By Luca Newton
Major spoiler warning for Xenoblade Chronicles
It has been exactly a year since Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition released for the Nintendo Switch. To me, it is a huge deal, because it changed my view on gaming..
I have a lot of passion for gaming. I have always harboured some passion too - I was adamant on getting a Nintendo Switch. The Switch really changed how I played games, as I felt I was actually getting games when they came out and playing them, but there was a bit of an issue. I wasn't really playing a lot of them to the end. I used to get tons of games I had slight interest in just because I could, and not because I really wanted to. It got so bad, my backlog is still endless to this day. An example of a game I impulsively bought, but dropped really early in and never picked up again, was Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
The Bumpy Road Of My Relationship With Xenoblade
My relationship with Xenoblade is a very bumpy one. In December 2017, I bought Xenoblade 2, impulsively. I had seen the Xenoblade 2 Direct before the release, and decided maybe it was for me. I was certainly interested. So I picked it up, and started playing it. Honestly, for the first 10 hours, I found it fine. I thought the combat was a bit complex, I thought it was a bit over the top, but I think I had a general interest in seeing it through to the end. However, that didn't pan out. In Chapter 3, you have to get parts for Umon, so he can make an aircraft to get to Uraya. The thing was, I didn't know where the parts were. I couldn't find them for the life of me - it honestly made me resent the game. I genuinely pretended like I actually hated every part of it in the 10 hours I had played, which I don't agree with now. Although the tracking is still infuriating. In my resentment of Xenoblade 2, I resented the whole franchise. However, a friend of mine was really into the first game - like insanely so. He would not shut up about it, and was always nagging me to try it, but I never bit the bullet as it was never convenient to do so, and I honestly had this idea that it would suck.
Fast-forward to 2019, the Nintendo Direct in September had "one last thing". It was Xenoblade Chronicles, the first one, but remastered with new models that looked so much better than the original. My initial reaction was showing it to my friend, who I knew would be ecstatic, but I personally felt pretty indifferent. At the same time, that teaser really did pique my interest the slightest bit. I had thought for a second I might get it, but part of me was also thinking it would end up being another big waste of my money if I tried this game, and ended up not particularly liking it. Going into 2020, there had been no updates on this new remaster, and the fans were starting to go a bit crazy, like everyone was due to the lack of any Nintendo Direct. I honestly think the way those fans behaved kind of annoyed me, and put me off the idea of the game again. Well, when the Nintendo Direct Mini in March 2020 came around, and revealed more info for XCDE, I honestly had restored interest in the game - the trailer honestly hit all the notes for me.
Ultimately, the game came out, and due to annoying fans, I had kind of jumped on the wagon of hating on Xenoblade to elevate Minecraft Dungeons. However, it is quite ironic in hindsight, I had decided to pick up the game a couple months out from release.. I loved it.
With all my heart, I completely and utterly adored the game from the second I started it, to the moment it sadly ended. It changed how I enjoy video games to this day, for a multitude of reasons..
It Changed The Importance Of Story In Video Games
I can't think of a game before Xenoblade Chronicles that had truly grabbed me for its story. No games did that. I never played a game for its story, nor ever cared for a story in a game, but the mind-blowing twists and turns of Xenoblade engaged me and captivated me in a way very little other pieces of media in general had. XCDE had the perfect game story, using the game format, and taking it to its advantage to deliver on a truly brilliant story unlike any other.
Xenoblade Chronicles starts with the voice of Shulk, narrating a truly epic and marvellous scene of two huge Titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis, in a large scale battle. The Bionis manages to cut off an arm of the Mechonis - however, the Mechonis manages to strike back: as we hear from the narrator, it causes both titans to die out. We find out that due to this lack of movement of the two titans, Life was born of the Bionis. We are instantly brought into the middle of a battle on the Mechonis’ Sword, where we truly see the scale of these titans, as we see three soldiers including Dunban, fighting against robots called Mechon. And we instantly see that the Homs which are human life forms born from Bionis, are in war against Mechon, which are born from Mechonis. We now know that there are two huge titans that fought, and now that life has been born on both of these, they fight each other now. It is a truly excellent premise and prologue for a game like this. And it gets your mind spinning around thinking about what they could do with such an incredibly cool premise. What is brilliant about it, though. Is that it lives up to everything the premise is and could be. Do we explore the Bionis and the Mechonis with clear indications of where you are? Yes. You can literally see where you are on each Titan and you can look back on the previous Titan. Not only does it perfectly execute the premise of travelling these two massive gods but also manages to explain how this connects deeply with our characters. I don’t think a game has ever succeeded this well at a premise at just purely living fully up to expectations and far exceeding them.
