Xenoblade Chronicles X Is Yet Another Game Begging For Nintendo Switch 2

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is an exhaustingly massive game, so I’m not yet prepared to offer a full-scored review of Monolith Soft’s Nintendo Switch remaster. But what can be said is that it’s a fantastic return for the Wii U cult classic that finally stands a chance at reaching a wider audience. But like other Xenoblade titles, it feels the hardware holds it back.

There is an element of forgiveness and understanding with games of this scale and scope on the Nintendo Switch. It isn’t a powerful piece of hardware, and has lagged behind ever since the console first launched in 2017, let alone eight years later. The fact it can produce titles that allow you to explore vast and uncompromising worlds like the ones found in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Xenoblade Chronicles X is astounding in its own right, but I’d be loath to admit they run well or look great, at least not without obvious limitations.

Xenoblade Chronicles X Is Held Back By The Nintendo Switch

Let’s start with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which launched at the end of 2017 alongside Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a fantastic game, and I remember saying as such at the time when I did my review. Yet one of the glaring issues was the fact that, most of the time, it resembles an ugly and blurry mess. The art design and sense of scale mostly shine through, but there is a need to develop a thick skin to ignore its visual inconsistencies. When you arrive in bigger areas and try to look out onto the horizon, it isn’t uncommon for the framerate to drop as an otherwise gorgeous world turns into a soup of multicoloured aliasing.

But I still loved it, and was willing to look past its graphical compromises to appreciate both its characters and narrative. But this shouldn’t be the case. Monolith Soft shouldn’t have to contend with lackluster hardware to craft sprawling open world epics. Nintendo could evolve in ways that benefit these games instead of holding them back.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and 3 were much the same, albeit improved over the second game when it came to resolution and performance. It felt like Monolith learned how to best work within these constraints, and with any luck, the Switch 2 will help to remove them entirely. Or, slightly less optimistically, at least raise the ceiling somewhat.

And It Needs A New Console To Reach Its Full Potential

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is a port of a game that first launched almost a decade ago, and has undergone a surprisingly drastic makeover when it comes to its base presentation. It’s now been brought in line with the modern anime stylings of 1, 2, and 3 instead of the pseudo-realistic look it once had, allowing characters to be more expressive in cutscenes, even if select NPCS haven’t had the same level of love and attention. By and large, it leaves a striking visual impression and has the same daunting sense of scale I’ve come to expect from the series.

After playing for almost dozens of hours, I’m impressed by its rock-solid performance and use of lighting across its several open zones, all of which sport different biomes, weather, and ecosystems that take hold and refuse to let go. But you only need to take a closer look to notice horrendously low-res textures, copy-and-paste NPC designs, and a gameplay loop that doesn’t escape monotony until you earn your Skell, which allows you to take to the skies and see the planet of Mira from a whole new perspective.

However, that perspective is mostly blurry mush. Each and every time I turn the camera, I am reminded that this isn’t the finest form of this experience and the audience deserves better. There is a chance that, thanks to native backward compatibility, the Nintendo Switch 2 will make games like this better without so much as a patch, eliminating many of the resolution and performance issues that hold them back from greatness by the presence of more powerful hardware alone.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive is still worth your time, and I’m excited to write exactly why in the coming days, but it’s hard not to walk away from it without feeling like Nintendo holds it back with archaic hardware. Monolith Soft is one of the most accomplished studios out there when it comes to creating worlds that feel alien and larger than life, but these are trapped on a console in dire need of an update. You can praise what it managed to get working within it, but that doesn’t mean things don’t need to move on.

Systems

Released

July 29, 2022

ESRB

T For Teen due to Language, Mild Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence