Played: September - October 2022
The "But, C'mon" Update (February 2023):
I'm bumping this up from 2.5 to 3 stars, because... c'mon. It's THE Xenoblade Chronicles. 2 months after my initial review, and 4 months since I finally beat it, I just keep thinking back on it too fondly. The feeling of entering the majesty of Gaur Plains for the first time as the music sweeps in. The good cheer of the party's dialogue, however repetitive. The smooth flow of the battle that was already at a good start even before future games would refine it. Makna Bridge! Eryth Sea! Fallen Arm! To play this game is to be transported into a postcard filled with a sensation of perilous adventure. I stand by all that I wrote before, but once I net all the math together, I'm left with a real delight. XC is just more than the sum of its parts. Maybe some games are just better lensed through a Good Vibes Gaming than a Waypoint.
Original Write-Up (December 2022):
What Xenoblade Chronicles wants above all else is the horizon. I think.
I chewed through it in 2 weeks, took 2 months to gather my thoughts, and still my take feels disjointed. The characters are colorful but somehow plain. The English voice acting is fun and filled with earworms. The combat is a good-yet-incomplete iteration of this style. The music is magnificent. The story has lots of food-for-thought but is paced unevenly. The world design is as creative as it is stunning to stare up at. Generally more good than bad.
But. Finding my POV was made difficult by the game obfuscating its own.
The tale is set on the body of two titans frozen in mid-combat, and the adventure guides you from limb to limb, which was a killer setup since the first concept art. The plot begins as a revenge quest and is set against a dire one-sided forever-war. Disparate factions have to come together. A major ally will heel-turn. Mysteries will be teased through shadowy cutscenes and cryptic visions. Then the final fifth of the game will push you out from open fields and on to an elevator ride up through a building of plot developments that reveal the true nature of the world. And then up through five more secret floors of the REAL true nature of the world.
Many interesting ideas are touched on through all of that, but the only thing I can latch on to is the image of my party rushing towards whatever is next. Hence, horizon.
Against the voice acting's best efforts, the main party isn't compelling enough to drive the emotional stakes in all the way. My curiosity for why the people of this world are trapped in such a calamitous situation was answered by at least three unsatisfying explanations. The last of those reveals had much promise, but so little time is spent so late, I lost interest in parsing it. The big ally betrayal, while well-performed, is undercooked. There are hints of something to say around the fear of losing human connection, but it reads vague and defaults to the usual triumph of the human spirit stuff. That would be fine if the waters leading up to it weren't so muddied with promise.
Unequivocally, the best part of Xenoblade Chronicles is the world traversal. This is a fantastic game to just hang out and do rote sidequests in. That's legit and well worth the money. There are spaces that are like vacations I will never forget. All timer postcard settings.
Cool boss battles, exciting bits of lore reveal, picturesque overlooks, goofy tangents, and the promise of a gratifying payoff kept me interested the whole way, but it doesn't feel like enough. Xenoblade Chronicles X, my first stop on the Xeno train, used as many of its parts as it could to express something specific. By contrast, this one is a series of interesting half-ideas you're pushed through in search of a cohesion that's never found.
Not my most confident review, but I wanted to lay down where I'm at.
---
On a personal note, I first started this game on my modded Wii in 2011 back before Operation Rainfall (and European success) brought it to the U.S. I only got halfway before life got busy, picked it up on the New 3DS in 2015, and hit the 4/5ths mark before life got busy again. At long last, here in 2022 on the Switch with all the Definitive Edition quality-of-life goodies, I finished it! This game has been in my life for 30 to 60 hours at a time from the beginning of my 20s to the beginning of my 30s. I gotta say, I'm going to miss it no longer nagging me from a corner shelf.
Maybe I have more fondness for my relationship with this game than the game itself, but I think that counts for something.
Next stop: Future Connected.
The "But, C'mon" Update (February 2023):
I'm bumping this up from 2.5 to 3 stars, because... c'mon. It's THE Xenoblade Chronicles. 2 months after my initial review, and 4 months since I finally beat it, I just keep thinking back on it too fondly. The feeling of entering the majesty of Gaur Plains for the first time as the music sweeps in. The good cheer of the party's dialogue, however repetitive. The smooth flow of the battle that was already at a good start even before future games would refine it. Makna Bridge! Eryth Sea! Fallen Arm! To play this game is to be transported into a postcard filled with a sensation of perilous adventure. I stand by all that I wrote before, but once I net all the math together, I'm left with a real delight. XC is just more than the sum of its parts. Maybe some games are just better lensed through a Good Vibes Gaming than a Waypoint.
Original Write-Up (December 2022):
What Xenoblade Chronicles wants above all else is the horizon. I think.
I chewed through it in 2 weeks, took 2 months to gather my thoughts, and still my take feels disjointed. The characters are colorful but somehow plain. The English voice acting is fun and filled with earworms. The combat is a good-yet-incomplete iteration of this style. The music is magnificent. The story has lots of food-for-thought but is paced unevenly. The world design is as creative as it is stunning to stare up at. Generally more good than bad.
But. Finding my POV was made difficult by the game obfuscating its own.
The tale is set on the body of two titans frozen in mid-combat, and the adventure guides you from limb to limb, which was a killer setup since the first concept art. The plot begins as a revenge quest and is set against a dire one-sided forever-war. Disparate factions have to come together. A major ally will heel-turn. Mysteries will be teased through shadowy cutscenes and cryptic visions. Then the final fifth of the game will push you out from open fields and on to an elevator ride up through a building of plot developments that reveal the true nature of the world. And then up through five more secret floors of the REAL true nature of the world.
Many interesting ideas are touched on through all of that, but the only thing I can latch on to is the image of my party rushing towards whatever is next. Hence, horizon.
Against the voice acting's best efforts, the main party isn't compelling enough to drive the emotional stakes in all the way. My curiosity for why the people of this world are trapped in such a calamitous situation was answered by at least three unsatisfying explanations. The last of those reveals had much promise, but so little time is spent so late, I lost interest in parsing it. The big ally betrayal, while well-performed, is undercooked. There are hints of something to say around the fear of losing human connection, but it reads vague and defaults to the usual triumph of the human spirit stuff. That would be fine if the waters leading up to it weren't so muddied with promise.
Unequivocally, the best part of Xenoblade Chronicles is the world traversal. This is a fantastic game to just hang out and do rote sidequests in. That's legit and well worth the money. There are spaces that are like vacations I will never forget. All timer postcard settings.
Cool boss battles, exciting bits of lore reveal, picturesque overlooks, goofy tangents, and the promise of a gratifying payoff kept me interested the whole way, but it doesn't feel like enough. Xenoblade Chronicles X, my first stop on the Xeno train, used as many of its parts as it could to express something specific. By contrast, this one is a series of interesting half-ideas you're pushed through in search of a cohesion that's never found.
Not my most confident review, but I wanted to lay down where I'm at.
---
On a personal note, I first started this game on my modded Wii in 2011 back before Operation Rainfall (and European success) brought it to the U.S. I only got halfway before life got busy, picked it up on the New 3DS in 2015, and hit the 4/5ths mark before life got busy again. At long last, here in 2022 on the Switch with all the Definitive Edition quality-of-life goodies, I finished it! This game has been in my life for 30 to 60 hours at a time from the beginning of my 20s to the beginning of my 30s. I gotta say, I'm going to miss it no longer nagging me from a corner shelf.
Maybe I have more fondness for my relationship with this game than the game itself, but I think that counts for something.
Next stop: Future Connected.