Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition
The premise for Xenoblade Chronicles starts out pretty simple. Playing as a young man named Shulk and his growing group of companions, you must try to save the giant titan on which you live from an onslaught of autonomous war machines known as the Mechon. However, no small part of what makes the Xenoblade series so good is the fact that the is so much more going on than you understand at first, and you won't fully understand it until the game actually concludes. The story of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was so excellent that I actually went back and rewatched the cutscenes like a movie, but somehow I think the story for the original Xenoblade Chronicles might be even better. Plus, the "Aha!" moment I had at the narrative's conclusion pretty much sealed this series up as my new favorite. Unfortunately, I think the mechanics of the game might put some people off enough that they'd never reach it themselves.
Frankly, I love how the game plays, but the unorthodox structure isn't exactly welcoming for newcomers. When you aren't watching cutscenes or reading through dialogue, Xenoblade Chronicles mainly consists of two things - exploration and combat. Exploration is straightforward, giving you the opportunity to discover new locations, collect items, and find impressive combat challenges throughout each of the areas you visit. Combat is where things get more complicated, featuring an active battle system that has your characters automatically dishing out weak attacks. Your role is to control their movement and their stronger attacks and abilities called "arts." Arts need to charge over time in order to be usable but provide for the meat of the strategy as you balance attacking, healing, defending, buffing, and debuffing at the right times. Each of the playable characters also has a specialty that their stats and arts are structured around, such as tanking or healing, so the composition of your party must also come into account for each encounter. On paper, this seems rather manageable, but there are so many interactions between the systems that even after beating the game, I don't think I was using them exactly right, and I can see many people being so confused that they don't continue playing in the first place. However, if you put in the time to learn, even just a little, the combat can be incredibly rewarding.
Xenoblade Chronicles is also fully loaded with sidequests to help flesh out the world and its characters while giving your party a chance to grow in strength without grinding. I loved these so much and I sidelined the main story in their favor every chance I got. While some were obvious busywork, the quests that actually required interaction with characters were usually very enjoyable, and a few of them were even necessary to fully appreciate the follow-up to this game, Future Connected. The world of Xenoblade Chronicles feels alive and the relationships between the hundreds of characters change to reflect that, but you could easily miss it all if you made the mistake of skipping out on the side content. This game may require a high degree of commitment if you want to get the most out of it, but it's worth it.
It's obvious how much love and care went into crafting this game, no matter which version you play, but the Definitive Edition especially offers so much to enjoy. The game looks and plays great, the menus are intuitive, the characters are delightful, and the story is top-of-the-line. People who aren't already RPG fans, or those who are unwilling to invest themselves in a deep and complicated combat system may have a hard time getting into this one, but if you can get over that hump, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more engrossing experience anywhere else.
The game is available for 3DS here (as of 9/6/22): https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/xenoblade-chronicles-3d-3ds/
