Xenoblade Chronicles is a open-world Action RPGs game originally released for Wii in 2011, and was later ported to New 3DS released in 2015 fully titled as Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, and then the Switch released in 2020 as Definitive Edition, which was developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo.
Xenoblade Chronicles is also a subseries under the Xeno franchise which acts as a spiritual successor to earlier games like Square's Xenogears for PS1 in 1998, and Namco's Xenosaga trilogy for PS2 in 2002 - 06.
Today I wanted to do something different that I haven't been reviewing any of Wii games for very long time since I've covered the last Wii game in 5 years back, so I decided to try out one of the RPGs title that I am interested in playing was Xenoblade Chronicles, an open-world RPGs which incorporates the aesthetic and narrative elements from both fantasy and sci-fi genres.
It's one of the fan's most demanding Wii title that took forever for this game to get the release in US till a year later after the JP and EU release, thanks to fan campaign under "Operation Rainfall" drew attention to the game along with other twos such as The Last Story and Pandora's Tower are the last threes being released late in the lifespan of the Wii system.
Upon the release, the game was commercially success in worldwide and had gained critically acclaimed citing as one of the best RPGs game ever released for Wii, while the later Nintendo platforms such as New 3DS and Switch are also getting similar praise with newly added features.
The success of the first entry had spawned with sequels such as Xenoblade Chronicles X for Wii U in 2015, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for Switch in 2017.
Shulk, a main protagonist of first entry, has been featured as playable roster in the Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and SSB: Ultimate for Switch.
So going back to this review, I been spending 7 - 8 hours a day of playing this game because it's had a huge chunk of multiple quests just like most of the RPGs does tends to have a long lengthy campaign up to 70 hours or more which I did not expect the game to be really big for the Wii system despite the hardware limitations and being utilized with dual-layered optical disk that doubles the size of capacity really benefiting the game's content which I got to say it's pretty damn impressive for technical aspects.
As being one of the Wii's biggest libraries in terms of technical design goes, this game is absolutely done beautiful that I did not regret playing it because this is the game that I wanted to review it to discuss how the story presentation went, how the open-world exploration goes, and how the combat system feels.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place on the bodies of two enormous titans, such as the Bionis and the Mechonis.
The Bionis is where human race known as Homs lives in, while the others known as Mechon which is a Mechonis's machine race are in a perpetual war between the twos.
It focuses on a young Homs scientist named Shulk, who discovers his ability to wield the a plasma-like sword "Monado" are capable of defeating against the Mechon army, set out on a quest to seek his revenge on Mechon army after the colony 9 attack incident, as he teaming up with his best friend Reyn, while others joining in as the game progresses to stop the Mechon from taking it power.
The game comes with great opening introduction that explains the fallout between the rivalries that led into a such devastating war which endangers many innocent people struggles to defend themselves from the foes that threatening their lives by destroying their homes, losing their family, and so on.
I like the idea of having these mankind living inside the body of the titans which is strangely different from living in the planet, so lets pretend that you're the one of the titan who had millions of people living inside your body parts like head, arms, legs, and chest which is really weird, but I do really liked their imaginative concept for the game.
What makes the main highlight of the game is the whole storyline which I got to say it is a well-written that really delivers the ambitious results that may going surprise you with several cool events and some unexpecting plot holes without giving many of heavy spoilers because the entire chapters in the game sounds really outstanding thanks to in-depth dialogue and precise story development.
The cast of characters in the game are actually likable such as Shulk is one of the character that I find him quite memorable especially he appeared as playable roster in Super Smash Bros games. Going back to this, he has an interesting backstory to know his background as the game's story progress through, and he discovers a powerful looking beam sword known as the Monado which gives him ability to use his vision to sees the future, as well as effectively using it to defeat bunch of Mechon armies.
He is joined by his cool best friend Reyn, his passionate love interest Fiora who also had her brother joins in named Dunban, a medic and sniper professionalist Sharla, a princess of High Entia Melia, and a Nopon's chosen hero Riki to aid him by fighting against the evil and protecting the home world.
