Xenoblade Chronicles Not What I Expected

Xenoblade Chronicles was not the game I was expecting, but after over 10 hours of play time this weekend, I’m pretty happy that I took the plunge and purchased the game. Most of this was thanks to our good friend Abdallah, who has been posting Let’s Play’s of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on his YouTube channel since last week Friday. Watching him play almost literally drove me to the store to purchase my copy. We generally get all Nintendo titles in for review at GamesReviews, but this was the one instance when the opportunity wasn’t available to us: it is a testimate therefore, to the game, that I went out and purchased it anyways! Why do I like it so much? Accessibility.

The problem with Japanese Role Playing Games today is that they suffer from one or two things, and sometimes at the same time. First, JRPG titles tend to get tied up in their stories a bit too much, meaning that if you haven’t played other titles in the series, you might be missing out on some key story points. Second, they tend to get overly complicated, very quickly. When trying to balance Artes, special attacks, item collection, and more, things get muddled and often, new players to the franchise or the genre are left overly frustrated at their lack of progress. To top it off, a lot of JRPG titles are hard, and that only adds to game play frustrations.

That really isn’t the case with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, however; instead, Monolith Soft has found a way to make an incredibly difficult genre, easy for new players, by slowly introducing new game play elements; even 10 hours in, I’m still get tutorial boxes popping up, giving me yet another layer of depth to add to the overall experience. Don’t get me wrong, for lifelone Xenoblade and JRPG fans, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a VERY deep game, with tons of different game play elements to understand and utilize; that being said, the way the game slowly introduces these too you is what makes the overall experience accessible to all players, new and old alike.

If you’ve been watching Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Let’s Play’s on YouTube, you might be overwhelmed by what you see. Don’t be. If the game looks interesting to you – as it did to me – make the plunge anyways and experience one of the best titles on the Nintendo Switch this year.