Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is a port of the original WII version to the Nintendo Switch. The Xenoblade series is part of Xeno series of JRPGS and you don’t have to play any other Xeno game to know what happened in the past as this is a standalone version. The world of Xenoblade as I’ve mentioned in Xenoblade 2 is set on Titans where many different species live on each body part of Titans. Xenoblade was originally Japanese exclusive but due to the influential campaign by Operation Rainfall, this game along with Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story were localized by Nintendo.
(Shulk and company)
The story focuses on Shulk who goes on a journey to get revenge on the Mechron for destroying his colony. The idea of humans living on titans came from the director Tetsuya Tekashi creating a model of what if humans could live on titan like beings. The story was written by Yuchiro Takeda who also helped write the first episode of Xenosaga on the PS2. The story themes like in previous Xeno games contain religious motifs. This game was originally supposed to be a stand alone game called “Monado, The Beginning OfThe World” but it was eventually decided to be part of the Xeno series for Nintendo.
(Epilogue of Xenoblade)
The game uses a real time action based system and like Xenoblade 2, it uses an auto battle system where characters attack on their own. During combat you fill up the talent gauge meter with each successful attack and as soon as it fills up, you can unleash deadly chain attacks against enemies. There is a wide array of enemies to fight and also bosses to fight as well even outside of the story. The game adds in a new casual difficulty in case you are new to the game. In addition, there is also an expert mode added in case you want something more challenging. Sometimes in the game as well you can earn achievements so you can get more ap and experience points to use to level up and increase the power of your skills and you can also learn new skills as you progress through the story.
(combat of Xenoblade)
There are moments where visions of the future occur and they warn you about incoming enemy attacks to you or your party members. You can customize and equip many different accessories and armor. In the definitive edition, once you purchase a piece of armor, you could also be able to unlock the costume skin for it so you can change it over.
(Cutscene of Xenoblade)
The art direction looks really incredible and with the Nintendo Switch, the art looks way more detailed than ever. The character designs as well looks really great. The visuals were also outstanding and much more detailed with the Switch’s more powerful technology. The world design and the graphics were superbly done. The upgraded audio quality is really good and the musical score is great with some songs being extended. You can choose between the original and the Switch versions. The voice acting was pretty good and the dialogue is way better than in Xenoblade 2, which relied on millennial slangs and memes. There are now voice actors for characters that did not have any in the original.
(If you look closely in the game you can find references to previous Xeno games as well)
The Definitive Edition adds a new event viewer where you can re-watch cutscenes like the heart-to-heart moments. In addition, you can choose the appearance of what your characters along with the weather and time of day. A very useful feature in the game is the lack of inventory limit for collectibles or materials. But for other items, the limit has been increased by 450. Time attack is a new feature that was carried over from Xenoblade 2 to the game. Time attack focuses on defeating waves of enemies as quickly as possible. There is also a new story that takes place one year after the events of the main game.
(Meila)
You can even play the epilogue even if you hadn’t beaten the game. During the story there is a side mission that is focused around rebuilding Colony 6. As you explore and unlock new areas during the story, you will find new resources from your journey that is required to help rebuild it. Reconstruction is divided into multiple areas like commerce, nature, housing and special. Each of these aspects of reconstruction have 5 levels and completion of them will give you rewards based on your progress.
(Another image of Meilia)
The Definitive Edition adds in a new feature where you can view your progress at any time to keep track of how well reconstruction is doing. In addittion, you can even get items for reconstruction from the time attack stage with the Noppon Stones you obtain, when you revisit Prison Island during the later parts of the game.
(Xenoblade world)
The were some flaws in this game. One of the cast members Riki, was just incredibly annoying and just spoiled some dramatic scenes with out of place comedy relief. He was superfluous to the story and could have been completely left out. Some areas of the game had backtracking issues but was not as severe as in Xenoblade 2. There were times where you had to fight the same boss over and over again just with different variations some of which were pretty cheap. Sometimes you will notice small technical issues here and there.
The remastered version was overall really incredible.
It gets a 5 out of 5 stars.
There will be a review for Xenogears for the PS1 eventually and if there was a complete 6 episode Xenosaga and also a full fledge complete Xenogears 6 episode series as well back then, it would have been an amazing thing to see.