The Switch’s successor is soon to be released. I wait for Switch 2 and Mario Kart World. That gives me a problem though, in that I often don’t feel like starting a new game. But fortunately for you all I did finish one a while back.
Xenoblade Chronicles X for some time was talked about in circles as the last great game of the Wii U yet to be ported over to the Switch. And having played it, I’m very glad it was eventually ported.
The second game in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, it is not as connected as the numbered titles but contains elements of the iconography, plus Elma, very much the main character of the game, has appeared in the other games via crossover dlc elements.
Set after Earth was destroyed when two alien armies started fighting above it, we follow the survivors of one of the ark ships that crash lands on a new planet. Your character, who you create rather than playing as any of the named people, is found in their pod by Elma at the start of the game, having amnesia apparently from the stasis. The opening experience is then just your character and Elma getting back to New LA, as the human city is called, which works to give you a basic understanding of both exploration and combat.
Once you’re in the city you get the basic rundown of how the world works and lore… which is just really a repeat of the opening cinematic. I like the game but do feel we could have just started with your character being woken up and gotten said opening cinematic here rather than essentially repeating it.
What follows is a story for the fate of humanity, a mystery about the world you found yourself in. Betrayal, intrigue, the determination to prove humanity’s worth in the universe against those determined to wipe it out. You meet strange new characters, face absolutely enormous forces put against you and learn more and more about those people that will stand by your side.
Gameplay wise I find it works almost like a pseudo MMO. You get various small quests as well as larger ones that give better rewards or move the plot along. You also can make a team with 3 other characters you meet as you play the game either through the main story or side missions all the while you explore a very large open world. You get different classes which you level up unlocking new abilities that each have different types of weapons you can equip, each one melee, and one ranged. Levelling these up gives you both new attack options in combat but also skills that affect your stats, maxing one of the final jobs lets you use those weapons in any class.
And then halfway through you get to pilot your own transforming giant robot.
Yes one of the big selling points of this game is the ability to get your own giant robot or Skells as they are called in universe. It unlocked a good amount of time into the main game through a series of major side quests, but the game wont let you progress until you get your Skell license. After you get that, while you have one it gives you, you can buy different main frames that will probably be better. The Skells start at level 20 but if like me and you did A LOT of side quests before that, you will end up buying a level 30 one right away. These can also be equipped with all manner of different gears resulting in yet more customization, or like most people, looking up online what the best loadouts are and grind to do all that. It’s worth it when you complete the game and can get level 60 Skells to tear apart those giant monsters you had to run around from the whole game… Also you can unlock the ability to make them fly… which is also basically mandatory to complete the game despite being in a side quest.
I did have one main annoyance with the game… well 2 if you count when having to go a really long way around things that can instantly kill you because the stuff at the level you are currently at is actually between the area you are and the much higher level stuff rather than a standard progression of difficult mobs. And that was when doing the affinity missions, which are major character story quests but not the main story quest, to the point it is fully voice acted with cutscenes, you can’t do the main story or other affinity quests, or even the big character interactive points in the city. This is not normally too big an issue, but one quest early on had me have to stop and just burn time while I waited to see if something beyond my control would finally dig up some of the items I needed to complete a quest. Meaning I was quite a bit higher level than what I should have been for the actual story content.
I could talk a lot more about the game. I spent more than 100 hours in it and enjoyed it almost all outside of the minor nit-pick there. The game does a decent job of explaining the rest. If this game scratches an itch for you, either through the story and characters, combat or exploration elements, you are going to be playing it for a good long time.
Rating: 🎮🎮🎮🎮🎮
