No matter how hard you try to break us, the future is ours to shape! Always!

The premise of Xenoblade Chronicles is simple, yet effective. Atop the colossal Bionis, the three childhood friends Shulk, Reyn and Fiora are living their best lives, until one day a particularly evil robot shows up to disturb the local peace. With the help of the legendary sword Monado, Shulk embarks on a journey across the Bionis to track down the unknown assailant and get his revenge. Not only is the Monado arguably one of the coolest weapons in fiction, it's also especially useful in combat against the machines and allows the wielder to see into the future. The theme of fate is ever-present, as Shulk has to deal with visions involving the people close to him dying several times, and only he can change the future to prevent these events from playing out, while also pursuing his own goals. I'll not take away any more from the story, since I found it to be pretty intriguing and well written until the end, despite having quite a few tropes here and there and also some predictability to it. Even with the sheer amount of downright meme-worthy lines or shonen shenanigans, the core narrative is still surprisingly solid and doesn't fall flat in terms of twists either. Yes, Dunban being "over there" is actually important to the plot. The setting of the two titans is incredibly unique and memorable, but also just straight up cool at the same time, the area progression is really satisfying here. As for the main cast, they all have their reasons to join Shulk in his fight against the Mechons and their voice acting is superb. It's a shame Adam Howden never got any major roles besides Shulk, since he especially nailed those screams and emotional moments. But honestly, the rest of the cast is just as good and I like how many unknown voice actors are featured here (and their British accents).

While the main storyline is not as long as I expected it to be, Xenoblade is still jam-packed with side content, rocketing up the overall possible playtime by a significant amount. Most of the side quests are just fetch quests or "kill x amounts of these monsters", but there are also several skill trees or other cool rewards locked behind others. It never crossed my thoughts until I beat the story, how much Xenoblade rewards interacting with the world on the side, as there's even a whole chart accessible through the main menu where you can see the relations between every single named NPC and the locale they belong to. There's an entire trading mechanic I didn't even pay attention to in my playthrough, but it's cool to know it's there, I think little things like this or the info you can read up on the named NPCs on the chart improve the already impressive worldbuilding by a lot again. Now, one of my biggest regrets is not interacting with the Colony 6 side-story at all, there were many side quests related to it and I couldn't complete any of them because I somehow didn't do the initial one. Honestly, it's a shame it took me so long to properly appreciate those aspects, so I'll definitely focus on them on my eventual New Game+ playthrough.

Amidst the fierce battle cries of "Now it's Reyn Time!", "Electric Gutbuster!" and "Star-searing flames of ABSOLUTION!", I actually ended up liking the combat very much and was surprised by how unique it was. By the end it devolved into chain attack spam for me, but before that point, I think the MMO-style approach is really fitting and fun overall, while the cheesy battle lines of the cast add a whole layer of entertainment as well. Here, good preparation is half the battle already, as you will need to decide which skills your AI-controlled party members should use and how to efficiently combine those with the tactics of the rest of the team for optimal results. I said the combat is "MMO-style", because skills are locked behind cooldowns and your active character is using auto-attacks in the downtime to fill the special bar, like in the case of Shulk it's used for the Monado Arts. His signature sword not only specializes in slicing through machinery, but can also buff him or his party in various other ways, like shielding them or granting everyone the ability to hit the Mechons. Each of those abilities uses different amounts of the special gauge, so it's up to you to decide what's the best approach for certain combat situations. It would be pretty unwise to keep throwing out Arts which use your full gauge, as enemies and especially bosses can counter those by attacking with so-called Vision Attacks. Those come in three forms, Red, White and Purple. By casting the Impulse Art on a party member, they can dodge a red attack, which is pretty straightforward. Things get interesting for the white attacks, as they require you to have a properly leveled Shield Art to even block the move - so if an enemy uses "Attack VII", you need the skill level of your Shield Art atleast at 7, anything below will not block. The use of haptic feedback is also really underappreciated from what I've seen, every time you hit with a chance attack you get vibration on hit and everytime you break an enemy's vision attack the controller emulates this "breaking" effect with a stronger rumble. There's also a pulse while seeing the animations for vision attacks playing out, resembling a heartbeat, and that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Teambuilding is a central mechanic in Xenoblade Chronicles, and also one that is handled in an interesting way. First of all, you get access to most of the cast fairly early into the story already, so you can experiment with different teams through many different areas and see who has your favorite playstyle, who you want to main and who you don't actually like at all. This availability of being able to build around your team without even getting to the meat of the main story yet is such a nice change of pace, since I know so many games where you get party members so late, that they're basically unusable, as you have probably already have a good team composition at that point. Looking at you, Fire Emblem. But Xenoblade doesn't have this issue and it's just really nice, so I hope the other two games in the trilogy adapt this approach as well. As for their actual involvement in gameplay, each teammate has an unique role and playstyle, so you can basically play any possible combination of party members together and it will work somehow. Another neat feature is the ability to choose any character besides Shulk as the leader, allowing you to control them in the overworld and battle, it's very handy for certain encounters (or if you're just a big fan of the character). Like personally I played Melia on Mount Valka so I could have an easier time reaching the airborne enemies and it ended up being a really pleasant change of pace! There is also a whole layer of customization here besides the current party setup, since you can tweak individual characters to your liking by equipping them with gems, certain armor pieces or adjusting the skill trees. I really like how skill trees are handled here, like you still can normally unlock character-specific skills of individual branches through EXP, but you're also able to make use of the skills of other characters if you raise the friendship between them accordingly. This is not a metaphorical statement, raising the affinity between two teammates comes with a nice amount of extras - you unlock new heart-to-heart events across the world, the possibility of extending chain attacks is higher and as mentioned before, you gain access to a bunch of the opposite character's skills. Very nice!

