Xenoblade Chronicles

"We may die if we make a stand here, but staying gives us the chance to change our destinies. We have the Monado. With this, the future is ours for the taking!"

- Dunban

Xenoblade Chronicles is a Japanese role playing game for the Wii console, developed by Monolithsoft and published and produced by Nintendo. It is the In Name Only Spiritual Successor to the Xenosaga series of JRPGs for the PlayStation 2 (which itself was a Spiritual Successor to the Square Soft RPG Xenogears).

In the world of Xenoblade, two country-sized gods called the Bionis and the Mechonis fought an endless war against one another until only their lifeless corpses remained. Life flourished on the surface of these titans, giving birth to the human-like Homs on Bionis and the machine-like Mechon on Mechonis.

Peace would last until the Mechon launched an invasion, attempting to wipe out all life upon Bionis. With the power of a legendary sword known as the Monado, the only thing capable of piercing Mechon armour, the invasion was halted and peace regained for a time. That is, until one year later when the Mechon returned in even greater numbers than before.

The story follows Shulk, a young Homs male who becomes the new wielder of the Monado. He chooses to use the power of the blade to seek revenge against those who destroyed his village.

It was released in Japan on June 10, 2010. Finally, it was released in Europe on August 19th, 2011 under the name Xenoblade Chronicles, translated to (British) English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. Its most recent release is in America. See the European trailer here.

On December 2nd, 2011, Nintendo of America announced that the game would be reaching North America in April of 2012. With the UK dub included! And the fandom exploded. And as of 2015, it has been ported over to the New 3DS as one of its first titles, has a spiritual sequel on the way, and Shulk has even earned a spot as a playable character in Super Smash Bros.! Needless to say, Xenoblade has certainly been picking up popularity.

Contains music composed by Yoko Shimomura, ACE+, Manami Kiyota, and Yasunori Mitsuda (for the ending theme). It works.

This game, along with The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, both of which were also released in Europe during 2012, became part of a massive fan campaign called Operation Rainfall in an effort to persuade Nintendo of America to bring all three games stateside. It worked, albeit not exactly as they intended, since Game Stop had to step in. More details can be found on The Other Wiki here.

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 * Abnormal Ammo - Guns that shoot healing bullets, among other things.
 * Action Girl - Sharla with her big gun, Fiora and Melia.
 * Advanced Ancient Acropolis - Alcamoth.
 * A God Am I - was already a Physical God but when  gets control of  as well,  goes completely into this trope.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted with.
 * Alliance Meter - A very simple one, but still counts. The more side quests you complete in each area, the highest the trust the citizens have on you. The higher the trust, the better items you can get exchanging with the NPCs and the more sidequests you unlock, most of which are necessary to unlock 2 extra skill trees for each character.
 * And Man Grew Proud - The races living in Bionis and Mechonis thrived after the two titans killed each other in battle.
 * Animation Bump - During the majority of the dialogue cut scenes, the game uses pre-recorded animations and the lip movement is reduced to open-close-mouth. Also, the character's faces are pretty motionless and the camera angles are pretty simple and shots pretty static. However, in the more dramatic and spectacular ones, the characters become more expressive, both in face animations and body language, the lip movement is animated accordingly to the spoken lines (at least with the Japanese dub) and the shots become way more dynamic.
 * Anti-Frustration Features
 * Most of the collectables are available via trades, which is great as some areas are unavailable after certain points and a few collectables are hard to get due to randomness. Some enemy drops are also available via trades.Finding out who can trade for them, when and where can be a chore, though.
 * Fast travel and time changing. Easily saves you dozens of hours of pointless wandering, and even with them, 100% Completion still takes well in excess of 100 hours.
 * Apocalypse How - A freaking  Yeah, I know what you may be thinking, but it's better than it sounds.
 * Awful Truth -.
 * Back from the Dead -
 * Back Stab - Several characters have at least one move that deals more damage when you attack from behind the enemy (for example, Shulk's Back Slash). You can sneak the enemies and start the fight with these attacks, which usually gives you a lot of advantage, or even a One-Hit Kill.
 * Badass Adorable - Riki
 * Badass Bookworm - Shulk, who is a mid-ranking member of Colony 9's Defense Forces engineering division. He already knew how to handle weapons before taking the Monado full-time.
 * Badass Crew - The playable characters, of course.
 * Bare Your Midriff - Many characters have outfits with this, such as Fiora and Sharla.
 * Battle Couple - Shulk and Fiora.
 * Beautiful Dreamer - Twice..
 * The Beautiful Elite - Surprisingly, WAY below the levels one would expect from a JRPG. Yeah, Shulk, Fiora and Sharla would be top models in the real world (specially if you see them in a swimsuit), and Melia is pure Fetish Fuel. But Dunban, while still physically attractive, is within levels reachable by the average person, and Reyn would be unthinkable in most of the rest of Japanese fantasy media. The NPCs attractiveness varies a lot throughout the game, too.
 * YMMV on the main cast. Physically speaking, Reyn and Wakka are pretty damn similar, for instance. The NPCs, on the other hand, do vary a lot (the scientist lady in Colony 9 comes to mind).
 * Dunban could definitely be considered one of the beautiful people, he's just of the older age group. Since women find older age as less of a turn off then men do, he could definitely still be considered sexy.
 * Become a Real Boy -
 * Beware the Nice Ones - You would think Shulk, being a modest enginering student and nice guy, would not harm a fly. Or Fiora, a sweet girl, loving younger sister that takes care of her Handicapped Badass older brother, wouldn't be able to hurt anyone, right? WRONG!
