For ten years, Xenoblade Chronicles X has lived as the black sheep of Monolith Soft’s grand RPG series. Its nameless, blank canvas protagonist, its full tilt into hard military sci-fi, and its recruitable cast of misfit, gung-ho soldier types all stand in direct opposition to the soaring fantasy and authored melodrama of its numbered stablemates. It couldn’t look or feel more different on the surface, but playing X again now, a decade on from its original release, I’ve been surprised by just how much it laid the foundations for what was to come later in the series.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition reviewDeveloper: Monolith SoftPublisher: NintendoPlatform: Played on Nintendo SwitchAvailability: Out on 20th March on Nintendo Switch
Far from being the odd one out, X has emerged as something of a proto-Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in many respects. It’s here you’ll find Monolith Soft beginning to toy with customisable classes, drafting in new allies to bolster your ranks, as well as giving battles a renewed sense of scale and grandeur thanks to its towering mech suits – ideas the studio would later revive in 3’s Ouroboros transformations, its tag-along Hero characters and its even broader set of class-based movesets. It all makes for a familiar and smoother landing into this harder-edged branch of the Xenoblade family, especially now it’s been freed from its Wii U prison with this new Definitive Edition. If you’ve never stepped foot on the huge continents of Mira before, there’s never been a better time to do so.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition – Official Overview Trailer Watch on YouTube
I should say before we begin, though, that while its seeming detachment from the rest of the Xenoblade series should, in theory, make it a great entry point for newcomers, I’d still recommend starting with Shulk and co in the first Xenoblade Chronicles if you’re keen to see what all the fuss is about. For me, that game is still the beating heart of Monolith’s ever-expanding epic, and a much warmer introduction to its myriad systems and dynamics. X, on the other hand, still has a slight stuffiness about it. Your (mostly) mute, customisable avatar is more of a passenger in this tale of warring alien races and imminent human extinction, and one who’s still expected to help survey and uncover your new, makeshift home world hexagon by hexagon before you’re allowed to progress to the next major story mission. It’s quite regimented in that sense, and much more of a checklist game than almost any other RPG in recent memory. So if what you’re after is an adventure with boundless exploration and a gooier, emotional core at the centre of it, there are better Xenoblades to do this with than X.
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Despite its idiosyncrasies, though, X is still a fascinating experiment all these years later. Its themes of massive human displacement and fighting for your right to exist against forces hellbent on destroying every last trace of human existence remain as compelling as they did a decade ago, and the ongoing mystery of why everything in the universe is so determinedly out to get you brings a tighter and keener focus to its main plotline. It’s arguably one of the more straightforward stories in the series, though your status as a relative nobody in this world and just another army grunt does rob it of some of the deeper, more personal stakes that drive its numbered counterparts. Defending a whole military corporation from the threat of extinction doesn’t quite have the same emotional resonance as the coming of age revenge tragedy of Xenoblade 1, for example, nor the warring, star-crossed rebellion tale of 3.