Xenoblade Chronicles X: Authoritative Edition Review
Blog Andrew Joseph 19 Mar , 2025 0
In an age when open world games are dimes, the Xenoblade Chronicles X soars above the backpack. When you pass the mecha suit through Mira's large planet, there is an unparalleled sense of freedom and exploration, while other RPGs are as big as other RPGs. While its story about humans finding another home may sometimes be forgotten, the already engaging combat system is supported by a huge improvement in the quality of life of this confirmed version, unlike others.
Xenoblade Chronicles X starts with a boarding ship of the human race in an attempt to escape from Earth as it gets caught in the firefight of alien wars. Your ship, the beluga whale, eventually crashes on Mira, and it lands on you, discovering its scattered residue from the freshly settled city of New Los Angeles. In a vacuum, it's a missionary story, but it's also the weakest story in Xenoblade Games. This is partly due to his customizable silent protagonist, who has no personality at all. The blank slate means that the story lacks the same emotional impact as the other games in the series.
Thankfully, side quests do help slack off and develop for your party and even many NPCs that are fascinating world building and engaging character. For example, since all humans are forced to unite to survive, a basic mission explores topics of discrimination against other alien races – it provides important insights into how humans interact with these races on Mira and how they can cross friendships on racial borders outside the planet.
Completing any task will increase the affinity level of anyone in your party at that time and can then release their heart-to-heart events. These are special scenes that provide an important position for additional backstory, similar to how characters and heroic legends deal with their bonding events. For example, Colonel Elma’s cold personality begins to melt as you learn more about her interest in cars and pizza, exudes her character, and shows us different aspects that are not available in the main story.
Once a character has a high enough affinity level, you will also unlock their personalized affinity tasks, and the rewards for completing these tasks are the most important. The main attraction is that your protagonist will learn exclusive combat skills called art that otherwise cannot be obtained by upgrading. It's a great incentive to learn more about supporting actors, while also becoming stronger and stronger.
An outstanding engineer is Lin. Her affinity mission details her engineering skills and enthusiasm for the inseparable from the White Whale. Although she would rather sit on the sidelines, she knew she had to fight when she needed it, which is why she waved her huge shield and Gatling gun in the fight. The personal moments of crew members like this really help balance the fact that your bland hero doesn’t have anything of his own.
The authoritative edition even includes brand new recruitable characters and new story content worth watching. Without entering spoilers, the content is radiated at a uniform rate throughout the 50-60-hour event, making it natural inclusive while adding a greater lifespan to the already massive game.
While your protagonist may be bland, it certainly isn't the open world of Xenoblade Chronicles X. It is divided into five areas, each with its own terrain type. Primordia, for example, starts with lush grasslands, and later the area called Cauldros feels overwhelmingly over its lava fields. Spreading a number of gorgeous landmarks from Mira, it makes the exploration exciting, from the original huge natural passages to the original Arendt Bridge to the mysterious and mechanical tilted rings suspended halfway in the sand of the Oblivia desert area.
While the only central area for human activities is the new Los Angeles, the rest of the place is still absolutely full of life. Small and giant monsters crawl in all directions, but what sets them apart is that some are docile and others are hostile. Low-level bee monsters may attack you, but that giant dinosaur-like creature of level 40 may pass by you, be careful about your business. Each species has its own habits and behaviors, which means you have to be alert when exploring, rather than unconsciously bent over like many other open world games. Some monsters also only appear at certain times of the day, and now you can easily adjust from the menu without having to find and use special pods scattered in Mira.
The speed you run helps too. Overall, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth might be great, but I've been constantly frustrated by the slowness of the cloud, realism or not. In Xenoblade Chronicles X, your character is very fast by comparison. Mira's gravity is also like the moon, allowing you to cover long distances and even jump to higher altitudes in a single way. Such a decision makes the exploration of Mira smoother and more daunting.
It's also impressive that the world scales well with its mechas (called Skells) and is far enough once you get into the story. When you are in Skell, your actions are faster than running on foot, but those giant monsters that are peaceful before they can be hostile to you. This means sometimes it's better to run to the destination rather than driving there based on what's in the path. This constantly changes the dynamics between you and the Mira environment, making exploration fresh.
