The Definite Edition
Monolith Soft, the masterminds behind the Xenoblade series on the Switch but also the lesser known Baten Kaitos games have had their fair share of success over the years, after releasing a Definitive Edition of Xenoblade Chronicles originally from the Wii they continued with the series on the Switch to positive global reception, we now have a definitive edition of the Wii U exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles X on the Switch and with the Switch being at the end of the consoles lifespan with the Switch 2 on the horizon and judging by Monolith Softs past records they are not holding anything back in terms of quality.
Xenoblade Chronicles X follows a simple yet effective narrative. You’re unnamed avatar character which you will be able to customise arrives on an alien planet with no such memory as to what has happened. An Alien invasion which has devastated Earth has caused many to escape and seek refuge on an alien planet including yourself, as you awake you meet other survivors and many other colonists and eventually arrive at a city hub that has also survived and now resides on the planet known as NLA (New Los Angeles). The game retains it’s original voice acting which is superbly done and tells the narrative going forward perfectly. Whilst your custom protagonist does not have much to say, the same can’t be said for all other characters you will meet on the journey, the characters you meet are mostly whimsical even in dire situations but the world building in such a world is done brilliantly.
The story once you reach NLA has you join an organisation known as BLADE and being apart of the organisation requires you to adapt and serve by helping the denizens of NLA. Blade is set up of multiple Divisions and in the original version of the game joining a division was very different and because the servers are now shut down work differently in Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition. Divisions now seem to be purely cosmetic as Division Points and Division Support have been removed. Division Rewards are still available daily from the Online menu in the Rewards section.
It is fair to say that Xenoblade Chronicles X has a steepish learning curve which can be said about the series in general. The game as a whole does a good job of explaining every aspect of the game and if you don’t understand straight away, trial and error usually alleviates most issues. On the service Xenoblade Chronicles X feels like an offline MMORPG and clearly for good reason. It is a sprawling open world full of enemies, once you really venture into the world you will see towering monstrosities with a high level casually walking around in low level zones, clearly these are not to be toyed with early on but knowing you will come back for them end game really feels like something many games do not do, it is something Monolith Soft have continued to do with each game and it makes the world feel alive and dangerous. Exploring the world early on will require you to sneak past some of these more dangerous foes so keeping your wits about you is a good idea.
The game does have it’s main story objectives but the gameplay really comes into researching Mira, the very planet in which you now reside, Xenoblade Chronicles X is not about moving forward as fast as possible but by completing every objective to better your Squad, collect resources and making the most of FrontierNav, this device is crucial to updating your gear and much later on, the Skells which are the flying vessels which you will pilot later on to defeat the much more elite marks out in the wild. By keeping up to date with FrontierNav you will be able to place data probes which will extract data of your choosing, this data in the form of currency is essential for upgrading just about everything in game.
Combat is in real time but moves are executed by commands on screen which have cooldowns, these vary depending on the Art and by levelling arts up you can reduce the cooldown, by then using overdrive which cost TP another resource you can essentially overclock your moves to line up an art to be used sooner. Xenoblade Chronicles X is the first in the series with the idea of having classes, by reaching rank 10, it becomes possible to change your class where you will get to choose and develop one of the next three classes branches. Each Class has its own set of weapons, both belee and ranged and several associated which of course change depending on your class.
Quests can be obtained via a supercomputer in NLA, some which can be repeated over and over to gain extra currency but Mira has a whole range of NPC quests where you will go and find missing people out in the world, install giant space probes or speak with a less than experienced coffee barister who seems to destroy a new coffee machine every day of her working life and solve her ongoing problems with machinery.
Graphically Xenoblade Chronicles X excels just about in every aspect and this feeling of a massive world never goes away. With the Switch 2 on the horizon soon to come out, the first Switch is at the end of it’s life and somehow Monolith Soft have created a vibrant and vast world that runs like butter. I have an original Switch and the games performance is unbelievable honestly, grass textures, trees and draw distance are incredible and when you are running through the vast land the textures look just as good and there is never and pop in graphics or any slowdown, the game never feels like it goes below 30fps even when the game has some torrential weather effects going on. Even NLA the city hub looks incredible and there is so much small detail to every car, every NPC and even shops that have reflections to the objects outside of it. Playing in handheld feels smoother of course but docked the game looks fantastic, easily the best performing and looking game on the system by a mile. Although I did not play the original Wii U version, the user interface looks to have had a massive overhaul which I know was criticised for it’s small fonts which were hard to make out and the games user interface still managed to be cumbersome on the screen. I can say for sure that is not an issue now as playing both docked and in handheld mode I did not find the user interface in anyway intrusive to the game.
The music while it clearly does have good production value would be the only thing I can criticise if only a little bit as I the theme of NLA itself was one that did nothing for me and if anything made me glad to leave it to explore outside of it. The music is stylised in a way that does fit the theme of the game but some tracks certainly don’t mix well with other tracks and were not really my cup of tea on listening to them over and over, but I can appreciate music taste is subjective.
Xenoblade Chronicles is a series that I started out personally with on the 3DS and the game honestly didn’t grip me back when I did play it, after having played it on the Switch everything came together and it quickly became one of my favourite series of games not only on the Switch but as a series in general. Xenoblade Chronicles X unlike the series we now have is its own thing, it was back on the Wii U and still remains the case today. Having Xenoblade Chronicles in it’s name is enough to differentiate itself from the other but enough to know it is a game that stands up on it’s own while being the foundation of the series we have today.
I am still in awe still at just how great this game is and how it feels to play. I commend Monolith Soft in almost all aspects of the game. If you want a near perfect giant sci-fi-esque open world JRPG with giant robots and monsters and a deep rooted story and a plethora of content that will take you into hundreds of hours of gameplay then you will certainly not go wrong with Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition.
A Nintendo Switch code was provided by Nintendo. This review is featured on OpenCritic.