 * Big Bad -.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Arachno/Antol and Caterpile enemies are the major ones. Wisp, Apis, and Fliers being a tad big but not even close to the size of the the Archnids and Caterpiles. Wisp and Fliers also tend to not be violent unlike the spider based enemies.
 * Big Damn Heroes - Fiora pulls off one of this during the Mechon attack to Colony 9, involving . It is one hell of a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * Dunban's appearance at Colony 6 with the BGM playing makes for an awesome entrance.
 * Shulk also gets one at
 * Big Good -.
 * Big No - Shulk
 * BFG - You can't help but wonder how Sharla manages to carry THAT thing around.
 * BFS / Laser Blade - The Monado itself. It starts out almost as tall as Shulk is, and can grow to three times its normal size for special attacks.
 * Dunban also has some BFS of his own.Which he wields one-handed.
 * Black Magician Girl - Melia.
 * Blade Lock -  of all people, during a cut scene. It Makes Sense in Context.
 * Blessed with Suck: The . They live longer than any other race but get sick far more easily than Homs and need to be  and only if they can find the  otherwise they can suffer from the problem for thousands of years such as being unable to mentally or physically age. If they also let a certain emotion consume them or begin obsessing over something like a incident in the past can cause them to begin to  enough that if it isn't attended to soon will cause serious damage to them.
 * Bodyguarding a Badass:
 * When Melia is introduced, she has a contingent of Mook bodyguards to help her track down a monster she's hunting. They all die in the fight, but she manages to beat it off and injure it with one big ether attack.
 * Likewise, much of Reyn's character development deals with him trying to keep his promise to protect Shulk, even as Shulk grows far more powerful than him.
 * Body Surf -.
 * Bonus Boss -
 * The game includes 4 other bonus bosses whose levels are above 99. They are all weaker than . They are
 * Brainwashed and Crazy -.
 * British Accent - All over the place in the English voice acting.
 * Brother-Sister Team
 * Bug War: Several sidequests eventually reveal that There's also a war between the Chilkin and the Antols on Valak Mountain which keeps both sides in check.
 * Calling Your Attacks - Paired with Large Ham, all over the place during battles.
 * Can't Drop the Hero - Averted, as long as you have more then 3 people in your party. However, in areas that have Mechon, you probably don't want to drop the Sword of Plot Advancement until you get weapons for the rest of the party that can damage them later in the game.
 * Camera Screw - In combat, the camera will always face you toward your target.This becomes a big issue when fighting Giant Mooks or trying to speed through narrow spaces.
 * Can't Have Sex Ever - This is a Nintendo game, so we weren't going to see it anyway. Nevertheless,
 * Cast of Snowflakes- every NPC on the affinity chart has a unique character model, and there are about 40 or so unique NPCs per town.
 * Chainmail Bikini: Actually not the most practical thing around. Fiora gets some at the beginning of the game, where they aren’t too great stat wise, and they pretty much fade from that point. Late in the game, they make a reappearance for multiple characters, albeit with better stats.
 * Chekhov's Gun: The fallen arm from the Mechonis seen in the intro, and totally unmentioned until
 * Childhood Friends - Shulk and Reyn.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome - Pretty mandatory in a world with such a huge amount of side quests that can be done pretty much at any time.
 * Cleavage Window - Much of the women's armor closes at the neck, making them this.
 * Climax Boss - Several of them.
 * Combat Clairvoyance - What the Monado does in gameplay, often showing you of lethal attacks on you or your teammates before they actually occur.
 * Combat Medic - Sharla has a wide arsenal of healing and support arts, while still having some offensive potential with her gun arts (one of which, if set properly, is a One-Hit Kill)
 * Combination Attack - Called "Chain Attacks" in this game. It allows the three members to perform a special attack each, even if it's not charged yet, and that attack will have it's full effect unless the enemy is 100% immune to it. The highest the affinity between the members, the more attacks they will be able to execute before the Chain Attack ends.
 * Control Freak -
 * Cool Old Guy - Dickson
 * Otharon too.
 * Cooldown - One of the main combat mechanics: most powerful attacks have long cooldown periods to prevent them from being used more than once per battle and ending combat instantly makes them useable in the next battle, with the Chain Attacks resetting their timers for its duration so you can use any of them during one. There's also another form of Cooldown for Sharla, whose abilities overheat her gun, increasing the effectiveness of her offensive attacks and reducing the effectivess of her healing and if you don't vent the extra heat before her gun overheats completely, she's forced into an automatic heat venting animation that takes much longer than doing it manually. The former variety can be reduced by leveling up the said attacks, and the latter variety can be reduced with the right gems and skills.
 * Coup De Grace Cutscene -
 * Also,
 * Coy Girlish Flirt Pose: Dorothy does this when you first meet her.
 * Cryptic Conversation - Of course. Alvis would be the worst offender.
 * Curb Stomp Battle -
 * Cutscene Power to the Max - It is not rare to see the characters being agile Beyond the Impossible in cutscenes, but not being able to lift their feet off the ground in battles.
 * The worst offender for this would be right after the Hopeless Boss Fight with . They reach Dragonball Z levels of awesomeness!
 * Dead All Along -
 * Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: You just return to the last landmark you visited and, if you were killed fighting a mob, any loot dropped by those you did kill is still there when you return. It is averted in certain cut-scenes.
