Fighting in the Rain

Thanks to the efforts of Project Rainfall both Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story have been released in Europe and have USA release dates. As both of these titles are in the same genre it is interesting to compare them, especially as the JRPG is generally considered to be becoming something of a niche market.

Critical Response
Metacritic gives Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story meta scores of 92 and 82 respectively. So while it might appear that we can make this a very short article and crown Xenoblade Chronicles the winner, it needs to be considered that Metacritic only sources western reviews and Famitsu (the Japanese gaming bible) gave Xenoblade Chronicles a 36/40 and The Last Story a 38/40, also sales for these two games in Japan and during their first week in Europe have been very close with The Last Story selling slightly more. I believe that one of the reasons for this difference of opinion between the East and West is due to the way the story is structured, in Japan linear story book style games are much better received than in the West, for example 428: Fusa Sareta Shiibuya de an interactive novel involving scrolling text, visual stills, and short video sequences was given a perfect 40 by Famitsu.
Winner: Draw

Sound
For me this was the easiest category to decide. When I turned on The Last Story I literally just sat there looking at the main title and listening to the opening theme. When eventually I did get into the game I was rewarded by voice acting that didn't make me want to stab pencils into my ears. Xenoblade Chronicles also has good sound, it just didn't grab me in the same way. One thing it does have in it's favour is the option to turn on the original Japanese voice acting, which I did after only an hour of play as the English voice actors are a tad weak, and also they repeat the same catch phrases over and over in combat, which quickly started to grate.
Winner: The Last Story


Graphics
Both of these games look good and push the Wii to its limits. Xenoblade Chronicles uses low resolution textures to enable the game to have a massive draw distance and large area maps. As you make changes to your characters equipment these changes are reflected in game, this means that the cut scenes have to be rendered in-game and it is during these cut scenes that the low resolution textures are most obvious.
The Last Story on the other hand, looks best at a set distance from the camera, and the game knows it. In order to optimise it's performance and have good looking character models the game blurs out any object which is too close or too far from the camera. Other graphical 'cheats' include giving unimportant NPC's low resolution textures and only giving limited camera control, no zooming in or out. Once again changes made to character equipment are displayed in game and players are able to customise the colour and appearance of their gear. The game's cut scenes use a mixture of pre-rendered and in-game rendered graphics, however, the pre-rendered scenes are only slightly higher quality than the in-game graphics which prevents the transition between the two from being too jarring.
Winner: The Last Story, this was close and comes down to a personal preference between having certain game elements looking better than others or wanting an equitable distribution of graphical power.

Dagran (left) has a better quality character model than Dunban (right),
however you can see how the background is blurred in order to achieve this.

Story
So as to not spoil anything I will simply say that both games involve a young man gaining mystical powers and setting out to save the world. But while both games have a similar premise the way the story is presented is quite different. Xenoblade Chronicles gives you free reign to advance the plot at your own pace, with plenty of side missions to distract you along the way, while The Last Story is a much more linear, directed affair. I prefer the story in Xenoblade Chronicles because it feels more original. In The Last Story, when a red haired villain, claiming to have powers similar to yours, appears and tries to kidnap the female protagonist I couldn't help but be reminded of Zelda.
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles

Gameplay
Both games use an auto attack feature with additional special attacks that can be activated. In Xenoblade Chronicles these special attacks are activated by selecting them from a gamebar, while in the The Last Story they involve context sensitive button presses. Unfortunately, using the same button for all the special moves can result in the wrong action being performed, in particular I found the wall running vertical slash to be particularly difficult to perform in a timely fashion. Both games let you charge a meter to perform combined party attacks, and I particularly enjoy the way that physical and magical attacks interact in The Last Story.
Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles

Overall
This is very close as both games are excellent, but in the end I would say that I prefer Xenoblade Chronicles as it does more to revitalise the JRPG genre. The open nature of the game world and the way that the fast travel system enables quick backtracking to complete additional side-quests provided a more detailed and engaging game world. In addition, the way that completing side quests can effect the way that NPC's interact with each other makes it feel like you are making a difference even when not actively following the main plot line.