As for the soundtrack, the Definitive Edition features an (almost) entirely revamped OST with new arranged tracks. I've only heard a few of the original tracks in Smash before, so I won't compare the new arrangements to the original compositions. With that out of the way, I'm a big fan of the musical score for DE and especially the more emotional songs here really hit me at times. Hearing Engage the Enemy for the very first time in-game with the corresponding cutscene is an ethereal feeling and gave me shivers in combination with Adam Howden's performance there. Gaur Plain is also one of my favorites, even if that one's a basic pick - maybe because it's just a memorable, good song. My final nomination goes out to Mechanical Rhythm for just being a pretty sick standard battle theme, which could easily pass as a boss theme elsewhere.

Considering I'm planning to do a NG+ one day to catch up on the content I missed, it's needless to say that Xenoblade Chronicles left quite the impression on me, even after finishing the game. Now onto Future Connected and I'm looking forward to playing Xenoblade 2 in a while too. Here's hoping that the rest of the trilogy will be just as fun!

Xenoblade Chronicles will definitely be remembered as a classic or all time great. To me, it is more of a flawed masterpiece. An amazing story, world, characters, battle system, and music - but dragged down by some of the most dragged out pacing I've experienced. While the combat gets really amazing and satisfying, it kind of starts off dull and boring until you reach the 50% mark where battles become interesting and challenging. The biggest flaw here is the side questing system. Every side quest is a tedious fetch quest that has no substance and there are literally hundreds of them, which you pretty much need to do if you want to stay decently levelled for the main game - unless you grind out monsters which is even worse. There can sometimes be stretches of up to 10 hours of side questing before you continue the main story. Unfortunately this is no small flaw and without this, Xenoblade would be an easy 10. The amount of grind here drags it down so much. On the flip-side literally everything else is 10/10. I cannot praise enough how much I enjoy the main story aspects of this game.

One thing I can say quite definitively about this title is that that the world designers were cookin'. Very few things coming off a Nintendo console can be considered "high fidelity" — even with the fresh coat of a remastering — but fidelity is only ever one part of a game's visual toolset. Creativity and an eye for detail are what truly make a work special, and the world designers at Monolith Soft clearly had it.

I've been into sci-fi tales from the cradle, so I'd like to think that I've seen a lot in the long list of works — both new and old — I've read, watched, and played. I have vague memories that I've seen a general setup like Xenoblade's "universe for two" before, but... there's a magic to the execution here that got even my desensitized, open-world-burned-out self to spend 30 minutes in areas just "looking around." Something I haven't done much of since I was first awed by Mass Effect back in 2008.

Original or not, it sure feels unique. Even when I knew that I had probably found all of the interesting gameplay elements in an area, I still would feel compelled to look.

So for all of the more mixed opinions I'll give after this, I will say right off the bat that I now see why this game has been held in such high regard by its fans since its original 2010 release.

I also understand why people compare it to a single-player MMO, because beyond just the combat, every technical aspect of this game feels like it was derived from that space of the industry. In more good ways than bad — I say as an occasional MMO enjoyer.

[Combat]

Combat on the surface is almost one-for-one with the likes of World of Warcraft or (more relevant to me) Star Wars the Old Republic. You can move freely and it's in "real-time," but it uses the same style of targeting and action queueing any MMO player would immediately recognize. With that said, as an offline game it's far more responsive and willing to push for tighter timings on actions. They took the liberty to add features that its online contemporaries could not, like a system that plays out a possible future action from the enemy as a warning for the player to shift their tactics.

Frankly, I find the combat very satisfying with all the little tools they give you to maximize your damage-per-second and balance that with defense. It's not too complex when you're being introduced, but over time you find added layers that can create some pretty dramatic effects when you figure them out.

My only real problem with it is tuning. The game wants to encourage a diversity of team compositions and character builds, but it has two particularly grevious misfires to that point: the "Medic" character is way too effective as a healer compared to anyone else (and the team size is a mere 3); the main character has only one set of skills and most of his variety comes from special mechanics related to his weapon which don't have as much organic interplay.

This doesn't rear its head much in most fights, but once you get to the actual challenges you're heavily pressured into taking those two and one of two effective tanks. You can finagle the system to make other things work or level over the challenge, but to me it always seemed like I was intentionally hamstringing myself to do so.

[Checklisting]

The rest of gameplay revolves around exploring the world and collecting items. There are some interesting aspects to this, but its mostly fairly rudimentary in implementation. Smooth and neuron-activating, but simple and potentially very time consuming if you're a completionist or nearly one.

On the more interesting side, there is a mechanic that tells you if a random item you pick up will be part of a sidequest that fits the plot. That's a very cool bit of QoL that I loved. Also, there's a whole system around building reputation with the named NPCs of the world, and a big ol' graph showing all of their connections, likes, and tradable items. The further you build out that graph, the more side quests you unlock. Some of which even have alternate outcomes if you talk to specific characters before mindleslly setting out.

It's just a bit unfortunate that most of these quests are piled in with token fetch/kill quests so they can be easy to miss and there's little additional presentation for them. Just the same text boxes only with more involved dialogue. Great if you notice it, but no one will blame you if you don't.

There was one aspect of this system that I feel particularly let down by (though, maybe unfairly) which is that your party members have affinity values for each other as well, which unlock passive combat bonuses and, more importantly, "heart-to-heart" scenes that give their individual relationships more development. The "unfortunate" part to me was in how much time commitment it would take to fully engage with the system and in how obnoxious it was to actually trigger the scenes. To the point where I gave up on doing them in normal gameplay and opted to watch them on YouTube.

