Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition Review – Ambitious, But Flawed

Title	Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
Released	March 20, 2025
Developer(s):	Monolith Software
Publisher(s):	Nintendo of America Inc.
Platform(s):
Genre	Action RPG, Open World, Online Multiplayer
Rating	T
Price	$59.99

Completed on the Switch in Handheld Mode

HowLongToBeat Time: 86½ Hours (Main + Extras) | My Clear Time: 54hours

Background

---

Released in 2015 for the Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X shifted away from its predecessor’s story-driven focus, opting for a vast open-world sci-fi setting. It emphasized exploration, customizable mechs (Skells), and MMO-style quests, all within the ambitious design by Monolith Soft, despite the original hardware’s limitations.

Nearly a decade later, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition arrives on the Nintendo Switch, featuring enhanced visuals, improved performance, a redesigned UI, quality-of-life upgrades, and a new epilogue in Chapter 13 that offers more closure to the original’s abrupt ending.

The development team for Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition includes:

Experience

---

I recently played Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition on the Switch. As a long-time fan of the series, I was eager to see how this title compared. Although I never owned a Wii U, I’d always been intrigued by X due to its shift in gameplay. Instead of focusing on the story, it emphasizes exploration and open-world mechanics.

Having played the other games in the series, I was curious how the change in direction would affect my experience. The shift to an open world and more MMO-inspired mechanics was bold, but it paid off.

Impressions

Introduction

---

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition opens with a character creation screen. After customizing your avatar, you’re dropped into an intro that sets the tone for the adventure on Mira.

Gameplay and Mechanics

---

Combat System
The combat in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is tactical, requiring timing and spatial awareness. It combines MMO-style mechanics with a focus on positioning. Auto-attacks and Arts, each with cooldowns and position-based bonuses, are central to the strategy. Managing aggro, timing attacks, and positioning are key, especially during tough fights.

Beyond basic attacks, the real challenge lies in using buffs, debuffs, and chaining abilities. Timing is important to break enemy defenses and deal more damage.

Overdrive
Overdrive is an exciting mechanic where players can trigger powerful bursts of damage. It uses Tension Points (TP) built up in battle. The remaster gives more weight to Overdrive, offering tools to extend its duration and increase damage. It’s not just about raw power; it requires skillful timing and management.

Skell Combat
Skells are customizable mechs that change the pace of combat. They make some enemies easier to fight, but others still pose a challenge. The ability to fly with Skells introduces vertical combat, adding more tactical options for dealing with enemies or avoiding them.

Party Synergy
The team you build is essential in combat. Each character has their own Art loadouts, passive bonuses, and AI patterns. Balancing your team for maximum efficiency is crucial, and success often depends on how well each member works together, rather than just focusing on individual stats.

Optional Content & Missions
The remaster includes a lot of optional content, including quests that unlock important features like Skells and the flight module. However, some of these quests are hidden and require active searching.

Affinity missions unlock powerful abilities but their importance isn’t always clear, making them feel like hidden necessities. Completing these missions offers great rewards, like character development and lore, enriching the overall experience.

Art & Audio

---

The remaster refines the art style, updating it to match the polished look of recent Xenoblade titles. Moving away from the Wii U’s raw, high-tech design, it introduces smoother textures and enhanced lighting for a more refined appearance.

Mira’s vibrant world looks sharper with improved textures and detailed character models. While the original had its charm, the remaster delivers a more cohesive and visually immersive experience, with clearer environments and smoother character and Skell animations.

Performance Improvements:
The remaster delivers significant technical upgrades, including 1080p resolution when docked and dynamic scaling for smoother performance. In portable mode, it runs at 720p with dynamic resolution. On the Switch OLED, the portable version looks clean and vibrant, offering an experience the original Wii U couldn’t match.

Audio:
The audio in Xenoblade Chronicles X enhances immersion with crisp sound effects, from gunshots to sword clashes and explosions. Ambient noises and intense action moments work together to make Mira feel alive and dangerous.

Some standout tracks:

The Key We’ve Lost – A melodic rock track with orchestral elements, soaring vocals, and impressive drumming.

Black Tar – A high-tempo battle theme combining metal, rap, and vocals.

