Xenoblade Chronicles X

Genre: Open-World RPG

Players: 1, Online Content Sharing

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Review:

Xenoblade Chronicles X, released on Wii U in 2015, is still noteworthy in 2022 for being one of the last few remaining major exclusives on the Wii U that as of this writing has not yet been ported to Nintendo Switch. This game is an Open-World RPG that is generally regarded as a spin-off of the mainline Xenoblade franchise because even though it features some elements in common with the other Xenoblade games, it takes place in a world that is entirely unconnected to the other Xenoblade games, and there are some distinct differences in the presentation and core gameplay loop here too.

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Chronicling the Fall of Earth

Perhaps the most noticeable change before the game proper even starts is that unlike those other games that take place in more fantasy-inspired settings with strong sci-fi elements, this game’s much more sci-fi focused story takes place in the future of our Earth, with the prologue explaining that our planet got caught in the crossfire between two warring alien species fighting a massive battle in space. Humanity found itself forced to flee Earth on massive colony ships called Arks to escape the destruction which would ultimately destroy the planet, with only a small fraction of these refugees surviving the exodus from their homeworld.

Survivors on the colony ship The White Whale find this escape only earns them a brief reprieve, as some of the aliens responsible for the destruction evidently tracked them down and attacked their ship, forcing it to crash-land on a planet dubbed Mira. It is on this planet that the remaining survivors of Earth form the colony New Los Angeles out of the habitat portion of the colony ship, and must contend with hostile alien wildlife while trying to scrounge for resources on this alien world, as well as fighting off more of the malevolent alien forces seeking to destroy them.

Players take the role of a user-created character, an amnesiac survivor of these events who is awakened a few months after the crash-landing. Players are soon enlisted in the paramilitary group “BLADE” and tasked with helping to explore the planet, defend against threats, gather resources, and assist with other tasks as needed. Over time as they uncover more of the planet Mira and participate in story missions, the player will come to learn more about the planet Mira, the mysterious aliens that attacked humanity, and the all-important Lifehold that the BLADEs desperately seek and humanity’s fate is tied to.

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Otherworldly Sights and Sounds

The presentation in this game is extremely uneven, presenting visuals and sound that are at once both very good and pretty bad. The world of Mira is wondrous and imaginative, with beautiful alien landscapes that have become one of the signature traits of the Xenoblade series, and bizarre alien creatures that are similarly imaginative and interesting-looking. Even the human-built machines and architecture are delightful to look at here, impressive in scope and in their intricate designs.

Having said all that, the game suffers from pretty atrocious pop-in that constantly reminds you that you’re looking at a game and not a strange new world. There’s also inconsistent framerates that never quite get to be bad, but can be distracting with how often they shift and change. Also, in cutscenes, the camera sometimes seems to shake and shudder in an odd and unsettling way, and I have no idea why this is – I suppose they might have been going for a shakycam “found footage” sorta’ aesthetic, but if that was the case, they failed miserably

There is one other visual element that made this game particularly unsettling to look at, and that’s the strange, expressionless faces of the game’s human characters, with flapping-jaw movements for speech but otherwise odd, artificial-looking faces that seem to try to straddle the line between an anime style and something more realistic, but end up having the appeal of neither.

As for the sound, the game has decent voice acting saddled with often dry and boring dialogue, or dialogue that sounds forced and unnatural. The soundtrack, meanwhile, has some really excellent themes that mix orchestral, militaristic percussion, synthesized sounds, and vocal elements, that combine for a sound that reminds me somewhat of James Cameron’s Avatar (which is fitting, I suppose), with standouts like Theme X, Monox (Title Screen), Uncontrollable, and Section 2. There are also some fun rock-influenced songs for New Los Angeles: NLA (Day) and NLA (Night). It’s an eclectic mix that makes this game sound very unlike much else on the market. The problem? The use of these songs is often odd and inexplicable. Often I found myself being distracted by the music, or have a story scene where the music built to a crescendo when there wasn’t anything especially interesting being said. As a result, these sounds often made things emotionally confusing more than anything.

In the end, I would say the presentation in Xenoblade Chronicles X is not terrible, and it’s usually very interesting, but often seems flawed or scatterbrained in ways that mix together good and bad elements.

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World of Possibilities

Turning to the gameplay, I would say that arguably more than any other game in the Xenoblade franchise, and perhaps more than most Japanese-developed RPGs in general, Xenoblade Chronicles X is extremely ambitious. The epic scope of the story, the massive open world, and a complex collection of game mechanics make this a game that’s not really like anything else out there, not even the other Xenoblade games. The open world plays a large part in this – this truly is a largely seamless open world, where the other Xenoblade games feature massive open areas that are ultimately still segmented.

This open-ended nature ties into the core gameplay as well. After a few initial chapters to establish some common tasks and to give players a feel for what’s out there, they are given the opportunity to approach the game how they please, with different tasks contributing to the progress of different BLADE roles. Players can focus on seeking out sites to deploy probes to reveal more of the map, mining resources, collecting data on local wildlife to empower research and development, defend against or hunt down threats, or even settle disputes between the residents of New Los Angeles.