In my 41 hour playthrough where I tried to do the significant side content I could find, I got about 3 party members to full affinity with the main character, and none of them higher than 4/5 with each other. In addition, you have to find the locations for each scene on the large maps with no option to at least fast travel back to them later, and you definitely won't have them unlocked on first visit.

So great idea, poor execution.

[Narrative]

The tale that sets the context for your long trek through this alien-yet-inviting world fittingly evoked my nostalgia for both Gurren Lagann and Final Fantasy. The broadstrokes being close to the former and the details of the characters and atmosphere closer to the latter.

I ended up liking the whole cast more than I had expected after seeing their visual designs for years (I have a prejudice against the kind of not-shorts Shulk wears, apparently). I'd even say the writing had some great moments, just not consistently. Still, the only real "negative" moments were a couple fairly repetitive beats in Shulk's character development, and I otherwise liked him. He was much more direct and brash than I expected, but not in a thoughtless way.

I can't say I ever felt "surprised" by the twists in the story, but there were some details to it that caught me off-guard at times. And in the end, like the exploration, I was always happy to just soak up the sci-fi goodness.

I do really think the game needed a proper "point-of-no-return" in the last 2 or 3 chapters and drop off the exploration elements at that point, because there was a bit too much dissonance between what the gameplay and narrative were trying to accomplish pacing-wise at that point. It's not the worst I've seen, but it let out a bit of the steam it had built for me.

[It's not 'Incredible' but it's certainly 'Memorable']

There's a lot of cool stuff going on in this game, and I'm really looking forward to catching up with the series now. It's hard to pinpoint anything other than the world design that it does particularly well, but in a "whole greater than the sum of its parts" way, I left with rather warm feelings about the whole experience.

If you're a JRPG veteran and haven't gotten to this one yet, I absolutely recommend. I think sci-fi fans who want something a bit low-key on the gameplay side will generally enjoy this as well.

One of my favourite games ever made. Xenoblade Chronicles takes place on the bodies of two massive titans, which are incredibly fun and interesting to explore. The Combat system is super fun once you get the hang of it and includes multiple difficulty options so everyone can play, and the story is incredible. Its super engaging from beginning to end and full of awesome plot twists and details. The only issue with the original game is id say the side quests are pretty boring and uninteresting, but for the most part that doesn't matter since you don't really need to grind in this game or need that much XP so you can pretty much just ignore them.

The Definitive edition tag isn't just for show either. The graphics and character models have been significantly upgraded, and the looks absolutely beautiful for being on the switch. many quality of life features are also included making it definitely live up to its name of being the definitive version to play.

If your even remotely interested in JRPG's or RPG's or story based games at all, Xenoblade Chronicles is an absolute must play.

My favorite video game of all time. Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition is one of the best games I have ever played. From the moment the game begins there’s an enticing fantasy world that leaves you with questions and there’s only more and more of them as the game continues to show more and more crazy things like the Monado being able to see the future, new characters with questionable intentions and so many plot twists, betrayals and mind blowing moments. The way all your questions are able to be answered as the story is fully woven together in its final act is absolutely incredible and one of the most memorable things I have ever seen in a game. The Nintendo Switch version also includes many changes to enhance the experience even more. The graphics have been upgraded with remade HD character models and updated world textures as well as many quality of life improvements to gameplay like a side quest tracker and even some remastered music. This game has some of the prettiest world design I’ve seen from the trees that light up at night in Satorl Marsh to the meteor showers at Eryth Sea, just all the different locations are so gorgeous to explore. The combat is so engaging too with a mechanic that cleverly ties in the core part of the story of being able to see into the future with the Monado into the actual combat itself. Occasionally you can get visions of what your enemies will attack you with in the next few seconds and be able to change the future in time to prevent casualties. It’s incredibly fun and keeps you on your toes through battles. The characters are all so memorable too and you easily get attached to the party so well. Not to mention the incredible soundtrack in this game from the cutscene music to the battle music. If you’re a fan of games with a captivating story, lovable characters, stellar music and beautiful fantasy worlds to explore Xenoblade Chronicles is 100% a must play.

XC1 is one of the more interesting experiences I've had with a story. Though I have quite a bit of issues, they feel slightly unfair when looked at in the context of the story this wants to tell.

For nearly the first half of the game, while I was enjoying myself, I felt a disconnect somewhere, like I was just experiencing something but not really having any strong feelings toward any particular aspect. That all changed around chapter 8, specifically the High Entia Tomb section where I started to feel some modicum of attachment to the story. From then on, the story and more importantly, the characters felt a lot more realized.

The combat, while initially I dismissed it as 'good enough' constantly progressed and expanded as subsequent party members joined and learned arts, getting to a point where combat felt extremely rewarding when you completely understood it. I cannot express how fun it is to stun-lock a boss infinitely with chain attacks.

The dub isn't particularly great, I considered switching over to Japanese a few times in the early chapters. Honestly, I'm glad I didn't. While some performances are pretty good and others pretty bad it strangely feels perfect with this type of world and characters. Call it Stockholm syndrome, but I grew to quite like the voice acting with it actually hitting its stride greatly in the last few chapters.

The music is the one thing I never changed my opinion on. From the start, I was blown away by the composition and it only got more and more stellar. This game has a perfect soundtrack and some of the best battle music I've ever heard. The game also looks really good with some stunning areas that really encourage exploration and very dynamic cutscenes with surprisingly fluid action sequences.

