After gorging on pineapple juice and concept art from Megaman Legends 3, Chris was feeling a bit fat. On the borderline of obesity, he stretched to turn off his computer. But something caught his eye. A world-class open-world RPG, blessed with blue skies, detailed characters and intricate designs. Chris moved his mouse away from the “Shut Down” button and clicked on this mysterious review…

OK, enough of talking in the third person. The game I saw was Xenoblade Chronicles, or Xenoblade as it is better known in Japan. Monolithsoft’s monster of a game is finally coming to the UK. Being able to attend a preview event, I got to see what a fully localised version of Xenoblade Chronicles looked like. In fact, I’m pretty sure the unpolished version of Chronicles that I played could be the game we see this September.

The game puts you in the shoes of Shulk, a blond, blue-eyed teenager who likes to think things through. He is able to wield Monado, a blade which, let’s say, isn’t really going to have much of a fight against your average kitchen knife. At the start of the game, when two gods, Kyoshin and Kishin, are engaging in more than just some friendly fisticuffs, Monado was used by an adult man (Durban), who pushed back Kishin and his army, allowing Kyoshin to win a battle whilst paralysing his own right arm using the blade. Yes, Monado certainly shouldn’t be used for chopping carrots, as consequences will certainly follow.

The actual game itself is an expansive, lusciously designed open-world JRPG, complete with moody, flowing robes and gravity-defying spiky hairstyles, as well as your average power-crazy antagonists and impossibly huge swords, which look far too big for your average teenager to be carrying around. I know a large number of people that would probably run away if they saw one of these characters adorning a seat on an Underground tube train. It features an action-based battle system à la Final Fantasy XII which allows for easy micro-management in every other aspect of the game, as absolutely everything else is done manually, allowing for imaginative special attacks. Customization options are a breeze, featuring Dragon Quest IX-like options, allowing players to kit out characters in nothing but a pair of boxers, right up to the full-on armour treatment and huge blade sheaths, which characters will adorn through battles, open-world movement, and cutscenes!

Japanese Nintendo mag Famitsu awarded Xenoblade a straight row of four “9/10s” in their review of the Japanese version, and the Japs seemed to like it quite a lot, selling 83,000 copies in its first week, breaking records and climbing to number 1 in the game charts. This year and next, with the arrival of two more JRPGs, “Pandora’s Tower” and “The Last Story”, the UK seems to be in for a rather nice treat.

-Chris