Xenoblade Chronicles X Reviews
Once you get used to all the mechanics, you'll find yourself, and even though it can get really frustrating at times, Xenoblade Chronicles X remains engrossing even after dozens of hours of play. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm really feeling it!
Massive open-world JRPG with astounding exploration but some pacing and storyline issues.
A new direction for the series manages to lose what made the original so special.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is the biggest and best-looking exclusive to come to the Nintendo Wii U yet.
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.
The game used in this review was a physical copy purchased by the reviewer.
One of the biggest games you'll ever play.
This JRPG asks us to do nothing except buy into its synthetic religion of scale. You are big, Xenoblade Chronicles X. You are big because big is good. It's like stroking a dead Aibo—an Aibo that was never alive in the first place.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a love letter to Japanese RPG fans thirsting for a large open-world experience. Progression admittedly can be a grind and just getting to the point where you get your first Skell requires a time investment that equals finishing a game or two in other genres. The game also could do a better job of explaining things, which would be especially helpful to newcomers to the series. At the same time, the breadth of content and things to do, combined with a wonderfully realized world, makes Xenoblade Chronicles X a mighty filling experience for fans of JRPGs that can last hundreds of hours. If you love the genre, this is one game you'll want to spend time with. A LOT of time.
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.
Xenoblade Chronicles X will likely be a mixed bag to those who step in with very little role-playing skill or knowledge of the series up until this point, so they may want to proceed with caution. Others, however, that absolutely love what Monolith Soft has done so far will enjoy this chapter the most, thanks to its immense gameplay options and fantastic looking world. It's certainly worth a look either way.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a massive RPG with enough surface area, sub quests, and customization to keep you busy for many hours. The presentation can feel stiff and awkward at times, but the satisfying loop of combat and customization makes exploring the vast world of Mira a fun and rewarding experience.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is a highly enjoyable game. The exploration, scale, and freedom the game delivers is unmatched by anything on the Wii U. It's one of the Wii U's best games and may be the Wii U's best game for 2015. RPG fans will love what the game has to offer.
Even with its short falls Xenoblade Chronicles X is a strong candidate for game of the year on the Wii U and is easily the best RPG. While I'll stop short of saying you should run out and buy a Wii U just for this title if you already own a Wii U and are a fan of RPGs this is a must have game for your collection. There is also multiplayer content for X that fans of MMOs might like that I'll talk about in more depth next week after the game's been live. We'll alter our score then if this should change how we feel about the title.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is epic and a really great game, but one that requires the player to approach it in a specific way. It's an oddity on the Wii U, a full-fledged massive RPG experience from a first-party Nintendo developer. Parts of it are so Japanese—character design, animations, anime/manga-esque plot—that it feels like it should be an Atlus or Nippon-Ichi title; but if it were that niche it would never have been able to develop the expansive environment. There's certainly nothing like it on the Wii U, or anywhere else. It's definitely worth picking up if you have the platform.
This just might be the best game on Wii U. If you own the system, buy this in confidence. Worth it for the world alone.
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.
Xenoblade Chronicles X excels when it emulates and improves upon the best parts of Xenoblade. X shines when it comes to combat, exploration, and vehicle systems, making this sequel more engrossing than its predecessor. Its richness makes it easier to overlook the shortcomings from both the technical limitations of the Wii U and the inconsistent soundtrack. Even without the multiplayer, there is plenty to do and see in X, but with that as an added component, the game should make a lot of Wii U owners happy well into 2017.
Xenoblade Chronicles X feels like a truly breathtaking effort, evidenced by how much love has gone into crafting each and every inch of its massive planet. And it's a planet that Nintendo and Monolith Soft have made worth exploring and worth learning. It's not for everyone, as the story gets off to a slow start. In fact, expect the story to last well over 40 hours. The game also doesn't waste much time with tutorials. Players aren't left entirely to the wolves, but the combat, equipment, stats, and party system is far more complex than the simplistic tutorial tips let on. It's also worth repeating that new players should expect to die a lot!
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.