Considering my screen name, I’m sure many people would have expected me to have reviewed a Xenoblade Chronicles game by now. I absolutely loved these games as a teenager, but after being disappointed by Xenoblade Chronicles 2 I drifted away from the series just in time for college. That being said, I still hold a nostalgic fondness for the series which ultimately drove me right back into its arms when it was announced that Xenoblade Chronicles X, my favorite game in the series, was being ported to the Switch with brand new stories to tell. Xenoblade Chronicles X is a big game and I have a lot to say about it so let’s cut right to it.

In the far off future of 2054, Earth is caught in the crossfire of a massive war between two alien forces and destroyed. This destruction was not without warning however, as humanity manages to escape the earth on a handful of space arks, one of which crash lands on the planet Mira after being pursued and attacked by the aliens. The story is told from the perspective of a human survivor suffering from amnesia, customized by the player at the start of the game, who joins up with the paramilitary organization BLADE to explore Mira and protect the colony of New Los Angeles.

One of the most infamous aspects of Xenoblade Chronicles X is the fact that it originally ended on a massive cliffhanger, a flaw which the majority of the Definitive Edition’s additional story content attempts to rectify. I’m happy to report the new ending makes the game better overall, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I had reservations about the way it was handled. My main gripe with the new story is that it feels like it’s embarrassed by the fact that Xenoblade Chronicles X is the black sheep of the franchise and does everything in its power to reshape it into something more in-line with the rest of the series. I’m sure many people will enjoy this change in direction, but as a long time fan it doesn’t always come off as a natural extension of the original story.

The game’s presentation hasn’t changed much since the days of the Wii U. The world of Mira is a feast for the eyes from top to bottom and its alien inhabitants have some incredibly creative designs. What has changed visually in the Definitive Edition are the playable characters who were definitely in need of a massive glow up. The only drawback to the new character models is that the player’s avatar is less customizable in certain areas, like being unable to change the color of your beard(if you choose to have one). The user interface has also been simplified for visual clarity, but I will admit the old UI had a lot more personality which I kinda miss.

The soundtrack by legendary composer Hiroyuki Sawano has remained largely unchanged save for a handful of new arrangements for tracks like “Don’t Worry”. Sawano’s music fits the setting and genre perfectly, but I know his music is an acquired taste for lots of people so your mileage may vary. There are also some brand new songs for the Definitive Edition content, but it’s pretty obvious that these songs were not composed by Sawano. The new songs are still really good, but it is a pretty noticeable shift in style from the original game.

The last item of interest in the presentation department is the game’s voice acting. The original game’s cast included a lot of economical yet reliable actors with lots of experience dubbing foreign imports. This might be a turn off for people who have heard these actors in a dozen other Japanese RPGs over the last decade, but I think they all turned in pretty solid performances. The Definitive Edition retains most of the original cast with only one very notable exception. Commander Vandam was originally voiced by Darin De Paul and was easily Xenoblade Chronicles X’s standout performer. De Paul has since moved on to much bigger projects, but he set the bar way too high for Vandam’s new actor, Gavin Hammon, who sounds nothing like the Vandam I’ve had in my head for 10 years.

The story and presentation might have their ups and downs, but the appeal of Xenoblade Chronicles X over other games in the series has always been its gameplay. Mira is quite possibly the biggest open world ever created in a video game with a staggering 5 continents the player can explore without ever being interrupted by a loading screen. While exploring on foot the player has a pretty generous jump height making most locations accessible from the start of the game. Later on you’ll have access to a flying mech called a Skell which enables you to reach literally anything you can see, no strings attached.

The only thing that restricts your movements in any practical sense are the powerful, hostile enemies populating the world. Much like other games in the series, combat takes place in real time and requires players to understand good positioning and strategic use of combat arts in order to triumph. Xenoblade Chronicles X’s unique combat systems include Soul Voices, Character Classes, and Skells. Soul Voices are call outs made by allies in certain situations asking you to use a specific type of art. If a corresponding art is used it becomes more powerful and the party will recover some hit points.

