Review: XENOBLADE CHRONICLES X: DEFINITIVE EDITION Feels Like an Offline MMORPG

Not too long ago, Nintendo and MonolithSoft released Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition on the Nintendo Switch. I always wanted to play this game on the Wii U (yes, I have a Wii U) but never got the chance so I was excited when it came to the Switch.

Nintendo was kind enough to provide me with a review code, but all the thoughts below are my own. You can purchase it from your favorite retailers including the Humble Store (affiliate link) with an MSRP of $59.99.

Xenoblade Chronicles X was originally released on the Wii U in 2015 and as I already mentioned, I have really wanted to play it but haven’t had the chance despite owning a Wii U. This meant I was super excited to play a remastered version on the Nintendo Switch.

Since I have not played the Wii U version, this review will not be a comparison (with one exception we’ll get to) but rather a review from the perspective of a newcomer. I have not completed the story, but have played for approximately 20 hours and am in the middle of Chapter 5 (out of 12 plus the prologue).

I want to get my one comparison between the two versions out of the way before diving too far into this. When I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles X on the Switch I thought it looked really good overall with one aspect that bugged me, so I got curious and pulled up graphical comparison videos just to see how much had changed visually.

I was glad to see that overall, there seemed to be a decent graphical overhaul with improved textures, environments, lighting, and even character models. I do feel like there’s one area that maybe got a downgrade: the hair. In the comparison videos I saw, the Wii U version of the game had hair that moved like hair.

A character would turn their head and hair would glide down their shoulder and fall. Sadly, in the Switch version of Xenoblade Chronicles X the hair appears to have been starched to death to maintain PS2-style looks. I will admit that the hair stylings look much better on the characters I saw including Elma and Lin, but I do think we lost out on having hair feel like hair.

Now we are going to talk about some aspects of the game that I’m less than thrilled about. The core of many of my complaints comes from the simple fact that I was hoping I could casually play the game but there are so many mechanics in play that it does feel like you have to take a solid amount of time just to learn those in order to really feel like you have some idea of how to play.

For instance, let’s look at gear. Each piece of gear has so many stats attached to it and as I collect new gear (via loot, reward, or purchasing) I want to use the new gear but often find that the new gear gives minimal gains in one or two stats while greatly reducing two or three other stats. To a casual novice like myself, that trade-off doesn’t seem very good most of the time.

Why should I sacrifice 40 Melee Damage in order to go up 2 Defense? Why should I use a level 16 Assault Rifle with a higher weapon rating if it reports that my Ranged Damage will drop more than half from my level 3 Assault Rifle? Once again, I’m sure that if I really dived into things then I’d find the answers to these types of questions. I just wish that leveling gear up made more sense to a casual player like me.

In a similar vein, the game feels very grind heavy and slow. There’s a good chance that at least part of this has to do with not fully understanding all the mechanics and therefore having a suboptimal build, team composition, etc. However, the fact is you have to constantly be grinding regardless. You cannot simply play the main story to enjoy the game and grind on occasion.

The story pauses after each chapter until you meet various requirements for the next one such as meeting a certain level, completing certain side quests, or scouting enough of the planet. I’m not a fan of this design in general, but it feels a lot worse in a single-player experience (yes, I know there’s *optional* online play) versus an MMORPG where you typically run into game design like this. The grind of Xenoblade Chronicles X also feels bad because quests seem to give a pittance of experience for completing.

Another problem I have with the game feels very bittersweet. As you travel across Mira (the planet you are on) you’ll find a wide variety of creatures called indigen. These are monsters and I really like the different designs, the aspects of titans, the fact that you can target different appendages, etc.

However, I get annoyed at how they are distributed. I’m not mad about finding certain indigens in certain areas; I’m frustrated that you can find an area of level 12 Simius and then you see a towering level 81 tyrant hanging out marked as an aggressive enemy. Or you could be walking through a field with a bunch of level 8-10 Grex and there are just two level 36 Grex hanging out that are aggressive.

What makes this worse is that many levels have recommended levels but the enemies that you have to deal with are way higher than that level. This (in my opinion) awkward level distribution of enemies has resulted in a great fear of really exploring a lot of the map because you never know when you’ll get ambushed by super high level enemies.

