A piece of sci-fi goodness
I’ve been thinking about how to approach this game in writing. Describing a shorter game is way easier than tackling the enormity that Xenoblade Chronicles X (XCX) is. First, I never thought I’d ever be able to play this game. It was originally released on Nintendo Wii U in 2015, and despite not owning the console, the chances of it coming to Nintendo Switch were also very slim. For a while, I opted for watching playthrough snippets online. Some time later, a Definitive Edition of the game was unexpectedly (at least for me) announced for the Switch. I don’t possess the technical knowledge to explain how the vast open world of planet Mira can run so seamlessly on the aging hardware. The graphics are sharp, the field of view goes as far as the eye can see, loading times are minimal, and the landscapes, textures, colors, and lighting are all optimized for this edition.
I still haven’t forgotten how weirdly flat other games looked on the Switch compared with their versions on other platforms. The Switch doesn’t always do well, but when it does, it’s breathtaking. And I think that’s the word I’d apply to XCX: a breathtaking game that I didn’t expect to immerse myself in. I can’t say that the story gripped me as much as in Xenoblade Chronicles (XC). Even with all the side quests we got in XC, I always had a sense of the main story in the back of my mind. In XCX, I can’t really say I remember much of what we are actually trying to achieve in the main plot. Still, the overload of missions is fun to complete, and new characters are always joining the fold, opening up new possibilities for team building and new affinities.
If alien creatures are to exist, it may be that they decide to attack our planet. As humans, we aren’t expected to imagine alien creatures having behavioral patterns that are truly alien to human understanding. That was exactly what happened. Alien creatures attacked planet Earth and decimated everything – just like a human would. However XCX took it even further, and set the stage for not one, but two alien species fighting over Earth! Earth was definitely on the losing side, so humans created interstellar arcs to flee and find a new place to live.
Humanity in trouble Seriously, the game’s opening act is tremendously epic for anyone who enjoys space battles. We saw the arcs being swarmed by alien ships, and it’s known that many didn’t make it, but the one that landed on Mira while dodging enemy fire did. It gloriously landed on planet Mira like a meteor, and then boom, a human-made city emerged from inside the USS White Whale arc ship! I enjoyed the idea of a ship carrying a city. It would take forever if I were to recount the whole story. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but I don’t think it’s awful or badly written either. It’s a solid setting to keep us engaged, but the best part of the game is, in my opinion, the exploration, customization, and the combat system.
New LA at nightInside the Hangar As much as XC’s story was meaningful to me, carrying many layers of existential crisis, and a complicated relationship with the notion of faith, humanity, and the divine, my favorite activity was simply swimming on a lake in Valak Mountain during the day, or exploring areas and defeating titans to level up. It’s one of those nerdy gamer moments I’ll always carry with me. I saw XC as a game that gently invited the player to appreciate the experience of simply being in the moment and enjoying whatever there was in front of us, even if it was deadly.
I decided to bring that same spirit to XCX. I started by exploring within reason, trying to balance story progression, side quests, affinity quests, and learning the Frontier Nav properly. I must admit I may have overlooked a lot of game mechanics. The game is complex (not difficult), and navigating through it wasn’t easy either. A lot of information available on the menus and sub-menus wasn’t immediately explained, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s all part of the exploration. Eventually, we learn how gear and damage types work, and what we need to do to buy or craft more and better weapons and equipment. I started creating my own augments for weapons, armor, Skells, and so on, long after I got my first Skell. Until that point, I was using the ones I got from missions. After a while, I began to understand what defenses I wanted to improve, what types of attacks and debuffs I wanted to apply to enemies, or what protections I needed against damage reflect based on the type of damage I was going for. It sounds overly complicated but it isn’t.
Skell combat is funThis was a surprise titan in Cauldros I didn’t relate very much with the main story, but I think that’s something I share in common with many other players. I think it’s the experience that counts, and the satisfaction of collecting a bunch of stuff we won’t be needing, or defeating big titans and getting new, shiny gear and augments that we will most definitely need.
There were also some roadblocks. During certain affinity and normal quests, I had to deal with the frustration of being sent to areas with enemies 10 to 15 levels above my own, even though the mission recommended a much lower level for completion. I had to use appropriate arts to stealth my way to my objective. Once I arrived, the enemy levels downscaled to what was originally described. Though this wasn’t the case for all quests, it was still very frustrating. During exploration, we’re expected to fall into a titan lair, or unassumingly stumble into a very high-level area only to be blasted back to the last auto-save in a matter of seconds. It’s part of the fun and diversity of XCX, especially when we start engaging with Mira and its expansive territory, once described as “bigger than Skyrim, Fallout 4, and The Witcher 3’s maps combined.”
I believe the game was already a technical achievement on the Wii U, according to Digital Foundry and my favorite YouTuber Food4Dogs. The Nintendo Switch version is no longer an achievement – it’s a miracle – and one that I am enjoying for the good portion of 150 hours and counting (edit: 185). The main story has 12 chapters and an epilogue (Chapter 13 is divided into acts). I often forgot the plot from one chapter to the next because I could easily put 10 hours of gameplay between each chapter, and nearly 20 between Chapter 11 and Chapter 12. This is not a critique – on the contrary – I enjoyed these interludes and they were a very important part of my experience of Mira’s beautiful landscapes.
