In an period the place open-world video games are a dime a dozen, Xenoblade Chronicles X soars above the pack. There’s an unparalleled feeling of freedom and exploration as you fly your mech swimsuit throughout the large planet of Mira, the scale of which dwarfs different RPGs prefer it. While its story about humanity discovering one other home could be forgettable at instances, an already participating battle system is bolstered by the dramatic quality-of-life enhancements this Definitive Edition makes, leading to an RPG not like some other.
Xenoblade Chronicles X begins off with the human race boarding spaceships in an try to flee Earth after it will get caught within the crossfire of an alien conflict. Your ship, the White Whale, finally crash-lands on Mira, and it falls on you to seek out its scattered remnants from the freshly settled metropolis of New Los Angeles. It’s a satisfactory story in a vacuum, however it’s additionally the weakest of the Xenoblade video games total. That’s partially because of its customizable silent protagonist, who is totally devoid of any persona. That clean slate means the story lacks the identical emotional impression as the opposite video games within the sequence.
Thankfully, the aspect quests actually help decide up the slack, with fascinating worldbuilding and compelling character growth for the remaining of your occasion and even many NPCs. For instance, as all of humanity was pressured to band collectively to be able to survive, one primary quest explores the subject of discrimination towards different alien races – it gives important insight into how people work together with these races on Mira and how friendships could be cast throughout racial boundaries exterior of Earth.
Completing any mission will increase the Affinity ranges of whoever is in your occasion on the time, which might then unlock Heart-to-Heart occasions for them. These are particular scenes that present important bits of additional backstory, much like how Persona and The Legend of Heroes deal with their bonding occasions. For occasion, Colonel Elma’s chilly persona begins to soften away as you study more about her curiosity in vehicles and pizza, fleshing out her character and displaying us a totally different aspect that the primary story doesn’t.
Once a character has a high enough Affinity degree, you’ll additionally unlock their customized Affinity Missions, and the rewards for finishing these are some of probably the most substantial out there. The primary draw is that your protagonist will study unique fight abilities, referred to as Arts, that in any other case can’t be obtained by leveling up. It’s an wonderful incentive to study more in regards to the supporting forged whereas additionally getting stronger.
One standout is the engineer, Lin. Her Affinity Mission particulars how integral her engineering abilities and fervour have been to the White Whale. While she would a lot slightly sit on the sidelines, she understands that she should additionally fight when needed, which is why she wields a large protect and gatling gun in battle. Personal moments together with your crew like this actually help stability out the truth that your bland silent hero doesn’t have any of their own.
The Definitive Edition even consists of model new recruitable characters, in addition to new story content material that’s effectively price seeing. Without going into spoilers, this content material is dolled out at an even tempo all through the 50-60 hour marketing campaign, making its inclusion really feel pure whereas including even more longevity to an already huge game.
While your primary character could also be bland, one factor that’s actually not is the open world of Xenoblade Chronicles X. It’s divided into 5 areas, every with its own kind of terrain. For instance, the start space of Primordia is a lush grassland, whereas a later space referred to as Cauldros feels overpowering with its lava fields. There are so many attractive landmarks scattered all through Mira that preserve exploration thrilling, from the enormous pure overpass referred to as Arendt Bridge in Primordia to the mysterious and mechanical Leaning Ring sticking midway out of the sand within the desert area of Oblivia.
While the one hub space for human exercise is New LA, in all places else continues to be completely crammed to the brim with life. Both small and large monsters are crawling in each route, however what makes them stand out is that some are docile whereas others are hostile. The low degree bee monster would possibly assault you on sight, however that degree 40 gigantic dinosaur-like creature may simply stroll proper previous you, minding its own business. Each species has its own habits and behaviors, which suggests you must keep alert as you discover as an alternative of simply mindlessly meandering round like in lots of different open-world video games. Some monsters will solely show up at sure instances of day, too, which now you can conveniently regulate from the menu slightly than having to seek out and use particular pods scattered all through Mira.
What additionally helps is the pace at which you run. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth could also be great total, however I used to be consistently pissed off by how sluggish Cloud ran, life like or not. In Xenoblade Chronicles X, your character runs extremely quick in distinction. Mira’s gravity additionally feels just like the moon’s, letting you cowl long distances and even attain larger elevations with a single bounce. Decisions like these make exploring Mira a lot smoother and fewer intimidating.
It’s additionally spectacular how effectively the world scales up with its mechs, referred to as Skells, which unlock when you get far enough into the story. When in your Skell, you possibly can transfer even quicker than working on foot, however these large monsters that have been peaceable earlier than might now be hostile to you. That means typically it’s higher to run to a vacation spot as an alternative of driving your Skell there relying on what’s standing in your path. This consistently adjustments the dynamic between you and Mira’s surroundings, preserving exploration recent.
