Structure is Xenoblade’s strongest attribute - narrative and geographical. So much of my experience is driven by my anticipation to see a new area and experience its music. It’s a little hard to go back to the first game and lose the ability to switch characters during combat like in 3, but there is an intentional puzzle-like satisfaction in making your ideal party and prioritizing who needs the benefit of your control. It seems intentional for sure. Melia and Shulk aren’t super reliable unless directly controlled, but the flow of combat totally shifts depending on your party. I particularly love to play as sharla and choose when to attempt the headshot art on enemies, usually partnering her with characters who can constantly topple and daze enemies. It’s hard to not want to play as shulk for the whole game though, but there is a rewarding feeling to mixing it up. I try and prioritize different members every time I play and I’m always surprised at how many new strategies and combos I previously neglected.

Xenoblade’s strongest trick for me is the unveiling of new sights. Walking through a tight canyon with no music, suddenly approaching a wide open zone as its music kicks in. Climbing a structure for several minutes and looking down to see how small the world below you looks. The scope is so effective, especially for the hardware it was constructed on. Monolith Soft are experts at making the world a strong characteristic of the game.

This is my fourth time beating this game I think. I still hold it precious and it is one of my all time favorites, but the flaws are very evident to me and are harder to ignore. Xenoblade 3 is one of the best games when it comes to giving every character a strong purpose, backstory, and interactions with other party members. Nobody really feels neglected. Xenoblade 1 certainly favors a couple of characters. Fiora especially comes across as incredibly shallow. There’s definitely a problem with all the female character’s motives being driven by their assigned male counterparts. It’s worst for fiora, but I still like all of them. Melia certainly has a lot more going on with her own people and Sharla has several moments of agency. The game’s story is very focused on our connections to other people, so I don’t think my previous critique is immune to rebuttal. You can say Shulk’s whole character revolves around Fiora, but it simply comes down to the writing, not the overall concept of the characters. The presentation of their personal motives and desires lack a good balance. That being said, I love every party member. Individually there’s criticisms to be had, but as a collective group and what they stand for is fantastic.

Xenoblade 3 is my favorite of the trilogy, but 1 still has a few things that were never surpassed for me personally. The idea of two civilizations living on two dormant gods is incredibly creative and makes for a wild map to explore. The OST still contains my favorite songs in the series, though not my much considering the ridiculous quality of the trilogy’s entire OST. Xenoblade doesn’t have the best towns in the genre at all, but 1’s towns felt the most fleshed out to me, as little as there were. Helping reconstruct colony 6 is cool. The starting colony has a wonderfuly cozy design and geography. The Nopon village has a cool vertical design that feels completely distinct from the colonies you visit. 3 may be my favorite, but it’s mostly colonies that look the same and The City. I do wish xenoblade focused on fun towns to hang out in.

Side quests are also a point of contention for people but I don’t mind them being excuses for quick EXP or items. My only problem is how one NPC will give you 7 quests back to back and you have to talk to them multiple times. At a certain point I stop collecting side quests and to this day I can’t think of one that had an interesting narrative hook. I probably missed out on some good stuff, but they don’t encourage keeping up with them.

I’ve criticized the game a lot, but my 5 star rating still holds strong. It’s always going to be one of my favorite games. Its release on the Wii got me back into JRPGs at the time after being away from the genre for a good chunk of time. I’m so glad this became a whole series with Nintendo and I love the entire trilogy. There’s something special about Monolith Soft’s approach to world design. Nobody does it like them. The only game to make me think “this reminds me of xenoblade” was my recent experience with FF7: Rebirth.

Huge games usually need to find exploring its map not boring; whether it’s a mount or vehicle. I’m surprised no xenoblade game has tried to introduce its own version of a chocobo (let’s ignore the mechs in X for now). I would love a fun way to get around faster, but not once have I dreaded making my way through these worlds on foot. They’re easy to hang out in and get into battles every couple minutes. Encountering a giant gorilla named “Delirious Daniel” that is level 99 is a great aspect of these worlds too. It doesn’t scale with you, yet somehow it’s paced so perfectly that you never feel too ahead of the curve or too far behind. The clockwork-like design it must take to pace the games out like that is intimidating to think about. These designers are legends, I can’t wait for Xenoblade 4.
(Also please re release X. Thank you)

A WARM HUG
Shulk in smash bros. I’m like, “ok cool. a man who can see the future and tells his attacks in an extremely British voice, that’s nice.” Pyra and Mythra get added to smash. I’m like, “ok cool. Two anime wifus as one person, that’s cool. I want to learn more about them.” I start watching a walkthrough of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 because I didn’t have $60 for the game. I start talking about how I’m interested in the game and my friend buys me Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch for my birthday and I drop the walkthrough. I start playing the game, I’m like, “ok cool. I auto attack and choose special arts and abilities when I’m in position. I don’t think I like this.” I drop the game. 2 Years later, I pick the game back up again and totally ate it up. Folks, this game was so good, I can not fathom how much I liked this game.
Let me get into it.

The combat is great. I originally put the game down because I was avoiding all the enemies because I didn’t want to waste time. I wasn’t leveling up and when I went to fight my first “boss” I got rocked. I didn’t like it. All I wanted to do was enjoy a story, not fight some machines. When I came back to it, I switched on casual mode and had a blast. It was smooth and fluid, fun and satisfying. I was a master at it, I no one could touch me. The whole “break, topple, and daze” system is really the bread and butter of the combat system. The UI is presided in a very clear and concise way for satisfying play and I was never really confused on what to do or where to go. The only couple of gripes I had with the battle system is that some enemies and bosses were immune to the “break, topple and daze” thing. Don’t do that, it was just annoying, not changing. And the other was that sometimes I would inflict break on a boss, and my other party members didn’t get the memo. The party member UI is a little bit stupid but that’s AOK!

Story (no spoilers)
I cannot believe this game. How can we have the most touching scene in a video with the stupidest British voices ever and it still work? How? All jokes aside, this game warmed my heart is much and I have no question about it. One of the reasons I love “The World Ends With You” so much is because it had hard religious undertones and I’m a sucker for that. So it’s no surprise when they start throwing around words like Apocrypha and gods, I was all in. Every character motivation felt real and genuine and I loved every character. The game also plays on your expectations a bit but throws you for a loop. The finale of this game was standing ovation, 10/10 blown away. You all know what I’m talking about, but the narrative chops that are introduced in the final 10 minutes of the game is wild. The game paced so expertly and perfectly, I just want to give this game a warm hug. That’s what this game is, a warm hug. When the final song played, I actually got emotional. I have never been prouder in a cast of characters than this game. 👏 👏 👏