10 Video Games That Pushed Consoles To The Limit

Speaking of games that, by all rights, should've lit up their console like a Christmas tree: Xenoblade Chronicles.

The original release of Xenoblade Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii looked... bad. Like, really, REALLY bad. But then, what did you expect? Considering the size of this game, it's a wonder all it took was a massive graphics downsize to get it to fit.

Xenoblade Chronicles is the closest many of us will get to know the feeling of playing alone in a long-abandoned MMO, with staggeringly large areas bursting with stuff to do. Few JRPGs are so successful at making the player feel microscopic in the face of the world they're traversing. And the fact that those mad lads at Monolith Soft managed to cram it all into the weakest console on the market at the time speaks to just how powerful the Wii truly was when you have a team that knows how to work with it.

Add onto that rich, complex real-time combat that at no point lags in the frame rate, even with a bunch of stuff happening on screen at once (particularly in later fights), and you get a game that will put your Wii through its paces.