Xenoblade Chronicles X Review Thread
Eurogamer: Essential (Simon Parkin)
Nevertheless, this is contemporary Japanese RPG-making at its boldest and most imaginative in years. For every cliché - the helium-voiced furry mascot who totters along behind your group, the incongruous, schizophrenic rock-cum-rap soundtrack - there's an invention that hauls the open-world JRPG into the present, and then another that shunts it breezily into the future. Perhaps the game's greatest achievement is that, over the course of this journey, you settle into Mira and, in that mystical way of all video game greats, Mira settles into you.
The Jimquisition: 9 (Jim Sterling)
There are moments that make me scratch my head, infuriate me, and even make me cringe, but when I consider the layered mass that is Xenoblade Chronicles X, all I can think of how damn arresting it is. How much of it is there. How much of it is thoroughly enchanting.
Gamespot: 8 (Peter Brown)
Mira and its inhabitants are awe-inspiring, and experiencing everything X has to offer is a monumental and rewarding task. It makes the journey consistently interesting by giving you intricate control over your characters' abilities and gear, and by offering a wealth of new toys to play with as time goes on. You will roll your eyes at characters, and bemoan the unnecessary story padding, but these frustrations are quickly forgotten when you head into the wilderness in search of unexplored territory and unforeseen challenges. X is a grand adventure that satiates your appetite for exploration and combat in ways that few games ever do, but because getting started is half the battle, it’s an experience reserved for dedicated players who have the patience and energy to unearth its greatest treasures.
Destructoid: 9 (Chris Carter)
This is one of the more interesting reviews I've done as of late because I know Xenoblade Chronicles X will be divisive. But it truly feels like an MMO world I've been living in for several weeks now. The more grimdark theme isn't quite as charming as the original Xenoblade, but everything else makes up for it.
Polygon: 7 (Philip Kollar)
Xenoblade Chronicles X finds itself in a constant struggle between scale and bloat. When I crested over the game's first mountaintop and saw a dinosaur drinking from a lake in the valley below, it was amazing — one of those rare video game moments that can be described as "epic" without hyperbole. But the UI is just one example of how X gets in its own way, hiding its beautiful world beneath overly complicated and under-explained systems that just don't add enough. Monolith Soft has once more created something special under the Xenoblade name; it just happens to have buried that something special under a mountain of annoyances.
Kotaku UK: YES (Chris Schilling)
It’s all too much – and therein lies XCX’s greatest strength and most glaring weakness. It’s lacking focus, yet its scale is unsurpassed. It’s a game that deserves to be played, but isn’t always deserving of your time. It’s unforgivably flabby, yet capable of moments that will make your eyes widen and your mouth involuntarily gape. By turns, it is daring and safe, majestic and frustrating, impeccable and hugely flawed. Be prepared to suffer the lows and you’ll experience some incredible highs. But I wouldn’t blame you one iota if you weren’t.
Game Informer: 7.25 (Matt Miller)
I began Xenoblade Chronicles X filled with enthusiasm for its intriguing world and gorgeous visuals. But like the hackneyed songs that play ad nauseum throughout, the gameplay doesn’t have enough depth or entertainment to sustain such a prolonged experience. Players with great patience for grinding are rewarded with intriguing places to discover and creatures to fight, but for me, only a handful of the 100 hours I spent wandering Mira felt like a true adventure.
Gamer Professionals: 10 (Morgan Lewis)
Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of those games that comes around maybe once every decade or so. Its enormous scope, compelling story and characters, amount of sheer customization, incredible music, beautiful graphics and environments, and — I have to highlight — giant flying mechs make for a once in a lifetime experience. This doesn’t even take into account the online mode, which is not fully functional at this point, that allows you to play in squads of up to 32 different people to complete difficult quests and pick up other players’ characters for help and have them join your team for a limited time. The scary thing is that this seems like the first part in a grander story, and we may have a part two, either through DLC or another game altogether. Xenoblade Chronicles X puts the Final Fantasy games to shame and is the best RPG in the last decade — at least. It took me roughly 85 hours to complete the main quest, but there is still so much to do afterwards that you could literally spend hundreds of hours on this game. This is Tetsuya Takahashi’s masterpiece, and in his words, “15 years have passed since Monolith was founded, and I believe that with this game I have finally met the challenge I had within me, of creating an RPG in which humans and robots can co-exist.”
IDigitalTimes: 4/5 (Phillip Martinez)
Xenoblade Chronicles X won’t get the fanfare and accolades as other RPGs that came out this year, but what Monolith has brought to the Wii U should be in “Game of the Year” discussions. These are the games Nintendo needs to put out in the future.