Alright, so Xenoblade Chronicles, where do I even start? What a journey and an absolute joy to play through. Throughout my damn near 100 hours of playtime I was never bored.
First let's start with the setting and world because it's so unique, creative and one of my fave things about the game. In the beginning there was nothing but endless ocean until two titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis came into existence and battled each other until nothing but their frozen corpses remained. In the eons following their battle they became home to multiple forms of life. The Bionis is home to organic life most notably the humanoid Homs race, but also the furry Nopon who kinda remind me of Ewoks from Star Wars and the avian High Entia who live for centuries much like Elves. While the Mechonis is home to a machine race known as Mechon. The Homs of the Bionis and the machines of the Mechonis are locked in a perpetual war with each other, much like the two titans were eons ago.
Now that we've established the setting we can get into the story (Relatively spoiler free of course) the story starts out with our hero the 18 year-old Homs scientist Shulk tasked with learning the secrets of the Monado, legend has it the sword was wielded by the very Bionis itself and the sword could be a major key to the Homs' effort in fighting the Mechon. Well of course nothing can ever be that simple in a J-RPG, right? During a Mechon attack on Shulk's colony, Shulk discovers he has the ability to wield the Monado without suffering from the side effects past hero of the Homs Dunban felt which gave him his arm injury. When Shulk wields the Monado it also starts showing him visions of the future, but even Shulk's visions can't prevent a tragedy that occurs, it's this tragedy which spurs Shulk to go out on a quest for vengeance against the Mechon alongside his best friend Reyn with others joining as the game progresses.
Oh yeah and that's just the first couple chapters of the game. If that doesn't hook you I don't know what will. What starts out as a simple journey of revenge evolves into so much more than you could ever imagine, the sheer scope of the plot is insane by the end of the game, but the twists and turns are foreshadowed well and everything makes sense when it all finally comes together and it's one hell of a ride getting to that point.
Story is great and all, but what would a J-RPG be without a great cast of characters? Well Xenoblade is no exception. I loved every main character in the game, from your immediate party members to the antagonists and even side characters, they all get plenty of time to shine with reasonable well fleshed out depth and realistic personalities which slowly develop more as the game progresses. Shulk himself is far from your typical J-RPG protagonist. It's nice having a main character who is more smart and scientific for once and not the least bit naive or dense. Reyn is more the hardheaded and dense one who wants to solve things by just rushing in and it makes a good juxtaposition to Shulk's personality, especially in the early parts of the game when it's just those two in the party. Sharla is your caring, passionate, bleeding heart Tifa type character, Dunban is the calm and collected badass mentor type, Melia is the elegant and more reserved one at first due to her upbringing but slowly opens up and begins to view every one as true friends and Riki is your comedic relief goofball, but also has some wisdom to him and is a much deeper character than you'd think. A well rounded cast with great synergy.
So that's all great and all, but this is a game, storytelling and characters mean very little of the game itself isn't fun, so how is the gameplay? Well once again Xenoblade excels in this field as well (with only a couple of problems) let's start with the combat first. The combat is very different for a J-RPG, it's not turn-based, but instead an auto battle style with a hotbar you assign skills to that have cooldowns, think something similar to Dragon Age Origins or Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. A very cool feature about this battle system though is during the auto attacks you can move the characters you're currently controlling around (You can only control one character at a time and you have to chose before getting into a fight by making them the party leader) the significance of being able to move your character comes from special skills you have which deal more damage if you are attacking from the side or behind, so a good strategy is to have one character draw aggro (Via commands you give them despite not being able to control them) and then have your character go in for that critical side or back attack. It's a really cool system with lots of strategy involved and as previously mentioned, very unique for a J-RPG. I also love the MMO like glam system to where once you find a piece of armor or weapon you unlock the cosmetic piece for it and can dress your characters with it even while wearing something else with better stats.