The story and characters are where I find myself more or less conflicted. I like them both but have an issue with how they are presented, mainly the dialogue in particular can get pretty silly at times with how on the nose it is. But like I said at the start this feels like an unfair criticism once you look at this game holistically. This game is so unapologetically itself and unabashedly genuine that it becomes contagious. From chapter 12 onward the story REALLY locks in and delivers on a truly epic tale of human perseverance with an ending I comfortably(and kind of surprisingly) say is one of my personal favorites ever. It has such a powerful final say and with the amount of twists and turns in the final act it was mindblowing to think this was the same game as what I played in chapter 1.

I think the correct way to word this game is something that ages beautifully as you play it. It took a while but it ultimately delivered on a powerful story, and one I'm very glad I got to experience. This is a pretty bold way to start a trilogy, but I'm really excited to see where it goes from here.

There are some really good things about this game, namely the setting, remaster visuals and a lot of the soundtrack, which helps in some hype cutscenes. Otherwise, there's offline MMO combat (not in a good way, the only saving grace being the future sight ability) and what I would call "the JRPG ever" plot, cast and protagonist. For a game of this length, it is very unambitious and doesn't try to be more than a battle shonen with JRPG tropes that you've seen before if you've played more than three previously, and Shulk preaches some stuff about facing the future despite future struggles that he should be literally the last person to be saying considering how often things go his way. It definitely isn't bad overall though, it just didn't impress me much, and the gameplay burnt me out so badly that I haven't touched the second game in over 2 years.

Before I start I'm just gonna preface this by saying that this is not a normal review and what I'm saying might not even make any sense. My thoughts on this game are strange. These are just the drawn out incoherent ramblings of someone who, minutes before writing, just finished the game at 2 AM. And despite the rating, I ended up feeling kind of conflicted.

So, Xenoblade Chronicles, right. I was saving this game specifically for my 400th game milestone, as 90% of the people I've ever known who enjoy video games have built it up as a perfect masterpiece. And while I have learned to keep my expectations in check, I was pretty confident that it would live up to those statements.

And I was kind of right, because Xenoblade does so much that it's sort of overwhelming. It had really engaging gameplay, a great story, amazing characters and breathtaking visuals. Looking at the comparisons between the original game on Wii and the Switch remaster is like night and day. The soundtrack is one of the best this medium has to offer. There is so much stuff in the game I can't even mention it all. I'm even wondering if it's possible for me to play through it all... which is kind of where my problem comes in.

When does a game have too much content?

I'm probably not gonna be able to answer that properly here (Refer back to the 2 AM rambling thing I said) but I was thinking about it during my playthrough a lot, because although I had fun through the whole game, I found myself getting weirdly annoyed in the last few chapters.

Long game length usually isn't too big of an issue for me. In fact, it took me around 50 hours to beat this, which is less than half the amount of time it took for me to beat one of my favourite games, Persona 5 Royal. It's not as if the game is paced badly either, the story progresses naturally and so does the gameplay.

(Not saying Persona 5 and Xenoblade should really be compared mechanically, they're very different, I just needed a comparison to another long game lol)

But whatever the reason was, I started getting mad a bit. I felt like a lot of it was unnecessary. Maybe I was just getting burned out, maybe it was the rising difficulty. But that final stretch felt like it could've been condensed to a shorter runtime and I would've enjoyed it just as much.

Don't get me wrong! The content that was there was all really amazing! It was an incredibly well made game! Everything that was there made perfect sense! But I can't stop myself from feeling like it could've been shorter and I could've avoided that feeling of being burned out. If you're reading this and you don't get what I'm saying, that's fine, because I don't even get it myself!

So what we've got is an incredible game that feels too long and pissed me off for some incomprehensible reason. Maybe I'll write an actual review later so I can pinpoint exactly why I feel this way. I guess overall though, the people that hyped this game up to me were right. It's absolutely worth playing.

Despite that though, this is probably the first time I'm giving something 5 stars due to it's technical quality rather than my own opinion. I'm doing this because I feel like my current feelings are being a bit too unfair and I need to think about it more. I know that it's odd to be so negative in a 5 star review. I love this game. But maybe the rating will stay at 5 stars or dip to 4. I don't know. I'm going the hell to sleep.

Structure is Xenoblade’s strongest attribute - narrative and geographical. So much of my experience is driven by my anticipation to see a new area and experience its music. It’s a little hard to go back to the first game and lose the ability to switch characters during combat like in 3, but there is an intentional puzzle-like satisfaction in making your ideal party and prioritizing who needs the benefit of your control. It seems intentional for sure. Melia and Shulk aren’t super reliable unless directly controlled, but the flow of combat totally shifts depending on your party. I particularly love to play as sharla and choose when to attempt the headshot art on enemies, usually partnering her with characters who can constantly topple and daze enemies. It’s hard to not want to play as shulk for the whole game though, but there is a rewarding feeling to mixing it up. I try and prioritize different members every time I play and I’m always surprised at how many new strategies and combos I previously neglected.

Xenoblade’s strongest trick for me is the unveiling of new sights. Walking through a tight canyon with no music, suddenly approaching a wide open zone as its music kicks in. Climbing a structure for several minutes and looking down to see how small the world below you looks. The scope is so effective, especially for the hardware it was constructed on. Monolith Soft are experts at making the world a strong characteristic of the game.