 * Demonic Possession -
 * Deus Est Machina - Mechonis.
 * Dialogue Tree - They appear in some side quests and are a key feature in the Affinity Dialogues. Unlike other JRPGs, the different options really make the quest go through a different route and show different dialogues.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? -
 * Disc One Final Dungeon -, and before that,
 * Doomed Hometown - . Although it gets better pretty fast.
 * The Dragon -.
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty - Colonel Vangarre of Colony 9 militia (also known as "Square-tache"). Actually, his behavior is suspiciously similar to another character in the Xenosaga series.
 * Dual Boss -
 * Dual-Wielding - Fiora with Reverse Grip knives, no less.
 * Dub Name Change - Fiorung is called "Fiora" in the European localizations. At the same time, Carna is called "Sharla", which is more difficult to justify, unless it was because of copyright issues or because it sounded too close to "Carnal" for Nintendo's liking.
 * Kyoshin and Kishin, on the other hand, were more rightly localized as "Bionis" and "Mechonis" respectively. The localized names kept the pun in the original names, which contained the kanjis for "biology" and "machine" on them.
 * That is indeed correct for Mechonis. However, "Kyoshin" means "huge god", not "biologic god", unlike Kishin who is indeed "machine god". That said, Bionis is a more fitting name.
 * Also, Metal Face was originally called "Black Face" (黒いフェイス), which has no meaning beyond sounding cool in Japanese, but for fairly obvious reasons wasn't going to fly in western countries, especially America. "Metal Face" does end up being a bit of a non-sequitor of a name, since all of the Faced Mechon have "metal faces" but.
 * Dummied Out - Bionis' Left Shoulder. Appeared in several screenshots, a painting in Dunban's house, and a grand total of one cutscene.
 * Dynamic Loading - Although it's impressive how much visual data the game is capable of load at once. We only get to see a Loading Screen before a big Cutscene or when we go from one big area to another.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending - So much.
 * Easy Exp - You get experience just by finding new areas.
 * Elaborate Equals Effective - The armors are bigger and bulkier the stronger they are.
 * Eleventh-Hour Superpower -
 * Everyone Can See It - Shulk and Fiora, of course. Specially Dunban is quite active in putting them together. Although to be fair, it's mostly because a Twice Shy problem, and even with that, they seem to be a few inches away from a Relationship Upgrade..
 * Event Flag - Pointed in the maps with actual flag icons.
 * Evil All Along -.
 * Expository Hairstyle Change -
 * Expy - For a game that was originally meant to be standalone and not part of the Xeno series, Xenoblade is crawling with lookalikes from both Xenogears and Xenosaga. See the character page for details.
 * Face Heel Turn -
 * Fan Service - You can strip all your party members down to their underwear. So you have fanservice in spades for both genders.
 * In Dunban's case, he even gets a buff (pun not intended) for wearing no clothes. Covert Pervert much?
 * Fantastic Racism - Some side quests hint that some High Entia consider the Homs and Nopon to be inferior beings. They don't have a high opinion on half-Homs High Entia either.
 * Not just the sidequests. The main plot states that too - the High Entia avoided helping during the battle 1 year ago because they felt superior, and calls Melia a "filthy half-Homs" at the High Entia Tomb.
 * The superiority was more because they felt that the Mechon were not a threat to them rather than any racism towards the Homs. That said there are many High Entia both named NPCs and regular NPCs that accept and want to live in harmony with the other races.
 * Fast Forward Mechanic - An option in the menu allows the player to skip to any time in-game. This greatly helps to find the Non Player Characters that show up at specific times for the loads and loads of sidequests.
 * First Episode Spoiler - Of course..
 * First Kiss -
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero/TheSmartGuy: Shulk
 * The Lancer: Dunban
 * The Big Guy: Reyn
 * The Smart Guy/TeamMom: Sharla
 * The Chick: Melia
 * Team Pet: Riki
 * Sixth Ranger: Fiora
 * Five Races:
 * Cute: Nopon
 * Fairy: High Entia
 * Mundane: Hom
 * High Men:
 * Stout:
 * Floating Continent - The floating islands above Eryth Sea, which include Alcamoth and Prison Island.
 * Flunky Boss - Pretty much every major boss counts as this.
 * Foreshadowing
 * Near the beginning of the game,  Shulk remarks how he feels part of him is telling him to be rational,
 * Tying two and two together, the fact the Monado can't harm Homs and the faced Mechons can't be harmed by the Monado gives away.
 * After defeating Xord, he gives the first hints about . The information is vague enough so the player doesn't know what this will lead into.
 * Speaking to Desiree in Colony 9 following this event will make her provide some considerably less vague information.
 * For the Evulz: Miqol describes the Bionis's attack on Mechonis as this. Apparently the giant in front of them decided he didn't want them around.
 * Fur Bikini: The jungle-themed armors look like this when worn by the women.
 * Gainax Ending: Starts off like this, but it's ultimately subverted.
 * Gainaxing: Done by Sharla and Vanea, very noticeably during cutscenes.
 * Gameplay and Story Integration:
 * Visions of the future play a key role in both story and gameplay, and new Monado Arts are often introduced in cutscenes (e.g. Purge, Speed), not to be forgotten 5 minutes later.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: It is implied in the story that Riki is lazy and weak, and can barely scratch enemies, with the implication that he is only the Heropon as a punishment for being in heavy debt. In actual gameplay, Riki can solo bosses.
 * Gameplay Automation - Auto-attack is the only form of normal attacking. Everything else requires input from the player.