Character classes determine which weapons, arts, and skills your character has access to. Most characters have fixed combinations that define their playstyles, but the player’s avatar character can choose any class they want. Furthermore, when the avatar masters a class they can combine its weapons and skills with those of other classes to create virtually any playstyle you can imagine. Finally there are Skells which are customized for combat entirely through equipment rather than classes. With an arsenal of laser swords, force fields, missile launchers, and rail guns at your disposal, skells can become flying death machines that trivialize smaller enemies and give you a fighting chance against Mira’s most imposing titans.

As intrinsically fun as combat and exploration can be, most of it will be facilitated by missions. Story missions advance the game’s main plot, but each chapter will require certain prerequisites to be completed before you can progress. Affinity missions are side stories that deepen the player avatar’s relationship with another playable character, allowing the avatar to recruit new characters to their team and learn their unique combat arts. Side missions deal with the stories of minor characters scattered throughout the world. Most side missions are fairly low stakes affairs, but occasionally they can have visible effects on the world by recruiting friendly aliens, building new structures, or even getting side characters killed based on your choices. Finally there’s basic missions picked up from the mission board which have virtually no story attached to them and exist solely as an additional source of money, experience points, and items.

The Definitive Edition also has a few gameplay expansions on top of continuing the main story. In combat the player can now use an art even if it’s on cooldown by expending a limited resource which can be quite useful in a tough fight. There are also four new playable characters and two new Skells, all of which are welcome additions. Finally there is a sixth continent for the player to explore in the game’s final chapter which is pretty exciting, but the fact that it’s isolated from the rest of Mira makes it feel less like an extension of Xenoblade Chronicles X and more like an unfinished level from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

The Catholic perspective is a very apt lense to apply to the Xenoblade Chronicles series and its predecessors Xenogears and Xenosaga due to the philosophical themes interwoven into each game. Xenoblade Chronicles X is a bit lighter on the philosophy compared to the rest due to its emphasis on gameplay, but I promise there’s still a few interesting questions to chew on. However, for the sake of not spoiling the story I’ll be saving those thoughts for a dedicated spoiler section.

What I will talk about is the depiction of religion in the game’s side content. One of New Los Angeles’s biggest landmarks is a massive cathedral in the residential district, though it is stated by residents that the building is used for religious services of all faiths so it’s less of a cathedral and more like a chapel found on a military base. The side missions addressing the role of religion are also a pretty mixed bag as well. The most negative depiction of religion centers around a new cult that worships an unseen “bringer of miracles” whose deceptions threaten human-alien relationships. To the game’s credit there are dialogue options that allow the player character to oppose the cult without condemning religion as a whole, but it’s still a pretty unflattering quest line overall.

The other major instances of religion come with the recruitable party members Boze and Hope. Boze Lowes is a devout Buddhist and frequently invokes Buddha’s teachings in his heart-to-hearts and affinity missions. However, Boze does have a significant flaw in that he carries an irreconcilable hatred towards all aliens for the destruction of earth and the deaths of his students, even directing this bigotry towards friendly aliens. Admittedly my first instinct regarding Boze is largely apathetic due to the fact that I’m not a Buddhist, but upon further reflection I recognize this is yet another instance of the played out “religious racist” trope that absolutely would have offended me more if Boze was a Christian.

Hope Alanzi is the only thing in Xenoblade Chronicles X preventing me from denouncing the game as a “religion bad” slop fest, but only just barely. Hope grew up an orphan in the care of a Priest from whom she inherited an extremely altruistic instinct to help anyone without asking anything in return. Hope never mentions God or Jesus by name, but her overwhelming generosity echoes the teachings of Christ which makes sense for an orphan raised by the Church. The main conflict of Hope’s affinity mission does cause her to enter a period of doubt in her altruistic ways, but by the end she is reaffirmed in the inherent goodness of helping others so I really don’t have much cause to complain.

It gives me great satisfaction to declare Xenoblade Chronicles X is still a good game and one that is largely enhanced by the changes and new additions provided by the Definitive Edition. Ten years later my critical eye and evolving tastes in games does prevent me from claiming it as my favorite game of all time as I once did, but it’s nice to know it’s still a game worth playing. Nintendo Switch Players who love RPGs should absolutely add Xenoblade Chronicles X to their collection.

