It has been a long time since the Wii received a good game. Since its release, the Wii has generally been the despair of Nintendo fans as the gaming giant turned its attention to the casual gamer market.

Sure, Wii Sports was fun for a little while, but when you can breeze through a game in a few hours it makes you yearn for the good old days of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Xenoblade Chronicles features the kind of beautiful art design we’ve come to expect from JRPGs.

Nintendo, however, is finally getting its act together and releasing the highly-anticipated Xenoblade Chronicles. Originally, North America was not to get the game due to the apparent lack of desire in the North American market for Japanese RPGs. However, when an interview revealing this decision was released, fans took action and a fan campaign to get Xenoblade and several other JRPGs released here was established. Happily, thanks to demand and high sales in Europe, gamers can get their hands on Xenoblade on April 6.

Xenoblade’s story is both familiar and refreshingly new. The hero is (of course) an orphan who happens to be the only one capable of wielding a mythical weapon of untold power, and when the baddies attack, he decides to take action. However, rather than forcing the player to stick to the linear storyline that is so often the bane of JRPGs, the player has at least the illusion of freedom, able to explore a vast world and complete a massive number of side-quests. Players have roughly 60 hours of gameplay to delve into, with both predictable and unseen plot twists; characters you thought would never die are suddenly killed off.

Mixing turn-based and real-time strategies, the battle system is remarkably fun. As auto attacks are relatively weak, actions called “talent arts” are used as soon as their timed gauges fill up from each successful auto-attack. Each character has a subset of talents and each talent has a different effect that, when combined with those of other characters’, can create an attack similar to the way individual instruments come together in an orchestra.

The Monado, however, provides the most innovative part of the system. This powerful weapon can reveal future actions to its wielder in the middle of battle, allowing the player to adjust strategy accordingly. Now that you know what’s going to happen, should you heal? Boost with a shield? Or just try to kill the enemy ASAP?

Visually, Xenoblade does as much as possible. The game world, inexplicably, happens to be two giant robots locked in eternal battle and now frozen — and apparently inhabitable. You can visit places like Bionis’ Knee where, if you look up, you can see giant arms looming. Gaze into the distance and you might just catch a glimpse of the dark Mechonis through the fog. Vistas are gorgeous, environments are carefully embellished and the art design is superb; however, the Wii just can’t hold up to the power of the Xbox 360 or PS3 in terms of visual quality.

One of the greatest things about the game is that it can be as in-depth as you want. Dedicate hours to finishing every side quest, crafting the best gems and getting high affinities with every character or just power through the story — the choice is up to you.

The Wii may be on its deathbed as far as new releases go, but if you own one, don’t miss out on one of the best games of the Wii’s lacklustre career. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

—
Image: Supplied