Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition

Most of my gaming in 2025 was with Xenoblade Chronicles X. I picked it up on launch day in March, and didn't finish it until early November. Relative to my usual gaming consumption, I hardly played anything else during that time, devoting most of my attention to this release. I entered the game with the expectations that it was going to be a starkly different experience from the rest of the games in my favorite series, but also that I would still like it just about as much. On both accounts, I was nearly correct.
 
While some of the standards held by the rest of the series are disregarded here, Xenoblade Chronicles X was not as different from the rest of the games as I had anticipated. Because you control a customized character, the story makes room for you to have some agency, even in cutscenes, so the usual TV-show-like quality of the story is lost. One can (and I have) watch a compilation of all the main story cutscenes from any of the other games and it plays like it was designed to be TV show from the start. I don't see that working with this game. The climactic twists that the other games also have in common don't happen here until the bonus chapter added for the definitive edition, but that has a different problem that I'll get into later.
 
Despite all of the differences in the kind of story that Xenoblade Chronicles X was trying to tell, it still felt very much like a Xenoblade game while I was actually playing it. I had thought, with the inclusion of firearms, an open world, and enormous mech suits, that this title would feel more distinct in its gameplay. Instead, all of those on-paper differences somehow integrate with the existing Xenoblade exploration, gorgeous locales, and arts-based combat seamlessly, making the time you spend between the story bites feel as familiar as ever. Because most of the game is spent exploring and completing side quests, the differences slid to the back of my mind, and I have no problem calling this another excellent entry in my favorite series.
 
As with every Xenoblade game, I was anticipating a boatload of side content to keep me engaged, flesh out the world, and develop the characters. With over 600 optional missions available, I was not disappointed. The quest system reminded me most of the original Xenoblade Chronicles in its structure and categories. Basic missions are the most simple, requiring you to collect certain items or defeat certain enemies, completing automatically as soon as you fulfill the objective. Normal missions are more in-depth and require actual character interaction to start and finish them, but don't have any actual cutscenes. Story missions have full-fledged cutscenes and advance the plot, even permanently altering the game world itself in some cases.
 
The last major type of mission surprised me, though. Reminding me most of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, affinity missions are just a step down from story missions, still having full cutscenes while remaining optional. Instead of advancing the plot, they are designed to unlock new characters for your party or  further develop the personality of those characters. Similar to freeing each of the colonies and their leaders in XC3, these missions were rewarding in their ability to make the game world feel more lived-in while also expanding the gameplay possibilities by granting you new options for your party.
 
Since I played the Definitive Edition of this game on Switch (leaving my Wii U copy to continue gathering dust on my shelf), there were plenty of improvements and additions to the version I played, and I definitely took advantage of them. I'll skip over the plain-old quality of life improvements, since I never played the original version of the game and I don't really have a frame of reference to compare against. Instead, I'll start with the new Skell introduced alongside a new character. Personally, I thought all of the new characters fit right in to the rest of the game, so that was fine and dandy. It's the new Skell, Hraesvelg, that took my breath away.
 
I'm not sure what prompted the development of Hraesvelg over at Monolith Soft, but I'm so grateful for it. Every other Skell that I tried to use in the game had slippery driving controls, which makes complete sense when you think about their weight and speed, but it was not my cup of tea. Hraesvelg, however, does not drive at all. Instead of transforming into a vehicle, it maintains its mech form and just uses its boosters to hover over the ground. These boosters allow it to make extremely tight turns in an instant, and were an absolute game changer for me. Later in the game, you can even unlock an exclusive jet-engine transformation for the Skell while in flight, allowing you to maneuver the map at what I believe is more than double the regular speed. Because Hraesvelg cannot customize its equipment at all, it has some disadvantages in combat, especially in the late game, but that was never enough to convince me to give up those sweet traversal perks. Seriously, this one Skell made the entire game so much more fun.
 
I won't say much about the additional story chapter, just in case somebody actually reads this review and doesn't want any major spoilers, but I do need to say something about it. While I think it's a valuable addition to the game, answering all of the questions left at the end of the original, it is painfully clear that this was not written at the same time as the rest of the game. I don't know why, but the final chapter was such a wild shift in tone that it almost felt like a bad bit of fanfiction. In a game that generally maintained a serious tone, with only tasteful sprinkles of comic relief, I was shocked by the multiple occurrences of a character straight up telling a bad joke, followed by everybody else in the room laughing while the camera fades to black. The game even introduces ANOTHER terrible joke as the new character's trademark interaction, repeating it every single time they appear in a scene. Once you get past all of that, the remaining content does feel like a concluding Xenoblade series chapter, but I just couldn't ignore how amateur the writing felt at times, especially relative to the rest of the game.

I'm thrilled to have the entire Xenoblade Chronicles franchise playable on one platform, and this last straggler was worth the wait. The game felt great to play, and the world of Mira was so dense and lively that I was left wildly impressed that this game is technically two generations old! In most cases, the new content felt right at home alongside the rest of the game. What flaws it did have could be quite immersion-breaking, but were not nearly enough to sour everything it does right. While Xenoblade Chronicles X doesn't quite fall in step with the series' numbered entries, it still manages to hold its own, making for one of the most impressive adventures I've had on the Switch.

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