, I like most of the cast, and the idea for the world is neat, but I don't remember a fucking lick of this game's story except that I thought it was stupid. I like the game but I didn't play it for the story.

10/10 love it and pretty much everything about it. Best cast around. Like FFX it's one of those games where I can see a few narrative flaws here and there but I love the whole package so much it doesn't bother me. I'm not really thinking too hard about the scores in these topics, I just go with my gut.

I guess I can see why some don't like the third act, but for me the scenes at the top of the Mechonis and later in the Dickson fight are among the absolute best in the game. I don't think it peters out at all, and I admire how bold it is right up until the credits.

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5/10

Starts out really good and mostly stays that way for a while but even in its good parts it gets way too carried away with trying to maintain tension by having things go wrong or change right when you think you're going to accomplish something and it ends up making it feel like your crew are just kind of stumbling around achieving nothing, and the last few hours of the game fall apart miserably (granted that's also true in gameplay and that might be colouring my thoughts a bit).

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andylt posted...

10/10 love it and pretty much everything about it. Best cast around. Like FFX it's one of those games where I can see a few narrative flaws here and there but I love the whole package so much it doesn't bother me. I'm not really thinking too hard about the scores in these topics, I just go with my gut.

I guess I can see why some don't like the third act, but for me the scenes at the top of the Mechonis and later in the Dickson fight are among the absolute best in the game. I don't think it peters out at all, and I admire how bold it is right up until the credits.

It's been almost a decade since I've played it, but I also don't remember the 3rd Act being as bad as some are making it out to be. Worst I can say is that the story's momentum got disrupted by the spike in difficulty.

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Panthera posted...

(granted that's also true in gameplay and that might be colouring my thoughts a bit).

yes, this is my other big issue with the game too

I hate hate hate the enemy level progression toward the end of the game (as in, you literally can't land an attack if you didn't grind enough to power up)

I feel like I'm going crazy because I distinctly remember the end of Xenoblade being stupidly easy. My memory is that doing even a moderate amount of side content makes you extremely overleveled and as a result you just steamroll the final bosses. The superbosses are admittedly a different story.

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By the end of the game, I was just tired of fighting battles whether they were easy or not.

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Xenoblade's difficulty entirely depends on how much sidequesting you do. I did most of the sidequests and had the bonus XP turned off in Definitive Edition, and I was levelled about right for the final boss. The battle system definitely hurts you if you're underlevelled though, I can see how that would be annoying if you're not into side stuff.

Also I can imagine some people just giving up at INSOLENCE

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8.5

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Oh my problem isn't with the levels, I got through the second last dungeon fine then did side stuff and was thus able to stomp the final dungeon with no effort. The problem was the second last dungeon is a poorly designed shit show with enemies abusing collision detection to shove you off narrow platforms into an acid pool that slowly kills you that also locks your controls, the boss at the end of it has acid pools your teammates won't stay out of so you spend the whole time being sabotaged by bad AI and the frame rate tanks to slideshows levels when the boss summons minions, and the final stretch of the game is just really bland.

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The fun part about JRPGs is finding strategies to beat bosses without necessarily being at a very high level (ie, using your brain). Xenoblade's progression system makes that literally impossible, so you're forced into sidequests or grinding during the endgame. That pissed me off to no end.

With the proper specs and strats, you can win despite being waaay underleveled. Ether attacks are best for this, since their accuracy penalty (against stronger enemies) isn't nearly as significant as for melee attacks.


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9.

Great stuff, one of the best stories in a Nintendo game. Last act was fine by me. Good well rounded story.

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6/10