The presentation is absolutely look beautiful for every locations to discover. Stuff like Bionis Leg does have a lovely view of caves, rocks, bridges, waterfall, and hills filled with the mix of stormy or clear weather.
Valak Mountain has peaks and lairs of snowy places filled with blizzard and crystal, Makna Forest has greenery stuff like bunch of trees, lakeside, landing site, and grove, Satorl Marsh has bloomy environments like swamps filled with foggy areas and glowy lighting, and Colony 9 has stall markets, wreckage site, plaza, park, and homes.
The entire locations in the game is looking stunningly impressive for the Wii system despite the technical showcase goes on, this game is looking massively big for its huge landscape, bigger environmental design, and many landmarks to visit really adds the in-depth of the game's design.
I got to say I really liked the design of the enemies such as Ansels, Mammut, Skeeter, Barg, Mechon, Behemoth, and of course Telethia which I considered them as stylish and exotic, where as the bosses like Metal Face, Jade Face, Yaldabaoth, and others are actually pretty good too which they did a fabulous job of creating a such unique monsters that totally fits the RPGs standards.
Overall, it has precise story development, likable characters, and beautiful presentation design.
Gameplay
You get to play as Shulk along with his friends in big open-world environment where you get to explore around the areas to discover and visit the places which you can also navigate the locations and landmarks throughout the map screens menu.
You will have the list of goals on the quest log which includes both the story and side-quest to complete each objectives throughout the game.
The story quest are mainly part of the whole main game which heavily focuses on story campaign, where as the side-quest are not entirely connected to story based, but more like optional stuff been added to game in order to provide extra content.
To keep you mind, I'm playing the game mostly with the Wii Classic Controller, instead of using the Wii Remote and Nunchunk, because it feels much more suited to play RPGs games.
You roam around the areas by moving with the left stick and rotating camera system with right stick to see the surroundings of the area.
You will have the commands buttons such as the A button uses to talk with NPCs, examine objects, and confirming selections, where as the B button are used for jumping while roaming and cancelling selections.
You can also access the opening menu by pressing the X button which lets you select any of these options such as changing equipments, organising items, upgrading arts and skill trees, and changing time system which I will explain these further for later on this review.
During the exploration, you will engage the combat to fight off the enemies when you're get near close to them, so you will start off by locking on the enemies with the L or R shoulder button which can also cycle the lock-on targets, and then you will have 8 selectable commands known as the art moves and 3 other combat actions such as talent arts, chain attack, and flee.
Your character has an auto-attack system depends on which party members you're playing as, so those who welds the sword weapons are used for close-range attack, where as others like Sharla has sniper-rifle works effectively with long-range attack.
These 8 arts moves are used for manually input attacks are also be performed by the player, but are only available after the cooldown period that occurs after every use, while you also had the talent arts only became available after executing enough auto-attacks.
Each of the characters will have different kinds of input attacks which allows them to perform various of attack and specials such as physical damage, inflicts stuff like break, slow, and daze, toppling them, recover with health and curing, reducing enemy's physical and ether power, summoning power like earth and bolt, and increasing player's strength and shields.
The talent arts lets you perform some kind of special moves: For instance, Shulk's monado arts with buster, purge, cyclone, and others which doubles the damage hit, where as shields, speed, and armour temporary increases the defense and movements.
You will have 3 party guage bars slowly fills when you and your party members successfully land the hits on the enemies which filling the 3 tier gauge allows you and your party members to perform a chain attacks with multiple hits on the enemy for extra damage.
You will have one of the mechanic for battle system called vision system where Shulk can sense the enemy's future attacks also factors into battles, so you can prevent it from happening by alerting the party members which allows you to use one of their arts, and you can also revive the characters when they been fully knocked out in zero health points which also depletes 1 guage tier each.
In case you're struggling to defeat the enemies, you can also disengage the combat battle by switching into one of the combat actions called flee which allows you and your party members to retreat from the combat as far as possible.
After defeating these enemies will drop down the treasure objects which rewards you with the items that you want to keep it, as well as gaining amount of EXPs along with completing quests and discovering landmarks which highly increases yours and party member's skill levels can be raised up to level 99.
