Just finished the game about an hour ago. I'm aware this may turn into somewhat of an advertisement... but oh well. Xenoblade deserves it. It took me 80 hours on the dot to complete and I didn't even do all the sidequests. This is one long, expansive game. When a game is this long you'd think it loses focus, but it doesn't - the pacing and the cutscenes are so well timed and spread apart that many times I found myself abandoning exploring the massive maps in favor of finding out what happens next.

If you don't know already the game is coming out in NA this Spring so make sure to check it out! It plays a bit like Final Fantasy 12 but with a unique time feature that lets you see what actions enemies will use in a few seconds, to give you time to enchant yourself or allies with a shield or enhanced evasion, as well as attack, all from a special menu that the main character has from his sword.

One thing that I really love about the game is how much freedom you are given to customizing your characters. One of my party members has such high agility that he doesn't need any armor at all - enemies just miss him. You can feel free from this point to turn him into a tank or a main damage dealer, or have him inflict status ailments. If you don't like that, outfit him with some armor and let him go at it. Another of my characters is outfitted with only support actions (she has plenty of attacking skills as well, I just decided not to level them) so she stays behind the sidelines and doesn't accrue any aggro while the agile tank dodges and I go behind and to the side and attack.

Anyway, this game is among the best of 2011. Funny how my top two games from 2011 are both Wii exclusives!