There’s one more aspect that I want to address negatively. The map gets so freaking cluttered! I don’t mind having icons show up to inform me of where quest objectives are or where I can go to start quests, but when a map is littered with icons for starting quests that I am no where even close to meeting the requirements for, it’s frustrating. I’m about level 19 right now and I have markers for quests that require you to be about level 40. I’m nowhere close to starting that quest. I don’t need to know where it starts.

Now I want to switch to more positive comments. Possibly my favorite aspect of Xenoblade Chronicles X has been the soundtrack. I have yet to hear a song that I didn’t think was fantastic. I especially enjoy the battle music which has a very rock flavor to it. I may not appreciate having to do the grind, but at least I get to hear some great music while doing it.

Speaking of fighting, the combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X is pretty fun. Each character is equipped with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon that they will switch between often for different Arts and combos. I really appreciate how the icons will glow when the game wants you to use a certain type of Art for a combo or have a mark to indicate that you’ve met the conditions to get the most out of an Art.

This can help even novices like myself quickly know when to use certain Arts in an effort to at least partially optimize our combat experience. During combat, you also have the Soul Challenge quicktime events where you have to press B at the right time to give your party a boost including healing and increase morale which can make these events occur more often.

Another aspect I want to praise is the Fashion Gear feature. In many games, you have to make the choice of going with armor that looks the best but maybe suffers in terms of stats or go with the best stats from armor that does not look good together (or at all even).

The Fashion Gear feature lets you select a piece of equipment for each armor slot and no matter what gear you equip, the skin will be what you pick under Fashion Gear. Some games let you do this but it’s typically on a per item basis instead of just a blanket setting that you can adjust whenever.

I do wish that the headpiece could be toggled per character via Fashion Gear instead of in the System settings where it’s all or none. I also wish that you could adjust colors for Fashion Gear. Overall though, it’s really fun.

On a semi-connected note, I really appreciate a small detail about the title screen. When you load up the game, you’ll see your character, Elma, and Lin. They will all be wearing whatever gear you have them equipped with in-game.

I just think that’s a fun detail. Also, it is funny to me how the weapons are attached to the character models at all times and it gets even funnier if you have the character wearing a bathing suit and the weapons are still just attached to the character’s shoulders. It’s a little laugh because of how absurd it seems.

Xenoblade Chronicles X does feature online play for up to 32 players to squad up and complete special objectives and hang out. I briefly went online on the public server, but it just wasn’t for me. I’m sure if I had a few friends who also played the game we would have had a lot of fun running around fighting indigens and completing squad missions, but I’m not a big PUG guy and just didn’t care. It also might have been different if I was in the end game and not still trying to complete the story.

I also want to note that due to slow progression in the story I have not been able to experience playing with Skells which is another bummer for me as they were one of the things I was most hyped for in the game. I am a huge sucker for mecha and that was one of the original draws to Xenoblade Chronicles X for me. It’s a shame that it is taking so long to access that part of the game.

My final note is on the story. As I mentioned, I’m between ⅓ and ½ of the way done with the story and it’s fine. I just got to a point where I got more interested in the story, but up until about 15-30 minutes ago, it didn’t feel like anything special.

Earthlings fled Earth when aliens attacked, aliens attacked the ships they escaped on, Earthlings found themselves on a new planet and are now trying to survive while also recovering as much as they can from the ship including survivors.

Along the way, you meet various aliens as well who vary between friend and foe including some who were the ones that shot your ship down and so you start wondering why they’re here too. Like I said, it felt fine but pretty generic until much more recently when some questions started being asked.

The biggest problem is that you watch the trailers like the one above and it looks like it’s going to be this epic battle for survival. I’ve put in more than 20 hours of gameplay and basically everything after the 40-second mark has not been a part of the game. It’s a lot to ask someone to put more than 20 hours into a game before it actually gets into the stuff from the trailers.

At the end of the day, I do enjoy Xenoblade Chronicles X. Not as much as I thought I would and certainly not as much as many others do/will. In my opinion, it feels much more like an MMORPG that can be played offline which is just not what I was wanting from this game.

If you want a very meaty game that you can just spend hours learning intricacies of mechanics and builds and that kind of thing, then Xenoblade Chronicles X is going to be worth a try for you. If you want more of a casual game to be playing, I don’t know that I’d recommend it.

I’ll probably keep playing it for now, but it won’t take much to see me bounce off of it unless something big changes to really suck me in. If you are the target audience, this game is definitely a 9/10. Unfortunately, I feel like it missed the mark for me just enough where the score is lower.