Combat is marvelous, but that's only one half of the gameplay. What about everything else? Well exploration is incredible too, so we'll talk about that now. Very few games have given me the same feeling of adventure as Xenoblade Chronicles did. I was always looking forward to entering a new area and seeing that first panoramic view of it with the title card text popping up and saying where I was because the world and level design is just so colorful, beautiful and creative which made exploring it a constant joy. I also love how the map isn't charted and you have to go to a location or landmark first to chart it, this gave me major Ys VIII vibes (Or I should say Ys VIII technically gives me Xenoblade vibes now since Xenoblade came first) there's plenty of secret areas to uncover if you wander of the beaten path which may provide you with some collectible items or a challenging optional boss, so there's always an incentive to explore and you're rewarded for it when you do, truly instilling that sense of adventure.
As I mentioned briefly above the level design is just phenomenal, this is where the day and night cycle is utilized the best too since so many levels look completely different at night, from the vast green plains of the Bionis' Leg to the ethereal glow of the mystical Satorl Marsh or the gorgeous meteor showers of Eryth Sea at night or the whimsical winter wonderland of Valak Mountain there's just so much creativity and beauty to awe at in every inch of the world in Xenoblade and it's easily the most graphically impressive looking Switch game I've played to date.
The music is just as good as you'd expect from a game that excels in almost every single aspect and with two legendary composers like Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger fame and Yoko Shimomura of Kingdom Hearts fame, it's no surprise the compositions are straight bangers, from the bombastic orchestral pieces to the rocking metal laced battle themes, Xenoblade has it all and they're composed as masterfully as one might expect.
So at this point you might be thinking "Damn Xenoblade Chronicles sounds absolutely amazing, is this game perfect or what?" and you would be half right. Yes, it is amazing, but no it is not perfect. I've had nothing but glowing reception up to this point, but I've been saving this for last. My two major problems I have with the game which keep it from being a truly perfect game.
1) The side quests. They're very mindless and just feel like a massive waste of time to me. I did hundreds of them and they just bleed together with almost nothing memorable about them. Your typical MMO fetch quests. Get X item for me, kill X amount of this enemy etc. There were a handful that stood out, especially near the end game, but overall they just felt like padding and to make matters worse they feel almost endless, constantly popping up at all times of the day and night. If I wouldn't have done those I probably could've finished the game a good 30 hours sooner and the pacing would've felt better too. The actual pacing of the story is great, but doing hours of side quests in between chapters definitely ruins that pacing.
2) The affinity system, I get what they're trying to do, but it's executed very poorly. This is the single worst mechanic of the game and is insanely tedious. It's a Fire Emblem like mechanic where as your party members battle more with each other they grow closer, sounds cool, but the problem lies in the bonding events known as "Heart to Hearts" everyone in your party has multiple events with each other and they have to be at certain affinity to see these events spread throughout the world, these events are very crucial to character development and learning more about character's personalities so hiding them behind a wall like that is just a really horrible idea. It's extremely tedious to raise affinity with all your party members without using an exploit and would require hours of grinding with all different party combinations. It's not worth it. By the end of the game just look up the events you're missing up on YouTube or something because that is worth it.
If that wasn't bad enough the Affinity system also plagues the NPCs of every town and effects what side quests are available to you. You have to get every town to 5 star Affinity to unlock certain quests that will give certain characters access to more skills and abilities, so you have to look up a guide and do the tedious act of talking to NPCs at all times of the day and night to raise affinity with your towns and a lot of these NPCs aren't even named so it just feels very pointless to me and I gave up halfway through it because it was the only time while playing the game I just wasn't having fun.
With all that said I can easily look past these two flaws because I love everything else about the game. Xenoblade Chronicles tells a compelling story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you wanting more, has a very unique setting with a likeable fleshed out cast of characters, with engaging combat, adventurous exploration, creative level design, gorgeous graphics and masterfully composed music. It's a journey that I thoroughly enjoyed for my almost 100 hours of gameplay, that will stick with me for years to come and I can't recommend it enough to J-RPG fans and even just those who are looking for a marvelous narrative to sink their teeth into.