Don’t Worry – A gentle acoustic-driven track, featuring strong female vocals that go with the transition to Skell flight. The remastered version has more bass and percussion than the original.

Unique Features and Mechanics

---

New Party Members & Missions
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition introduces new playable characters, expanding the roster to 22. Each comes with their own recruitment missions, encouraging exploration and deepening the story. These additions influence team strategies, especially in the mid-to-late game, with mission details provided via the Active Members menu.

Survey Rate Rewards
Surveying Mira now offers tangible rewards. Reaching 5% milestones per region unlocks valuable items like Credits, Material Tickets, and Tensifiers, which enhance Tension Points during battle. This change makes exploration feel more rewarding and adds new strategic layers.

Instant Time Change
Time change is now more accessible through the System menu, removing the need for Rest Spots. This update streamlines quest progression and saves time, reducing the need for backtracking across Mira.

On-The-Fly Party Management
Party management is now faster with the Active Members menu, allowing you to switch characters anytime. This improvement gives you the freedom to experiment with team compositions without worrying about locations or NPCs.

Autosave & More Save Slots
Autosave provides extra security by saving at key moments like fast travel or landmark discovery. With three manual save slots, managing multiple save files has become easier, especially in perilous areas.

Scout Terminal
The BLADE Scout Console allows you to scout and recruit online avatars from other players across Mira. You can view avatars’ levels and class ranks and manage your own avatar by registering or removing them as needed.

Seiyuu Performances

---

Xenoblade Chronicles X features standout voice performances from both well-known and emerging seiyuus. Players can customize their experience with a variety of voices, including talents like Ami Koshimizu, Maaya Uchida, and the late Atsuko Tanaka.

These voices enhance the immersive world of Mira, complementing the game’s vast setting and intricate narrative. Here’s a look at the talented cast behind Xenoblade Chronicles X:

Verdict

---

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition stands out in the series, not because it perfects the formula but because it boldly experiments with scope and systems in ways none of the other Chronicles games do. Its world is vast, the combat deep, and the structure invites open-ended exploration with layers of customization and mechanical depth.

But it’s also one of the most divisive titles in the franchise, and for good reason. Much like Xenoblade Chronicles 2‘s reliance on affinity gating to progress, X ties core story advancement to map exploration thresholds and other side objectives that aren’t communicated clearly or woven seamlessly into the main questline. This disrupts the pacing, undermines your agency, and feels more like bureaucracy than discovery.

It’s not that these systems don’t have merit—they can be rewarding on their own. But when the game demands you treat them as mandatory without giving them the same narrative weight or visibility, it becomes a structural issue. If something is important, design should reflect that. Don’t make it optional in form but required in function.

This design philosophy echoes the more convoluted side of modern Western RPGs—systems for the sake of systems, often at the expense of flow and player freedom. While X is worth experiencing for its ambition and spectacle, it’s clear Monolith Soft learned from this game’s missteps. The series evolved in smarter directions afterward, making X both a fascinating experiment and a lesson in how far is too far.

TLDR

---

Pros

• Ambitious Scope & Distinct Tone: The game pushes the technical and narrative boundaries with its vast world and unique structure, offering a fresh experience within the Xenoblade series.
• Fast-Paced Combat: A dynamic and combo-heavy system that stands out from other entries.
• Soundtrack & Audio: Strong soundtrack and audio direction that enhance the atmosphere and immersion.
• MMO-Style Systems: Offers deep, grind-friendly mechanics for completionists and long-term players

Cons

• Exploration & Progression Gating: Forced map exploration thresholds and other side content that disrupt the pacing and limit player agency.
• Siloed Content: Important mechanics and systems are hidden behind side content or non-story-driven actions, making them easy to overlook.
• Restrictive MMO Design: Can overwhelm or frustrate players who prefer streamlined, story-driven progression.
• Love-Hate Experience: The game’s structure and pacing create a mixed emotional response, with elements that stand out but also frustrate, particularly in how progression is tied to non-core content.

References

---

1. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition — Overview Trailer — Nintendo Switch
2. Black Tar [Full Remastered version] – Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
3. Don’t worry [2XDv Full Song] – Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
4. Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition OST – The Key We’ve Lost