Sheikah

The counter to this argument is to look at games that use the cell shade style (ie. the same style) but on the HD consoles. For instance, Eternal Sonata, which looks beautiful. I am in agreement that certain styles such as cell shading lend better to lower spec consoles, but the fact is they will always look better on a HD console. I think DQX is being limited in that sense, which is a shame.

Even so, there's a limit to how great you can make a Wii game look. And the Wii U version will probably be roughly the same as that.

Disagree, I think DQVIII looked great for its time; it really gave that sense of immersion in the world. That and the graphical style suited it really well. Regarding PC, PS3 games like Uncharted 2 show that you can still achieve great results on home consoles. The gap between PC and PS360 isn't so great that it particularly bothers me (both play games in HD, both push out games of similar quality graphically). But I can't say the same for Wii, unfortunately. I just would prefer it to be on a console that doesn't limit its potential.

You should give multiplayer a shot more often. I think trophies are good but they can distract some gamers from great parts of games (multiplayer trophies are often notoriously more difficult than single player ones). I unlocked the L50 trophy on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood unintentionally because the online mode is such fun.

The slight worry I have is that because it also has a confirmed Wii version that the game might graphically look as good as the worst (Wii) version, even on the Wii U version. Except maybe in HD. And while graphics aren't everything, it's hard not to notice that Xenoblade (while incredibly awesome) is lagging about 10 years behind graphically after playing games on the PS3. The reason I think this is due to one of the crystal chronicles games on Wii and DS. I played the DS version, but as I recall from some gameplay videos the Wii version practically looked the same. They could make the two versions graphically very different but that seems like a lot of effort? I don't know, but that screenshot looked quite poor. I realise this post sounds like a huge downer on the graphics but I firmly believe that games shouldn't be limited by hardware; ie. they should be able to excel in all aspects, be it story, graphics, music, gameplay, to form the perfect package.

Well Melia is probably the/one of the highest damaging characters in the game, and if setup properly can keep on using attacks. Shulk with good attack stability/haste/double attack is probably best just constantly attacking and will easily push out more damage than Reyn. Dunban is the same in terms of furiously hitting. Maybe it's just me, but I went from liking Reyn at the beginning of the game to not using him because he's just too slow to be a contender. Yeah, with regards to Mechon, I've heard the 7th character can hit without problem (not got the 7th character yet though), and Melia can also hit mechon without enhcant. Then there's the anti-mechon blade Dunban can put on, so really Shulk can be left out (though for Mechon, I'd keep him in).

I think Dunban is a different tank to Reyn. Reyn is basically there to absorb damage and use a variety of skills to draw enemies to attack him. Dunban on the other hand aims to dodge attacks while drawing aggro due to his furiously fast, high damage attacks. Dunban also has some aggro drawing moves to make him work as a tank, such as peerless as well as the aggro absorbing blinding blossom. At the end of the day they're both there to hold the monster's attention off weaker characters/characters with backstab, which I think is what qualifies them as tanks.

The only downside to that I think is having to raise Reyn and Dunban's affection by having them both in your party (or spending a lot of time gifting etc). They're basically there to serve the same purpose as sort of tanks (although I prefer Dunban as he's also a good damage dealer). I think having a good few characters that like you dramatically improves gem crafting, because they always jump in and give far more points than your two characters crafting ever do in 1 go. Also combined with Shulk's skill that increases fury chance, fury seems to happen fairly often with me. Regarding the affinity boosting, while you can gift, as I recall the best way to do this is to equip rubbish weapons and fight certain enemies with spike damage later on that reduces tension. Constantly mashing B rewards you with 2 hearts for every time you encourage. Cheap but easy way to secure lots of affinity.

Shulk is good to use because of his high chance of going into fever, and really I've only been pairing him with Reyn because their affinity was so easy to get up early on (pretty sure it was quite high to begin with?). Really, so long as you can gain about 120% in a single quality crafting session it doesn't matter so much which pair you use. Getting two gems to 85% or so is sufficient really, so then you have about 130% to gain to get mega heat. Usually my characters all jump in with support giving me tons of % to get to 300. The most tedious bit is me trying to get gems close to 99% to begin with, because I do like to go into the craft knowing they have the best chance of mega heat. :p My team so far has been Dunban, Melia and Sharla, switching Sharla occasionally with Shulk. I switched Shulk out for now to get Sharla and Melia's affinity up for the Colony 9 quest. Although Melia is pretty ace, for sure.

