It is difficult not to feel overwhelmed by Xenoblade Chronicles X. Even a decade after his first publication on the Nintendo Wii U, Monolith Softs JRPG is still uncompromisingly ambitious. You can go anywhere and do everything on the beautiful planet of Mira, even if the only reward for your curiosity is a towering monster that squeezes it under your feet.
Despite its visual and mechanical achievements, it was condemned thanks to the platform that it called at home. A swan song for a failed system that only experienced a small handful of people what it had to offer. Now there will be another recording with a definitely playing and enjoying other games in the series.
Nice, easier, but still incredibly discouraging
It is also a completely different game, so much that many are surprised how much choice it offers the player and how it laughs in the face of conventional linear stories in favor of a world and a characters who have to make an effort back or land. While it takes a certain adaptation to fall in love with his characters and to conquer his open world, the end result is amazing. After I spent a dozen hours with his new form, I am desperate to earn my skel and turn new Los Angeles a home for which I fought. This is the return of a forgotten classic that I dreamed of.
I cannot talk about the fourth chapter about nothing that is incredible in history early (long before you earned your Skell -Mech or called beyond the first three huge regions). This is a colossal game that does not hold back.
The Setup of Xenoblade Chronicles X is surprisingly simple. The earth is destroyed as a huge war between two extraterrestrial breeds in our atmosphere, destroys our planet and deletes most of humanity. But by creating colossal arches that were built for millions of lives and centuries of knowledge, some happy souls can find a sanctuary among the stars.
You are one of those who travel over the solar system for years, only so that the same alien and can send us to Mira's hard planet. It is a beautiful but enemy place, and after a handful of cutscenes and far too much exhibition, we have the opportunity to create a character and explore it on our own conditions. There are many runs, a lot of jumping and lots of loss on a planet that is not willing to hold your hand, and years later, this remains one of his greatest success.
My avatar was a Happy-Go-Lucky discoverer who wanted to hug Mira with open arms just to have thrown this optimism back in the face. In order to make it home, we had to against evil aliens weirs, disturb local wild animals and repeat the same dark mistakes that are millions of Lichtyer from our damn origins.
With a very hand-off story compared to other Xenoblade titles, you have to connect the points yourself and take over affinity missions to find out whether X is the kind of game for you because it is more serious than the charming British accents and jokes of Xenoblade Chronicles, 2 and 3. It is an experimental excursion and one that is a rather polarizing joy to think.
Floor control for Major Tatsu
There are so many different mechanical systems that are based on Xenoblade Chronicles X that I would be here for thousands of words to explain everyone. So let's stick to the most important things. The combat system resembles other games in the series, albeit with a more MMO-like approach to encounters with classes that are changing between the skills that are equipped, and art that can be chained together to carry out incredible combos.
At first glance it is a lotAnd until you have improved a few skills that the timing and the cadence of combos have coordinated and nailed, it can sometimes feel on an impenetrable wall. But it is worth holding out the earlier hours and never being afraid to jump into the fight and the experiment.
I have developed the habit of changing my party members, playing with every new class and bending into the gait system that swallows them completely. It is so detailed, as tight and what the combat system depends on. You will be encouraged to collect new equipment and improve what you already have, or the next boss will make you a porridge in a matter of seconds.
They have “soil equipment” and “fashion equipment”, which looks their actual statistics and what every character looks like. So if you want to put the style first, you can adapt each part of the body according to your wishes. I only wish that the user interface would be less cumbersome.
Open World Exploration is powered by the probe system. Important points on the map You are encouraged to search for and claim in the name of mankind. These spots are then occupied by probes that provide valuable resources, earn additional intelligence or how many materials, etc. can be kept at a certain time.
Finding these places is a pleasant exercise itself, which means that they are brave in research if the narrative rarely gives a reason to give up the triggered path. Linking probes can deliver bonuses, unlock new quests and give them a concrete idea of how widespread Mira is. I opened the pausemenu once, zoomed out and swallowed in a mixture of fear and anticipation of what would come.
Mira is a great yet high place to explore
Xenoblade Chronicles X has a wonderful combat system and one of the largest open worlds I have ever seen, but these do not mean almost as much without an excellent stories or a cast of characters to support everything. Compared to the original game and its two sequels, it is difficult to deny that this entry does not end. Elma is a brave guide who deals with a past that is afraid of developing, while Lin is a young inventor who has to fight with the balance of her love, and the need for destruction to get a new home build.
Other characters are consistently equipped with affinity missions and heart-to-heart talks to make us for care, but most of the time I grabbed the skip button. A silent protagonist does not help this feeling when Shulk, Rex and the pair of killers from Noah and Mio prove how humanity was always in the heart of Xenoblade.
After the first dozen hours, there is no big player in the main count, against whom we can merging against us, and our only vague goal is to transform Mira and New Los Angeles into a new home. It is a convincing setup, but Xenoblade Chronicles X takes so long to do something with the fact that the players who are understood for the first time could win a long time before it is full of their full potential. I still have to earn my skel and undermine my expectations as in 2015, where dozens of hours in the open world are suddenly put aside, because I am not only relieved by this transforming mech, which is not only relieved by Mira.
This output of the game has significantly improved the user interface and read and analyze elements more easily, but sometimes it can still be quite overwhelming to jump between the countless menus and mechanics.
There is still a ridiculous amount that I can not see in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitely not yet, whether he deserves my transforming mech, deeper into the narrative or dominates its combat system. I am looking forward to all of this, but after a decade of the absence, it is fascinating to examine how Xenoblade has developed and how this cult classic exceeds its siblings in some areas, while they fall in other wolves in others.
- Released
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March 20, 2025
- ESRB
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Teen // animated blood, language, suggestive topics, alcohol consumption, violence
