Started playing Xenoblade Chronicles about a week ago. Just got to the part where Sharla joins your group.
I'm getting hooked in to the point where I spend way more time playing it than I originally intend to. And the music and plot and scenery (character models not so much) are great. But...at the same time, not sure I actually enjoy it that much overall. The giant hordes of fetch quests (granted they aren't required, but I'm OCD about that stuff) just kinda drag the pacing down a ton and make the game seem more monotonous than it should be. And trying to find the NPCs at different points in the day, with them moving around between places just makes it annoying.
The skip to landmarks is great with such a big world, but when you have to actually run through it, the horrific camera controls make that tough. Especially since I'm now extremely paranoid to check all around for obscenely high level monsters -- this game loves dropping level 70+ monsters in an otherwise level 10 or 20 area! I've had a few blind-side and kill me before I knew what was going on. Likewise for them joining an existing battle. *Winning the fight* *people suddenly drop* "What the hell...?" *briefly glimpse the high level newcomer before TPK happens* The "funniest" is when day changes to night (causing stronger monsters to come out) mid-fight. That's gotten me twice already.
I didn't like the "simple" auto-attack battle system at first, and as a non-MMO player, the terminology was a big turn off. But once they start layering in all the talents and combo attacks and special Macguffin powers (trying to avoid spoilers; if you've played you know what I mean), it gets quite complicated and hectic! Which for me is a good thing. Battles are very fast paced and tend to resolve themselves delightfully fast, but not so quickly that they're utter jokes. Also, as a major hater of the final fantasy style overly-long special effects fade in for every single flipping fight that takes like half a damn minute to go through, the instaneous, seemless battle initialization this game has makes me happy.
Anyway, other than sidequests detracting enjoyment for me, the awful camera controls, mishaps with the gratuitously overpowered monsters sprinkled nearly everywhere, and the kinda poorly organized equipment/item screens, game's really good so far. Anyone else playing it?