This is my fourth time beating this game I think. I still hold it precious and it is one of my all time favorites, but the flaws are very evident to me and are harder to ignore. Xenoblade 3 is one of the best games when it comes to giving every character a strong purpose, backstory, and interactions with other party members. Nobody really feels neglected. Xenoblade 1 certainly favors a couple of characters. Fiora especially comes across as incredibly shallow. There’s definitely a problem with all the female character’s motives being driven by their assigned male counterparts. It’s worst for fiora, but I still like all of them. Melia certainly has a lot more going on with her own people and Sharla has several moments of agency. The game’s story is very focused on our connections to other people, so I don’t think my previous critique is immune to rebuttal. You can say Shulk’s whole character revolves around Fiora, but it simply comes down to the writing, not the overall concept of the characters. The presentation of their personal motives and desires lack a good balance. That being said, I love every party member. Individually there’s criticisms to be had, but as a collective group and what they stand for is fantastic.

Xenoblade 3 is my favorite of the trilogy, but 1 still has a few things that were never surpassed for me personally. The idea of two civilizations living on two dormant gods is incredibly creative and makes for a wild map to explore. The OST still contains my favorite songs in the series, though not my much considering the ridiculous quality of the trilogy’s entire OST. Xenoblade doesn’t have the best towns in the genre at all, but 1’s towns felt the most fleshed out to me, as little as there were. Helping reconstruct colony 6 is cool. The starting colony has a wonderfuly cozy design and geography. The Nopon village has a cool vertical design that feels completely distinct from the colonies you visit. 3 may be my favorite, but it’s mostly colonies that look the same and The City. I do wish xenoblade focused on fun towns to hang out in.

Side quests are also a point of contention for people but I don’t mind them being excuses for quick EXP or items. My only problem is how one NPC will give you 7 quests back to back and you have to talk to them multiple times. At a certain point I stop collecting side quests and to this day I can’t think of one that had an interesting narrative hook. I probably missed out on some good stuff, but they don’t encourage keeping up with them.

I’ve criticized the game a lot, but my 5 star rating still holds strong. It’s always going to be one of my favorite games. Its release on the Wii got me back into JRPGs at the time after being away from the genre for a good chunk of time. I’m so glad this became a whole series with Nintendo and I love the entire trilogy. There’s something special about Monolith Soft’s approach to world design. Nobody does it like them. The only game to make me think “this reminds me of xenoblade” was my recent experience with FF7: Rebirth.

Huge games usually need to find exploring its map not boring; whether it’s a mount or vehicle. I’m surprised no xenoblade game has tried to introduce its own version of a chocobo (let’s ignore the mechs in X for now). I would love a fun way to get around faster, but not once have I dreaded making my way through these worlds on foot. They’re easy to hang out in and get into battles every couple minutes. Encountering a giant gorilla named “Delirious Daniel” that is level 99 is a great aspect of these worlds too. It doesn’t scale with you, yet somehow it’s paced so perfectly that you never feel too ahead of the curve or too far behind. The clockwork-like design it must take to pace the games out like that is intimidating to think about. These designers are legends, I can’t wait for Xenoblade 4.
(Also please re release X. Thank you)

Xenoblade Chronicles is pretty great, I think. It’s a contender for being one of the best first-party titles on the original Wii, one of the few worthwhile games to justify getting a Switch, and while it doesn’t rank too high in my personal rankings for (W/J)RPGs I've played, I still think it has a lot going for it that I can kinda understand why people regard it as one of the all-time best games ever made.

The narrative is sprawling and epic with how it deals with cyclical conflicts, fatalism, and the choice to break cycles and circumvent destiny. Taking great advantage of what’s deceptively such a cool setting of people living on two decaying giant primordial gods, frozen in the middle of some battle fought long ago, into some juicy melodrama and world-building set up for a grandeur adventure to end a war between two different civilizations.

It feels like the broad conceit of what Final Fantasy XIII was creatively about, mostly in bits of the gameplay and aesthetics, but spliced with the best bits about Final Fantasy X and what made that a definitive JRPG experience for the PlayStation 2. It’s hard to settle into the mindset of when this originally came out to understand how genuinely ambitious this was for the time because many aspects of Xenoblade Chronicles have already become too homogenized and blurred out today. The big thing is the open-world design template that I think was one of the first progenitors of which the following console generations of gaming unfortunately baked into a tired, shallow formula everyone is getting sick of now. The MMO-like open-world environments built for exploration are massive in scope but the content inside of it boils down to repetitive fetch quests and collecting materials to clutter your inventory. It’s disappointing because Bionis and Mechonis are some of the coolest settings to explore in any video game, and Monolift Soft did a lot to make traversing through the anatomy of a giant dead god feel overwhelming, maybe too much, and worth adventuring further. You occasionally may get a cute little nugget of lore fleshing out the world and characters but they’re flooded out too much by tedious filler.

To sidestep into my bigger gripe here, I think it could also do without the amount of bloat prevalent later on when you reach Mechonis and the difficulty curve gets pretty whack. Xenoblade is not a very kind game for anyone who’s, like, under-leveled by a shy short of 2-3 levels or having too low of agility for your attacks to lend while being more susceptible to enemy attacks actually hitting. There’s like 2-3 bosses right at the end which hard filters you badly to the point of grinding excessively to even out the odds with the right party combination and equipment setup to make a real difference between winning. If you can get pass that and how annoying the "change-the-future-by-avoiding-this-fatal-enemy-attack" mechanic is, then Xenoblade Chronicles’ actually has a pretty goated combat system which feels like natural evolution of Dragon Age and Knights of the Old Republic’s tactical party-based gameplay but more dynamic. I actually wish more games took cues from this because I’m surprised this is the one part about the game that never really seemed to inspire or influence the combat of any RPG outside of the Xenoblade franchise. Kinda wished that the party were more evenly developed, writing-wise. Shulk is good but the party struggles to mesh together enough until Melia joins. Even then I think it's noticeable still how the character-work in the main cast is a bit underwhelming during some cutscenes and mostly exist in these heart-to-heart segments you find in the over-world that aren’t always immediately accessible because of the affinity system. A neat idea but I'm not sure how to feel about it whenever it's put into practice for moments you need to work more to feel the vibe of this world.