On the opening menu, you will access to the party's inventory screen where you can able to switch one or three of the party members that you wanted to play as, and changing their equipment such as weapons and armours that suits the best for you and your party members, so you can find the best available from the shop where you can pick and trade each of the equipment has the own advantages like one of these each will have additional gem slots where you can add these gems into the equipments will increasingly adds health points, strength, ether power, defense, agile, and others will make you and your party members becoming even more stronger.
Speaking of being stronger, you can also access to arts menus that requires your APs and learning book items to upgrade one of your arts commands increasingly adds up your damage attack and health points, reducing amounts of nasty drainage and slow cooldowns, improving shield protection, and etc. which makes your attacking and using magic system feels more effective in combat battle.
The skill trees can also benefit your teamwork if each of the affinity stuff has improved, so you can able to add up to 6 slots in skill links such as increasing aggro, allows medium weight armour to be equipped, improves arts with bonus effects, increases chance for chain links, increases tension, reduces the duration of cool off, and etc.
On the item inventory menu, you can organise your item stuff like weapon, armor, materials, gems, and collectables that you can view any of these objects to examine, remove, and use.
Then lastly you will have the real-time system that cycle the day and night affecting the in-game events, quests, enemy strengths, and item availability: for instance, most of the stronger enemy types appear at night where as the quests or events may be available on any of day or night cycle, so you can also adjust the in-game clock on the menu to the desired time at any point.
The landmarks on the map screens lets you traversing the land by serving as warp points, allowing you to instantly return to that point at any time which is similar to the fast travel system that are later used for current RPGs games nowadays.
So far, this is really huge game especially playing on the Wii which I am quite impressed with the result showcasing the Wii's hardware had managed to create a bigger open-world design which expands the heavy use of exploration, participating numerous of side-quests, gathering collectable items, and has so many monsters to fight around is what I consider the over 70 and additional hours of playthrough in all thanks to Wii's dual-layer disc format that weighs 8.54GB of size can store almost twice as much information as a Wii's single-layer disc format has 4.7GB of size which is the reason why they created such a long open-world game.
I have spent playing 7 to 8 hours a day of playthrough to experience my RPGs adventures, as I really enjoyed stuff that kept me very busy like exploring around the areas to visiting new locations, talking with NPCs to do favours for side-quests, trading the items at shop to get the best equipment to use, and of course fighting the bunch of monsters in combat to grind many EXPs as possible is what makes the game quite unique.
Speaking of being unique, I loved how the combat system really works in the game that relying on the level grinding system and upgrading arts commands which really boosts the player's and party member's skill level with better defense, speed, and attacks that makes the enemies feels vulnerable in battle.
I also wanted to praise the boss battle segments which requires a good amount of skill levels and memorising one of their weak patterns using the right type of input attacks which really adds the overall epicness of the whole battle that keeps you very entertained.
It plays really well with the Wii classic controller are much easier to control during the exploration and battle is highly designed for RPGs games to get a better gaming experience for those who dislike the Wii's default controller like the Wii Remote and Nunchunk may be lucky to stick with the traditional standard controller like the Wii classic controller is highly recommended.
The part that I don't like about in the combat is the moderate frame-rate drop when it had 5 or more enemies on the screen performing their heavy magic attacks makes the performance a bit janky, but it's not sounds all terrible in my opinion because the game still plays outstanding especially playing on the Wii console.
Overall, it has large-length single-player campaign, outstanding combat gameplay, and big open-world exploration.
Graphics
Despite it's on the Wii system which lacked HD display support, the game itself is looking remarkable with enormous open-world environments which I really liked the way the large parts of objects at landscape looks at the draw-distance is stunningly amazing to look at. The textures mapping on the area design is looking smooth, the use of cloudy fog effects works better for some locations, the balance of colours and lighting is nicely detailed, and I also liked the in-game time system that cycle the day and night is absolutely done such a cracking job for its detailed sky effects and weather animation is looking impressive for the Wii technical aspects.
I also wanted to praise the character's animation is pretty look spectacular for Wii's RPGs just like I've previously mentioned about the enemy's design that feels well animated throughout the game.