At the end of the story, your Skell even has the ability to fly, allowing you to reach higher altitudes and providing access to mountains that you can’t explore in the first place. This brings exploration to new heights, making Mira really feel like a new home for humanity, as you are able to go anywhere without limit.
Everyone is fighting
The combat in the Xenoblade Chronicles series is real-time, but it is different from other combat systems because it feels more like an MMO. Enemies and allies fight with basic automatic attacks, and you can select a row of more powerful artworks at the bottom of the screen. The order in which you use them is equally important – for example, some offensive arts may bring to enemies to feet, a state that causes them to temporarily land on the ground, while others cause greater damage to collapsed enemies. There are many synergies to solve, which adds a lot of strategies to the action.
Another unique feature is the sound of the soul. RPG characters like to shout out their attack names during battles and spit out Quippy One-Liners, while Xenoblade Chronicles actually turned Trope into a gaming mechanic! You and your allies sometimes shout out specific phrases that prompt certain actions, such as using art that creates status effects (which is color-coded purple) – then the suggestion will activate the purple soul sound, making your extra reward more susceptible to status. It is immersive while leaning towards more ridiculous elements of the genre.
Ranking every Xenoblade Chronicles game
Ranking every Xenoblade Chronicles game
While this is as interesting as the original version on the 2015 Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Distive Edition also adds a range of quality of life improvements. The quick cooldown bar is a substantial addition, which fills during combat when using automatic attacks. By spending a portion of the bar, you can completely bypass the cooling time of any artwork and use it immediately. Need extra recovery, can't wait? Use your art of healing and cool quickly so that your allies are not eliminated. The fast cooling bar is pretty slow to build, so it’s important to choose the right time to use it, but when you do, it can turn the tide of battle right away.
Perhaps the biggest tweak is that you can now conveniently change your party membership from a separate menu anytime, anywhere. While this is a basic feature of many RPGs, the original version requires you to remember where each character is in New La and then talk to them in exchange for them. Of course, maybe the process is more closely linked to the world around you, but it is also hard and annoying, but it is also very annoying, especially when exploring the new LA, as you have to return to the New La lineup. This single change is huge and frankly enough to make the Wii U version itself completely obsolete.
Most importantly, characters who are not in active parties now still get EXP, reducing the tediousness of exchanging people for further exchange. In the Wii U version, substitutes have to be separated and upgraded separately, which makes some very unbalanced party pieces. The final version cuts unnecessary grinding, which is sure to be appreciated.
As for customization, each party member has a specific class that cannot be changed, such as Immortal as a shield cavalry, but your custom character can switch their classes at will. By lowering along different classes of trees, you can upgrade their rankings to learn new arts and passive abilities. This makes the protagonist feel like belonging to the flame logo, the character can mix and match different skills, and it's fun to play and find the perfect setting that suits your play style.
You can also fight in Skell, and Xenoblade Chronicles X also fights it the same as its exploration. Their over-inflatable stats and power make smaller enemies stand out, but they are perfect for Mira's giants and other giants and other bosses that will smash yours. Fighting in Skell is similar to walking, except that the Skell weapon you equip determines which art you have. This is another layer of depth and patchwork that satisfy the smallest effect part of my brain.
In addition to the quality of life changes listed above, the “Authoritative Edition” also has some nice visual improvements. The UI is cleaner and the character models are clearer (you hope they will be in ten years) which makes it finally worth one of the best Sci-Fi gaming series. With the disappearance of the Wii U GamePad, fast travel and map information have also been intelligently redesigned to a separate menu on a single screen, converting the information perfectly into a toggle. Now I no longer have to experience neck pain problems that don't have to be frequent change Between looking down at my game board and returning on the TV screen.
In Xenoblade Chronicles X: Dextive Edition, there are also some returned multiplayer features, although I can't test these features because the server is not in use during this audit. In the Wii U version, you can recruit other players’ avatars to solve squad missions, such as defeating specific enemies, and the online nemesis mission provides a satisfying way to test your final game skills. Although the smaller portion of these multiplayer elements is the smaller portion of the more MMO-centric identity that makes Xenoblade Chronicles x unique, it is hoped that they will be justified in the final version of the Power Edition.