Stunning and Excellent RPG!
It is always the very best games that inevitably appear at the end of a game console’s life cycle. Here we are, expecting the Switch 2 release date at any moment, and we have been served up one of the current Switch’s most technologically impressive games to keep us going.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is a remaster of a Wii U game originally released in April 2015. Back then, the game was a technological marvel to behold on the Wii U, but here and now on the more powerful Switch, it’s even better.
You play as one of Earth’s last survivors after the planet is destroyed in the mix of an alien battlefield. You escape on the USS White Whale but crash-land on a planet called Mira. Mira is a dangerous but beautiful world, where you set out to search for any other survivors to inhabit your new home. To find and locate any other survivors, you will need to tool up, initially with foot-based weapons, but later into mechs called “Skells”.
Traveling the world will unlock new, wonderful, diverse areas and ecosystems to explore but also new enemies to face.
Despite a pretty simple story premise, there are some surprises on the way but nothing really earth-shattering. The game and its gameplay loop could even be compared to a Monster Hunter-style game, but it does have a little more nuance to its features. This is despite the fact that you, as your character, are basically mute for the entire game. It’s a shame the character you play doesn’t really get involved in the acting side of things, but even so, the story and especially the characters were interesting.
There are side character missions, which give a lot of background to members of your team but also give the player extra combat buffs for the character you have spent some time getting to learn about. As good as this is, there are occasional side missions that can go on for a while and that have to be completed before you can go back to the main story mission.
So, as you play the game, more team members join your force, and more team members means more ways to defeat enemies. There are three classes for your character to play as, and it’s best not to stick to just one. This all leads to one of the most (how can I put this?)…curious aspects of the game: the combat.
If you look on YouTube, there are many lengthy videos of combat tips and tricks. It is actually a very straightforward system, but it can be tweaked in many ways to be as simple or as complicated as you want. This is both good and bad.
The good is that it adds such a variety to gameplay that you can, if you get your head around it, really excel in combat. The bad is that there are a lot of moving parts to play with, and at times, if I tried to stick to what I liked, I failed and had to adjust to something I didn’t want just to get by. If I went into details here, the review would be extremely lengthy.
However, the basic concept of combat is you have a melee and ranged weapon (on foot). Once you are in range of an enemy, your ranged weapon (if equipped) will automatically fire on the locked target, and you don’t actually have to aim or pull the trigger. Then, if you move in close, you can do the same with your harder-hitting, melee weapon.
To supplement this, you have slots to fill with skill attacks. Some of these are for your melee, others for the ranged weapon, and others are buffs or things like healing.
The basic idea is that you enter the area of attack in real time and move your character around while they are either using ranged or melee weapons. Whilst doing this, you can activate your skills and wait for them to cool down before using them again. Skills/enemies can also have elemental attributes, so if you use a particular element against an enemy that is weak to it, you’ll deal more damage.
Personally, I found the combat a little impersonal. I really appreciate that it’s most certainly a unique system and a very entertaining one at that. it’s just I felt a little removed from the experience. Other players might actually like this system, however, so it’s not a downgrade, it’s just different!
The one thing that did annoy me in combat was that when fighting one enemy, I would occasionally move into the area of another (potentially more powerful) one, and I would not realize this until I was being bombarded by an enemy from a direction that I wasn’t prepared for.
However, mastering the combat systems really is rewarding as it helps the player feel like a strong badass when they do fell mighty beasts in a short space of time.
The game is most definitely a looker despite its original age. The opening cinematic had me repeating to myself, “I didn’t think the Switch could do that!”. The visuals, but especially the textures, look fantastic. There is a lot to catch the eye with the world of excellent artwork design. I couldn’t help but think that if Monolith Soft could do this on the Wii U/Switch, why can’t other JRPG behemoths like Nihon Falcom do the same with their games on more powerful consoles?
I digress! There was one visual aspect that was a problem. When I panned the camera on normal speed, I would suffer quite a large amount of screen tearing. This is hardly surprising when the game has virtually no loading times when exploring, which is all the more remarkable that it’s on the Switch. I don’t know what technical wizardry Monolith Soft used, but they deserve a lot of credit for it. The screen tearing, however, all but disappeared when I reduced the speed of the camera movement to slow.
It was also noteworthy that during combat, where there are a lot of moving parts, I didn’t suffer any issues at all. The game looks, plays, and is a visual technical marvel!
The game’s audio is serviceable, with some average-sounding effects when traversing, but I did enjoy the musical score and the combat sound effects a lot.
Summary
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition features a very inviting, exciting world. The experience of playing such a huge technical game on such a tiny console is remarkable. The game itself is also excellent but might not be to everyone’s tastes. However, the game’s production value and polish could pull you through on that alone. I didn’t realize the Switch could competently deliver such a technical game as this. It proves that Monolith Soft is squeezing every ounce of power out of the console, so goodness knows what they might produce when the Switch 2 arrives! In the meantime, play this classic game while you wait.
Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: 20th March 2025
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition was provided by the publisher.