 * Genre Busting: Probably one of the many reasons why people love it so much compared to more recent JRPG's. The game has the look and feel of a JRPG, with a storyline to go with it. However, it contains several gameplay elements from WRPG's, with an overworld structured more like The Elder Scrolls than anything else, a combat system inspired by World of Warcraft, and a sidequest system that even comes with a planner to deduce which sidequests are better to do at your current level. The UK voice acting even has more in common with Dragon Age than the voices usually used for JRPG's. Word of God even said that WRPG's heavily inspired the game's mechanics.
 * Grimy Water: Mostly comes in poison swamp variety, but there's also some at the bottom of both  in lieu of a Bottomless Pit. The patches around Fallen Arm don't really seem to serve any real purpose besides forcing the player to take the long way around to find the way forward, which is somewhat annoying since the intended path isn't immediately obvious.
 * God in Human Form -
 * God Is Evil -
 * God Is Good -
 * Goggles Do Nothing - Sharla wears a pair hanging of her neck in her default costume. However, she never puts them on nor does anything with them, for that matter.
 * Going Cosmic - Not that we haven't seen this before from this studio.
 * Gratuitous English - Used in the Japanese dub by every single party member other then Riki and Dunban (Their art names are in Japanese) when calling their attacks.
 * Gravity Barrier - Well, those huge environments have to end somewhere...
 * Grey and Grey Morality: Egil had good reasons for wanting to destroy Bionis.
 * Guest Star Party Member:
 * Dickson and Mumkhar at the beginning of the game. Afterwards, Dickson comes back for a reprise at the end of the Ether Mine chapter.
 * Alvis, who only appears in the party during your first fight with a Telethia.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: High Entias can breed with humans without any obstacle. Melia is the most proeminent of those hybrids.
 * Handicapped Badass - As a result of using the Monado, Dunban has lost the use of his right arm. It doesn't stop him from kicking ass with a katana however.
 * Heads I Win, Tails You Lose - There are around half a dozen of these throughout the game, specially during the first third. They're normally against a Faced Mechon. You have to survive their auto-attacks and arts until they use that one art that may not actually kill your party but ends the battle and advances the plot.
 * Made even sillier in New Game+ in that
 * Heroes Prefer Swords - Of course.
 * Heroic Sacrifice -
 * Hold Your Hippogriffs: Reyn's "What on Bionis".
 * Hopeless Boss Fight -
 * The first encounter with as well as the first couple of fights against Metal Face also count.
 * Humongous Mecha - Comes with the territory, considering it's part of the Xeno series.
 * Specifically, the entire game takes place on two titans (one of which is a giant mecha) that are at least the size of large continents. Can't get much more humongous than that.
 * Iconic Item - The Monado. Because there's nothing more iconic that blending the Laser Blade and BFS tropes.
 * "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight -.
 * A while later.
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:.
 * I'm a Humanitarian - Mechon in general appear to be this during the initial attack on Colony 9, and Xord plays this up later on.
 * Implied Love Interest: Shulk and Fiora start like this.
 * Impossibly Cool Weapon - The Monado. An Awesome Yet Practical Cool Laser Bladed BFS Of Combat Clairvoyance And Plot Advancement. How in hell do you top THAT?!
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests - Does anyone have a theory of why a bunny-sized monster leaves behind a glowing golden chest twice its size when it's killed?
 * Infinity+1 Sword - The . Only available in the Final Battle and in New Game+, though.
 * Interface Spoiler - When you go though the Bionis' Interior, there's a collectible page yet no collectibles when you go through...
 * The Achievements page also lists numerous achievements involving long before it's even remotely possible to get any of them. If you tried to get them,
 * If you look at the party slots after Riki and Melia joins you, there's still room for another character...
 * Any quest that will automatically fail if not completed before reaching a story event is marked with a clock to indicate such.
 * In-Universe Game Clock - Cycles through 24 hours with appropriate lighting changes etc. Some areas look drastically different at night, and most have different background music for day and night. You can change the hour whenever you want.
 * Intimate Healing -.
 * Irrelevant Importance - You can't drop nor sell Gadolt's rifle, even though it doesn't take long before you get far more powerful weapons for Sharla.
 * It Got Worse - Things tend to go to hell when they start to look better pretty often in this game.
 * I Will Protect Her / I Will Protect Him - Shulk and Fiora. Each one has always present the idea of protecting the other..
 * Not to forget when Reyn promises Fiora that he will protect Shulk, which is an example of Gameplay and Story Integration because Shulk is fragile while Reyn is a tank and one of his strong points is soaking up aggro.
 * Jigsaw Puzzle Plot - Well... DUH! We're talking about Tetsuya Takahashi and Monolith Soft here.
 * Kiss Me, I'm Virtual -.
 * Knife Nut - Fiora's Weapon of Choice.
 * Large Ham - The battle dialogues are FILLED with this.
 * Lazy Backup - You can only switch the party members outside the battles.
 * Leitmotif - Some of them. Even a variation of the Main Theme is used as Shulk and Fiora's love theme once.
 * Lethal Joke Character- Riki has the game's highest HP, a steal ability, healing, enemy debuffs, and better attack techs than half the cast. One can basically bench Reyn once you get him.
 * Let's Play: A rare example made by Nintendo themselves. They even had a contest for it!
 * Likable Villain - Egil.
 * Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition - Kinda. Nintendo of Europe released a special edition that included a red Classic Controller PRO, which was supposed to resemble the Monado. The box was pretty cool too.
