This game holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first RPG I ever played that wasn’t Pokemon and though I never finished it 5 years ago, it still left one hell of an impression on me back then. Now that I finally beat it, I’m happy to say that most of what I loved about the game in the past is still just as strong as I remembered it, even if the game’s flaws have become much more apparent to me.

For starters, this story is fantastic. I love how high-stakes the beginning is with how weak and outnumbered the cast feels compared to the Mechon. I love how the game cleverly uses Shulk’s visions to foreshadow future events. I love how the story explores the nature of warfare. I love the art direction, setting, and how grand the game feels. I just love it. I think it’s very well paced too since after every large area you’re rewarded with a climactic cutscene and the story as a whole is so thrilling that I was never really bored at any point. The thing that really elevates the story, and the game as a whole would be the OST. As far as I’m concerned, this is Yoko Shimomura’s best work. The soundtrack injects so much life into the landscapes and brings so much emotion to the cutscenes that this is easily the strongest aspect of the game for me.

The only part of the story I was underwhelmed by were the characters. They’re likeable and very well voice acted but there’s not a lot to them so I never really got invested. Most of them develop as the game goes along but I’d be lying if I said I found any of it to be very memorable. The game does have some compelling character moments in the form of Heart-to-Hearts, but the problem is that most of them take an insanely long time to be unlocked so by the time you get most of them, the game is almost over.

As for gameplay, I initially found it to feel very samey and it takes a while to open up, but once you get more party members and can experiment with different party setups, it becomes quite fun. The game also gets bonus points for letting you remove the MC from your party without it being a death wish. The only thing that I’m not fond of are the visions you see in combat. They’re a really cool concept but the fact you can’t skip them really hurts the pacing of battles, and you’re basically spammed with them whenever you fight a stronger enemy which just gets annoying.

Then there’s the side content which I initially completely neglected when I first played the game. This time around I tried doing as much of it as possible but I honestly regret it because the game really goes for quantity over quality with about 90% of sidequests being the same type of kill or fetch quest. Majority of these quests don’t even give you EXP, only money which you get more than enough of by just playing the game and selling outdated equipment which makes doing them feel like a complete waste of time. The Colony 6 reconstruction stuff was worthwhile though and there’s probably some better side content that I’m not aware of, but I’m still let down by this aspect of the game overall.

Heading into Xenoblade again, I was worried that my fond memories of the game could just be attributed to nostalgia, but no, this game is genuinely great and I'm happy to have finally beaten it after all these years.