Something else I took note of in my play through but I want to commend this greatly for its localization (which wasn’t an easy battle to convince Nintendo of America) and the voice-acting for being some of the best performed I’ve heard in these kinds of games by escaping the Funimation Alumni curse. The characters sound vocally distinctive and are given very good direction that gave the story more emotional resonance and weight.

I definitely didn't regret getting this, really showed how much of an important support pillar Monolift Soft is to Nintendo now, and it got me hooked enough to at least try out Xenoblade Chronicles 2 somewhere far down the line. If not that then try out everything else in the Xenoseries like Xenogears and Xenosaga.

A future changed, for the better.

Back when the Operation Rainfall movement happened, I knew very little about the games involved in it, this one being among them. It wasn't until years later I would be exposed to this game via a 100% Let's Play video series from around 10 years ago. Watching that series sparked my interest in what would become the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise, leading to me buying multiple games in the series.

There was just one problem, though.

As interested as I was in playing the games in this series, I just couldn't beat them. I would always lose interest at some point. I bought Xenoblade Chronicles X, and never beat it. I bought Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and barely got past the intro. I bought a New 3DS XL at launch specifically to play Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and I didn't even come close to beating that version.

At some point down the road, Nintendo would release this, the definitive way of playing Xenoblade Chronicles. I saw this version come into existence and decided enough was enough. I wouldn't let this series keep escaping me like this. I needed to beat at least one of these games! I think they're neat and do cool stuff, and I wanted so badly to get immersed into it and savor the experience, especially since it had been long enough for me to forget most of the details about the plot of the game after watching that video series.

Long story short, I bought the game near launch and stopped at some point I can only vaguely remember.

Now, after all this time, nearly 8 years of playing and dropping these games, I made it my mission this year to beat this game, and I am happy to say that after 75 hours, I succeeded, and boy is there a ton here to like, and some to dislike.

Now, I refuse to spoil the story here, so I will talk about it vaguely. I think the plot is interesting and engaging, but it takes a while for it to become more engaging. Because of that, I implore new players to give the plot time to develop, as the deeper you go into this game, the more twists and drama you'll find. Plus, you'll get to know all the characters in your party more, which is great because they all find ways to be interesting and you'll easily end the game with favorites that may differ from the tastes of others, or it'll be Reyn. Reyn is such a good boy I love that himbo so much.

As for the gameplay, I think that the systems this game implements are very well-designed. They all interweave with one another in a way that helps you get the feeling that everything you do makes you stronger in some way. It's honestly hard to describe how one system works without bringing up another system and how that works and so on and so forth. There's enough going on here that listing them all would make this already long review even longer than it needs to be, so I'm going to try to simplify things as much as I can by describing a common scenario in this game.

So Xenoblade Chronicles is a game that has a ton of side quests. Whenever you go into an area populated with friendly NPCs, you'll find that many of them have tasks for you to do, whether it's killing monsters, finding items, or talking to other NPCs. Sometimes you'll receive side quests that have multiple different outcomes depending on who you talk to or what you do. I'll talk more in depth about my opinions about how side quests are implemented in this game later, but I wanted to establish what they are before I went on with my example scenario.

Let's say you're talking to an NPC that's giving you a side quest. As one party member talks with an NPC, there's a chance another party member will chime into the conversation, which raises the affinity levels between said characters. Raising affinity between characters is important for many reasons, but to name an important one, party members that are closer to one another can share skills with one another, which allows party members to have access to skills they would not be able to equip otherwise.

By the end of the conversation, you have your objective and the rewards you'll get for completing the quest, if the game wants you to see them. These could be experience points, money, equipment, and equipment-enhancing items called gems, just to name a few things. You can then track the quest, which points you in the direction of what needs to be done.

Let's assume the quest giver needs you to defeat enemies. Combat in Xenoblade Chronicles is MMO-style, in that you attack automatically and choose special abilities to use strategically in combat. Depending on your party composition, you may be able to employ strategies that utilize the unique abilities that each party member possesses. There aren't any truly ineffective party compositions you can have, so you're free to experiment to see how different parties function in combat.

Each party member has a unique style. You have your DPS, your Tank, your Healer, your buff-distributor, and others that have special concentrations. How you set up your party is up to you. You may want to maximize damage by having a party full of attackers, or you may choose to have someone who can soften up the enemy with debuffs or have someone who can reliably heal the party present to ensure that you'll survive to the end of the fight. I enjoyed mixing and matching party members to see what styles fit me the best, and I think that is one of the most satisfying parts of this game.

As you fight, there will occasionally be a quick-time prompt that when completed will not only fill a bar for a special move, but it will also increase your affinity with party members. When party members are incapacitated or are in low spirits during a fight, you can help or encourage them during a battle to help them out and raise affinity levels. When you defeat an enemy, outside of the experience points, you get skill points and ability points. Skill points allow party members to unlock new skills, and ability points allow you to improve the abilities you currently have. They also drop chests, which can include items needed for other quests, equipment, or items that can be used to make gems.

Now you've completed the request of the NPC that gave you the quest. Time to return to them and reap the rewards. You talk to them, and just like the first conversation, a party member can chime in and raise affinity with the leading party member. By completing the quest, you also raise your affinity with the area you received that quest from, which will allow you to receive even more side quests from said area.

