Every single week, I’ll be chronicling my first time playing through the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy on Switch 2 in anticipation for Xenoblade Genesis.
This is Week 1 of my journey through the first Xenoblade Chronicles, I’ll be talking about my experience from the beginning of the game to the unlocking the “Changing the Future Mechanic” after the spider fight.
Characters
Immediately, as the game starts. I was stunned at how expressive many of the characters were. Dunban’s cocky smile as he is excited to fight Mechons gave me a sense of what kind of character he is.
Even seeing the commander’s expressions on Colony 9, from the way he animates as he is frequently pulling soldiers towards himself. It establishes a very dominating character through animations alone. We hardly had an opportunity to see a lot of him, but every scene he was in, I enjoyed greatly because of how expressive his animations were!
Also the character designs are incredible! Everyone has memorable design. Even when I’m giving these characters different looking outfits, you can still tell them apart because of the body type, height, and hair of each of the characters. I won’t ever have to be confused on whether I’m looking at Shulk or Reyn.
From my understanding, these characters look drastically different from their original Wii counterparts, but I have never seen a remaster look at good as this one. It feels like they replaced the models rather than improve their textures.
Gameplay
The gameplay is so much fun even at this early stage of the game. Shulk has a lot of positional moves including moves that are meant to break an enemy. Reyn has aggro & area of effect abilities that make sure he is grabbing the attention of all the enemies.
Reyn also has a topple ability, which when used while an enemy is in “Break”, flips the enemy over for a certain amount of time allowing the party to get in free hits. This is such a cool way of utilize team’s abilities together.
Unfortunately, it is a bit frustrating since I can only control the leader of the party so I am constantly hoping the AI will use a Topple ability while I have triggered the Break debuff on an enemy, which is required when fighting Mechons.
Towards the end of my first session, I did unlock the “Changing the Future” mechanic, which is super cool, but is also a bit annoying to have the game pause for several seconds to show me a full attack animation in slow motion.
However, those nitpicks aside, I have been losing myself in this game. I love fighting everything in my way. The quests are simple enough to encourage me to fight even more & I love that many of the collection style quests could also be completed before even accepting those quests because those items are already found across the world or from monsters to collect.
Environments
The world itself is also incredible. I’ve only been to Colony 9 & Tephra Cave, but being able to exploring this massive areas finding cool bits of treasure along the way or even coming across some unique monster spawns is exciting! I have made it a goal of mine to fight every single unique monster spawn I come across & so far!
I did find a crazy looking bird on an Anti-Air Artillery, but I am not at the level where I can fight that thing yet so I’m excited to come back to Colony 9 to get my kill.
The NPC & monsters are all on a time schedule, which I absolutely love. I enjoy no matter how simple it is, that characters feel like they are living in this world. Having character only show up during the evening or shopping in the mornings really adds to the realism of this world. Even if it means, it is so much more difficult to return to a quest NPC or finding a monster, I love these are all on a schedule.
As I was playing through the game, I noticed there were Meeting Points I was unable to interact with. I assumed Dunban would eventually join our party! During the attack on Colony 9, when he actually did join the party that made me so excited, but unfortunately, the game didn’t allow me to interact with those Meeting Points yet so I’m sure I’m missing another character.
Also Dunban left the party as Shulk & Reyn headed to Colony 6, but I am excited to see Dunban again! Also I love that the entire time I was playing this game, I was so confused as to why Fiora & Reyn were getting all the weapon drops.
I didn’t understand. I was telling myself that I might just be unlucky & then once I get the Monado, I was like oooooh, he can only wield the Monado. I knew that Shulk would get the Monado because I played Super Smash Brothers, but I didn’t know how that would work in a game where you are constantly upgrade your equipment & then to see that Shulk can only equip a single weapon. It all made sense.
Story
Now onto the story, I love the setup of Bionis vs Mechon and how all these characters are living on top of a giant mech. It is cool exploring new areas & for the game to point out where on the mech we are is such an awesome moment.
The mystery behind what the Monado is also very fascinating. Dunban used it to help fight back the Mechon, but I love that Dickson & Shulk are learning that there is something far more powerful that they haven’t unlocked yet with the Monado.
Seeing the flashback of the Monado expedition activating this bright blue light & all dying except for Shulk is crazy. Shulk & this expedition must have some sort of ties to the origins of this blade. I also enjoy the Star Wars aspect of blue lights of Bionis vs the red lights of Mechon.
Something that had me standing on my couch was the attack on Colony 9. I never expected this to occur. Seeing the bright clear skies turn to this hazy dark fog with embers flying around me was so depressing.
Having the Mechons being so difficult to fight really added this sense of intensity to the situation especially when Reyn refused to use a Topple ability.
However, the most shocking part of this entire first play session is Fiora’s death. I could not believe this actually happened. I was upgrading her, changing outfits, giving her better equipment. Going to Meeting Points & raising my Affinity with her.
The game does such a clever job at using Dunban as the “will he die here” kind of character. Constantly, I am thinking that he might die so to flip it around on us by having Fiora die is remarkable.
Her death scene was so gruesome because we see it twice. The first time through Shulk’s ability & the second time as he is unable to change the future. It is depressing, but what makes this stand out as an incredible moment.
Is while Shulk is grieving losing Fiora, which when we saw the flashback, it was cool that the characters were wearing the outfits I choose at the time of the Meeting Point. It really added so much more weight knowing that the game paid attention to the outfits choices throughout my time playing the game.
Either way, as Shulk is grieving Fiora, the music begins to get more hopeful as Shulk gains the courage & his resolve to destroy all the Mechons. Such an awesome moment in the game that has me excited to play more!
And that was Part 1 of my journey through the first Xenoblade Chronicles, at the time you are reading this, I have already recorded several parts of this series to keep a consistent weekly release, avoid being spoiled, and hopefully timing this close to the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Feel free to come back next week to hear more of my thoughts on this incredible game!!