Towards the top of the story, your Skell even will get the flexibility to fly, letting you attain larger altitudes and offering entry to mountains you couldn’t discover at the start. This brings exploration to new heights, making Mira actually really feel like humanity’s new home as you gain the flexibility to go just about wherever unrestricted.
Everybody was MMO combating
Combat within the Xenoblade Chronicles sequence is in real-time, however it’s distinct from different battle methods because it feels a lot more like an MMO. Both enemies and allies fight with primary auto-attacks, and you’ve got a row of more highly effective Arts to select from on the backside of the display screen. The order you employ them in is equally important – for instance, some offensive Arts can inflict Topple onto enemies, which is a standing situation that causes them to fall to the ground quickly, whereas others then do more injury to Toppled enemies. There’s a lot of synergy to play round with that provides fairly a bit of strategy to the action.
Another distinctive function is the Soul Voice. RPG characters like to call out the names of their assaults and spout quippy one-liners as they fight, and Xenoblade Chronicles truly turns that trope into a game mechanic! You and your allies will sometimes shout out particular phrases that counsel sure actions, like utilizing an Art that inflicts a standing impact (which is colour coded purple) – following that suggestion will then activate a purple Soul Voice, supplying you with additional bonuses like making the enemy more prone to standing results. It’s immersive whereas concurrently leaning into the style’s more absurd parts.
While that’s all simply as enjoyable because it was within the 2015 unique on Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition additionally provides a bevy of quality-of-life enhancements. One substantial addition is the Quick Cooldown bar, which fills up over the course of battle as you employ auto-attacks. By spending a portion of the bar, you possibly can utterly bypass the cooldown period of any Art and use it immediately. Need additional therapeutic and may’t wait? Use your therapeutic Art then Quick Cooldown to avoid wasting your allies from getting knocked out. The Quick Cooldown bar builds pretty slowly, so it’s important to choose the fitting time to make use of it, however it could immediately flip the tide of battle once you do.
Perhaps the largest adjustment is which you can now conveniently change out your occasion members at any time, wherever, from a separate menu. While that is a primary function of many RPGs, the unique model as an alternative requested you to memorize the place each single character was inside New LA and go discuss to them to be able to swap them in. Sure, possibly that course of was more tied to the world round you, however it was additionally painstaking and extremely annoying – particularly in case you have been out exploring, because you’d should return to New LA to alter your lineup. This single change is monumental, and fairly frankly, is enough to make the Wii U model really feel utterly out of date on its own.
On high of that, characters not in your lively occasion will nonetheless gain EXP now, lowering the tedium of swapping people round even additional. In the Wii U model, benched members needed to be introduced in and leveled individually, making for some very uneven occasion compositions. The Definitive Edition enormously cuts down on pointless grinding, which is actually appreciated.
As for personalization, every occasion member has a particular class that may’t be modified, like Lin as a Shield Trooper, however your customized character can change their class at will. By going down totally different class timber, you possibly can degree up their ranks to study new Arts and passive talents. That makes the protagonist really feel like they belong in Fire Emblem, the place characters can combine and match totally different abilities, and it’s enjoyable to play round and discover the proper setup that matches your playstyle.
You also can fight in your Skell, and Xenoblade Chronicles X scales its battles to them simply in addition to its exploration. Their overinflated stats and energy make mincemeat out of smaller enemies, however they’re good for dealing with off towards Mira’s giants and different bosses that may in any other case crush you. Battles in your Skell play out equally to ones on foot, besides the Skell weapons you equip decide what type of Arts you’ve got. It’s one other added layer of depth and tinkering that happy the min-maxing half of my mind.
Aside from the quality-of-life adjustments listed above, the Definitive Edition boasts some good visible enhancements, too. The UI is way cleaner and the character fashions are sharper (as you’d hope they might be a decade later), which makes for a smoother look lastly worthy of one of one of the best sci-fi gaming sequence round. With the Wii U gamepad gone, quick journey and map information have additionally been well reworked into a separate menu on a single display screen, transitioning that info completely over to Switch. Now I no longer should expertise the neck ache points attributable to having to consistently change between trying down at my gamepad and back up on the TV display screen.
There’s additionally some returning multiplayer performance in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, although I wasn’t in a position to check these options because the servers weren’t on during this review period. In the Wii U model, you would recruit the avatars of different gamers to deal with Squad Missions reminiscent of defeating a particular group of enemies, and online Nemesis Missions provided a satisfying technique to check your endgame abilities. While minor components of an in any other case single-player heavy game, these multiplayer parts contributed to the more MMO-centric identification that makes Xenoblade Chronicles X distinctive, so right here’s hoping they’ll have been performed justice within the last model of the Definitive Edition.