 * Limited Wardrobe - Averted SO hard, although some sets of armour are just palette swaps of each other or even identical.
 * Losing the Team Spirit - Straight after but before finding out.
 * Lost Forever - Two entire areas' worth of quests get locked out if you don't complete them quickly. To be fair, the game does tell you that you shouldn't dilly-dally in completing these particular quests.
 * All of the quests and unique monsters found in  will likewise be gone for good if you don't get them in time.
 * Love Triangle - Melia starts to get pretty close to Shulk....
 * If we take the Ship Tease seriously, would also count.
 * There are also some love triangles scattered throughout the side quests for good measure.
 * Lucky Seven - You unlock an achievement for performing a single attack for 777 damage. Also, at the end of the game, you have 7 party members.
 * Mad Scientist: The High Entia Naroth. Not only is he called one on the affinity chart but he also expresses a desire to experiment on Riki if he is in the party before you accept one of his quests. Especially after he finds out that Riki has a wife and kids.
 * May-December Romance: In one side quest in Colony 9 you can be The Matchmaker for one 66-year-old man and one 22-year-old female soldier.
 * Mayfly-December Romance - Any relationship between a High Entia and a Homs. You help such a pair in a particular questline.
 * Mechanical Evolution - Implied to be the case of the Mechonis life forms.
 * Mechanical Lifeform - The Mechonis and the  that used to live on it.
 * Mercy Kill -
 * Mighty Glacier - Reyn
 * Mind Screw: Almost all of the later plot points. Of course, this is series tradition.
 * The Mindless Almighty: . Xenoblade Chronicles 2 further elaborates on that:.
 * Monsters Everywhere
 * Ms. Fanservice - Put Sharla in her underwear and be awed!
 * Fiora in a bikini doesn't precisely hurt the eyes either.
 * My Sister Is Off-Limits - Averted. Dunban is a big-time shipper for Shulk x Fiora.
 * Mythology Gag - Magic is called "Ether" in this game. You have three guesses for what magic was called in Xenogears and Xenosaga. The first two don't count.
 * New Game+ - Saving after you beat the game allows you to keep any equipped gear, up to 30 pieces of other weapons/armor, 60 items, all gems, crystals, collectibles, levels, and party affinity. Quests, maps, and location affinity are reset. You also get to keep the Infinity+1 Sword as well.
 * Oddly, the original Monado will appear in Shulk's lab, and Dunban will drop the Infinity+1 Sword on the ground during a cutscene so that Shulk can pick it up and start wielding it, even if he wasn't equipped with it.
 * No Cutscene Inventory Inertia - Averted in every possible way. Even in the New Game+.
 * No Endor Holocaust-
 * Noodle Incident - How Shulk came to live in Colony 9 starts like this.
 * No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Defied in every possible way imaginable, after JRPG's started moving towards this.
 * Not Growing Up Sucks: A Machina quest with you fixing a child whose growing algorithms have been malfunctioning for a thousand years. It's left him mentally and physically as a kid when he's in the equivalent of a Machina's twenties.
 * Now Where Was I Going Again? - The game tells where the player is supposed to go next with a note that can be read whenever the player wants.
 * NPC Schedule - AND HOW! Every named NPC has a different schedule, and all non-named NPCs have at least a selected time of the day when they're active. And to top it off the game has tons of NPCs, and many of them either give a quest, or are involved in one somehow. Needless to say, this makes keeping track of where that one NPC is going to be when rather hard.
 * Number of the Beast - You even get an achievement if you perform a single attack doing this amount of damage.
 * Obviously Evil - Mumkhar. The guy is a complete Gonk with a Guttural Growl who runs away from battle to save his own skin within the first two minutes of play time. Dunban may be Genre Blind, but the player needs only to look at his Japanese voice actor to get a clue that he's a bad egg. The only surprise is in how bad he turns out to be.
 * Then there's Lorithia, who speaks in a creepy and menacing tone of voice, wears sexy red armor, and is even shown conspiring with Yumea at the start of the High Entia Tomb arc. Is it any surprise when she ?
 * Official Couple -.
 * Oh Crap - The party's reaction when.
 * Older Than They Look - Riki. Would you believe he's really 40 years old, happily married with a beautiful wife (by Nopon standards) and has 7 children?
 * Ominous Latin Chanting - The themes "The God-Slaying Sword" and "Zanza".
 * One-Handed Zweihander - Shulk and Dunban wield the Monado with one hand pretty often. Dunban knocks it up a notch with his late choice of weapons, some of which include axes, polearms and zanmato, which he wields with his left hand.
 * One Hit Kill...Or Something
 * One-Time Dungeon - The entire freaking
 * Way before that we got a partial example in the Ether Mines. A big chunk of the dungeon gets blocked for good once you complete it.
 * One-Winged Angel:.
 * Only One Name: For everyone who is not a member of the Antiqua royal family or Kenny Rohan.
 * Only the Chosen May Wield: Played with. Anyone can activate the Monado, and any strong enough person can control it, albeit with a high price for the health. But only the Monado's heir can wield it properly without any repercussions..
 * Organic Technology - The Mechonis life forms are a variation.
 * Perplexing Plurals - Almost every major race in the game uses the same word for its name's singular or plural form: the singular for Homs is still Homs, while the plurals for the other races are still Nopon, Mechon, High Entia, or Machina.
 * Averted with Giants, for whom the singular is "Giant."
