Xenoblade Chronicles X Reviews
Despite never reaching its true potential Xenoblade Chronicles X is still an amazing gaming accomplishment. No other game can provide such a huge world to explore, and one that is filled with variety throughout. If you're willing to embark on the lengthy quest that can easily eat up over 100 hours, and can put up with some technical shortcomings, then Xenoblade Chronicles X is worth picking up. Just be ready to grind.
One of the biggest games you'll ever play.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is wonderful addition to Nintendo's impressive roster for the Wii U. It takes the well-oiled RPG mechanics of its predecessor and delivers a vast and alien world so meticulously and passionately designed that it's easy and fun to get lost inside of it. There are some grindy fetch quests and tiresome elements to the soundtrack, but these flaws become mere background noise once you begin exploring the incredibly immersive world of Mira that serves as the setting. It's a rewarding gaming experience that should not be missed by any RPG fans, or by people looking for a good reason to own a Wii U.
A content-rich sci-fi adventure that diverges from its predecessor in unexpected but delightful ways.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a poorly explained, but surprisingly addicting adventure with engaging combat, stunning visuals, and a fantastic soundtrack.
An accessible ambassador for its genre, Xenoblade Chronicles X makes good choices building a world, but stumbles on writing you a guidebook to it.
For fans of Xenoblade, this is what we've waited for.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a masterclass of design that we don't often see in the JRPG genre, and easily stands besides the few heavyweights we've seen so far this generation. Once you get over the hump and understand its systems, X offers a simply huge world to seamlessly explore.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a boundless exhibition of the relationship between scale and structure, and its myriad of frenzied ideas are willed into cohesion only by the congruence of its supporting systems. Xenoblade Chronicles X may be obsessed with scale (and proudly so), but it doesn't leave the player feeling consumed by it.
Give it the chance it needs and your gaming year will be made.
An outstanding achievement but not without flaws
Massive open-world JRPG with astounding exploration but some pacing and storyline issues.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is the ultimate game about exploring and conquering a hostile alien planet. Its design hitches, though occasionally annoying, simply cannot take away from the triumph that is the planet Mira and its fantastic creatures. There are literally hundreds of hours of potential gameplay here, but even if you don't tackle everything, getting to know Mira is exciting, full of breathtaking surprises, and downright fun. If you find the patience to get over its learning curve, Xenoblade Chronicles X will reward that patience with a wealth of memorable experiences.
A new direction for the series manages to lose what made the original so special.
Xenoblade Chronicles X has a hard time providing a tale suitable for the massive world and complex systems that occupy it, but even the most fairweather RPG fans will need little convincing to pick up this Japanese addition to the open-world genre.
I don't usually recommend buying a console for a video game, and when I do, the core game has to be so stellar, so addicting, that the thought of not having the console to play it would drive you mad. I didn't say that for Rise of the Tomb Raider. I am, however, saying it for Xenoblade Chronicles X.
The game used in this review was a physical copy purchased by the reviewer.
An old employment credo stands firm with a game like Xenoblade Chronicles X – the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. The question is if you're ready to endure that trial…and there's no question that many fans will be.
I have high hopes for this series and I eagerly look forward to the potential next installment. I think I'll be playing through the rest of the side missions this game has to offer, and I hope that my time playing it will be filled with the same sort of wonder I began the game with. That being said, the world Monolith Soft built is fantastic and I encourage you to check it out.
But even with its irritatingly slow cutscenes, its immature objectification of women, and its determination to keep players away from its best moments for as long as it can, it's hard to dismiss Xenoblade Chronicles X completely. There's just too much of it, for one thing. The simplest play-through will take at least 60 hours, and is likely to scratch only the barest portions of the game's stories and content, some of which, owning to the law of averages, will turn out to be both charming and fun. And there really is nothing quite like taking to the air for the first time, looking down at terrain that you've become intimately familiar with through hours upon hours of exploration of its lush, mesmerizingly beautiful world. It's just a shame that the game chooses to spend so much of its energy preempitively punishing you, before it lets you get to the business of actually enjoying it.