Once you choose your division, you pick your class and get to work.

BLADE has eight divisions-basically the game’s job system-with different focuses on combat, exploration, diplomacy and research. You join BLADE, New LA’s military/peacekeeping arm and get to work exploring Mira and establishing an outpost for the fledgling city.

Once you’re back in New LA, you get a feel for the game’s basic systems. It’s a positively breathtaking introduction to the game and really hammers home just how big Mira is. After being rescued by Elma you accompany her back to New LA by trekking over a vast stretch of Mira, coming up on a ridge as the sun rises and rainclouds part. It consists of a main hub, New LA, surrounded by a big game world you pick up quests at the hub and occasionally when out in the field. I made my character look like Adam Jensen from Deus Ex.Īt its core Xenoblade Chronicles X is a very classic-style RPG, but it blends aspects from across the spectrum of role playing games. You’ll only hear your character speak during combat-not in cutscenes-but I thought it was cool that one of the voice actors is the same person who voiced Shulk in Xenoblade Chronicles. Xenoblade Chronicles X’s character creation system isn’t anywhere as deep as Fallout 4’s but it allows a decent amount of options so you can build a fairly unique protagonist, including sex, height, build, facial features, hair and voice. Your character’s story begins as human war veteran Colonel Elma wakes you up out of your escape pod. As the ship breaks apart in the atmosphere, its habitation module touches down and becomes New Los Angeles, the last human colony. The White Whale crashes toward the nearby planet Mira. They wander the galaxy for two years until the aliens catch up to them. America’s ship, The White Whale, is ostensibly the only survivor. As humanity’s cradle is burned to ashes, several colony ships attempt to escape into space. At the beginning of Xenoblade Chronicles X, it’s 2054 and Earth is caught in the middle of an interstellar war between two advanced alien civilizations. The plot is a clean break from the previous game, Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii (and later on the 3DS). This is an old-school RPG with layers of complexity and content, and it doesn’t hold your hand or introduce you to its mechanics in a seamless, intuitive way. That does not mean, however, that Xenoblade Chronicles X is perfect or that it’s easy to get into and play. Make no mistake, this game is just damn good, and a particularly monumental achievement on Wii U. I’ve played my fair share of RPGs in my time and Xenoblade Chronicles X is certainly the biggest game I’ve ever tackled. This is, beyond dispute, one of the biggest, most content-rich and feature-complete games ever made. It’s difficult to know where to start with a game like Xenoblade Chronicles X.

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