Watched the video, game looks wonderful. Can anyone explain to me how the base game works? As in, how would a standard hour or two go by? I see towns...shops...spaceships, mechs, then going out with a group into the wilderness...It sort of feels/looks like an MMO in terms of combat/exploring the wild. Is there an actual meaty story arc to follow with cutscenes and everything?
The RPGs I'm most familiar with are WRPGs, but I've played JRPGs like FFX, Golden Sun, Lost Odyssey, Pokemon among some others...
Xenoblade has an amazing story and characters, so yeah.
How an hour or two go by?
Yo go to town. Walk around talking to people, understanding the layout of everything, accepting side-quests, and shopping (and everything that comes with it, such as comparing equipment, managing money, selling stuff, etc.)
After that, then you can either progress the story or complete the sidequests (personally, I complete the ones I like and the ones that have a time limit to complete). Completing sidequests is basically going to the field around the town killing monsters, fetching items, finding people and exploring.
When you decide to continue the story you go to the place you're supposed to go, and well, you follow the story, maybe go to a dungeon, maybe fight a boss, maybe go to a place in the field. And eventually the story will tell you to go to another area, where you find another city, and everything starts again.
Some JRPGs tend to have minigames, optional dungeons, and stuff like that, but Xenoblade doesn't do that usually.
Combat itself is basically like an MMO (in Xenoblade at least) where your character auto attacks and you use abilities, wait for cooldowns, etc... Many people (myself included) think that the combat system and the amount of generic quests are the biggest flaws with the first game, but the rest is outstanding.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and there's the affinity systems, which is basically giving gifts to your party members, and watching dialogue between them. This affects some parts of battle and some sidequests.
Thanks, sounds good!
I'm assuming things like upgrading and customizing your character (clothes, armor, weapons) are part of it too?
Yes.