 * Pint-Sized Powerhouse - Riki sure can take up lots of beating despite his size.
 * Physical God - You're on one.
 * Pimped-Out Dress - The elaborate royal robes worn by the high Entia, including Melia.
 * Plotline Death - . And of course,.
 * Plucky Girl - Fiora.
 * Point Build System - For improving the special attacks.
 * Point of No Return - Minor ones where certain areas become inaccessible, usually after boss battles, which you aren't warned of. The game does warn you before the ultimate one though.
 * Power Walk - Shulk and  get one hell of a Power Walk during the battle against.
 * Purely Aesthetic Glasses - The entire party can wear these, assuming you're able to find some. They generally have stat boosting gems in them, and oddly, can provide as much defense as actual armor does.
 * Puzzle Boss: The  barely receives any damage until its flunkies are beat. And the latter are numbered, as killing one makes the next more vulnerable.
 * The Power of Friendship - In the gameplay itself. Not only you can combine your party members' attacks For Massive Damage, but you can also link their Skills if you develop their Affinity.
 * The Power of Love - Both and  remember their pasts as  by talking to  and, respectively.
 * Except always remembered who she was.
 * Other
 * Rage Quit -
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old - The High Entia race as a whole. They seem to have a lifespan ten times longer than humans. For example you meet a father who is playing hide and seek with his two children. The father looks like a middle-aged man but is really 300+ years old while his two kids who look like they are somewhere around ten are actually 93 and 94.
 * Taken even further with the, who're all at least 1000 years old, and ultimately taken Up to Eleven with the Nopon Sage and , whose ages are listed as 9999 and 9892. Some of the characters are implied to be even older than that, although you don't get them on your Affinity Chart.
 * Reconstruction: Of the JRPG genre.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Fiora (Red) and Shulk (Blue). Color coordinated in a cutscene just to drive the point home.
 * Regenerating Health - Outside battles. Although the second a new enemy spots you, it's over.
 * Regional Bonus - The cap on the play time was increased to the triple digits in the European release.
 * Relationship Values - The Affinity System, which allows you to become closer to various NPCs in order to open up new story options and sidequests.
 * There is also one for party members. The closer party members are, the more skills they can share with each other, the more turns they have when crafting gems and higher the chance for extra Combination Attack turns, up to 15 compared to the default 3.
 * Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The Unique Mechon later in the game tend to be named after Demons from the Ars Goetia or Knights from Arthurian Legend. Then there's.
 * Respawn Point - The landmarks.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter - The race of Nopon.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Several of them, although Shulk would be the worst offender.
 * Robot Girl -
 * Robosexual - Paired with If It's You It's Okay..
 * A lot of people seem to agree.
 * Robotic Spouse - Averted in the last moment for.
 * Romance Sidequest - Shulk and Fiora's relationship makes much more sense if you try to unlock their affinity conversations.
 * Rousing Speech - Right before the 2nd fight with.
 * Sacred First Kiss - Paired with Intimate Healing and.
 * Say My Name - A LOT.
 * Shulk would be the worst offender:
 * Romance Sidequest - Shulk and Fiora's relationship makes much more sense if you try to unlock their affinity conversations.
 * Rousing Speech - Right before the 2nd fight with.
 * Sacred First Kiss - Paired with Intimate Healing and.
 * Say My Name - A LOT.
 * Shulk would be the worst offender:

((quote|"JUJU!"}} """"
 * Sharla can get just as bad at times.

"Reyn:"Are you NUTS?" Sharla:"Are you trying to get us killed?" Shulk:"Do you really think this is a good idea?""
 * As a more humorous example, Dunban has a habit of blurting out "DICKSON!" when he appears out of nowhere.
 * Scenery Porn - Xenoblade thrives on this, offering utterly massive fields of exploration, rewarding you for finding new scenic vistas to explore. The incredible OST only serves to enhance the experience.
 * Some of the best vistas in the game come from the Gaur Plain, Satorl Marsh at night, and Makna Forest with its huge waterfall ranges.
 * Schizo-Tech: The world is shown to have technology that is equivalent to or exceeding our own, such as buggies, airplanes, Humongous Mecha, and gigantic mine-strippers but there are no highways for people to drive on, meaning they walk everywhere, and almost everyone uses swords and melee weapons to fight.
 * Screw Destiny - Not only one of the main themes of the story, but one of the main gameplay mechanics as well. In battle, Shulk will get visions of lethal enemy attacks ahead of time, giving him a few precious seconds to kill the enemy, stop the attack, or defend against it, shattering that future.
 * Selectively-Lethal Weapon - The Monado is incapable of cutting sentient beings born from the Bionis
 * Shipper on Deck - Two of them, actually. Dunban ships Shulk X Fiora, while Sharla roots for Shulk X Melia. The funny thing is
 * The Skill Trees themselves are Shipper on Deck
 * Shout-Out -
 * The Eryth Sea seems to be a Cross between Terra Tower and Chronopolis.
 * The scene when is almost identical to the scene in Xenogears when.
 * A similar scene occurs.
 * If you do the Getting to Know Dorothy quest with Melia in your party, you'll hear the line "Excuse me, Princess!"
 * There's a cutscene with Humongous Mecha flying around and throwing lances which may remind you of something...
 * One of the mechons (basically a robot) is called Xord. That said, pronounce the x in Xord the same way as the x in Xenoblade.
 * Dickson's blade is like a splicing of the Buster sword from Final Fantasy VII and the Gunblade from Final Fantasy VIII.