First let's start with the setting and world because it's so unique, creative and one of my fave things about the game. In the beginning there was nothing but endless ocean until two titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis came into existence and battled each other until nothing but their frozen corpses remained. In the eons following their battle they became home to multiple forms of life. The Bionis is home to organic life most notably the humanoid Homs race, but also the furry Nopon who kinda remind me of Ewoks from Star Wars and the avian High Entia who live for centuries much like Elves. While the Mechonis is home to a machine race known as Mechon. The Homs of the Bionis and the machines of the Mechonis are locked in a perpetual war with each other, much like the two titans were eons ago.
Now that we've established the setting we can get into the story (Relatively spoiler free of course) the story starts out with our hero the 18 year-old Homs scientist Shulk tasked with learning the secrets of the Monado, legend has it the sword was wielded by the very Bionis itself and the sword could be a major key to the Homs' effort in fighting the Mechon. Well of course nothing can ever be that simple in a J-RPG, right? During a Mechon attack on Shulk's colony, Shulk discovers he has the ability to wield the Monado without suffering from the side effects past hero of the Homs Dunban felt which gave him his arm injury. When Shulk wields the Monado it also starts showing him visions of the future, but even Shulk's visions can't prevent a tragedy that occurs, it's this tragedy which spurs Shulk to go out on a quest for vengeance against the Mechon alongside his best friend Reyn with others joining as the game progresses.
Oh yeah and that's just the first couple chapters of the game. If that doesn't hook you I don't know what will. What starts out as a simple journey of revenge evolves into so much more than you could ever imagine, the sheer scope of the plot is insane by the end of the game, but the twists and turns are foreshadowed well and everything makes sense when it all finally comes together and it's one hell of a ride getting to that point.
Story is great and all, but what would a J-RPG be without a great cast of characters? Well Xenoblade is no exception. I loved every main character in the game, from your immediate party members to the antagonists and even side characters, they all get plenty of time to shine with reasonable well fleshed out depth and realistic personalities which slowly develop more as the game progresses. Shulk himself is far from your typical J-RPG protagonist. It's nice having a main character who is more smart and scientific for once and not the least bit naive or dense. Reyn is more the hardheaded and dense one who wants to solve things by just rushing in and it makes a good juxtaposition to Shulk's personality, especially in the early parts of the game when it's just those two in the party. Sharla is your caring, passionate, bleeding heart Tifa type character, Dunban is the calm and collected badass mentor type, Melia is the elegant and more reserved one at first due to her upbringing but slowly opens up and begins to view every one as true friends and Riki is your comedic relief goofball, but also has some wisdom to him and is a much deeper character than you'd think. A well rounded cast with great synergy.
So that's all great and all, but this is a game, storytelling and characters mean very little of the game itself isn't fun, so how is the gameplay? Well once again Xenoblade excels in this field as well (with only a couple of problems) let's start with the combat first. The combat is very different for a J-RPG, it's not turn-based, but instead an auto battle style with a hotbar you assign skills to that have cooldowns, think something similar to Dragon Age Origins or Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. A very cool feature about this battle system though is during the auto attacks you can move the characters you're currently controlling around (You can only control one character at a time and you have to chose before getting into a fight by making them the party leader) the significance of being able to move your character comes from special skills you have which deal more damage if you are attacking from the side or behind, so a good strategy is to have one character draw aggro (Via commands you give them despite not being able to control them) and then have your character go in for that critical side or back attack. It's a really cool system with lots of strategy involved and as previously mentioned, very unique for a J-RPG. I also love the MMO like glam system to where once you find a piece of armor or weapon you unlock the cosmetic piece for it and can dress your characters with it even while wearing something else with better stats.