There’s a good variety to the different task types, and many of them feel useful in their own right – the advantages to uncovering more of the map, gathering resources, and conducting research into new weapons and armor are all pretty self-evident, and players frustrated by difficulties in pursuing one of these tasks can always change gears to focus on another. In fact, the amount of options and variety of goals to pursue can be a bit overwhelming, though I’ll get to this a bit later.

Later in the game, players will even gain access to mechs called “Skells” that open things up further in multiple ways, though you definitely should not go into this game expecting to trounce around in a mech any time soon – it takes an estimated 30 hours before you can get to that point, even though the game taunts you with those mechs right from the start, and they are present throughout the game. Just focus on the on-foot exploration and combat and look at the later mech stuff as a fun element that will open things up later.

There is also a multiplayer element here, sort of. Players will be able to recruit computer-controlled versions of other players’ characters to temporarily join there team, although with the Wii U being… well, the Wii U… at this point, I wonder if these characters are really player-created, or if the game itself generated them. It’s a nice little addition, but ultimately I don’t think it adds much to the largely single-player experience.

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Fight for Humanity

As they explore Mira and complete tasks, players will be surrounded by alien wildlife. Some of these creatures are benign, but others are openly hostile and will engage the player in combat if they see or hear them. Players may also come across the alien forces hunting down humanity. While there is some ability to sneak around out of sight to avoid combat, often areas will be so teeming with hostile forces that there won’t be any way to get through without fighting.

When the player’s party engages hostels in combat, their characters will automatically attack enemies in range, much as happens in other Xenoblade games. Freed from having to select “fight”, players instead must focus on swapping between melee and ranged weapons, positioning their character to target enemies’ front, side, or rear, aim for specific parts, and make use of abilities that each have their own cooldown and need to be recharged after use.

Players can simply spam abilities and grind to get through battles, but there’s a lot of strategy to the combat here for players who have the desire and patience to dig into it – abilities that chain together well, teammates calling out for the player to perform specific actions and rewarding the player when they do, strategies for flanking enemies or dividing their attention. However, that “desire and patience” bit is no small hurdle, either…

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Mech-Sized Issues

Earlier I said that Xenoblade Chronicles X is overwhelming, and this isn’t just because of the massive amount of possibilities this game offers. Xenoblade Chronicles X does an especially poor job explaining its varied and complex mechanics. Gameplay is occasionally interrupted by brief screens introducing a gameplay mechanic, but there’s not really any sort of tutorial, and many gameplay elements are left completely unexplained – the player will either be left feeling lost in an ocean of terminology and inexplicably moving parts they don’t understand, or they will be forced to page through the game’s extensive digital manual to try to figure stuff out, or possibly just look up a wiki.

Many of the game’s commands require players to hold down L or R and press another button to use them, something that’s not initially made clear to players when you start the game. Simply pausing the game requires either going through multiple levels of menus to halt the action on-screen, or freezing the game by hitting the home button. What’s more, some commands can only be done via the Wii U gamepad’s touchscreen, including the use of the map and fast travel. This is a particularly frustrating issue, since this is a vital feature, and there is no good reason this couldn’t have been provided to players in the form of an in-game onscreen menu.

However, there are times when it feels like the game is actively working to hide information from the player, all while flooding the screen with other information that’s not as relevant. For example, let’s say you leveled up and want to know how many points you need to upgrade each of your abilities. The ability menu doesn’t highlight the ones you can upgrade, and it doesn’t show the upgrade cost when you move the cursor over them – you have to start the upgrade process for each of them to see what it will cost. An ability causes a status effect? The game makes you search to see what that effect means.

It’s frustrating, exhausting, and needlessly confusing to play Xenoblade Chronicles X. You have this constant feeling of not completely understanding everything around you, and you can either agonize over trying to look for the information you need and try to remember all of it for the various complex systems at work here… or you can ignore it and just feel like you’re only scratching the surface of the game. Either way, the complexity and the lack of clarity definitely makes it harder to get into this game than it should be.

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Masterpiece or Disaster?

In the end, Xenoblade Chronicles X is unique, original, ambitious… and highly flawed. Some elements of the game seem scatterbrained, poorly-explained, or undercooked. There is a lot going on here, but much of it doesn’t feel cohesive or make much sense. Still, despite how awkward, frustrating, and confusing this game can be, it’s also hard not to admire just how much they attempted to do something special here. And despite its flaws, this is still a highly enjoyable Open World RPG, and it will frequently have you in awe of its scope and variety, even if just as frequently it leaves you scratching your head.

I do hope that one day this game comes to the Nintendo Switch, as it is still something unique and special, arguably more so than any other game in its series. And perhaps such a port could polish up some of this game’s odd flaws in the way that Wii U to Nintendo Switch ports often do. However, until then, this remains one of the most remarkable, unique, noteworthy games on the Wii U, and perhaps its odd and confusing flaws make it a fitting tribute to Nintendo’s failed console.

tl;dr – Xenoblade Chronicles X is an Open-World RPG about the remnants of humanity trying to survive on a distant planet after fleeing an Earth destroyed by a massive battle between alien forces. This is a massive, ambitious game, one with a lot of complex systems at work… and one that makes it far too difficult for players to figure out those systems. This game is at turns impressive and frustrating, surprising and confusing. If you’re an RPG fan with a Wii U, it is a must-have, although it is very, very far from flawless. Still, despite its many flaws, it remains a truly unique and enjoyable game, and one still very much worth playing.

Grade: B

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