To celebrate Shulk getting into the new Smash I decided to finally play Xenoblade, and I'm pretty disappointed so far (30 hours in).

My main issue with it is the shitty combat system, there's basically no difference between fighting a little fucking birdy thing and a huge monster (not even in HP, everything has thousands of HP and takes forever to beat), you just circle around it and wait for shit to recharge. Most of the time you can't use any team you want because you need medic whatshername or you won't make it halfway through the battle. The best team to use is always Shulk (or Dunban) + Medic + Reyn
Melia has shit AI (she's pretty good if you use her though, but not as good as Shulk or Dunban), the mandatory furry mascot character is typical JRPG reserve fodder which has no reason to exist other than to annoy the player when he opens his mouth.

Other than that I think the story has some severe problems when it comes to characterization, basically I don't feel attached to any of these characters and I feel like they don't have any personality for the most part, at best they are clichès, at worst they have no personality at all (Medic bitch, Melia).

Another major issue I have with it is that it takes forever to get anywhere, everything is massive for no reason other than to look cool from a distance, and some areas really get old fast and look shit as well. An example is the Ether Mine which just wouldn't end, I must have spent like 5 hours looking at low res brown walls fighting the same 3 enemy configurations over and over, or that fucking snow mountain area. The fact that combat is so mindless and repetitive doesn't help at all.

Other than that I like the music and graphics. It's nowhere near as good or fun or charming as the Tales games, Ni No Kuni, Lost Odyssey or Valkyria. 6/10, impressive tech for a Wii game but mediocre overall with bad gameplay. I don't know if I'll finish it.

What did you think of this game?