Bonus Section – The Spaceship of Theseus

In the original Xenoblade Chronicles X one of the big twists is that the human characters aren’t quite as human as they once were. The crews of the space arks were given mechanical bodies that could last the potentially centuries long search for a new home across the universe while their real bodies and the rest of the passengers were kept in stasis. As shocking as this revelation is, it’s also a deception. Chapter 12 reveals Project Exodus secretly uploaded the consciousnesses of 200 million humans into a super computer and left their natural bodies behind to be destroyed with the earth, planning to revive the human race using artificially regrown bodies once a suitable planet had been colonized. This is pretty standard sci-fi shenanigans, but the prevalence of this trope comes down to the interesting philosophical implications it presents.

Xenoblade Chronicles X essentially presents a modern reinterpretation of a thought experiment known as the Ship of Theseus. In Greek mythology King Theseus of Athens sailed to Delos after slaying the Minotaur. The Athenians would later use the same ship to sail to Delos on a yearly pilgrimage commemorating the event, but as the ship grows older its parts will need replacement. Over time all of the ship’s original parts will have been replaced, so is it really still the same ship captained by King Theseus? If not, at what point did it cease to be the Ship of Theseus?

The answers to these questions put forth in Xenoblade Chronicles X are very dualistic and transhumanist from a philosophical point of view. Dualism asserts that the human body and mind are two distinct entities from each other with the body being a sort of puppet under the mind’s control. Transhumanism, the idea that humans can transcend their own humanity, is one of dualism’s logical endpoints. If the body is just a puppet for the mind, it stands to reason that the mind could theoretically be transferred into a new body, including bodies capable of feats surpassing normal human limits or even bodies that do not physically resemble humans at all.

I for one take issue with the game’s presented philosophy both personally and religiously. My personal objection is the heavy emphasis on the continuity of consciousness as justification for the artificial body scheme. The short version of this argument is that since all of the humans in artificial bodies retain all their previous memories, swapping from one body to the next is no different from falling asleep and waking up. Setting aside the fact that I don’t think consciousness and memory are the end all be all of human identity, the game itself has two characters that challenge this point pretty severely. The first is the player’s avatar character, an amnesiac with no way of identifying if he or she was ever human in the first place. This is further complicated by the character Yelv, a playable character who is implied to have been implanted with false memories by the end of his side missions. If the player character and Yelv’s humanity can be considered questionable at best, who’s to say all the other human characters aren’t also essentially brand new people with fractured or fabricated memories of the past?

My religious objection comes from the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that humans are a hylomorphic union of body and soul. Both are essential to a person’s being and identity, and separating them would effectively be a death sentence. From a theological point of view, humanity has been completely annihilated in the world of Xenoblade Chronicles X and replaced by a race of soulless, mechanical imposters. The discussion probably would’ve ended here 10 years ago, but the Definitive Edition adds more story content that addresses the nature of the soul and the afterlife so let’s take a quick look at that stuff before signing off.

The Definitive Edition reveals in the afterlife the souls of the dead from all possible realities return to a massive collective consciousness in a realm outside the bounds of space and time. Aside from this cosmology being a great excuse for the developers to loosely connect Xenoblade Chronicles X to the other games in the series through a multiverse, it’s also a conception of the afterlife that has more in common with eastern religions than Christianity. The new character Al, who somehow stumbled into this realm and escaped from it to justify his absence for most of the game, even makes a comment about the realm being similar to “Nirvana”. My knowledge of eastern religions is limited so I can’t really judge how accurate Xenoblade Chronicles X is to their mythologies, but from what I do know I’m not convinced the comparison is exactly one-to-one.

Ultimately, I think the inclusion of the afterlife is one of the prime examples of how the Definitive Edition’s story additions don’t always feel like a natural extension of the original game. The game still benefits from having an actual ending, but the way it complicates the world’s cosmology was certainly a headache inducing experience. I would not recommend using Xenoblade Chronicles X as a serious reflection on the nature of reality, but as a philosophical thought experiment (like the Ship of Theseus) it’s certainly fun to chew on. Thank you for reading this extended analysis and God bless!

About TheGoodHoms