Exploring an Alien World: A Look At Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition for Switch

Welcome to an alien world, humanity. Its full of creatures small and so big that it could step on you at any moment. Thank goodness most of the big ones don’t even know you exist. Welcome to the world of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition for Nintendo Switch.

The alien world of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is nothing at all like Earth. Its full of monsters, some are very small and others are so huge they could step on you. Our advice: don’t mess with the huge ones. They don’t notice you anyway.

Exploration of this alien world takes you to high cliffs you can jump off and survive with no damage to vast waters that you swim around in. There are secrets around every corner, new objects to find and creatures that will attack you or ignore you. This is a dangerous place but humanity is stuck here. It must learn to survive. And you, the player, must figure out what you want to do. It’s the vast world you know and love from the original game, just more impressive on the Nintendo Switch console.

In the early parts of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, which we got to play early thanks to Nintendo Canada, you’ll spend a lot of time leveling up your human characters and trying to find resources you need for a variety of tasks. As with all Xenoblade titles, certain items will be available in certain places, and understanding where those are and how to obtain them is key to success, especially early on. Yes, there is a story that we won’t spoil but we will say that the early part of the game is mostly about leveling your characters up and finding your way around this unique alien world.

It’s a lot of fun jumping off cliffs and fighting alien creatures with the cool battle system. There’s so much to do in this game that you could spend hours upon hours just exploring the world and fighting enemies and not worrying about the story. Yes the other Xenoblade Definitive Edition games are huge too, but this one feels even bigger and more alien. So how does it play on Switch?

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition controls well on Switch and even when we were playing it only in handheld mode and it looked great. The improvement to the games user interface, making it more useable on a single screen, is a huge improvement and change over the original release. The development team has also used the Switch to its maximum capability, launching yet another massive game with steady performance across the board. The voice acting is noticeably fantastic as well, and although I perhaps don’t remember the quality in the original, it’s definitely a positive here. Dialogue subtitles are pretty big, though the user interface is still a bit too small to read. The menu text could stand to be a bit bigger. Overall, the game is great so far.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is a fantastic game and its wonderful that its finally on Nintendo Switch. We’ll continue to play the game and have a full review for you next month! One this is certain – once again Monolith has found a way to pull every ounce of power out of the Nintendo Switch for one of their titles.

Thank you to Nintendo Canada for providing a digital code to us. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition comes out on March 20^th, 2025 for Nintendo Switch.