Now, let's review what just happened. By doing a single side quest, we got the rewards promised from the quest, which includes cash for new equipment, experience points to level us up, and new equipment and gems to keep us in shape for the coming battles. We got higher affinity between party members, new items from monsters, and the ability to receive even more side quests from the area.

We saw side quest mechanics, affinity mechanics, and combat mechanics. We got stronger not only in terms of experience points for levels, but in terms of having stronger equipment, new gems to enhance our equipment, and more skill and ability points from the enemies we fought. All of these things are intertwining through just one side quest, and it all happens so seamlessly and naturally. Throughout this game you're constantly getting stronger in so many ways just by doing side quests and progressing the plot and it's so satisfying. I wish I appreciated the mechanics as much as I do now back when I first played this game, because if I did, I may have beaten this game way sooner.

I want to now talk about my favorite mechanic in this game, and one that I consider one of the most interesting mechanics in a game I've played.

The main character, Shulk, has the ability to see into the future. It would be easy to assume that if you could gaze into the future that life would be a breeze, but for Shulk it most certainly isn't, and the plot will cover that thoroughly. I'm not talking about how this effects the plot. I'm talking about how this effects gameplay.

When fighting tough enemies, Shulk may experience a vision of the future, which shows you that an enemy is about to unleash a powerful move that may incapacitate a party member. You then have the ability to change the future by performing actions to mitigate or cancel out completely the effects of the move. You can also warn other party members about the future, which lets you select an ability of theirs to use to help you change the future. I think this adds a very interesting dynamic to combat, forcing the player to think on their feet when enemies decide to put more pressure on them.

Visions can occur outside of combat, as well. Sometimes when you pick up an item, you'll get a vision of how that item will be used to solve someone's problem. It can also happen when you're receiving a side quest, showing you an outcome that can occur if you don't intervene to help. It really does feel like they made the most of the concept of future sight for this title, and it always gains my interest when I see it go off and give me some new information.

With all these things I like about this game, there are definitely some things that hold it back.

Perhaps the most egregious issue I have with this game is that it really, REALLY wants you to do a ton of side quests. More often than not you'll find yourself hitting walls in terms of difficulty if you don't do them to keep up with the level curve. You'll easily be spending hours completing side quests before making progress in the story, which can be off-putting for many. I will admit that I grew tired of it myself by the time I reached the endgame. This version of Xenoblade Chronicles very mercifully also includes a casual mode, which makes you stronger and enemies weaker, which helps to save time if you just want to enjoy the plot. I wound up using this at the end of the game because the alternative would be another few hours of side quests, which did not sound ideal after 75 hours of gameplay.

Another issue I have also relates to side quests. Sometimes, you'll be tasked with being in a specific area under specific weather conditions to get a specific NPC or monster to appear. You have the ability to alter the time of day from the pause menu, which is convenient. However, you are unable to see what the weather will be until you've already changed the time, which means going into the menu, changing the time, seeing if it's the weather you need, and if it's not, repeating the process over and over again until you get the results you want. It gets very tiresome very quickly and I wish that for this version they made the weather conditions more visible to players before they set a specific time to go to.

The overabundant side quests and the game's reliance on the player completing them can take the wind out of any player's sails as they play this game. If you can stomach that part of the game or are willing to turn on the new casual mode, though, you will get to experience an engaging story with great characters, as well as a killer soundtrack. The game nails ambient tracks as you explore the world, giving a good sense of adventure as you go through new areas. The music kicks up during combat, with tracks like "You Will Know Our Names" keeping you motivated to take down tough foes.

If you like the idea of a single-player MMO with a huge world to explore, fun characters to meet, a plot that gets more and more engaging as you play, and satisfying gameplay mechanics, I implore you to give Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition a shot!

Okay review's over TAKE THE ALLEYOOP CHALLENGE TODAY!! Every time you jump when playing as the character Reyn, he will randomly either grunt or say "Alleyoop!" How many times can you get Reyn to say "Alleyoop!" in a row? My record's 11. Here's a video where someone gets a 17 "Alleyoop!" chain! What's your "Alleyoop!" score? Share yours in the comments!

My first playthrough that took over 200 hours over a span of 16 months because of how much it took for me to get used to this game personally, so it was a very long journey for me but in the end for the second half, it nailed everything I wanted. The only thing I want to get out of the way is that the first half is very tough especially with this combat system I love and hate so I'll get that out of the way and how the traversal feels very stiff like Dark Souls 1 stiff. Nearing the second half of the game though, I'll say the combat gets better with having a lot of flexibility with party members and the pacing is way better. Getting most of my complaints out of the way, let's talk about the good stuff already.

I've seen some other reviews talking about how this is the worst revenge story of all time, and it seems they either didn't finish it or simply media illiterate when that wasn't the whole point of the story at all. One of the best immersive JRPGs ever and you could just feel yourself getting sucked in the world and feel the whole world around you. Not going into spoilers too much but the whole plot setting on where it takes place which is two titans and this is important to the story and contributes to the world and the second half where it really takes off is one of the most awesome shits ever and I'm glad I finished this shit to experience it, just raw as hell. Shulk is one of my favorite characters especially with the way they handled his character overall in this game was just really good and I ended up really loving him with the rest of the cast that is super lovable and comfortable. This game absolutely isn't perfect but not a lot of games can be, but this is definitely for me and too bad for people who dislike this.

I was reluctant at first in the first half and nearing second half where they were going with Shulks character and the story main message but I'm glad the way it went and did what I really love. Seizing our own future, decide for ourselves on what we want to do and not let someone else control our destiny's walking along with other people towards a new tomorrow. That title screen after you finish this game with the main menu music playing is a special moment.

