Review: XENOBLADE CHRONICLES DEFINITIVE EDITION is a Decent Upgrade with a Beautiful Soundtrack
Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition was recently released for the Nintendo Switch and fans are loving it. I have wanted to play a Xenoblade game for some time, but never had the chance until now, so I was also excited when Nintendo was kind enough to send me a copy to review. Now, I’m here to share my thoughts.
Xenoblade Chronicles DE is an HD remaster of a 2010 Wii game. The graphics have been greatly improved, but it’s still not the best looking game out there. It looks more like it went from a Wii level of graphics to a PS3 or Xbox 360 level of graphics. It’s a lot better, but don’t expect to see anything jaw dropping. Of course, if you’re not expecting a remake, but rather a remaster, you’ll probably have about the right level of expectations.
I’ve included the opening videos below from the original Wii version and the DE version of the game for you to compare.
Now that we’ve settled that the game’s graphics have improved, lets talk about the actual gameplay. Overall, the gameplay is fine. It’s very RPG. The world is a fantasy world with creatures all over. You’ll talk to villagers to get quests, including a lot of farming quests. The nice thing is that most quests don’t require you to go and talk to anyone once they’re completed. This cuts down on having to run back and forth and I very much appreciate it.
One feature that I’m torn on is how slowly they introduce features. On the one hand its great that they slowly introduce new features to you like leveling up skills and stuff because it prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by so much information at the beginning. On the other hand, there were several times where I wanted to understand what I could do as I leveled up and there was no way to know until I got to the right point in the game. I think in the end, it’s worth the slower roll out though.
I will say that I’m not a big fan of the battle system though. Once you engage in combat, you and your team start auto-attacking and it feels like a turn-based system. Then, you can input commands for different abilities and attacks to do more damage, inflict status conditions, or more. The problem is that at its core it’s still very much a turn-based system but they try to make it feel like a real-time system and there’s a disconnect for me. In a real-time system I want to be able to dodge or block and have things done more immediate. I’m sure there are people who enjoy the system or don’t mind it as much as I do, but for me it makes the combat feel slow and unrewarding.
One of the biggest strengths of Xenoblade Chronicles DE is the music. The music is absolutely gorgeous and I do not blame anyone that buys the soundtrack. The music is a big win for this title. Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda, Manami Kiyota, and ACE+ deserve high praise for this.
The story has been very interesting to play through as well. My biggest problem is that when you face Mechon enemies, you have to spend time to use an ability of the Monado so that your other party members can do any damage to them. That being said, the story is interesting as you set off on an adventure to avenge the girl you like.
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles DE is a fun game and if you enjoyed the original version or have wanted to give the franchise a go, this is a great time to jump in. Xenoblade Chronicles DE is available now on the Nintendo Switch.
