In the early stages, when we were grinding through the levels to prepare for an upcoming fight that had proved a little too tough in the Japanese version, we found a very large, spiky worm-beast on a beach. We decided to use it for target practice, and it promptly despatched us with ease. But rather than get on with the rest of the game, we spent the best part of an hour trying to get the better of it, returning time after time until we eventually slaughtered the poor, peaceful thing. It dropped a massive treasure chest, full of loot, and we got an achievement for finding a super-rare item. Nice!
The point is that in a huge game that dishes out quests all over the place, the designers knew that low-level players would be unable to resist attacking that one particular creature. So they made it harder than most other monsters and stuck in a big reward for anyone persistent enough to kill it.
That's the kind of attention to detail that marks Xenoblade as something special, and the added benefit of this particular encounter was that by the end of it we'd become much more proficient at the battle system. When we got to the nasty bit we'd got stuck at in the import version, well, we only died two or three times.
We can only hope the rest of the game maintains the quality we've seen in the early parts. Now that we understand Xenoblade, we can see why the Americans are so upset. If it wasn't coming out here, maybe we'd have to start a little campaign of our own.
personally, I love the idea of this screenshot -
- that you can take huge beasts on whenever you want is really cool.--
xyzzy