The downside is like most of the Wii games may not look good when playing on the HDTV with RCA composite cable plugged in is due to system's lack of HD support may effect on the screen resolution display can only support 480p, so you may want to look for the alternatives like video converter devices that are highly designed for retro gaming console can be found on some dedicated online stores that sells gaming's video converter devices such as RetroTink or OSSC which really helps the system's resolution look and feels more cleaner.
I overheard the people had said the 3DS version is looking even worse on the screen resolution display compared with the Wii counterpart I'm currently playing on, where as the Switch version are completely overhauled the game's visuals are looking much better than the previous two versions.
Despite the Wii's low resolution, the rest of the whole game still look spectacular for its open-world design and weather effects which I am happy with the results had turned out.
Overall, it has enormous open-world environments, smooth textures mapping, and the use of effects and animation.
Music and Sounds
The game definitely has the best original soundtrack of whole RPGs genres which was composed by Manami Kiyota, ACE+, and Yoko Shimomura are involved creating a original score for this game. The title screen is so beautiful to listen giving a strong relaxation before beginning the game. Then you have rest of the songs like Everyday Life, Memories, Sorrow, Hometown, Alcamoth (Imperial Capital), and Agniratha (Night) is also pretty to listen with beautifully made orchestrated sounds that really delivers the emotional tones, where as others like Gaur Plain is definite one of the highlights song that I finding it quite catchy to listen.
The game does have the best selection of battle songs such as An Obstacle in Our Path, and You Will Know Our Names which I really liked the intense mixture of Hard Rock and Orchestrated combine really fits well to the game's battle.
The sound effects is genuinely sounds great in all thanks to environmental noises in some locations, and atmospheric sound design which I am glad that it doesn't sound and feel out of range throughout the campaign.
I got to say the voice acting in the game seems to be better than what I've expected, as you can hear their voice doesn't sound off for their characters role because I find Shulk and their friends is actually sounds pretty decent throughout the scenes with no clunky dialogue whatsoever, so I'm assuming the people had said that it's sounds lot better in comparison with Namco's Xenosaga in terms of voice performance quality which I'm glad they found the right casting choices for the roles.
Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, great sound design, and decent voice performance.
Special Features
The game does include new game plus mode when you beating the game once retaining the same items and equipment that you previously collected and obtained from the single-player campaign, as well as numerous of side-quests on the quest logs that I've mentioned before which really helps the game's replay value.
Overall, a fine features.
Advantages
Precise story development
Likable characters
Beautiful presentation design
Large-length single-player campaign
Outstanding combat gameplay
Big open-world environment
Fantastic original soundtrack
Disadvantages
Lower screen resolution for Wii games don't look good on HDTVs
Janky frame-rate drop on some battles
Final Verdict
Presentation 10/10 - precise story development, likable characters, and beautiful presentation design.
Gameplay 9/10 - large-length single-player campaign, outstanding combat gameplay, and big open-world exploration.
Graphics 9/10 - enormous open-world environments, smooth textures mapping, and the use of effects and animation.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - fantastic soundtrack, great sound design, and decent voice performance.
Special Features 8/10 - New game plus.
Overall 9/10 - I am very glad that I had this game because I was hoping to look for the best possible RPGs game that made the right balance between the story and combat doesn't really drags down my experience.
I am happy with the game's result that delivers many positive things like the combat system are kept well balanced with level grinding and upgrades, having the long campaign fills with large exploration, numerous of quests, and epic bosses, and of course you can't go wrong with the game has the best overall story and characters that made Xenoblade Chronicles a such legendary RPGs.
I also heard from the people had said that even the 3DS version is still a faithful port to the original game but felt downgraded compared with the Wii version, where as the Switch version as definitive edition expands with many improvements over the previous Nintendo platforms such as new epilogue scenario, casual mode, overhaul graphics design, and remastered soundtrack.
That being said, this is one of my favourite RPGs for Wii libraries that the hardcore RPGs fans will be fully appreciated with the game. This version is recommended for the Wii owners which cost cheaper around £20, while the Switch version cost £30 which is slightly expensive, but more recommended to newcomers rather much preferred the game's definitive content as the better option.
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