Xenoblade Chronicles 3D Review

It’s finally here, a game that attempts to at least validate the purchase of a New Nintendo 3DS system. When Xenoblade Chronicles was first announced for the 3DS, I was pretty apprehensive as to whether it would work on the system. The pre-release footage wasn’t particularly good looking, it didn’t seem to run well and also seemed to be the worst way to try and do three dimensional graphics on the system. While I have my doubts about how well Xenoblade Chronicles will stand up visually in the future, for now, it runs just as you’d expect it to if you were playing it on the Wii.

The unique setting of the game remains untouched from the original game. Two colossal titans are frozen in the midst of battle during an ancient war – eventually becoming two lived in worlds that are eventually inhabited. One of the titans, Mechnois, is colonised by a sinister race of machines known as the Mechon. The other, Bionis, is the home of the protagonist and his race of people known as the Hom. You’ll play as Shulk, who eventually inherits a mystical sword known as the Monado. With a storied past, it’s the only defence Hom has against the Mechon.

In my original review for the game I rather proudly proclaimed that most of the characters in Xenoblade Chronicles didn’t adhere to obnoxious and over the top stereotypes and that you’ll gladly follow Shulk and his friends along their journey with little to no hesitation. I’m not all that sure that today the same can be said of these characters a few years on – but you’ll still be able to follow Shulk and his adventurers throughout their journey with little to no effort. It’s by no means an amazingly written story but it is just a tad better than typical Japanese RPG fare.

What Xenoblade Chronicles does best, however, is mix elements of the old traditional Japanese RPG games akin to what you’d find in the original Playstation or Playstation 2 era with newer elements to help make it feel modern. The 3D remake in particular controls better than you’d expect – making full use of all four shoulder buttons during gameplay while also being given the (essential) ability to control the camera with the C-Stick.

Regardless of the technical aspects required to run Xenoblade Chronicles on a 3DS at a specification level, these extra inputs on the console are essential and prove themselves worthy here. That is, the game simply wouldn’t work controls-wise on an older console. Even better, the game controls naturally on the New 3DS, although as I noted in my original review there were times where I wish the camera was slightly more sensitive.

One of the things I originally loved about Xenoblade was how it managed to streamline a lot of the processes that would traditionally take a lot of time in other games from a similar genre. Menus can be perused (largely) without pausing the action and travelling is super easy thanks to the games landmarks system. It’s a system that still saves efficient players a lot of time when it comes to micromanaging your party, but also one that’s less impressive than it was back when the original game debuted. That’s not to say it’s bad, but more to say that games have evolved to the point where these kinds of features are the standard.
The game’s battle system is pretty well designed too – once again employing real time mechanics to help things feel fast paced. Players can see enemies on-screen and initiate battles with them willingly, though in some situations some enemies may seek the player out if they’re more hostile. Once in battle, simply being close to an enemy means that Shulk and his team will attack using a standard move.

If you want to switch things up, the D-Pad can be used to select “Arts” which can inflict various status effects (both buffs and debuffs) depending on how they’re used. It’s got some small elements of strategy prominent enough to be viable courses of action during battle but also to the point where casual players don’t necessarily need to invest themselves to get through battles. Essentially, battles have a reasonable amount of depth to them but aren’t too esoteric for the newcomer to get through.

But the elements of strategy in the game’s battle system is what really helps Xenoblade to shine and learning these elements will really make the game more enjoyable than a typical button masher. When enemies have their back to the player, they’ll take much more damage so there’s a lot of options to lure enemies between enemies to set up attacks from other members of the party. Working well with your party will lead to greater benefits as you play through the adventure too.

Somewhat taking a page out of Fire Emblem’s book, the better developed affinity may be between party members, the better they’ll fight for you. Encouraging them during battle, healing them or even reviving them will increase their affinity or you and grants buffs to the party. Affinity can be further developed by viewing heart-to-heart moments, which better develop the characters too. Fighting well together also grants access to special chain attacks which become more frequently available if your party has a good relationship. It’s a weird yet logical system to implement in a game like this and one that should be mastered to battle optimally.

Following battles you can choose to upgrade your arts to improve their proficiency in battle or learn new abilities completely. Equipment can be found and upgraded using gems and the like too. It’s a simplistic system that, once again, dials down the micro-management and instead lets players just have fun with the game’s unique battle mechanics instead. Of particular note is the fact that equipment actually appears on characters when it’s used, which is a nice visual touch.

When you’re not trudging through the game’s beautifully designed dungeons you’ll be trudging through some other optional activities here and there. Side quests in Xenoblade Chronicles are quite possibly the only real disappointing aspect of the game – as many of them don’t really boil down to anything more than killing a select few of a certain type of enemy or fetching an item from elsewhere. They feel like filler, and with titles along the lines of MONSTER QUEST #1, it feels like these aspects of the game were treated as if an afterthought. Still, if players were to complete at least 60% of Xenoblade Chronicles it’d take them upwards of thirty or forty hours, so the game doesn’t feel anaemic by any means.

Surprisingly, my main praises and criticisms of the Wii version of Xenoblade Chronicles still holds up with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. The game isn’t exceptionally colourful, but the environments are vast and feel well designed and can be navigated intuitively. Much like when it released on the Wii, Xenoblade Chronicles offers open world exploration on a scale unlike anything else on the system, and for that it’s to be commended.

Character models themselves are quite detailed, but they are quite ugly up close especially the faces of the entire cast. There’s something weirdly flat about them that can take you out of some intense moments from time to time. Regardless of these minor nitpicks, the 3DS version of Xenoblade Chronicles looks fantastic, though as I mentioned time might not be as kind to it as the years go by.

The use of 3D is honestly not going to change lives nor is it going to add anything tangentially superior to the original game. It’s merely a nice cosmetic touch that adds pop-out text boxes and menus and some very slight depth to the environments. In fact, I’d go as far to say that turning off 3D is preferred as it lead to less drops in framerate during visually busy periods of the game.
One thing that I totally forgot about Xenoblade Chronicles was just how good the soundtrack was. Composed by Yoko Shimamura, it’s one of my favourite soundtracks in an RPG. Heaps of pieces give a triumphant boost to the atmosphere of the adventure while others ratchet up the tension during long and gruelling boss battles. There are even times where you’ll be wanting to just wait for the game to switch over to night to hear the sombre and peaceful tunes.

On the other hand, the voice work is still reasonably good although the way Shulk’s voice claps have been hammered in the past few months due to the release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U definitely affects the ability to take it seriously at times.