Has anyone played that game? Is it any good. I've been looking for a good 3D Anime MMO to get into that has a decent character creator.

I've put something like 200+ hours into it already, and imo it's fantastic. However, it's not an MMO. Not really.

It's more of a single-player JRPG with a sort of MMO feel to combat (auto attacks, skills on cooldowns, aggro management, etc.) with some limited online interactivity (apparently there's these rarely-spawning super-bosses that big waves of players can team up against, but mainly all I've done are simple 4-person co-op missions

Of the two, I have to say I prefer the original Xenoblade, but maybe I'm just jaded because someone spoiled X for me on launch day and my drive to finish it compared to other games out now just dropped.

Character creator is nice though

Sorta. You still take on the boss with your party of up to 4 (either people you recruit or your in-game party), but everyone online who battles it contributes to defeating it. The "Global Nemesis", as it's called, has something called RP (I dunno what it stands for... regeneration points?), and as you lower the boss' HP to 0, it loses 1 RP. Once the Global Nemesis hits 0 RP, it's defeated.

I see, well regardless, can you tell me a little more about the game play?

When you get into a fight you can switch between a melee weapon or gun, depending on which class you are. When you're in range for whichever weapon you're using your character will automatically attack (with a "cooldown" between attacks based on weapon). At any time you can use one of 8 equipped skills that then go on a cool down before they can be used again.

Adding to what EoD said, combat is very MMO-like. Your characters auto-attack whenever they are within range, while you have a sort of skill pool with 8 "Arts" that you can scroll through with the D-pad and activate with the A button. The art then has to cool down for you to use it again. During battle, you can do things like switch between your melee and range weapon, sprint, and jump. Jumping in battle doesn't really do anything, but, it's possible to do more damage if you attack from an advantageous position. For example, shooting an enemy from the top of a nearby hillside. You can also lock onto enemies' appendages during battle to destroy them. This weakens them and often has benefits for your party, as well as increasing the odds that the creature will drop certain materials.

In addition, at certain points during battle, you may see a sort of QTE-style event pop up, that involves pressing the B button whenever a shrinking ring enters a colored spot on a circle. This triggers a "Soul Voice", which is basically a command that your character will shout to your party members. If your party members then use an art that matches your command, they and you will receive certain bonuses like added damage, restored HP, etc. Likewise, your party members may shout out commands to you during battle. When they do, any art on your skill bar that matches their request will glow, and using it will give you a bonus. You can customize your own character's Soul Voices.

In addition, as you battle you will accumulate both morale and TP (tension points). As morale increases, things like Soul Voice activation becomes more common and your party becomes stronger. TP is used to activate particular arts. You can also use 3000 TP to resurrect party members that are defeated in battle, and at some point in the game, you gain the ability to use 3000 TP to activate Overdrive, which is like Limit Break.

And, of course, at one point in the game, you gain access to Skells. Those are the giant mechs you've probably seen in media for the game. You can fight both in and out of Skells, and you can enter and exit your Skell at any time during battle. Battle inside a Skell works basically the same way battling on foot does, so there's really nothing to add. Skells add an extra layer to the game, though, and during the later part, you'll have to make Skells a major part of your battle strategy.

And that's all just battles. That doesn't even include side missions, AM leveling, character affinities, Frontier Nav, Squad Tasks... There really is a lot to this game.

Good game, the weakest point is the story. The story isn't bad, but it's poorly-paced (shit doesn't get real until chapter 8 of 12), and the bosses are like pulling teeth, which is a shame because you can see flashes of brilliance, but then the devs throw in some rank bullshit.

Exploring and questing can be great though.

One last thing to mention. The music. You'll either love it or hate it. But either way you'll be STUCK ON A DIFFERENT PLANET.

I keep playing in long marathon sessions and then putting it down, need to get back to it since I last beat chapter 8 where as others have said there the plot really does seem to be getting more interesting. That and I finally have multiple Skells to roam around and kick the shit out of the local wildlife with.

Huh huh huh yeah

Must...resist...controversy...

Censorship...sucks...

There's barely any. Nothing to really complain about unless you MUST see 13-year-old girls in skimpy bikinis to enjoy your RPGs.

with DDD racks no less.

But the localization has catgirl yuri. If you manage to find something in the sidequest that the game doesn't tell you about. Otherwise it ends in tragedy :-/

Oh... shit.

Well that sucks. :C