Developer: Monolith Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii U
Genre: RPG
Xenoblade Chronicles X is the second entry in the fresh new series by Monolithsoft, a company previously known for the Xenosaga series. As with the previous entry, Xenoblade X takes a step back from being the story-heavy juggernaut its sibling series was known for in order to let the world and gameplay shine. Undeniably, the world of Xenoblade X, the planet Mira, is the star of the game. With its huge five continent and beautiful vistas, the planet feels alive. Over 160 hours of my life passed by in order to beat the game, but I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. The game really is a journey, but not one without its struggles.
 |
| One of the many beautiful vistas in Xenoblade Chronicles X. |
The Story
Two alien races wage war in an epic space battle, leaving
Earth to be caught in the crossfire. In a last ditch effort to survive,
humanity launches several ships to escape before our planet is destroyed.
Months later, one of those alien races adds insult to injury by shooting down
one of the escaped ships, the White Whale, leaving it to crash on the
mysterious planet of Mira. And that’s pretty much the premise of the game. The
main character, an avatar you create, is struck with amnesia and is discovering
the planet and its occupants at the same pace as yourself.
The story itself is pretty good, but it suffers some major
pacing issues courtesy of the way chapters are structured. In order to advance
the story within the game, sometimes you have to fit certain criteria, such as
exploring a certain percentage of one of the game’s five continents. If you are
a completionist who does every sidequest (and this game feels like 70%
sidequests, 30% main story), reaching the goal for each chapter will come along
with ease, but if you are trying to get through the main plot as quickly as
possible, you’re pretty much forced to slow down. And with each main chapter being
sometimes shorter than an hour, you don’t always get as complex and
philosophical moments as Xenogears,
Xenosaga, and even a bit of the original Xenoblade Chronicles. However, that isn’t to say X has a terrible plot, there are many
intriguing concepts and heart-pounding moments to keep you invested.
Where the main plot fails to build and expand the world, the
sidequests provide depth in huge waves. The game is littered with sidequests,
and most of them fleshes out the world and inhabitants of Mira quite well. A
problem I had with the original Xenoblade
was that a lot of the sidequests were” hunt this, get that” with barely any
exposition. You still have missions like those, but thankfully a lot of them
provide plots, sometimes complex and test your morality, others sometimes goofy
and ridiculous. Just about every alien race that joins New Los Angeles, the
last city of humanity, is fleshed out in great depth through these quests,
though I really wish I got to learn more about L and Celica, who are party
members for crying out loud.
There are a whopping 19 playable characters, including your
created avatar, but only a handful of them get any screen time. For the most
part, Elma and Lin hog the spotlight. Then you have other big players like Lao,
Doug, Irina, and Nagi. A few pop up in the main scenario, such as the whimsical
L, but the rest are cast aside as extras. And it’s a shame because a few of
them cast a very bright light with their personalities. Case in point, I hated
the characters H.B. and Murderess at first, but after playing their affinity
missions (basically sidequests that develop individual characters), the two
have become some of my favorite characters in the game. In a nutshell, the game
has a great cast of characters, but only a few of them hog the stage.
As a Xeno game, I
feel as though it is a love letter to all Xeno
fans, whether they go back as far as Xenogears
or they have only played the previous Xenoblade
games. During character creation, there are several hairstyles you can choose
that look like they were modeled off characters from Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Nods to the previous Xenoblade come
in many forms, from Lin’s Monado hairpins to the occasional mention of legends
from Tatsu. Though I won’t spoil the ending, you can’t witness the final
cutscene without thinking of Xenosaga.
You wouldn’t know it, but the fandoms of Xenogears,
Xenosaga, and Xenoblade can be
quite divided at times, but I feel like this was a game to bring them all
together. For that, I love this game. At the same time, if the next Xenoblade follows up directly to this
one (I hope it does because of the open ending), it really needs to step up its
game in terms of plot.
 |
| Hey there, KOS-MOS. |
The Gameplay
If you have played the previous Xenoblade Chronicles, you will feel right at home. If you’ve played
a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG of any kind, you will probably feel really
comfortable with X. Like with the
previous Xenoblade Chronicles, the
battle system is a real-time affair, relying on cooldowns for Arts, your
special attacks. However, one of the major overhauls for this game is the Soul
Voice system. Instead of a traditional healing system, healing relies mainly on
correctly hitting a quick time event at the right time or choosing the right
Art your party members shout out. There are a few Arts that allow you to heal
the traditional way, but only certain classes have them. Soul Voice only felt
like an inconvenience a few times, mostly when I chose a class that didn’t have
a certain type of Art in it that my party members would always shout for me to
use.
As mentioned, the game provides a variety of different
classes for the player. The good news is that they can be changed at any time.
Throughout the game, I juggled many classes. If you get all the way to the end
of a class branch, you can master the final class and be able to use the
weapons of that class with any other class.