 * Riki's fire-based Art is called Burninate.
 * The world the game is set in was spawned from the dead remains of a giant, like in the ending of.
 * You can tell it was dubbed in England: Shulk and Reyn's gem-crafting "To me!"/"To you!" banter is a blatant reference to the Chuckle Brothers!
 * Accepting a sidequest from a certain High Entia female will earn you a encouragement along the lines of, "Defeat that monster--for great justice!" and then her admitting that she always wanted to say that.
 * Sidequest - They come in all kinds and flavors:
 * Cartography Sidequest - You get bonus EXP for discovering out-of-the-way locations in the world.
 * Collection Sidequest - A lot of them.
 * Fetch Quest - Many are like this. Although, since you don't need to take the items back to the person who gave you the mission (most of the time, at least), they're pretty bearable. See Twenty Bear Asses below.
 * Good Samaritan - Many are like this too.
 * Gotta Catch Em All - One recurring side quest is to find one unit of every collectible item from every region.
 * Irrelevant Sidequest - You can spend more time solving the problems of every single person on Bionis than, you know... saving the world.
 * Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest - Normally, these are the first type you get when you first enter in a new area.
 * Match Maker Quest - We have roughly one per city. And they come in all kinds and flavors.
 * Sidequest Sidestory - There are many of them, although they take a little while to appear in each region.
 * Twenty Bear Asses - The majority of the game's quests fall into this category. However, as stated above, doing a lot of them unlocks more story-rich questlines, which help with town affinity.
 * Sidetrack Bonus - Quite some.
 * Sleeper Hit: The game didn't receive a lot of advertising or recognition by Nintendo upon release in Europe, but positive reviews and word-of-mouth (courtesy of Operation Rainfall's efforts) made the game sell rather well, to the point where they had shortages of available copies because of the surprisingly good sales. Operation Rainfall hopes to do this again in America, despite a limited release.
 * Not only because of Operation Rainfall. Xenogears and Xenosaga are JRPG cult classics, so the fact that Tetsuya Takahashi and Monolithsoft were going back to the genre was more than enough to have a very vocal fan base right from the start.
 * It seems like they did it again, with pre-orders overtaking both Europe and Japan's total sales and sitting at number 5 on the pre-order charts. Not bad for a semi-obscure RPG with a limited release.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism - This game leans toward idealism more than Xenogears and Xenosaga (the game was produced by Nintendo, after all), but it still has its fare share of cynicism. Just ask . Hell! BEFORE the plot even starts!
 * Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: The game follows a mostly linear narrative, but the game practically gives you free reign on what to do and where to go. The general largeness of the environments and the huge amount of sidequests certainly help.
 * Small Girl, Big Gun - Sharla may not be a small girl, per se, but her guns are pretty damn huge.
 * The Smart Guy - Surprisingly, all main characters have traits of this to different degrees (Even Reyn and Riki have their moments). However, Dunban would be the closest one to play the role straight, followed by Shulk. And he only falls behind due to his lack of experience.
 * The Southpaw - Dunban, but only because his right arm is disabled in the Action Prologue.
 * Soft Water - Not only is the gradual falling damage from falling too high which can and will kill you negated by landing in deep water, you also get an ingame achievement for doing so for the first time.
 * So Long and Thanks For All the Gear - Played straight and averted at the same time.
 * Spell My Name with a "The" - The Bionis and the Mechonis.
 * Spiritual Successor, In Name Only - To Xenosaga (and to a lesser degree, Xenogears)
 * In all fairness, though, the setting has more in common with Xenogears than Xenosaga. At least as far as the contrast between nature and ancient technology goes, not to mention the lack of Space Opera elements associated with Xenosaga.
 * Standard Status Effects - Unlike the usual form, your party will use them to make battles easier; in some battles, it's required that you know how to chain status effects.
 * Story to Gameplay Ratio - Director Takahashi Tetsuya has described the game has being on the exact opposite side of the scale as Xenogears and Xenosaga, calling the pursuit of excessive story-to-gameplay ratio "a dead end."
 * Although in the end, the game has insanely long cutscenes often anyway. The ratio is balanced by increasing dramatically the amount of exploration and Western RPG-like sidequests. And it works!
 * Subtitles Are Superfluous - Battle dialogues don't have subtitles, so people who don't speak either Japanese (most people) or English (a lot of people outside the US and the UK) will be left out during those. Whether that's a shame or a relief is up to the player.
 * Suicidal Overconfidence - Averted. Even the most vicious predators will stop attacking you once your strength surpasses theirs by five or six levels. Unique monsters however will attack you no matter how powerful you are.
 * Sword of Plot Advancement: The Monado.
 * Take Up My Sword - Non lethal example. Shulk gets the Monado when Dunban can't wield it any longer. Later, Shulk even tries to give it back to Dunban, but he refuses, saying that Shulk wields it better than he ever could.
 * Take Your Time - Specially jarring in moments like . Even in those moments is perfectly fine to back to Colony 9 and keep doing side quests.
 * Team Dad - Dunban, and surprisingly Riki share this role in the party.
 * Theme Music Power-Up - If you start the battles, you get a more ass-kicking theme than if it's the enemy who starts it.
 * And the music switches to an upbeat rock jam whenever you shatter a vision.
 * Time Limit Boss - Once you reduce  HP enough, he starts charging up for , which does infinite damage to its unfortunate recipient, and needs to be prevented by destroying all targets around him in 2 minutes.
 * Took a Level in Badass -
 * Same with.
