Genre: RPG
Year: 2015
Developed by: Monolith Soft
Published by: Nintendo
Platforms: Wii U
#29
Feeling Like: Soaring
Much like how humanity was stranded on the alien planet of Mira, Xenoblade Chronicles X is abandoned on the Wii U. I don’t know how Nintendo ports it to a system without a touchscreen, but I’m confident that a company that has dominated the planet on the back of an Italian stereotype eating magic mushrooms could pull it off.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of the more exciting games I’ve ever played. It has a fantastic landscape, it has the most satisfying traversal mechanic, the graphics are beyond what the Wii U should be able to handle and the sense of wonder ensured my mouth dropped frequently or so during my 83 hour playthrough.
It’s also a giant mess. I’d recommend it, but with a few dozen caveats.
This is what I said eight years ago, when Xenoblade Chronicles X won my Game of the Year for 2015.
This game was created for a very specific type of video game enthusiast. One that can put up with an elephant sized load of bullshit. Somebody who doesn’t mind looking up strategies, builds, locations, item uses, level caps, money tricks and a slew of other information online that should be made available in the game. Xenoblade Chronicles X isn’t interested in what you think it should be. It’s only interested in being frustratingly fucking fantastic.
XCX (sans Charli) is a pseudo-sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles, the RPG for the Wii that wasn’t played by enough that took a ton of risks, reaped some rewards and immediately advertised that it deserved bigger hardware to do more.
The Wii U, shockingly enough, is that hardware and Monolith Soft deserves some kind of award for fitting XCX on an inferior system. It’s one of the best looking games I’ve ever seen…if you ignore character models. Its soundtrack is brilliant…if you ignore the ridiculous pop songs that litter more than a few areas. Its combat is deep and challenging…if you ignore that you have to grind, grind, grind. The appeal of having your own giant robots you can travel in and fight monsters with is awesome…if you ignore that it takes an interminable amount of time to get it.
I ignored all the nonsense. The world itself showed me what a true next generation open world game should be; a planet I’ve never seen before, a scale that isn’t possible on previous hardware, little to no loading screens and an unforgettable experience. XCX gave it all to me.
Naysayers will point to the fact that the menu text is too small, the characters are cookie cutter boring, the writing is juvenile, the onion-like Tatsu is beyond irritating and there’s a lack of a good villain. Again, still all true. But nobody can deny how incredible the planet looks. How each of the five continents are littered with a delicious buffet of enemies to fight, items to gather and landmarks to scale. How when you return to the only city in the game after a long pilgrimage to a new area, you feel true relief. But, above all, how insanely cool it is to take a giant robot and gain the ability to fly and soar over the landscapes that gave you so much peril in the previous 40 hours. With so few limits on where I could go, it was the only time I’ve played an open world game and appreciated the word “open.” This was a true evolution on the “getting an airship” trope. The moment where I first lifted off from the Streets of New Los Angeles to the skies above is one of the most incredible moments in my history of gaming.
This game was created for a very specific type of video game enthusiast. A hardcore fan of Japanese Role Playing Games, mechanized robot suits and incremental annoyances that can be tolerated only by a select few. I’m one of them. Xenoblade Chronicles X is my game of the year.
Nothing has changed, and nothing else has come out to replicate the kind of thrill I got when I finally lifted my Skell off the ground and began soaring over all the bloodthirsty dinosaurs that kicked my ass for the previous 40 hours. Flying should be a mandated requirement in every open world game. Don’t build me this massive sandbox filled with wonder if I can’t fly over it in some capacity. Do you think we dream about trudging through mountains, complaining that our feet have blisters on them? No, I want to launch into the sky like something from Transformers or Neon Genesis Evangelion, reign hellfire upon some unsuspecting baddy and get out just as quickly. I want to land on floating islands, high in the sky. I want my group of intrepid explorers to be geared to the nines for our ultimate conflict against some mustachioed anime villain. I want to feel like I’ve set foot on a place nobody else has.
Xenoblade Chronicles X gets a lot wrong, and the biggest sin is that it asks too much of the player. The cardinal sin of wasting your time is prevalent here, with the grandest treasures being locked behind dozens of hours of grinding for obscure items. But, for a JRPG sap like me, the ticket was well worth the price of admission. I can’t get this experience anywhere else, not even in other Xenoblade games.
The soundtrack is a mixed bag. The themes you’ll hear often are ridiculous, but some of the themes are as magical as they come.
The Main Theme is worth a listen.
“Monox” takes a while to build, but when it lands, watch out!
When you go into Overdrive mode, this little ditty pops up. It’s a strange mix of vocals and instrumentalizations, but it still slaps!
“Sylvalum” was easily my favorite continent to explore. Dangerous as fuck, but how can I resist it when this tune plays?
Did I mention that there are different songs for daytime and night? Here’s Sylvalum’s night version. My holy mother, this is good.
“Z5 Mira“. Just wait until you hear 1:52 and on. Chills, every time.
“Don’t Worry” plays when you’re flying in a Skell. It’s odd, cheesy, doesn’t really fit the mood but the Pavlovian response is strong. I’m drooling right now. Over the rainbow, glorious sights indeed.
I know every pick is a personal pick on the 500, but some entries require more justification than others. Xenoblade Chronicles X would’ve been on some “Best of” lists in 2015, but it also would have shown up on some “Worst of” lists as well, and I can see both sides. This isn’t a rookie friendly game; the learning curve is steep, there are dozens of systems to learn that go beyond “shoot alien, get exp”. It’s convoluted. The character model faces are unimpressive, and the storytelling isn’t up to modern snuff. The epilogue ends in an unresolved cliffhanger. It’s weird, even for a JRPG.
But it also has flying mechs, and the single most interesting open world I’ve ever played. The combination of those two, plus a unique soundtrack, exploration that rewards scouring every nook you can find, and combat mechanics that can go as deep as you want launch it to #29. Part of me thinks it should be even higher, but looking ahead on the Almighty Spreadsheet, I just can’t do it. Instead, I’ll just put it here, beg for a sequel and continue to sing its praises.
The 500 