Xenoblade Chronicles X

In case you missed it, the definitive edition of Xenoblade Chronicles X was released on Switch recently. Having played many many hours of this game back when it first released on the Wii U, I’ve been waiting for this with a fair bit of anticipation and trepidation.

Why trepidation, you ask? Well, the star-crossed Wii U was an impressive, unique, and deeply underutilized little machine, and Xenoblade Chronicles X was one of the few games that really tried to plumb the depths of what that hardware was capable of. The original version of the game offloaded most of the UI to the Wii U’s secondary controller screen, allowing you to handle a variety of navigational and inventory management tasks while leaving the main screen open for taking in the game’s incredible vistas and intense combat. But before I get into how the Switch’s definitive edition handled that transition, let me back up a bit and give you an overview of the game’s essential story and play.

The story of Xenoblade Chronicles X is unique and doesn’t require you to have played other games in Square-Enix’s extended Xeno franchise, though if you have you’ll see a lot of familiar species and concepts making their appearance. The game starts with some exposition about planet Earth being caught in a conflict between two alien armadas whose battles ultimately destroy the planet, with humanity fleeing into the stars aboard colony ships. You’re one of the crew members of such a colony ship, the White Whale, which crashes on the planet Mira after a skirmish with some of the alien forces that have pursued you since Earth’s destruction. You are awakened from your escape pod by another crew member, who takes you to the burgeoning human city of New Los Angeles, a final bastion for a dwindling species built from the remnants of your destroyed colony ship.

From this point forward, this sci-fi RPG doles out unending doses of new allies, exploration, and combat. And be warned: this game is long. While the game promises and delivers on exciting combat both on foot and while piloting massive mechs called Skells, it’ll take you about 20 hours to unlock your first Skell, another 4-5 hours before you have the ability to purchase new Skells, and probably another 2-3 hours to unlock the flight module so you can finally take full advantage of all the game’s functionality. Note that some of the time between leveling up to purchase new Skells and unlocking the flight module can overlap, but the game’s large open world map with scaling threats and sometimes tricky navigation can make things difficult if you try to speedrun too fast.

Combat in the game, whether on-foot or riding in your Skell, involves an ability rotation that will be fairly familiar to experienced MMO players. For your base character, the abilities you utilize and the weapons you use them with involves a class-based progression system that will ultimately allow you to easily switch between any style or move set you’re interested in but early on will push you to specialize in a specific weapon loadout. For your Skell, the moves you have available will be determined by the equipment loadout you choose. Your ability set is roughly broken up into auras, healing, debuffs, melee attacks, and ranged attacks. You’ll find that the squadmates you choose to accompany you on your missions will prompt you in combat to use particular types of moves, varying based on their own actions, and rewarding you with additional effects or damage for a well-timed assist. This leads to a combat system that is simple to use but which features a great degree of customization and many opportunities to achieve mastery.

The definitive edition moves many of the functions that the Wii U relied on its dual screen model for into more traditional menus; overall this retains much of the necessary functionality and probably makes the game more accessible to new or casual players than the original version, though it does make it harder to manage FrontierNav and review certain game elements while playing in multiplayer mode (honestly, if you haven’t played the previous version of the game, this is a non-issue.)

At the end of the day, Xenoblade Chronicles X is a deep, extensive sci-fi RPG with engaging characters, a robust relationship system that affects multiple aspects of play, a fantastic story, and graphics which kind of perfectly exploit the Switch without pushing past the limitations of its hardware. If you like sci-fi RPGs and/or if you’re generally a fan of Square-Enix’s big franchises like Final Fantasy, you’re probably going to like this game. Just be prepared for a very long ride that will make you work to unlock the best content it has on offer.