Played: July - September 2022
It's incredible how far a game can be sustained by a strong enough foundational premise. You are the last of humanity crash landed on a foreign planet, and you must seek out your fellow survivors scattered across the wilderness while learning to live in this hostile new environment. Xenoblade Chronicles X has obvious weaknesses, but I put 138 hours into it, and the reason I was invested the whole time came down to two pillars:
1. Mira, the planet, is realized with a level of wonder that's not only gorgeous to look at, but a thrill to explore.
2. Every part of the gameplay loop reinforces how far from home you are and how dire the existential status of your species is.
The more I think about humanity as a collective character, the more I appreciate XCX's story. Individual personalities don't get to shine here. This is the type of science fiction where each character is a semiotic piece on a board standing in for ideas and experiences. There are some lackluster attempts at character-driven plot, but XCX, broadly as a work, isn't cut out for it. There's an alien race out to get ya, you're stuck in a world you don't know, and there's a literal clock on your existence. Not much room for personal drama in all that, and the player character being a silent custom creation tells me that the game embraces that aggregate view.
New Los Angeles is your spaceship-turned-city hub, and the game does a good enough job of making it feel like a fully-functioning society. It's a piece of Earth complete with houses and tennis courts, and there's a nostalgia to seeing "United States" emblazoned in massive letters every time you head home from the field. Sometimes for fun, while walking by pizza shops or cafés, I'd tilt the camera down and watch how deceptively the environment looked like a regular American neighborhood before tilting back up to reveal the massive double moons in the otherworldly sky. It's also funny that even in this most dire circumstance humans maintain a capitalist system of commerce, but I’ll allow that as an extension of people clinging to what they know and trying to homestead in an alien world. The time horizon of XCX is pretty short, and the story begins very recently after the initial crash landing. There isn't much here to meaningfully glean any troubling colonial attitudes from because the whole run of the plot is about basic survival. Whether that's just plausible deniability remains to be seen in a sequel.
Select mission > Carry it out in Mira > Return to NLA. That's the play cycle of XCX. Main missions expand depth, and side missions, which come in several tiers, expand breadth. While your player character serves a supporting role, you're also not a total nobody. The team you hook up with is the tip of the search party spear. You're all members of BLADE, an organization split into 8 divisions specializing in a different necessity, whether it's resource hunting or creature subjugation or scouting new territory. That's how the gameplay structure deepens the sense of "we're all in this together". Every mission felt like I was improving lives. Even when I went on the occasional lost cat side quest there was a sense that I was doing it while the analysts back in the Admin district were still figuring out the next coordinates to look for survivors at. I really want to shoutout this accomplishment because at this point "stopping to help an NPC propose to his girlfriend while a great evil is out conquering the world" is so common in RPGs, it's become a silly feature not a bug. The way XCX gets around it is by NOT making you the most important person on the planet.
And what a planet Mira is. Goddamn. I'll criticize Marvel movie visual design for recreating HD Wallpapers, but I'll use that as a compliment here because being able to walk around in it is something else. Aesthetically, the horizon is perfect in every direction. Hats off to Monolith Soft for finding a unique art style that can maintain strong graphical fidelity and still give us a world that runs so smoothly on the Wii U. There are five continents, and they circumvent RPG biome clichés by actually existing as natural habitats first. Mira's wildlife feel as if they have existed, migrated, and evolved here on their own terms, and it is you that is the invasive species. Between dangerous creatures, the diversity of landscape terrain, mission objectives, and a general sense of awe, I didn't have much time to notice repetitive animation cycles or other flaws in the detail. Go look up some screenshots of the Giant Ring of Oblivia or literally any part of Noctilum. Floating islands are abound in fantasy fiction, and I'll never get tired of them, but I've also seen so many it takes a lot to truly wow me. Trust that Mira is a treasure.
That has as much to do with traversal as it does biodiversity. The devs have pulled off the illusion of an environment that exists for its own sake while structuring it with excellent level design. You start off with no vehicle, and although you can go anywhere, the story guides you to where it feels best to travel on foot, helped by an excellent jump mechanic. Then you get your first Skell -- the tall mechs prominently featured in XCX's marketing -- and now you can jump higher and fight bigger creatures blocking new territories. Finally, when you get the flight module, verticality is introduced, and all bets are off. Flying a Skell around Mira, a world designed to be explored as much by air as by land, is one of the most specific video game pleasures I have ever experienced, and that is all I will say about that.
The game has a couple of other pleasures. You use the Wii U game pad touch screen for fast travel, navigation, and some resource management. I played primarily with a Pro Controller, and having to put it down to pick up the game pad actually strengthened my sense of immersion. The soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano is very enjoyable, and I'm a fan of the vocal tracks, especially when they get goofy. The Skell flight song is particularly dope. You can also play dress-up with a pretty solid range of gear. The game lets you put on "Fashion Gear" over your actual armor so you can wear what you want while wearing what you need.
