2015 has been a great year for RPGs. Not only have we seen big western releases in the genre such as The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4, but the Japanese roleplaying game scene has been especially crowded, what with the likes of Disgaea 5, Yo-Kai Watch, Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, Lost Dimension, Operation Abyss, and Story of Seasons (just to name a few) all releasing in the past eight months. Needless to say, those looking for quality games of this genre have not been without options. It almost becomes dangerous, then, to release an RPG amidst such a deep and solid lineup of like-games. But when your title is Xenoblade Chronicles X, a follow-up to the successful Wii game brought to the West in 2012, there’s little to worry about when it comes to being lost in the shuffle.

In our time with Xenoblade Chronicles X, the one thing we’ve been constantly taken aback by is its sheer size. This is a massive game. In fact, “massive” doesn’t even begin to adequately capture just how big its world is. A diagram recently came out that compared X‘s world to that of Witcher 3‘s, Fallout 4‘s and Skyrim‘s that shows just how Xenoblade‘s world dwarfs those three, making it quite possibly the largest game ever made. It’s nearly overwhelming just how vast the world really is here, but that’s what makes playing it feel so incredibly special; because of how huge it is, there’s true history to the universe being presented. The planet that players traverse — either on foot or in their giant Skell mech — feels inhabited, lived in for centuries thanks to various cultures, landmarks and histories seemingly preserved in every nook and cranny of the map. NPCs talk about events that have long since past, the earth bears scars and markings that tell stories of previous conflict and technology shows off its various ages of advancement. It’s all entrenched in a rich and lengthy lore that takes itself seriously.



The word “epic” gets overused and therefore has lost its meaning along the way, but having said that, the word “epic” is indeed the best word to describe the experience of Xenoblade X. The game has well over 400 missions to take on, and boasts hundreds of hours of content. That, right there, is already more than most games offer; hell, that’s more than most games put together offer. In fact, in many ways, because of the nature of quests, story missions, customization, multiplayer and the overall structure of the game, Xenoblade Chronicles X feels like a MMORPG at points. We use that term in the best of ways here to describe not just what folks can do, but how they can get lost in all the game has to offer. So to say that it’s a feature-rich roleplaying game may actually be under-selling the totality of the package. To that end, developer Monolith Soft have really outdone themselves; from the breadth of the action, to the ability to merely jump in a giant mech, fly as high as you can and look out across the world’s expanse, illustrates the scope of the entire experience.

The game does a great job, though, of easing folks into what it has to offer, despite all there is to do. It starts off with some story that introduces the core characters and conflict, and then let’s players jump into some combat. Combat is similar to the original Xenoblade in the sense that it’s MMO-inspired with a hot-bar of skills and free-roam movement. So that blend of real-time battling, with a touch of turn-based mechanics thrown in for good measure, is back. Just because it borrows from its predecessor, however, doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible to newcomers and/or without fresh additions to the formula. A lot of the combat this time around is ranged; this is a more futuristic world than what we saw in the last Chronicles game, so guns are in abundance. There are classes and builds that specialize in melee, so those wanting up-close-and-personal attacks will have that option, but thus far we’ve noticed that encounters and monsters seem designed with that type of play in mind. Of course, melee’ing one’s way through enemies is one hundred percent viable, it’s just riskier, as is expected in any type of RPG. Truthfully, there are so many ways to topple foes, that there’s a little something for everyone. It all makes for a deep system, especially once getting into those aforesaid classes and skill trees. A lot of the fun derived here ultimately comes from the customization aspect of characters and combat. Once the Skells get brought into play, that facet becomes even more impressive.



In truth, Chronicles X‘s combat feels like an expanded version of 2012’s offerings. Except unlike the last game, there’s more room to make characters your own. Again, it’s very MMO like in that regard — more so than just a traditional RPG — but that’s why we love its setup so much. Where specific playstyles definitely become apparent is when finally acquiring a mech, or “Skells” in the case of X. Ascertaining one of these bad boys happens surprisingly late into the adventure, around the 30-ish hour mark, give or take a few hours, but changes up both how players travel as well as how they engage in encounters. The obvious change with Skells is the ability to zip through the skies and travel at a much faster pace than when on foot. In combat, though, the gameplay, while adhering to the same systems as those in ground-based fighting, feels simultaneously familiar but different.

For starters, players will immediately notice how much damage they do in their mechs. This means that folks can blow through some monsters with complete ease, one- or two-shotting them without so much as breaking a sweat. This capability has been super empowering and wholly satisfying. Nothing beats blowing a humongous dinosaur-looking beast out of the sky with a single blast of one’s shoulder cannon. That being said, this mech combat still feels like the character encounters in that there are skills to choose from that are presented via a hot-bar, and fights more or less play out with the same cadence, just with bigger, well, everything. By the time that Skells are introduced, though, many monsters are already pretty nasty; so sometimes we found that we weren’t necessarily overpowered, but rather the enemies had scaled with us, hence making encounters the kind of back-and-forth war we had come to expect when duking it out on land. What is neat, though, is having the option to hop out of one’s mech, land some hits or skills with the player’s character, hop back in, and then dish out the punishment again via our titanic mechanized death-machine. And of course, being able to customize these is super fun and yet another thing for player’s to look forward to when personalizing their experience.



Of course combat is only one part of this game. Another big portion of X is its story. Like the massively multiplayer online influence the game decidedly has, the story here is as involved or as passive as players want it to be. We were reminded very much of Phantasy Star Online in this regard. By that we mean, there is a sci-fi story to get wrapped up in, but there are so many side-quests and opportunities just to venture out into the world and level up, that we have found ourselves putting the story on hold to merely wander around for a while. And that seems to be what the game wants folks to do: explore. That’s not to say that its story isn’t a focus of the game, nor is it to say that the story is bad–thus far it’s been excellent–but it sometimes takes a backseat to all the other stuff there is to do. We won’t go into the story bits specifically, though, for the sake of keeping this spoiler free, but at this point, we’re liking the story more than what was presented in the first Xenoblade title–though it doesn’t seem as front and center as it did in that game.

Lastly, the multiplayer. In many respects, this was meant to be played with other people. The integration of guild support, the inclusion of raid-like scenarios to partake in, the chance to link up with others to simple tackle random quests and the fun loadout conversations that happen when trying to outfit a balanced party so as to topple a giant monster are just some of what X has to offer in terms of multiplayer. Really, it’s absolutely great and is the ideal way to experience the game. Better still, the title not only has been influenced by the likes of World of Warcraft and others like it, but also Monster Hunter. Teaming up to take down towering baddies is fulfilling and being able to seamlessly do this is even better. It’s refreshing to just indulge in the multiplayer without having to jump through any hoops.



Xenoblade Chronicles X offers so much to see and do that it’s mind-boggling. Of course, the amount of content and overall size of a game is for nothing if the core gameplay isn’t any good, but fortunately, Monolith knew this and has made a feature-rich adventure that plays like a breeze and looks great to boot. The game is still a month from release, but between now and then, we will be digging even further into what Chronicles X has in store so as to put together as comprehensive a review as we can. We’ll also be running a few more Xenoblade-centric articles before and after its release, so stay tuned for that coverage as it comes down the pipe.