– “The world setting, story and other elements have no relation [to the Xenosaga series]. It’s a completely new title. I wanted to to have some sort of common point with the games I’ve made.” – director Tetsuya Takahashi
– Takahashi wanted to create an enjoyable adventure
– “Xeno” has a meaning of “different nature” or uniqueness, meaning of “Blade” will be revealed in the game’s ending
– Two gods battled many, many years ago, at the end of the battle only their corpses remained
– Xenoblade takes place on the god’s corpses and the rest is ocean
– Inspiration for the setting came from a meeting regarding Soma Bringer, other members of the dev. team liked the idea
– “It seemed like it would be enjoyable to adventure on top of the body of a giant god.”
– Model of the gods in their resting position (see scan) was created before game development: “It was of great help when explaining the project to Nintendo”
– Takahasi says the world is about the size of Japan from one corpse to the other
– Can access more of the world as you progress, will be able to enter one the body of a god
– The world is vertically large: “From the start of the project, we thought it would be interesting if we could make use of a vertical construction.”
– Areas of the world are related to the gods’ bodies
– Much variety, weather/monster ecology included (ex: one regional feature is that you can go to the top of one of the gods, see an aurora)
– There are enemies living in the corpses
– Player on one god (houses organic life), mechanical life on the other
– The start of the story: “It’s simple — the fight against mechanical life that threatens the peace of mankind.”
– Begin on the right foot of the player’s god, in an empty cave (developers decided on this before the game’s development started), make your way to the head of the god
– Game keeps track of where you should be going (includes both the main story and sub quests)
– Can warp to previously visited areas
– There will be some systems that will make sure you don’t lose your way
– Seamless movement through the world: “We’ve put effort into this, because we felt that in order to show a living world, we needed an overwhelming sense of scale, like that of an MMORPG.”
– Takahasi hopes players will walk around, explore areas that contain beautiful settings
– You’ll encounter some enemies that can’t be defeated initially, you’ll need to power up your character and battle them later
– Enemies will be on the fields, if you encounter one you’ll battle it
– Takahasi didn’t want to have a typical RPG field-to-battle transition, it’s seamless
– Other enemies nearby will join battles
– Two AI characters will join you and be a part of your party
– Character carries out attacks automatically, you choose special skills (“arts”)
– Can execute attack skills, recovery skills, etc. through “arts”, learn more as you progress
– 50 – 60 hours, won’t be just leveling up and event scenes
– Releasing in Japan this spring
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