Instead of rambling on, paragraph upon paragraph about the technical details of this very long game, I'm going to do something a little different for
: I'm going to write a much shorter "experiential" review. Here's my experience with
for the Nintendo Switch.
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"Feathery Version"
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My family bought
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for me for Father's Day last year, after seeing me enjoy
Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U.
X has nothing to do plotwise with
2, but I had never played the first, original Xenoblade game for the Wii, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to just dive into the sequel. I tossed around the idea of getting a copy of the Wii original for a minute, but a remaster of the game was recently announced for Switch, to be called
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition...so for Father's Day this year, I picked up this punched up version of the first game...so that I can eventually play my Father's Day gift from last year.
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It's so far away
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Immediately after booting up XC:DE, I found myself comforted by the game's familiar systems. The player is placed in the role of Shulk, a young man in a world which exists atop the lifeless husks of two unimaginably huge titans, who were once locked in battle. Throughout the game, Shulk and his party traverse this enormous world. I really enjoyed how each area, like a vast plain or a mystical swamp, all corresponded to a different part of the titans' bodies. This is extremely cool.
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Low blow!
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Rather fitting considering he lives atop the shells of two warring beings, Shulk is out on a mission of revenge. Shulk and the other humans and organic creatures reside on "Bionis," while a race of evil robots lives on "Mechonis." When the Mechon invade, assumably with the intent to destory the human race, Shulk's friend Fiora is killed. During the attack, Shulk finds that he can somehow wield the mysterious Monado, a huge glowing sword that causes much greater damage to the Mechon than conventional weapons. The Monado also seems to sometimes grant the user foreknowledge of its opponent's future moves.
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I don't feel like "Ice Meteor III" is anything I want to be a part of
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Shulk is enraged by the murder of Fiora and sets out with his hulking buddy, Reyn, for payback. The duo meet an entire planet's worth of characters, as the story meets twist after turn after twist, until I quite honestly stopped caring. I was sucked into the more simple aspects of the story early in the game, but...well, this is a very long game. The story-telling cutscenes, which occur very often, are often very, very long. While the game's voice-acting is stellar, featuring a host of British talent, I'm not playing a game to...watch it. About 20 hours into
Xenoblade Chronicles, as the story started to become needlessly complex, convoluted, and confusing, I found myself starting to skip the cutscenes when they were only halfway done. A few hours later, I was skipping them completely. I just didn't care.
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I think I'd rather just stare at this map
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Thankfully, you can not only skip the extremely numerous cutscenes, but gather at least the bones of the game's story from the two-to-three sentence long mission briefings, which you can pull up at any moment in the game, even while you're moving about. The onscreen map also shows you where to go to complete whatever mission you've either taken on or assigned. There are about a million subquests that grant you money or experience points upon completion, but I only did these when I badly needed to level up (like in most RPG's, you get experience points to level up with by fighting or by completing missions) or to get cash (to buy better weapons and armor). Otherwise, I stuck to the game's main story mission.
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Don't go chasin' em! Don't do it! I know you're tempted!
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While I didn't really care about the story, I did care about how participating in the story gave me the opportunity to traverse
Xenoblade Chronicles' enormous, beautiful world. While the game's graphical design isn't visually on-par with
Chronicles X's insanely beautiful Wii U vistas and villains, the more cartoonesque original game features some eye-pleasing, imaginative landscapes. My personal favorite is the Eryth Sea, gorgeous cerulean bay surrounded by jutting, iridescent, chitinous cliffsides, shadowed by beautiful, meadowed floating islands. I also enjoyed hearing each new area's musical theme. Though the game was scored by a committee, and doesn't feature any of the Himalayan highs of Hiroyuki Sawano's
Chronicles X score, it also doesn't feature any of
X's music's basement lows. This is just a very good, enjoyable soundtrack all the way through, mostly featuring string-centric orchestral pieces. Hey, every area's even got a night theme, as time passes in this game roughly one minute per second.
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More stuff should be made of chitin. It's an underrated material.
