When Xenoblade Chronicles X released back in 2015 on Nintendo’s Wii U – a console that myself and a few dozen other people owned – it was a ridiculously ambitious JRPG. Now that it’s finally free from its Wii U prison, it remains an extremely ambitious JRPG on the Nintendo Switch 10 years later. This new version of the game is on a console that people actually own, and it’s got a ton of changes. UI is easier to read, combat is streamlined, and there’s even some new story content and side characters. There’s a lot of love put into this re-release, so let’s talk about it.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition starts with the entirety of humanity evacuating Earth as it is in the direct crosshairs of two warring alien races. In order to evacuate, they build a plethora of ships to fly everyone elsewhere. Only a few of the ships actually survive the evacuation, with The White Whale – your ship – being one of them. Years later, your ship is attacked and is forced to crash land on the planet, Mira. Eventually, you find yourself in New Los Angeles, and you join an organization called BLADE (Builders of the Legacy After the Destruction of Earth). On paper, the story sounds cool and interesting, but in practice, it becomes very difficult to properly understand what is actually transpiring. There is often so much going on and far too many side characters that further convolute an already convoluted plot. When I mentioned how ambitious the game is, I mean it’s ambitious on every single level. The story has a lot to say, and it takes a long time for it to unfold into something interesting. I just wish it would let some simplicity sink in early so I wasn’t scratching my head as long as I was.
This is a truly gargantuan game in just about every stretch. I haven’t been able to find an exact answer – Google results and Reddit posts aren’t quite matching up – but it seems most people are saying the map size is about 154 square miles. That is nearly 5x the size of Skyrim, for a comparison. You really do feel like a bug on a football field when you first start the game. You run at a fairly high speed and are able to leap to pretty high heights. There isn’t any fall damage either so you can truly let your freak flag fly and do whatever your heart desires. Jump off a big-ass cliff and land perfectly fine, the world’s your oyster! Your jump actually helps way more than you’d think it does. You can jump pretty high and sorta jank your way up the side of a mountain, which makes for getting through certain areas a breeze. As you roam through the giant map, you’ll find beacons that can be activated to open up areas on the map. Many of these beacons and other landmarks become fast-travel points. However, getting to newer areas can take a while as there are tons of enemies in the way who will want to slow your progression.
What really blows me away about the world is the range of sizes of the wildlife Mira has to offer. When you finish the tutorial mission and find yourself outside of New Los Angeles for the first time, if you wander slightly off the intended path you will see colossal sized dinosaurs and flying creatures. These things are all dramatically higher level than you and could easily wipe you out without even processing what they’ve done. However, many of these creatures don’t see you as a threat, and because of that, they will not attack you on sight. Of course, they will attack if provoked, and they will one-shot you. You really feel like a stranger in a strange land when you see these creatures. You are on their turf, not the other way around. There are plenty of smaller sized enemies which also pose a threat. You never really feel safe around anything.
Combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition feels very much like you’re playing an MMO. You enter battle phases with an enemy, or a group of enemies, and you are faced with a small menu of different skills you can use at the bottom of the screen. These skills are unlocked through playing as the various classes available to choose from. You constantly basic attack while also slotting in the skills on screen to provide extra damage, status effects, buffs, debuffs, heals, etc. You also have two weapons to use in combat, one ranged and one melee, and some of the skills, for example, can buff ranged combat, so you’d want to stick to your guns more than your blades. It really depends on what skills you decide to run once you have them unlocked. But most classes benefit from swapping weapons in battle. You can also target various parts of the creatures and break them to get more spoils after you’ve won the battle. Some skills can also knock enemies to the floor, stopping them from attacking. It’s a good couple extra seconds to get some damage in.
There is also a morale system that is, in my opinion, feels a little bit out of place, but it’s there. As you are fighting an enemy, you’ll periodically get a quick-time-event that pops up on screen in the form of a shrinking circle. You must press the B button at the correct time in order to gain morale for the fight, as well as some basic healing. The more morale you have, the harder it is to nail the quick-time-event. But if you can nail it, even at the higher speeds, you’ll get bonus healing as well as a small buff to your stats. There’s also a quick-cooldown button that charges up through battle. If you don’t want to wait for your best skill to finish its cooldown, you can spend some built-up points made during the fight and use them to instantly end the cooldown for any skill. This can be good when needing an extra powerful hit, or a nice heal for your team to save their lives. Unfortunately, I find that nearly every single battle stretches on for too long because the enemies in this game have so much health, which sometimes had me purposely avoiding combat.
After you max out the Drifter class – the starting class – you unlock three additional classes to pick from. Each class uses different weapons and can unlock further classes if you max any of those three out. With a total of 16 classes to pick from once all is said and done, there’s a ton of variety and it’s fun to find new unlockable skills to elevate your playstyle. What’s kind of goofy though is that once you have made it to the mid-to-late game, you’ll realize that the Drifter is actually the best class, because it can mix and match any weapon and skill, making it unnecessary to play anything else past a certain point.
As you get further into the story, you gain the ability to pilot a giant mech – a Skell. Skells are huge customizable mechs that you can roam the planet in. They come in various forms and have many different ways you can use them. There are light models that are fairly easy to kill, but they have the potential to move at high speeds. They have low fuel capacity, but they also use the least fuel to fly, making that not a major issue. Medium models are basically all-rounders. They are much more durable and move at a more average pace. You can equip any sort of armour to them. Heavy models are the polar opposite of light models. Super slow and crazy tanky. Their weapons are extremely heavy, as is their chassis, so they run out of fuel much faster. Each model can be customized to your liking, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. Finding what works best for you is part of the fun.
Not only are they super dope in design and function, but they greatly impact how you traverse through the world as well as how you fare in combat. Plus, they give you a proper shot at killing some of the titanic creatures roaming the wilds. Now that you’re in a huge mech, these larger beasts will likely take you as a threat and enter battle without being provoked. Toppling these massive beasts is a super satisfying thing to do, even if you are just killing innocent alien wildlife. Skells also make travelling a breeze with their flight mode as well as their vehicle modes. Being able to clear massive stretches of land in seconds is very satisfying and makes all the early roaming on-foot you did feel worth it.
The best thing about Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition to me is the music. Hiroyuki Sawano’s score is truly remarkable in every way. There isn’t a single track that I heard that sounded out of place, or like it was dampening a mood. Every song felt intentional and heightened each moment where it was used. Sawano also composed new music for the definitive edition, and while I’m not certain which songs were new and what was used previously, each track is a certified club banger. I noticed a couple times during cutscenes or dialogue that some of the music with vocals would overlap during characters talking, which was distracting the two or three times it happened, but it was also amusing. The music that plays when you fly the Skell is a track called “Don’t Worry,” and it is a complete synthpop rager.
Personally, I found my experience with Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition to be similar to when I first played it back in 2015. Back then, I only played a couple hours of it because I found it daunting and not really fun. Yes, I still found it daunting, and yes, I still didn’t find it very fun to play. I got a lot farther into it this time, and really wanted to see the major systems and how they worked. I did find it to be much easier to sink into this time around, given the updates to the UI, as well as the graphics, and overall just it being a much more polished experience. I can see why this is considered a classic to basically everyone who’s played it, and I know I am in the minority, but I just don’t think this game is for me. I think if you’re a diehard Xenoblade fan, or you want a truly huge JRPG to lose yourself in, then you owe it to yourself to play this version of the game, as it’s absolutely the best way to enjoy it in 2025.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is available for the Nintendo Switch.