This. It can make such a difference. Also, get Dunban to learn the skill Mind of the Warrior. Then either keep him in your party or have one of your party members skill link this skill. This way the party gauge drops only slowly outside of battle, meaning you'll generally keep a relatively high party guage providing you kill the odd monster here and there while exploring. A tip for some of you guys out there, if you don't already know this. Providing you're at the stage where you have a steady supply of rank 3 crystals/cylinders, you can get gems of a good quality easily. Basically, you need 2 crystals that both have a particular quality you want (e.g. double attack). Save first. Select one of these crystals and another random crystal, then start gem crafting. You're aiming to get the double attack quality as close as you can to 99% without going to 100. If you reach 100 or above then reload. Upon finishing gem crafting, in the best case you will have made double attack reach 99% and therefore it is not high enough to become a gem, so you get to take a cylinder containing only the double attack quality at 99% Basically, repeat this for your other crystal with the double attack quality. In the best case scenario, you now have two separate cylinders each containing only the double attack quality at 99%. Save the game again. Now you want to use two characters with high affinity to maximise the number of turns crafting (I use Shulk and Reyn, respectively). Select both cylinders to craft - because both cylinders contain the quality at 99% you start off at 198%. This means you only need to gain 102% while crafting to reach mega heat, at which point you gain two rank IV gems that give the maximum bonus rank IV gems can give. This can take some saving/reloading but it can be worth it. Also, I've been using this super google document resource that usefully lists NPC/quest locations. Since the game's quest/NPC/map tracking system is quite poor and there's the opportunity to miss out on timed quests I think it's fairly justified to use!

Somewhat unrelated but my PS3 has been a little neglected as of late. Been playing Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii. My, what a game, it's been a while since there's been such a solid RPG. Really wish we could see more RPGs with this style of gameplay, particularly for PS3 since it could look great too.

Usually you don't have to report back to the NPC but not always. Basically, if after collecting/killing whatever you were tasked with you see a screen saying what your rewards are, then you completed the quest. If you don't and you see a "+ update" message then press the + to see what other parts there are to the quest (and/or whether you have to go back to the quest-giver to get your reward).

Can anyone tell me if I choose the 'talk to Sharla' option in the refugee settlement whether the timed quests will disappear? Wishing my party of two became three, but not if it means losing out on the quests.

This is a very solid RPG, been playing it for a good few hours now. I kinda wish this would have made it to other consoles in glorious HD, but alas. Liking the combat system and scope of environments, easily the best JRPG to surface for a while.

It just looks like a Wii that's fallen over.

Yes, ShopTo. More money off with topcashback/quidco too and the cards are instantly obtainable (you get an image)

*Churchill voice* Ohhh yes.

lol, I knew you'd post. Although I will admit FFXIII wasn't on par with past FF games.

The difference is clear, hence why I mentioned it, as unlike most cross platform differences this was a big one. FFXIII, like most FF games, is heavily comprised of cutscenes; some places estimating over 10 hours of cutscenes to the game. On the PS3 these run at 1080p, while on 360 they remain at 576p (like the rest of the game). Now it's true, if you weren't paying particular attention you may not notice much difference between FFXIII and some generic 360 game as XIII does somewhat have fairly pretty visuals to compensate. But the difference between XIII versions is very obvious, as you could surely imagine given it's 576p vs 1080p for a significant portion of the game. Put simply, if your tv is half decent then there's not just minor differences between both versions.

Ha, as covered in the post above, please have the facts before throwing a cheap remark!

How are optional parts to a game destroying it?

Meh, sounds like the difference is something only purebred nerds would sweat over. AC has always looked and run great on PS3 I feel. It only really gets bad when you consider games like FFXIII, which didn't even display in HD in the 360 version. Can't wait for this game n

The Somali can have all the power they want, I don't plan to retardedly sail Somali waters any time soon. Walking down streets in London; that's a different matter!

They were boarding up Currys/PC World on Tottenham Court Road by our uni today... They should send the rioters on a boat destined for Somalia.

Oh dear, serious business indeed. A little in disbelief that he typed all that after being banned on an internet forum; do people seriously have nothing better to do? You always know when someone fails at an apology when you see the 'but'. I don't think he's really sorry for being the silly douchebag that he is.