It’s crazy to think about how far Xenoblade has come since Operation Rainfall led the original title to release in the West as the Nintendo Wii was in its death throes. It’s impossible to say if the series would’ve continued on without the success it found outside of Japan, but here we are almost 15 years later with a complete trilogy, what’s best described as a standalone title, and now two remasters. The final piece of the puzzle to completing the series on Switch, is 2015’s Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Originally released on the Wii U, X had a divisive reception thanks to how drastically it departed from what was loved so much about the original Xenoblade Chronicles. Despite this, it remains one of the Wii U’s best reviewed titles, and has become something of a cult classic among fans of the series. After 10 years, X has finally been freed of the chains that bound it to the Wii U, with new content, quality of life inclusions, and other adjustments that improve the whole experience.
In the year 2054, humanity is caught in the crossfire between two warring alien races. In a desperate attempt to flee the planet before its total annihilation, interstellar arks are constructed to ferry earth’s population to a new world. Very few arks managed to get away unscathed, though, including the all important White Whale. Two years after launch, the White Whale is attacked and transported to the unknown planet Mira.
We play as a survivor of the White Whale crash, a custom character who’s discovered in stasis sometime after humanity has established Mira as a base of operations. Since landing on Mira, the surviving humans have founded NLA or New Los Angeles – a city of sorts that serves as a hub for all human activity on Mira. People go about their daily lives here, hoping to find some sense of normalcy amidst the chaos.
Even though everything seems to be coming along in NLA, the clock is ticking. When the White Whale originally crashed, a device called the Lifehold was separated from the ship scattering lifepods containing colonists across Mira. In order to ensure the survival of the human race, the Lifehold must be located before it runs out of power and ceases to sustain the life within it.
Despite suffering from amnesia, our protagonist joins BLADE – a military body dedicated to securing the Lifehold and protecting NLA from the many threats of Mira. It’s alongside Elma, Lin, other key members of BLADE, and even alien races that you’ll race across Mira to recover the Lifehold before the lights go out.
It’s a story that’s far less interested in its overarching narrative in comparison to its characters and themes. There are some surprising revelations and great plot moments along the core progression that keep things engaging, but it never quite reaches the heights as other Xenoblade games. Uneven pacing and game structure are the core reasons for this, pulling you away from the golden path and asking you to explore Mira instead.
That’s where Xenoblade Chronicles X’s narrative strengths lie. These are complex and layered characters with unique motivations and personalities. Each is dealing with the impending extinction of the human race, grappling with what it means to be alive, and fighting for the survival of the human race even when it seems futile. Some of this is explored in the main story, but the real meat of it lies in Affinity Missions.
These quests lie somewhere between between the main story chapters and actual side missions in scope. Complete with cutscenes and fully voiced dialogue, they often relate to the numerous plights that the citizens of NLA face on Mira. They vary wildly in tone and objective, but each is a meaningful exploration of what it means to be human and how people deal with the idea of impending extinction.
They also greatly expand the key supporting cast of Xenoblade Chronicles X. Characters like Elma, Lin, Irina, Gwin, and Doug will chime in and share their opinions on certain situations. Their dialogue helps to inform the decisions you make as you grow your relationships with them. It goes a long way to making their big main story moments hit harder, and also tends to unlock new party members and Arts for you to use in exploration and combat.
Speaking of which, exploration makes up a good chunk of what you’ll be doing in Xenoblade Chronicles X. As Mira is a largely uncharted planet, you’ll spend your time with BLADE mapping out regions of the planet, planting probes to collect data and resources, and dealing with problematic monsters as you survey Mira’s environments.
It sounds simple but it’s ridiculously morish to watch your survey rate go up as you uncover more of Mira. It also directly ties into progression in the way that it rewards you with resources and probe locations to mine more Miranium.
This exploration also ties into your core progression pretty nicely. Most main missions will have pre-requisites before you take them on, from getting your survey rate high enough in certain areas to completing certain Affinity Missions or Side Missions. It’s a neat way to push you towards spending time in Mira’s overworld and doesn’t feel egregious because you get so much out of the time you spend surveying.
The other side of the coin is combat. While it’s taken many different forms across Xenoblade’s myriad entries, X’s is most similar to what Monolith created in the original Xenoblade Chronicles. It’s a real time combat system where you manoeuvre around the battlefield while auto-attacking and making use of Arts to deal damage, heal, and apply buffs/de-buffs in combat. There are a couple of key differences in X, though.