Then there's a wide assortment of weaknesses and stuff not worth writing home about. Calling the wildlife "indigens" (short for indigenous) leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels gross to keep hearing "we have to kill these indigens!". There are attempts at getting to know characters more personally through an affinity system and tons of side quests, but they fall flat from weak character design and mostly bland dialogue. As much as I praise NLA for feeling like a functioning city overall, the illusion here isn't as strong as the wildlife of Mira. Between the MMO camera angle and the under-cooked 3D modeling, the urban environments have an artificial cardboard presence. I felt as if I wasn't walking amongst people but gliding over them. The story introduces you to other sentient species, but hardly places any of them in your party so you're stuck getting to know them via side missions. My guess is most folks will get more out these quests than I did. I enjoyed the act of playing them and how they conceptually expanded the world, but I was never as emotionally invested as I wanted to be.
My interest in the antagonist species hell-bent on exterminating humans waned after awhile. I didn't mind that the high-minded sci-fi themes of human soul and consciousness were mostly gestures, but it bums me out that the mystery behind Mira's more preternatural qualities are left as sequel bait. And, finally, the sound mix of the music often overpowered the dialogue.
The fighting is fine. I'm a fan of battle chatter, but I cared so little about the characters, it was mostly noise. I'm sure I tapped into less than 50% of the combat strategies available, but I'm fine with having mostly boarded my Skell to spam the most powerful attacks. Though, I do recommend watching a YouTube tutorial on Overdrives. The signposting for missions is great, and my internet consultation was pretty minimal. With a game this big, you're gonna do some walkthrough Googling.
To end on a personal note, I played this game while on a bit of a mental vacation. This was an ideal companion to a relaxing summer. Despite the high stakes setup, Xenoblade Chronicles X can be a pretty chill experience that encourages you to spend time with gorgeous vistas like something of a safari. Back in 2015 before it came out, I worked up quite a drumroll for it. I couldn't afford the special edition I bought, and I've decorated every place I've lived in since with the little art card it came with. Life had other plans then, but I'm very happy I took the time to play it 7 years later. Just check out how much this announcement trailer rules! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APWTJMyM4qg
I like to protect my sense of wonder, and when something comes along that earnestly rewards it, I feel grateful enough to meet it halfway. A friend mentioned how he wishes he had his Wii U with him so he could hop on a Skell and take joy rides around the skies of Mira. And, well, I guess that's the cue to keep mine around.
It's incredible how far a game can be sustained by a strong enough foundational premise. You are the last of humanity crash landed on a foreign planet, and you must seek out your fellow survivors scattered across the wilderness while learning to live in this hostile new environment. Xenoblade Chronicles X has obvious weaknesses, but I put 138 hours into it, and the reason I was invested the whole time came down to two pillars:
1. Mira, the planet, is realized with a level of wonder that's not only gorgeous to look at, but a thrill to explore.
2. Every part of the gameplay loop reinforces how far from home you are and how dire the existential status of your species is.
The more I think about humanity as a collective character, the more I appreciate XCX's story. Individual personalities don't get to shine here. This is the type of science fiction where each character is a semiotic piece on a board standing in for ideas and experiences. There are some lackluster attempts at character-driven plot, but XCX, broadly as a work, isn't cut out for it. There's an alien race out to get ya, you're stuck in a world you don't know, and there's a literal clock on your existence. Not much room for personal drama in all that, and the player character being a silent custom creation tells me that the game embraces that aggregate view.
New Los Angeles is your spaceship-turned-city hub, and the game does a good enough job of making it feel like a fully-functioning society. It's a piece of Earth complete with houses and tennis courts, and there's a nostalgia to seeing "United States" emblazoned in massive letters every time you head home from the field. Sometimes for fun, while walking by pizza shops or cafés, I'd tilt the camera down and watch how deceptively the environment looked like a regular American neighborhood before tilting back up to reveal the massive double moons in the otherworldly sky. It's also funny that even in this most dire circumstance humans maintain a capitalist system of commerce, but I’ll allow that as an extension of people clinging to what they know and trying to homestead in an alien world. The time horizon of XCX is pretty short, and the story begins very recently after the initial crash landing. There isn't much here to meaningfully glean any troubling colonial attitudes from because the whole run of the plot is about basic survival. Whether that's just plausible deniability remains to be seen in a sequel.
Select mission > Carry it out in Mira > Return to NLA. That's the play cycle of XCX. Main missions expand depth, and side missions, which come in several tiers, expand breadth. While your player character serves a supporting role, you're also not a total nobody. The team you hook up with is the tip of the search party spear. You're all members of BLADE, an organization split into 8 divisions specializing in a different necessity, whether it's resource hunting or creature subjugation or scouting new territory. That's how the gameplay structure deepens the sense of "we're all in this together". Every mission felt like I was improving lives. Even when I went on the occasional lost cat side quest there was a sense that I was doing it while the analysts back in the Admin district were still figuring out the next coordinates to look for survivors at. I really want to shoutout this accomplishment because at this point "stopping to help an NPC propose to his girlfriend while a great evil is out conquering the world" is so common in RPGs, it's become a silly feature not a bug. The way XCX gets around it is by NOT making you the most important person on the planet.
