Xenoblade - more details on development, Nintendo's input

- Monolith Soft creative director, Tetsuya Takahashi presented Nintendo developer, Hitoshi Yamagami with the idea for Xenoblade while Disaster: Day of Crisis was in the middle of its development
- Takahashi had some of the younger staff members pose for him as models for his model of the game’s map design
- the way that light and shadows hit the real-life models helped Takahashi decide areas of jungle, darkness and other elements for the game
- Yamagami was so impressed with the work that he felt that a game had to be created
- Xenoblade began prototyping in April of 2007
- Takahashi was considering chopping some parts of the game because it would cause development delays
- after hearing from Nintendo, Takahashi was convinced to push all the way
- special attention was paid to the fact that you can go everywhere that you can see
- character appearance and speed changes depending on equipment
- different monsters appear depending on time of day
- the decision for the battle system was chosen due to not being able to implement a turn-based system
- ‘future vision’ allows you to see just slightly ahead into the future, and then allows you to change your plan of attack
- one developer was so moved by the game that they had ended up in tears about ten times by the time the game was completed
- there is a lot of material unlocked in the game after your beat it the first time

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