 * Took a Level in Jerkass -.
 * Took a Shortcut - Dickson usually arrives to a place before the party, for some reason.
 * Trademark Favorite Food - Shulk loves EVERYTHING that Fiora cooks, no matter how little effort she puts on it. So much that Fiora suspects he has no sense of taste whatsoever.
 * Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer used for western releases' latter part spoils a good deal of plot developments, including a few WHAM Episodes. Thankfully, they're out of context.
 * Trash Talk - Overlaps with Calling Your Attacks, because your characters always shout or say something during battle.
 * The Medic - Sharla as she is the only character who specializes in healing arts. Otharon even calls her medic occasionally.
 * Tsundere - Fiora could be considered a Type B, while Sharla has traits of a Type A.
 * Tyke Bomb -
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change - the appearance of the sliding segments caused many a player to stop and question what they were doing.
 * Unnaturally Blue Lighting: Satorl Marsh at night, to the point of looking completely different from what it looks like during the day. It works.
 * Unwinnable - Averted. The game won't allow you to save past the Point of No Return.
 * Unwitting Pawn:.
 * The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:
 * Vicious Cycle:
 * Victorious Childhood Friend:
 * Villainous Breakdown:.
 * Visible Silence - Sometimes. And it's funny, since the "silence" is actually a sigh or a hum.
 * Virtual Paper Doll - Any changes to armor and weapons are visible even in cutscenes, and the game even remembers what you were wearing at the time during flashbacks.
 * Walking Shirtless Scene - You can turn every single playable male character into this. Although no (straight) female fans will complain about it.
 * Wasted Song - Unfinished Battle. It's Yoko Shimomura at her best, and yet we only get to listen to it during one boss battle relatively early in the game. And if the battle lasts for longer than the duration of the track, the game changes it for the usual boss battle theme. In it's defense, the battle is pretty intense.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist -
 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?:.
 * Played straight with some of the species of monster. They use tools, have goals and, the side quest with the Nopon kidnapped by the Igna in Satorl Marsh clearly implies can speak (she was taken because they wanted information from her). Kill as many as you want, no one ever questions the morality.
 * Not even the Monado itself, which is said to be unable to hurt sentient Bionis life at first yet cuts through these creatures just fine.
 * Melia even goes into speculation about who built the ruins in Valak Mountain in a sidequest and thinks the Chilkin birdfoik might have built them.
 * Wham! Episode - This is a Monolith Soft game. Which means we will need a freaking LIST:
 * The (arguably) biggest one
 * They even keep something under the sleeve for the ending.
 * What the Hell, Hero?/Oh Crap: The rest of your party will have something to say when you decide to attack a red-named (6+ levels higher than you) monster.
 * Melia even goes into speculation about who built the ruins in Valak Mountain in a sidequest and thinks the Chilkin birdfoik might have built them.
 * Wham! Episode - This is a Monolith Soft game. Which means we will need a freaking LIST:
 * The (arguably) biggest one
 * They even keep something under the sleeve for the ending.
 * What the Hell, Hero?/Oh Crap: The rest of your party will have something to say when you decide to attack a red-named (6+ levels higher than you) monster.
 * They even keep something under the sleeve for the ending.
 * What the Hell, Hero?/Oh Crap: The rest of your party will have something to say when you decide to attack a red-named (6+ levels higher than you) monster.
 * What the Hell, Hero?/Oh Crap: The rest of your party will have something to say when you decide to attack a red-named (6+ levels higher than you) monster.


 * White-Haired Pretty Boy / White-Haired Pretty Girl - Alvis and Melia respectively. In fact, every High Entia under the age of fifty qualifies.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever? - The focus of a sidequest, where an elderly Machina is about to die: you can either go get her some  Machina Energy from the wreckages near Colony 9 to allow her to live another 20 years or so, or go hunt for some rare revitalizing eggs which instead cause her to  outlive everyone in Colony 6 and be left all alone. Strange that the lazy option has better end result even if it makes sense in context.
 * Wide Open Sandbox: One of the game's main selling points is the positively vast overworld, and the game pretty much gives you free reign to stray from the main quest to do plenty of other sidequests. And considering Monolith Soft has said that its about the same size of the Japanese archipelago, better get exploring.
 * Thankfully, the game allows for teleportation to important locations around the overworld, meaning you can stray off the path to complete a sidequest or two and teleport back to the main path.
 * Wolverine Claws - Mumkhar, as well as Metal Face. ...
 * World Limited to the Plot - We don't get to see Mechonis as thoroughly as Bionis.
 * World of Buxom: Every female is stacked.
 * World Shapes - The world of Xenoblade is made up of the bodies of two Physical Gods who incapacitated each other in combat.
 * X Meets Y - Japanese RPG meets Western RPG meets (off-line) MMO RPG.
 * Plot wise it feels like a Cyberpunk Game of Thrones meets Transformers (conventional JRPG archetypes included for good measure)
 * Xtreme Kool Letterz - Almost every Machina has a name with Z, X or Q in it.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko - Fiora and Melia have traits of this.
 * Yasunori Mitsuda - Although he only composed the Ending Song, Beyond the Sky. Takahashi asked him to do it for old times sake.
 * Yoko Shimomura - She was the Lead Composer. Takahashi hired her because he wanted the game to have a different musical style from his previous games.
 * You Are Number Six - Egil refers to the by their serial number.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair - Surprisingly averted! Most Homs characters have pretty realistic hair colors with the exception of pink-moustached Vangarre.