Combat is marvelous, but that's only one half of the gameplay. What about everything else? Well exploration is incredible too, so we'll talk about that now. Very few games have given me the same feeling of adventure as Xenoblade Chronicles did. I was always looking forward to entering a new area and seeing that first panoramic view of it with the title card text popping up and saying where I was because the world and level design is just so colorful, beautiful and creative which made exploring it a constant joy. I also love how the map isn't charted and you have to go to a location or landmark first to chart it, this gave me major Ys VIII vibes (Or I should say Ys VIII technically gives me Xenoblade vibes now since Xenoblade came first) there's plenty of secret areas to uncover if you wander of the beaten path which may provide you with some collectible items or a challenging optional boss, so there's always an incentive to explore and you're rewarded for it when you do, truly instilling that sense of adventure.
As I mentioned briefly above the level design is just phenomenal, this is where the day and night cycle is utilized the best too since so many levels look completely different at night, from the vast green plains of the Bionis' Leg to the ethereal glow of the mystical Satorl Marsh or the gorgeous meteor showers of Eryth Sea at night or the whimsical winter wonderland of Valak Mountain there's just so much creativity and beauty to awe at in every inch of the world in Xenoblade and it's easily the most graphically impressive looking Switch game I've played to date.
The music is just as good as you'd expect from a game that excels in almost every single aspect and with two legendary composers like Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger fame and Yoko Shimomura of Kingdom Hearts fame, it's no surprise the compositions are straight bangers, from the bombastic orchestral pieces to the rocking metal laced battle themes, Xenoblade has it all and they're composed as masterfully as one might expect.
So at this point you might be thinking "Damn Xenoblade Chronicles sounds absolutely amazing, is this game perfect or what?" and you would be half right. Yes, it is amazing, but no it is not perfect. I've had nothing but glowing reception up to this point, but I've been saving this for last. My two major problems I have with the game which keep it from being a truly perfect game.
1) The side quests. They're very mindless and just feel like a massive waste of time to me. I did hundreds of them and they just bleed together with almost nothing memorable about them. Your typical MMO fetch quests. Get X item for me, kill X amount of this enemy etc. There were a handful that stood out, especially near the end game, but overall they just felt like padding and to make matters worse they feel almost endless, constantly popping up at all times of the day and night. If I wouldn't have done those I probably could've finished the game a good 30 hours sooner and the pacing would've felt better too. The actual pacing of the story is great, but doing hours of side quests in between chapters definitely ruins that pacing.
2) The affinity system, I get what they're trying to do, but it's executed very poorly. This is the single worst mechanic of the game and is insanely tedious. It's a Fire Emblem like mechanic where as your party members battle more with each other they grow closer, sounds cool, but the problem lies in the bonding events known as "Heart to Hearts" everyone in your party has multiple events with each other and they have to be at certain affinity to see these events spread throughout the world, these events are very crucial to character development and learning more about character's personalities so hiding them behind a wall like that is just a really horrible idea. It's extremely tedious to raise affinity with all your party members without using an exploit and would require hours of grinding with all different party combinations. It's not worth it. By the end of the game just look up the events you're missing up on YouTube or something because that is worth it.
If that wasn't bad enough the Affinity system also plagues the NPCs of every town and effects what side quests are available to you. You have to get every town to 5 star Affinity to unlock certain quests that will give certain characters access to more skills and abilities, so you have to look up a guide and do the tedious act of talking to NPCs at all times of the day and night to raise affinity with your towns and a lot of these NPCs aren't even named so it just feels very pointless to me and I gave up halfway through it because it was the only time while playing the game I just wasn't having fun.
With all that said I can easily look past these two flaws because I love everything else about the game. Xenoblade Chronicles tells a compelling story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you wanting more, has a very unique setting with a likeable fleshed out cast of characters, with engaging combat, adventurous exploration, creative level design, gorgeous graphics and masterfully composed music. It's a journey that I thoroughly enjoyed for my almost 100 hours of gameplay, that will stick with me for years to come and I can't recommend it enough to J-RPG fans and even just those who are looking for a marvelous narrative to sink their teeth into.