Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch) Review

From the beginning, Xenoblade Chronicles X comes out swinging. Earth is destroyed in the crossfire between two alien races, and after watching a series of other escaping ships being blasted out of the atmosphere, the story follows a surviving ship called the White Whale, which lands on the mysterious planet of Mira. The main character wakes up after being rescued on a dark and stormy night, forced to explore this hostile new world. It sets up within the first hour a cool reveal of the planet the player will be spending their time on. The opening is a wild ride of emotion, ranging from the sadness of Earth, the confusion of the unfamiliar world, to the excitement of a new adventure.

The primary portion of Xenoblade Chronicles X revolves around exploring the new world, acquiring gear, levelling up, and so on. There are a slew of good things players can look for here, from tiered random loot, to class systems, to various skills and passives that can be learned and equipped. There is a lot to get into. Characters that join the group cannot change classes, but the main character can go through a tree-style class system of advanced classes being locked behind lower level ones. If anything, there is a little too much going on, as a single piece of gear will have over 10 different stats to measure and compare, excluding any traits it might have.

Combat is real-time with the characters generally auto-attacking. Player interaction comes from moving around the battlefield to get into better positions and activating skills. Skill usage occurs much like a massively multiplayer online game, where there is a skill bar on the bottom, and when a skill is off cooldown, the player can activate them. These range from melee weapon moves and gunfire skills, to passive boosts. As progression is made through classes, skills or passives will be learned that are focused on the class direction they are going. For example, a player may choose to be more melee focused, which will grant sword and knife slashes, or defensive boosts.

Having mature characters fighting with guns is a breath of fresh air in JRPGs. In a genre entirely stuffed too full of 15-year-olds wielding swords and taking down empires, seeing just some regular military guys use machine guns, rifles and pistols to shoot up the alien life feels incredibly novel. Speaking of that, it's often a strange thing on what creatures get drawn into battle. Very often, the player can be slaughtering a fiend's compatriots right next to them, just slowly watching until the battle is over, and then they get gunned down next. Although there are a few token JRPG characters tropes like the young genius that we seemingly can't get away from, most of the characters are older and feel realistic.

While great across the board, there are a few things this reviewer would be remiss to ignore. First, the music is inconsistent in its direction. Most of the time it's good, ambient sci-fi, which is fitting. Many times, though, very weird rap songs will start playing, and the music is so unsuitable that it rapidly takes the player out of the game. Pop or metal songs are not uncommon, either. Sometimes this kicks in during battle, but sometimes also just walking around the town. It is very distracting from the generally serious story. The music direction, to be blunt, is bad. Often distractingly bad.

The other major negative is exploring the city sections of the crashed colony ship. The similarities are unbelievably striking to Mass Effect 1 of exploring the Citadel…in a bad way. The city is very well designed and aesthetically pleasing way to look at, but it is such a derailing experience to the overall exploration and story. This is where the comparison feels so notable, which, as well received as Mass Effect was, the Citadel, and especially the infamous elevators, were widely panned as being major slowdowns and generally not fun portions of the game. Here, the city has had tons of time poured into it, but it is the worst portion of Xenoblade Chronicles X by far.

Despite being the "Definitive Edition", developer Monolith Soft has removed one of the more interesting ideas from the original: the divisions. A few hours into the game, players get introduced to the workings of the city and the different groups people play in helping the colony. For example, a group that goes around setting up scanner probes to better watch the planet; those that are tasked to go fight enemies; those who resolve disputes in the city; those that find artefacts across the planet. Originally, depending on the group, it changed the amount of experience that was rewarded, so picking an explorer type division gave more points for exploring. Unfortunately, now it is in name only, which is sad, because the idea was incredibly cool.

There is just so much going on in Xenoblade Chronicles X, though, that players are going to have a great time diving into anything they choose to focus on. Even random things, like how the equipment has different manufacturers, and depending on which type the player prioritises, technology is developed faster, meaning better gear of that type is acquired. One other major aspect that readers may be wondering about is the mechs. Despite them being featured on the cover art, do not go in expecting them remotely anytime soon.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a little like the JRPG answer to Mass Effect of a sweeping sci-fi story. While certain anime tropes and typical JRPG moments are inevitable, this feels much more measured than pretty much anything else in the genre. It does a good job of slowly trickling in new systems, because the overall game is massive, with a ton of various things to do. Once trapped on the Wii U, this is finally able to be enjoyed by more people and will most certainly be highly regarded.