Takahashi compared it to playing a game of catch, something he was unused to doing for his game scenarios. [151][152] It was also awarded the site's "Reader's Choice Best RPG" award, with 24% of readers' votes going to Xenoblade Chronicles, beating Persona 4 Golden to the award. [67], Despite being confirmed for a European release, Xenoblade Chronicles did not have an official confirmation of a North American release. They were requested for the job by Nintendo as the staff at Monolith Soft were already working on the next Xenoblade title.

[55], The game's ending theme, "Beyond the Sky", was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and performed in English by Australian singer Sarah Àlainn. [9] The game features a fully open world, which was described by Takahashi as "overwhelming, like an MMORPG", describing the world size as being roughly equivalent to the Japanese archipelago. [h][144], At the 2011 Japan Game Awards, Xenoblade Chronicles received the "Excellence" award. [58][60][61], Xenoblade Chronicles was announced during E3 2009. [52], One of the elements that was of great concern to both Takahashi and Takeda was the main protagonist Shulk. The party then travels to face Zanza, who declares the life of Bionis as simply his food and vessels, and with both Monados, he intends to recreate the world as he has before, destroying the current world and both everyone and everything in it in the process. [41], Xenoblade Chronicles 3D fared worse, selling 56,932 copies in its first week in Japan. With Xenoblade Chronicles, the volume of story and writing work was much larger and offered more freedom for dramatic expression. Health may be restored by the player by using healing Arts in battle, or the player may let characters' HP regenerate automatically outside of battle. A great scientist that created a machine that harnessed the Conduits power. [71] Takahashi later stated that Monolith Soft developed the game assuming that it would be released overseas. In the end, some dialogue needed to be cut as testers felt that the characters talked too much. [45] According to Takahashi, the "Xeno" designation was more along the lines of a symbol, calling back to the previous works of Monolith Soft. [11], Exploration, quest completion, and item collection are large parts of the gameplay. During the ensuing battle, Face Nemesis is damaged to reveal a partially-mechanical & amnesiac Fiora controlling it. [7] The port was originally announced in August 2014 alongside the New Nintendo 3DS. [41][72] Development on the port started between Autumn and Winter 2013 initially for the original Nintendo 3DS, but initial testing showed that the original platform lacked the memory and power to effectively run the game, since the Wii's processing capabilities were greater than the regular 3DS. [46] When describing the title's meaning, Takahashi described "Xeno" as meaning "different nature" or "uniqueness", while the "Blade" part was closely tied to the narrative, particularly the game's ending. In the eons following their battle, they became the home of multiple forms of life. Although no direct narrative connections exist to previous Xeno games, it incorporates aesthetic and narrative elements from both fantasy and science fiction. Despite this, before creating the main theme, Mitsuda asked if he could read the script, which was much larger than he anticipated. Hearing about the New 3DS, it was decided to use its increased processing power to realize the game's ambition. [74] The eShop version released for North America from 28 April 2016. Larger aggro rings lead enemies to focus their efforts on that respective character, leading to a strategic aspect of luring and diverting attention of enemies. [36] In the new universe, the survivors of Bionis and Mechonis build a new settlement and live peacefully together, Fiora is restored to her Homs form, and both she and Shulk optimistically look forward to Alvis' parting promise of endless worlds and races of people beyond their own. The scene was altered so Shulk touched her hand instead. [41] The initial concept for Xenoblade Chronicles, of people living on the bodies of gigantic gods, came to Takahashi in June 2006. [38][39] Takahashi later said that one of the main reasons for developing the game was to bolster team morale after the commercial failure of the Xenosaga games.

It was at this point that co-director Genki Yokota was brought in by Nintendo to handle any system-related issues due to his previous experience with RPGs. Takahashi was responsible for creating the main concept, but as he was going to be director and executive producer, he was unable to also take on full script-writing duties, so he asked Takeda to be his partner in creating the scenario. [153] In RPGamer's "Best of 2012" awards, it was named as the year's best RPG, along with earning awards for "Best Story" and "Best Music". The game's opening details events a year past, when Dickson, Dunban, and Mumkhar were fighting a Mechon army. Egil then intervenes, spiriting Fiora away. [1] It was later re-released in Europe on the Wii U's Nintendo eShop on 5 August 2015. [39] The gameplay was influenced both by previous Japanese RPGs and Western RPGs. Here he causes it to sink inside the head of the Bionis, releasing copious amounts of ether and starting the process of turning the High Entia into Telethia. Construction began in July: during this period, younger staff acted as models so that Takahashi could establish which parts of the gods' bodies could be used as habitable and navigable environments in various poses. At Takahashi's request, Nobuo Uematsu's record label Dog Ear Records assisted with production. [48] Initially planned for release on 2 September 2011, it was released two weeks early on 19 August. He admitted that this was due to early samples he had given the team for his vision for the music, which they had followed too faithfully for his liking. Though Shulk accepts and the Monado is granted the ability to destroy humans, Metal Face attacks with another Faced Mechon called Face Nemesis and seemingly kills Zanza, also killing Melia's father. [91][111][114] The battle system, and to a degree its general gameplay, was favorably compared by multiple critics to that used in Final Fantasy XII. [41] The team first showed their proposal to Nintendo prior to the final development stages of Disaster: Day of Crisis. [72], In the months following these activities, Nintendo of America officially stated that there were no current plans to release the three asked-for games in North America, despite acknowledging the great demand for the titles.