Each and every part of this game is meticulously crafted and thought out for the outcome. I honestly and genuinely believe that every single part of this game was foreshadowed. In fact, on the second run, I was made aware of so many foreshadowed moments it sort of blew my mind all over again. It is incredibly smart, and it makes you realise that anything you might think came out of nowhere, didn’t come out of nowhere. It was here the whole time but you weren’t aware of it. And that’s what makes any twist an incredible one. If you can see it unravelling after you’ve already beat the game, it’s a good twist. And it’s not too obvious because before you finish the game you won’t be aware of a lot of stuff.
What makes this kind of narrative work so wonderfully well, is the 3-act structure. In the first “act”, the game seems like your bog-standard JRPG tale. There’s a huge war; a boy named Shulk is in the middle of it but isn’t aware, until he has to step up and use the sword which is very powerful to help save the world. But that’s a very brief summary of the first arc. In truth it’s far more complex than that. At the start, we see the war is taking place on a huge sword, and we live on two great titans who are lifeless but have made life on their bodies. We hear about this Monado with wonder of what it really is, what it’s true power is. We meet Reyn and Fiora who are gonna be the childhood friends who join us in this quest to save the world from the evil Mechon - or wait - the Mechon attack Colony 9, Shulk’s home, and Shulk uses the Monado. He sees the future, which adds another mystery to the narrative which is explained later, and we see Shulk see someone get killed, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. That person, is Fiora. Yes, the girl of the party. The close friend of Shulk. She’s not a permanent party member because she just got killed. It’s something you don’t expect. And it becomes a revenge narrative. It’s still not mind blowing for a narrative but you, in Shulk's shoes, somehow feel the same desire for revenge for Fiora’s death, when you only met her an hour ago in-game time. In that first section we do connect with her - well, at least I did.
This first act lasts until Prison Island. Which, may I add, is one of the best sections of the game. On Prison Island we meet Zanza as a giant, we see Fiora is still alive, (one of the worst kept game spoilers unfortunately, but it still blew my mind) and so the game becomes a huge chase to find Fiora again and get her back to normal. This act is crazy. We get parts of the game like the destruction of Galahad Fortress and the reveal of Mumkhar as Metal Face in Valak Mountain. The game got me very invested at this point. This act was very focused on Mechonis and Egil as the major antagonist as Mumkhar dies not long into the act. This Mechonis and Egil act serves as a way of us more deeply understanding the battle between the two titans and what the Monado is, and Meyneth who is shrouded in mystery but has some form or significance. And the second act ends at the end of chapter 15 when after the final Egil boss fight, Shulk and Egil agree to peace but Dickson betrays our trust and shoots Shulk revealing Shulk’s huge secret he didn’t know. Zanza was him. Zanza was his life force. He was dead all along. This leads into the final act which is about Zanza, Meyneth and the Monado. It gets insane. And the twist at first seems absurdly nonsensical as it turns the game into a god slaying plot. But the thing is, this act makes all the sense in the world.
Throughout this whole narrative, I was riveted to my core, it is a feeling I had never felt with a game before - but I craved more. This search for more, lead me to so many more games, including Xenoblade 2, which I finally played all the way through, after 2 years of neglecting and resenting it - and I honestly enjoyed it thoroughly too. I found a love for Xenoblade as a series. No other game managed to match the story for Xenoblade, until I tried games like Persona 5 Royal - a game I would've never tried if it wasn't for Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition.
How Gameplay Change How I Play Games
Not only was the story and characters what got me so invested, but it was also the gameplay. Unlike others, I personally found the gameplay enthralling, unique and engaging in several departments.
The open world nature of the game, with individual areas being drop-dead gorgeous and packed with content was just so addictive to me. When I first got Bionis' Leg, I have such fond memories, as I spent the next few days just completing sidequests. Others though the sidequests were bad, but personally the repetitiveness never stopped me from getting hopelessly addicted to completing them - especially thanks to the simple tracking system the game had for them. I always felt on-top of side content, and that was very fulfilling.
As for the combat itself, I also found it engaging,. It is such a unique take on combat in a JRPG - mixing action and turn based into this field-based, position-based tactical combat system. Being able to move around the battlefield, and position your moves was always so much fun. Getting in auto-attacks and building up the big moves was always really satisfying. Not even just Shulk - but all the other characters you could play as were really unique. No one character felt the same. Melia and Fiora were personal favourites to play as besides Shulk - Dunban was also great. It's the way they mix action with tactics to make something that looks pretty boring really exhilarating - I felt I had to strategise my moves to win, and having automatic hits to give me time to think is so much more fun than just being turn-based. It keeps you on your toes, while being constantly entertaining.
The mix of a riveting narrative, incredibly satisfying exploration and combat, made me really invested in gaming more. After Xenoblade, I played fully through so many more games. Because of Xenoblade, I got a PS5 and blazed through Persona 5 Royal. I have played so many games thanks to just one game, but it is so incredibly significant to me, and so it will always be my favourite game of all time. It changed my passion in gaming - and with how incredible my PS5 feels to play, that train won't be stopping now.
Happy 1st-year-anniversary Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition. I am so glad I picked this game up, who knows where I would be now if I didnt..
Thanks for reading.
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