Primordia with New LA in the distanceThere are six main regions on the planet: New LA, where our arc ship landed, Primordia (mountains), Oblivia (desert), Noctilum (jungle), Silvalum (snow), and Cauldros (volcanic). Sometimes I find myself wondering which area I am more passionate about… Did I find my ‘Valak Mountain’ in this game? I’d say Noctilum is very beautiful because of the alien vegetation, the mountainous terrain, where the exploration becomes easier once we unlock a flight module for our Skells. There are curious life forms around every corner, sometimes even falling on us from above. Some parts are dense jungle, with gigantic trees and flowers whose petals we can land on, and suddenly, the landscape opens into a clearing with little springs of water, lakes and creatures going about their lives. The northern part of Noctilum is where a Telethia lives. I tried to steer clear, but still managed to take down three titans living nearby. I can’t say I didn’t burn through a good portion of my Skell insurance on these personal side-adventures…
NoctilumMaybe Noctilum (or Primordia)Oblivia Our entry point in the game is the area of Primordia. One of the first creatures I remember seeing was Luciel, the Eternal, a level 92 millesaur, peacefully drinking from Lake Janpath. I wondered when, or if, I could ever take him down. It didn’t take long to see that some players were defeating him at egregiously low levels. Underleveled overachievers are impressive, but I don’t think I could make a millesaur-proof build just yet. My greatest delight was to fly across the mountain ridges eroded by millenia of alien weather, my party undisturbed by aggroed enemies which turned into a distant spot in the landscape in a matter of seconds, all thanks to my Skell’s thrusters. Some time later, after finishing Chapter 12, I rapidly grinded the materials to craft Ares 90: an overpowered Skell preloaded with equally overpowered weapons, dealing physical, thermal, and ether damage. Its strongest art is the Agashura cannon. It can wipe out almost anything, and with the right augments (crush appendage, deny reflect damage, opening art damage, and something else I can’t recall), it blasts enemies many levels above its own. It’s incredible; I love to play the game with it, and I’ve cleared the map (except the Telethia), including Luciel.
TelethiaI didn’t defeat… this thing
either At that point, I had completed over 90% of Mira’s exploration, and didn’t have much left to do. I planted all probes, found all treasures, killed all titans named on the map (Telethia: “You liar; I’m still standing!”), took down a bunch of other optional titans, completed all normal quests and all affinity quests so far. Chapter 13 is structured in three acts, and I had recently finished Act 1.
If you aren’t already fed up with this text, I’d like to hold your attention a little longer to talk about how the game is written and paced. When two or more people talk to each other, there’s a certain rhythm to the conversation. It can speed up or slow down depending on the subject and the emotional responses of those involved. There’s a certain dynamism and liveliness to human interaction that is, more often than not, well replicated in video games.
Unfortunately that’s not the case with XCX. The voice lines are either flat or oddly exaggerated, there’s no voice acting, only reading. The transition from a dialogue line to the next during a conversation takes the same amount of time all the time, no matter what the characters are talking about. Not to mention the unnecessary banter, sentimentality, and other things, though to be fair, those are tropes, not flaws. I’m mentioning all this in an attempt to justify the fact that I skipped a lot of plot, not because I wasn’t interested, but because the pacing and acting (or lack thereof) were maddening. The gameplay is so spectacular though, that for me it could have done well without all those hours of cutscenes.
In the menu, we can find a summary of the story so far, which I’ve been using. The menus may seem complex at first, but it’s that richness that makes Xenoblade games so appealing. All progress, enemies, affinities, gear, collections, locales, species, quests, and so on, are indexed in those menus. It’s where we get access to online features, which are very helpful for grinding materials or earning material tickets to get rare resources and build end-game weapons, armor, Skells, etc. The game has a learning curve, but as I mentioned earlier, everything comes together in time. With some persistence and progress it becomes easier to understand how the different classes work, what certain augments actually do, why we need them, or how to make a solid build to defeat a specific enemy.
Formula ZeroLaila QueenAres 90 and team My end-game report:
I finished as a level 99 Full Metal Jaguar.
Maxed affinities and class levels with all characters.
From the level 60 Skells, I built the Formula Zero, Laila Queen, and Ares 90. All are great to play as. Ares 90 is the Skell I used to defeat many titans that were giving me trouble, especially plants and sabulas. It all worked well except for the Telethia in Noctilum, which I didn’t bother to make a nice build to defeat.
I defeated titans that weren’t marked on the map, like Gradivus the Headless Emperor, who had an (almost) infinite amount of health. There were many more titans hidden around Mira or just standing there in plain sight, like Gradivus.
I installed all probes at FrontierNav sites. I didn’t unlock all quest hexes on the map though.
My exploration of Mira landed at 98.77%. I’m very happy with the result!
I’d love to have completed my Collectopedia, but sometimes you have to finish a game when it’s time to finish it: Primordia stayed at 95%, Noctilum 98%, Oblivia 98%, Sylvalum 94%, and Cauldros 100%. I’d have to check a guide for the rest.
As for achievements:
Story 201/204 — I don’t really understand this one. It’s maybe quests I wasn’t able to find.
Combat 174/315 — I’d have to have killed all enemy types many times and maxed out all player classes, etc.
World 199/222 — This is mostly surveys and secret areas in Mira.
I’m happy with my progress. I didn’t expect to stay in the game for as long as I did. I don’t think I’ve found a world that beats Bionis yet, but Mira is a close second, or maybe it’s just as good. I’ll miss this planet!
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