And what a planet Mira is. Goddamn. I'll criticize Marvel movie visual design for recreating HD Wallpapers, but I'll use that as a compliment here because being able to walk around in it is something else. Aesthetically, the horizon is perfect in every direction. Hats off to Monolith Soft for finding a unique art style that can maintain strong graphical fidelity and still give us a world that runs so smoothly on the Wii U. There are five continents, and they circumvent RPG biome clichés by actually existing as natural habitats first. Mira's wildlife feel as if they have existed, migrated, and evolved here on their own terms, and it is you that is the invasive species. Between dangerous creatures, the diversity of landscape terrain, mission objectives, and a general sense of awe, I didn't have much time to notice repetitive animation cycles or other flaws in the detail. Go look up some screenshots of the Giant Ring of Oblivia or literally any part of Noctilum. Floating islands are abound in fantasy fiction, and I'll never get tired of them, but I've also seen so many it takes a lot to truly wow me. Trust that Mira is a treasure.
That has as much to do with traversal as it does biodiversity. The devs have pulled off the illusion of an environment that exists for its own sake while structuring it with excellent level design. You start off with no vehicle, and although you can go anywhere, the story guides you to where it feels best to travel on foot, helped by an excellent jump mechanic. Then you get your first Skell -- the tall mechs prominently featured in XCX's marketing -- and now you can jump higher and fight bigger creatures blocking new territories. Finally, when you get the flight module, verticality is introduced, and all bets are off. Flying a Skell around Mira, a world designed to be explored as much by air as by land, is one of the most specific video game pleasures I have ever experienced, and that is all I will say about that.
The game has a couple of other pleasures. You use the Wii U game pad touch screen for fast travel, navigation, and some resource management. I played primarily with a Pro Controller, and having to put it down to pick up the game pad actually strengthened my sense of immersion. The soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano is very enjoyable, and I'm a fan of the vocal tracks, especially when they get goofy. The Skell flight song is particularly dope. You can also play dress-up with a pretty solid range of gear. The game lets you put on "Fashion Gear" over your actual armor so you can wear what you want while wearing what you need.
Then there's a wide assortment of weaknesses and stuff not worth writing home about. Calling the wildlife "indigens" (short for indigenous) leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels gross to keep hearing "we have to kill these indigens!". There are attempts at getting to know characters more personally through an affinity system and tons of side quests, but they fall flat from weak character design and mostly bland dialogue. As much as I praise NLA for feeling like a functioning city overall, the illusion here isn't as strong as the wildlife of Mira. Between the MMO camera angle and the under-cooked 3D modeling, the urban environments have an artificial cardboard presence. I felt as if I wasn't walking amongst people but gliding over them. The story introduces you to other sentient species, but hardly places any of them in your party so you're stuck getting to know them via side missions. My guess is most folks will get more out these quests than I did. I enjoyed the act of playing them and how they conceptually expanded the world, but I was never as emotionally invested as I wanted to be.
My interest in the antagonist species hell-bent on exterminating humans waned after awhile. I didn't mind that the high-minded sci-fi themes of human soul and consciousness were mostly gestures, but it bums me out that the mystery behind Mira's more preternatural qualities are left as sequel bait. And, finally, the sound mix of the music often overpowered the dialogue.
The fighting is fine. I'm a fan of battle chatter, but I cared so little about the characters, it was mostly noise. I'm sure I tapped into less than 50% of the combat strategies available, but I'm fine with having mostly boarded my Skell to spam the most powerful attacks. Though, I do recommend watching a YouTube tutorial on Overdrives. The signposting for missions is great, and my internet consultation was pretty minimal. With a game this big, you're gonna do some walkthrough Googling.
To end on a personal note, I played this game while on a bit of a mental vacation. This was an ideal companion to a relaxing summer. Despite the high stakes setup, Xenoblade Chronicles X can be a pretty chill experience that encourages you to spend time with gorgeous vistas like something of a safari. Back in 2015 before it came out, I worked up quite a drumroll for it. I couldn't afford the special edition I bought, and I've decorated every place I've lived in since with the little art card it came with. Life had other plans then, but I'm very happy I took the time to play it 7 years later. Just check out how much this announcement trailer rules! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APWTJMyM4qg
I like to protect my sense of wonder, and when something comes along that earnestly rewards it, I feel grateful enough to meet it halfway. A friend mentioned how he wishes he had his Wii U with him so he could hop on a Skell and take joy rides around the skies of Mira. And, well, I guess that's the cue to keep mine around.