New to the Xenoblade
series is the ability to pilot your own giant robot, called Skells in the
English version. Combat is pretty much the same as on foot, but the ability to
take your fights over deep water or up in the sky adds a whole new dynamic to
the game (and looks really, really cool). However, you don’t get your own Skell
right away. Like getting a car in real life, you first have to wait until you
are eligible and then apply for a license. Your Skell even has insurance. It
took me over 50 hours to get my Skell license, but you could probably get it
maybe 20 hours sooner than I did. I don’t mind the late addition because it
adds variety to the game. Revealing your hand early on would just cause boredom
down the road.
 |
| Every moment with your Skell makes you feel like a proud parent. |
One of the most addicting features of the game is planting
probes all across Mira. Planting probes not only helps provide locations for
quick travel, but it also allows you to mine for precious materials, gain a lot
of money, and also mine for miranium, another currency in itself that can be
used to craft equipment and refuel your Skell. There are different types of probes
you can use to maximize your experience, and I felt like it was an interesting
puzzle to figure out. Granted, planting the probes comes with its dangers, with
enemies three times your level walking around, but it also adds a bit of thrill
to the whole process. Also, I love how mixed the levels are for enemies purely
because it feels organic for this alien world.
The gameplay isn’t perfect, though. The main issue I had
with the game is how you handle your party members. In order to recruit someone
in your party, you have to find them physically within the entirety of New Los
Angeles. Unlike the previous game where you can simply just put them in your
party from a menu, you have to track them down yourself. Also, depending on the
time of day in the game, the character you want to recruit might be somewhere
completely different because of the heart-to-heart system. Heart-to-heart
events are meant to develop your affinity for each character, but it just
becomes a pain at times to find them. Google was my friend.
Also, party members do not level up outside of your party. I
know, other RPGs do that, not a big deal. However, it is a big deal when the
game constantly shoehorns only Elma and Lin into your party, leaving most of
the other party members under levelled, unless of course you do some power
levelling. And with a cast as large as Xenoblade
Chronicles X, you might need to juggle quite a bit if you want everyone in
the same ballpark.
Also, small pet peeve, but several characters in your party
show up in cutscenes with their own Skells, but outside of cutscenes it is
expected for you to buy Skells for them, and Skells are not cheap. Pay for your
own giant robots, guys!
Besides party management, item collection can be one of the
greater frustrations of the game. Collecting items isn’t as easy as going to a
place, picking up the item, sidequest solved. No, you must go to a place,
collect items until you get within the right percentage for the item you want
to drop. Same goes for enemies, though your odds improve if you target the
right portion of an enemy. But this gets more complicated when the game tells
you very little about where to find an item. “Go check Primordia for this item,”
it says, except that Primordia is a huge continent. I found myself Googling a
lot of sidequests throughout the game (the player’s guide was of little help
except for the maps). However, if you play online, this whole procedure is
rectified with Reward Tickets, which you earn from squad missions and by other
means. By earning these Reward Tickets, you can use them to pay to get items,
which feels cheap, but it saves you hours of gameplay time. Unfortunately, you
can’t buy every item in the game
with these tickets, but it is still helpful.
Which leads me to my last complaint: the game tells you very
little. Sure, I don’t want the game to hold my hand for over 100 hours, but I
didn’t find out many key things until I was deep in the game, mostly by
accident. It wasn’t until I hit the 85 hour mark that I found out how to
upgrade Arts and skills. While playing online (which is cool but the number of
missions can be quite limited), I had no idea what BLADE Medals or Tickets were
used for until I Googled them. The game does have a digital manual, but I was
hoping the tutorials that are actually in the game would help more than they
did.
None of these flaws (probably not flaws to some people) were
a game breaker, only small annoyances. I still loved the gameplay, otherwise I
wouldn’t have gone beyond 100 hours.
 |
| Though the online features can feel limited, having the ability to recruit other players' characters into your party is a really cool touch. |
The Sound
One of the highlights of Xenoblade
Chronicles X is the soundtrack. Though it is very polarizing amongst
others, I greatly enjoyed the music. Hiroyuki Sawano throws in many tracks with
vocals, typical of his style. Granted, the tracks with rap can be a bit jarring
for a JRPG, but I grew accustomed to it. However, what I didn’t get accustomed
to was the fact that many key scenes in the story blared the music louder than
the characters talking. It became a jumbled mess when tracks with vocals played
while characters were talking at the same sound level. An option in the settings
to adjust the sound levels would have easily fixed this issue, but there is no
such option for this game. It’s quite a shame.
The voice acting itself is pretty stellar. With a mixture of
American and British voice acting, the characters play off each other well. One
voice I did not expect came from L: he just sounded so goofy to me at first.
However, his voice grew on me because it really suited his personality. “Asscaves”
has been added to my everyday speech.
In Summary
Xenoblade Chronicles X
is a charmer. I fell in love with the vistas of Mira and its inhabitants. The
story left much to be desired, but what was there enticed me to keep going. As
a Xeno fan, the game is a wink and a
nod to all fans, though I hope the next game will be able to combine what made Xenogears and Xenosaga special, a philosophical and deep storyline, along with the addicting gameplay the Xenoblade series has become known for.
8/10