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So if it's not clear, my main joy in
XC:DE came from simply experiencing each new world...and fighting on it. If you've played another Xenoblade game and not enjoyed the fighting...you're not gonna like it here because it's the same. Xenoblade games feature a sort of active RPG fighting style. There are no random battles and all enemies are visible onscreen before you fight them. Generally, you target them and then pick the fight yourself...or if they're an aggressive enemy, you just run into them and the fight begins. During fights, you're allowed to move around freely, even to the point of just running away. Your character automatically performs their basic attack constantly throughout the fight. You also have the choice of using other learned attacks or buffs throughout, though you're limited to only a certain accessible moveset. You can pick these moves and even level the individual moves up between fights. During fights, you have to wait for these moves to charge up, both before first using them, and after using them, so that you can use them again.
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I know you were just minding your own business grazing, but I really do need to level up
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You'll want to choose which moves are in your arsenal wisely. Some moves are "break" moves, which open up enemies to "topple" moves. Some "break" moves require you to try to position yourself behind or on the side of your enemy. If you successfully break the enemy, then topple them, they fall to the ground and take greater damage from any attacks you can unleash on them before they stand. Shulk's Monado also has its own gauge and individual moveset (which can also be leveled up)--also, as I said before, sometimes the Monado informs you that your foe is about to perform a certain move to crush you or your friends...giving you the opportunity to prevent getting crushed.
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Unless you actually want to get crushed, which I guess is cool
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You'll often fight with two of your chosen party members at your side (you end up building quite a crew). Party members also have their own unique moveset (which you can customize). While you don't directly control them or their actions throughout a fight, you can give them overarching commands to focus on one certain enemy, or fight at will. Despite a large amount of party members to choose from, I like to stick to the same trio, so I fought exclusively using Shulk, Reyn, and Sharla (a nurse whose moveset includes lots of healing actions). By the way, if you don't like the way many RPG's hyper-sexualize their characters, especially the females, just know that the absolute most tasteful outfit I could find for Sharla was blue jean shorts and a bikini top (you dress your characters with clothes you find along the way). Yes, in the stereotypical anime fashion, all the girls have gravity-defying bazooka boobs, though at least the game also makes it hard to cover up Reyn's gargantuan, unfathomable pecs. I'm really not sure how all these getups are conducive to successful fighting. Anyway...once you and your party have successfully landed a decent amount of moves, or you've successfully hit the "B" button exactly when the game has told you throughout the fight, your group can perform a "chain attack."
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Don't worry, Stevie Nicks, I'll try not to Lindsey Buckingham this
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At that moment, you take control of all three characters, and gain access to their entire chosen moveset, allowing you to fire off a powerful combo, and making toppling much easier. Throughout some of these chain attacks, you are given the chance to tap "B" at just the right moment to further extend the chain. Sometimes, you'll very satisfyingly get off a 12-hit combo. It's a wonderful feeling. I love the combat system here. It kept me going, even when I grew tired of the story and cutscenes, and had little idea what was going on or why I was fighting.
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Let's go fight this Chimai Selua for some reason
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There's a cavalcade of other stuff going on in
Xenoblade Chronicles, including a billion sidequests. There are also affinity-increasing opportunities for your characters, which lead to heart-to-heart cutscenes that I wasn't at all interested in (yes, more cutscenes). It's all here, and able to occupy a billion hours of your time. Since I played straight through and skipped most of the hours upon hours of cutscenes, I finished in the game in sixty. This
Definitive Edition also has a bonus epilogue, which will cost another 10-15 hours of your life. The
Definitive Edition also sports improved, HD graphics, which looks far higher res than the originals, but again, don't touch
X's.
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Yes, it's all just so hideous
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So, if you like incredibly convoluted, overly complex, high concept sci-fi stories, involving the nature of existence,
Xenoblade Chronicles is your game. If you enjoy the unique, highly-polished Xenoblade fighting system,
Xenoblade Chronicles is your game. If you enjoy experiencing huge, imaginative alien worlds,
Xenoblade Chronicles is your game. Hey, two out of three ain't bad. I guess I'm ready for
Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
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I'll get there eventually
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