"Today, we use our power to fell a God. And then, Seize our destiny."

Xenoblade Chronicles is probably the japanese game with the most cliches and stereotyped things I've ever played. Seriously, the whole time I was playing it felt like I was watching some generic shounen anime that comes out all the time, with various tropes you've seen in exhaustion before, it was kind of nostalgic in a funny way, it reminded me a lot of when I used to watch a lot of seasonal anime as a teenager. I don't mind that kind of thing, really, one of my favorite games is Persona, which is extremely weeb and has many stereotypes and cliches of the genre, it's just that in the case of Xenoblade I feel that overall it's a game without much substance, it's quite shallow. I really can't get anything amazing out of it when it comes to the narrative or the characters, is a bit uninteresting most of the time.

But despite the simplicity of the story and characters and not very creative narrative choices, the story has its moments and a few characters are endearing and charismatic, I really liked Shulk, Dunban and Fiora (especially Fiora). I won't give too many details because I don't want to spoil anything, but I really liked the chemistry between the three of them and how the game works with their relationship, making it very believable that they are very close, it really is like a family, it's nothing extremely deep or complex, nor does it need to be, it's just captivating and well-developed and I liked it, and in the end it's hard not to get attached to the main characters. Not only that, but the atmosphere and soundtrack are simply incredible (this game didn't deserve Yoko Shimomura), so exploring the map was very relaxing and comfy, it really manages to convey the feeling of the immensity of that world and immerses you in it in a very pleasant way, and it's a very interesting world conceptually, I really thought the whole Bionis and Mechonis thing was super cool.

The combat is very fun and engaging too, although I didn't like the fact that the game gives you very little exp, forcing you to grind, and grinding in this game is a bit torturous since the main missions don't give you any exp and most of the side missions don't either. I did all the side missions that the game put in front of me before moving on to the main story and defeated literally every enemy that came my way, but it still wasn't enough and I found myself underleveled in most of the main boss fights, so all you can do is spend an abnormal amount of time killing enemies with a higher level than yours until you level up, classic grind moment and it's fucking boring.

I really hoped that I would finish this game and write a much longer and more interesting review, but it's just that there's not much to say about this game, but in the end it's a good game and it has its charm despite everything. I'm just disappointed, as I was expecting one of the best jrpg's ever made due to all the acclaim and praise from the fanbase, but it doesn't come close to being everything they say it is. I honestly think that the Xenoblade fans should play more games.

It took me a while to really get into Xenoblade, but once I did it became one of my best video game experiences of all time. The combat is unlike anything I've played before; it took me a while to get used to but in the end, I was in love with it. I mained Shulk for the majority of my playthrough and was able to master his moves before switching to Melia in the late game whose combat was trickier to learn but felt very rewarding once I figured it out. Chain attacks were so fun; my usual party for half the game consisted of Shulk, Reyn and Sharla, and I got into such a good flow with these characters when performing chain attacks which felt so satisfying, especially with the score and their voice lines building up the hype in the background.

Some of the boss fights were extremely difficult and required going back and levelling up a lot, which was often achievable through completing side quests from across Bionis. For the most part, the side quests provide small new stories with the people of Bionis who reward you upon completing tasks for them which were quite enjoyable, but there were a lot of filler side quests which followed the formula of 'kill these monsters' or 'find these items' which were not only repetitive and boring, but were often extremely unrewarding. The only time where I found this to be an issue when trying to level up was at the very end of the story, a lot of the side quests unlocked at this point are very late-game stuff which I couldn't complete due to simply being too low a level. This is the only point in the game where I couldn't rely on side quests to help me level up and had to go out of my way to grind experience through fighting monsters, which wasn't very fun, but I took it as an opportunity to try out different characters and party combinations after maining Shulk for most of the game.

Each character has such defining characteristics with so much charm, especially the likes of Reyn and Melia who stood out to me the most throughout the story, alongside other characters you won't meet until late-game. Everyone's gameplay differs drastically, allowing for infinite party combinations to tackle different types of enemies in different areas. The AI isn't always perfect, for example, Sharla won't always heal the party when it's crucial, but the warning feature makes up for this after Shulk sees a vision so you can command your party members to perform specific actions at the cost of a party gauge bar which saved my life a million times.

The story overall is just outstanding. I've never played anything like it. The amount of twists and turns it takes you on, it's a rollercoaster. Learning about the world and the war between Homs and Mechon throughout the story is so cool, details like being able to see Mechonis in the distance in certain areas of Bionis add so much character to the story and the world, it blew me away.

After 75 hours logged on Xenoblade, it's become one of my favourite games of all time and I can't wait to continue my journey in the rest of the series. I recommend this game to everyone for the story alone, it's a must-play.

Easily one of the best RPGs I have ever played. It has a brilliant soundtrack, outstanding character development, entertaining gameplay, and a large and beautiful world that fills the gallery with plenty of screenshots of almost every landscape. The story is undoubtedly a solid and expressive tale with clear motives that develops coherently and stays fresh throughout the game, while making one stand at its toes expecting the next surprising plot twist. All in all, this is a banger of a game. It is an all-rounded start of a saga, that excels at everything it tries to do. Completely and utterly recommended.

Xenoblade 1 has a lot of issues, especially compared to its sequels. The combat's pretty simplistic, the worlds can feel a little too big for their own good, the side quests suck, and besides Shulk and Melia, the characters aren't the most interesting.

That said, it still has a lot going for it, and it's impressive how many of the ideas it established still work in later games.


Edit: Also, the Wii version does not look better than this