Second main game I finished in the Xenoblade series, after playing Xenoblade 2 first. I enjoyed the story quite a bit more than the story of 2, but the combat feels like such a downgrade. It is really slow and you just don't have as many creative options in the way you approach each fight. It's the same thing every time, and I never even got to the point where you just topple lock everything. I just didn't want to play after the story ended, it really felt like there was nothing more to do afterwards. The sidequests were also always either a fetch quest, monster hunter quest or just going to talk to 50 people in a row, there were VERY few sidequests that were even close to being interesting. Sounds like I'm really shitting on this game as I'm writing this, but I still feel giving it less than 3.5 stars would be wrong so I guess the story and characters are just that good huh

Excellent game, the writing is a notch above most JRPGs with a very likeable and interesting main cast of characters. The plot can be predictable at times but some of the twists that the story takes are surprising and keeps you excited about where the story is going.

The world design in Xenoblade chronicles is great, with as believable of a world as you can get when the entire game world is two giant titans. The soundtrack is excellent and while I prefer the original tracks for the most part, the remastered tracks are a nice change of pace.

Combat can take a bit of getting used to, but plays quite well once you're comfortable with it. There is a steep difficulty spike near the end of the game that was rather frustrating, so rather than grinding for hours to meet the level requirements of the end game I turned the game to casual difficulty and had no problem completing the remainder of the game. I would recommend anyone else do the same unless you really like grinding.

The game can feel bloated at times when you're doing side quests as many of them boil down to "go here and kill these monsters" or "collect x number of this item" however there are alot of side quests in this game that are quite fun, and allow you to influence the relationships between many of the npc's in the game's world.

The new epilogue "future connected" is a nice, light extension to the end of the game. The overall story of it is rather weak but the character writing is excellent, namely the developed relationship between Melia (one of the main game's party members) and someone from her past that isn't well fleshed out in the base game. It took me about 20 hours to complete the new content and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall an excellent game with a few clear issues, but Xenoblade chronicles comes highly recommended to any switch owner or any previous player on the wii who wants just a little bit more xenoblade in their life.

First of all this is the coolest fucking setting ever, and I can 100% see another studio fumbling the ball. However, monolith soft is the best in the business when it comes to environment design and they knocked it out of the park here. The soundtrack fits this immensely well, the grand themes help to make traversing the huge world a joy. The combat, while not quite as in depth as XBC2, is still pretty unique and fun even if it gets a bit old. The writing is solid, I especially love all the dialogue from your party members, and where the story goes in the final few chapters. The only qualms I have are that the side quests are terrible even by MMO standards and the resolution makes the game look like it's coated in vaseline.