By
Patrick Hawes-DeFrias
Xenoblade
Chronicles is one of those hidden gems that snuck by a good number of people.
In fact, it almost didn’t make it to international sales. But I’m glad it did,
because to this day I consider it to be one of the best RPG’s around. One of
its many good qualities is the strength of its characters, and today we’re
taking a look at one of my personal favorites- the Heropon, Riki!
I’m
going to try extra hard to not spoil anything in this game, but out of
necessity I will be saying some of Riki’s plot details. If you have a Wii U, I
HIGHLY recommend you pick it up on the virtual console and play it as soon as
possible.
Anyway,
Riki. He’s a Nopon, which in the Xenoblade games are tiny little fluffballs
with short and stubby arms and legs, though they make up for it with large
prehensile ears that they can use as arms. Not exactly the kinds of things that
you’d expect to get into the middle of a fight, right? Well normally you’d be
right, but in the context of Xenoblade Chronicles, Riki is the “Heropon”, which
he claims to be a title granted to Nopon who are destined to be great heroes.
The group meets him at the Frontier Village, the main Nopon settlement.
However, the Frontier Village’s elder has chosen him to be the Heropon for
more… financial reasons. You see, Riki and his family have racked up “lots of
monies” worth of debt within the village for food. Oh, so looking at the cute
picture of him at the top of the page, he must be the youngest in a group of
siblings, and is thus the most able-bodied to work for the village, right?
Nope,
he’s a 40-year-old father of 11 kids.
Yep,
that’s right. Underneath Riki’s cute and squishy exterior, Riki is actually a
middle-aged father trying to provide for his children and wife. Here’s a
picture of them, by the way.
Riki
also just has a very fun, cute personality. He tries to be as impressive and
heroic as possible, despite being a tiny marshmallow-like creature. He speaks
in a way that you’d expect from a Tarzan-type character- English, kinda, but
consistently mixes up certain words and talking in the third person, things
like that. He constantly bumps heads with the party’s token big dumb guy, Reyn,
which leads to most of the game’s slapstick. But, he’s not a COMPLETE joke- he
always makes sure to back up his friends, no matter what, and later on we get
to see him have a fairly deep conversation with Xenoblade’s resident stoic,
brave swordsman Dunban. I refuse to spoil it, but you get the idea that for all
his cuddly charm and goofball antics, Riki is much more noble and wise than he
lets on.
His
strangeness extends past his story, however. In terms of gameplay within
Xenoblade Chronicles, Riki is very weird. Despite his tiny Easter Egg-esque
exterior, he has the largest HP total in the game. This, combined with the fact
that he (somehow) gains the ability to wear heavy armor later on, makes him a
very good choice as a tank. Here’s an image of Riki in
one of the game’s heavy armor sets, in all its hilarity.
Besides
that, Riki gets many different skills that allow him to fill several different
role types. He has a stealing ability as well as a backstab and a skill that
removes aggro, effectively making him a thief. He can affect buffs on your
party as well as the enemy, as well as fire off a few elemental attacks,
thereby allowing him to be a mage of sorts. Just to round him off, he has a
healing ability and a skill that knocks opponents down (protip- it works on the
last boss, and is how my friends and I beat the game). All in all, Riki’s role
in the party is very random and strange, which is actually pretty fitting for
him.
Why We Love Him:
- He’s a tiny, fluffy bundle of energy that adds much-needed levity to the game’s story
- He’s actually a middle-aged father trying to provide for his family
- His strange, but useful, character abilities prove him to be more than a mere joke character
- The Heropon has much more character depth than you’d expect
Sources:
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