First is that Xenoblade Chronicles X has a fully-fledged class system. Where other games enforce certain class archetypes depending on the character or equipment, X gives you full control over what kind of class your character steps into. Each one has their own melee and ranged weapon class that they specialise in, with unique Arts and Skills that lean into the kind of playstyles they’re built around.
There’s a lot of diversity on offer here, from the debilitating Mastermind to the long range Astral Crusader. Part of succeeding in Xenoblade Chronicles X’s hardest fights is creating a proper team composition with the numerous party members you’ll unlock during your journey. While the protagonist can freely move between classes, party members are locked to the classes they come with.
Once you’ve hummed and hawed over who and what to take into the field with you, combat will feel instantly familiar to those who’ve played Xenoblade Chronicles. One key omission is the lack of Chain Attacks, replaced instead with Overdrive. Overdrive significantly reduces Art cooldowns while also allowing you to combo Art colours to certain effects, allowing you to overwhelm combatants if you’ve the resources to spend.
Soul Voices are another neat aspect of X’s combat. These are very brief windows that have party members yelling out for support, prompting you to use a specific colour Art. If successful, you’ll restore some health and boost team morale, further increasing the odds of a Soul Voice popping up. One key change in the Definitive Edition, is that Arts can be used while on cooldown if you have Quick Cooldown charges available, allowing you to activate Soul Voices even if all your Arts are on cooldown.
It’s by no means the flashiest combat system, but it’s strategically satisfying and offers lots of room for experimentation with different Arts, Skills, weapons, and armour to combine. As usual, you need to make sure you pick your fights in Mira’s overworld, as creatures wildly above your current power level roam the lands. It’s initially quite tense exploring Mira knowing this, especially when you take in the sheer scale of the world here.
All of that changes when you unlock the ability to pilot Skells. These enormous mechanical war machines mark a distinct turning point in your progression through Xenoblade Chronicles X. Creatures that once stood above you are dwarfed by the imposing stature of the Skells, and the colossal Tyrant monsters at the top of the food chain don’t seem so insurmountable anymore.
It’s an incredible change in dynamic, one that leads you to more discoveries and customisation as you buy new Skells and outfit them with weapons that would bring a tear to the eye of even the most diehard Gundam fan. Their sheer power does mean the midgame takes a bit of a dip in difficulty for a couple of chapters, making for an inconsistent difficulty curve. It does pick up again by the endgame, particularly in the new epilogue chapter included in the Definitive Edition.
Even though you become something of a powerhouse after creating your first Skell, you still need to be careful with it in the overworld. These hulks are very, very expensive, and losing them in battle will require them to be towed back to NLA for repairs. If you pull off a successful quick time event, this is free of charge, but failing will use an Insurance Ticket. Once you run out of tickets, you need to fork out to get your Skell functioning again.
It’s a great system that ensures Mira never really loses the tension that comes with exploring it. You still need to be cautious, as stepping foot into the wrong zone with powerful enemies can be a costly mistake. You also need to manage your fuel as you explore, as using Arts and flying around will consume Skell fuel. You can re-fuel with Miranium you mine from Mira, but failing to manage it properly can leave you in sticky situations.
While other Xenoblade games have wowed with their skyboxes and world size, I don’t think any of them really come close to the achievement that is Mira. This world feels impossibly large for a Wii U game, it’s a bit mindboggling. There’s so much to see and do, so much variation in its biomes and environments. NLA itself is quite large but relative to the rest of the world, it’s but a speck on the map. It creates that trademark sense of awe that Xenoblade is known for in its world design, but feels even more emphasised in X.
It all looks so much better on the Switch as well, especially in Docked mode. The redesigned user interface also feels much more readable and feels better suited to the kind of game that Xenoblade Chronicles X is. Characters also look so much better than their Wii U counterparts, bringing them more inline with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition’s level of quality. As usual, the original soundtrack is absolutely fantastic outside of the NLA theme which returns from the Wii U version.
In the never ending war over which Xenoblade Chronicles game is the best, Xenoblade Chronicles X fans have just been given more ammunition. X’s differences have always been its strengths, many of which have been bolstered in this iteration of the game. It continues to be one of the most unique entries in the franchise and newer fans who’ve yet to explore the far reaches of Mira would be missing out by not jumping into the cockpit of a Skell.
