Xenoblade Chronicles is back on Switch with the first game... and I played it through again... another 120 hours. I've already mentioned the story so we can cut that, but it's still a great game. The music is fantastic and the graphical update is good. I recall starting the game back in 2014 and noticing that the eyes on the characters where a bit dim or almost hazy. Not so much anymore. They also improved the item limits so I didn't get the same sell all at a time. And the best thing they did was making the questing easier with the option to let the map show you where the items or persons are together with a dotted line on the map how to get there. No more guessing which enemy carries what item. Love it, might explain why the main game only took 106 hours this time around. Of course, the Colony 6 side quest is still a guess on some of the things, but you got the visions for that. Games move a bit slower with the change of the menu layout. I started up the 3DS version and when you pushed X you got to choose the menu while walking around. Here the games stops and bring it up. Probably due to using a bit more shortcuts on the d-pad. And I think they made certain parts easier, like the battle with Loretha... cause isn't the pools of ether gone?
Some more new thing was a battle arena where you can take on challanges, either however you want or limited to a pre-set party and level. Finish it with a special rank and you get items and equipments. I pretty much forgot it after getting Melia. Now, the big meat of the definitive edition is an epilogue chapter starring Melia and Shulk one year after the original game ended. They travel on the Junk (a machina ship) to the Bionis Shoulder to get to Alcamoth which I guess disappeared after the battle with Zansa. They get shot down by some beam from the city and crashes in a lake. Two of Rikki's children have been stowing away and you rescue them from some Volffs. Kino and Nena. There they find an army encampment of High Entia that point them to a camp of civilians with a lot of different races... did Alcamoth disappear after Zansa's battle? Cause, why is there Machina here? Anyway, they have fled the capital since it was taken over by the fog king, a monster of fog that came out of a rift in the sky. Where does the rift comes from? No answer. You get there and saves a High Entia kid you met in the first game that is doing research in order to turn the Tellethia back into High Entia. He works together with Tyrea, Melia's step-sister that tried to kill her in the first game. Meanwhile you also look all around the Bionis Shoulder to find the Nopon archeology team that got lost there and is your stand-in for the team attack. Probably the best side quest in the game. I want a whole game with the Nopons after this. Didn't think I would ever say that, but replaying the game just shows that you have merchants, mercenaries, archeologies, inventors and cold bloodied drug smugglers... yes, Bana makes an appearance. It ends with you uniting the military and civilians to give you time to fight the Fog King with a special built Monado and you defeat it and return to Colony 9 with the survivors and then restores the capital and have a coronation for Melia.
It's a bit of fun. Apparently it was an area they took away for time constraints. We got some new battle music and I really liked it. The story is interesting in the beginning and seeing some of the characters from the first game and seeing what they are up to are fun and Melia and Tyrea setting their differences aside are great. The Fog King though... is a bit of a disappointment. I thought we were gonna see the other side of the rift, like connecting the game further with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or even Xenoblade Chronicles X. 15 hours, a bit grinding in the end until I realised you could always put in casual Mode since I was rather done with the game. I got to level 76 (started at 60) and there was only one quest left, a battle with a level 80 dragon or a mini-boss level 77 lizard that insta-kills me instantly before I took the easy path.
Overall, still likes the game. Maybe prefer XCX over it with more mystery and exploration. In X you could look at a mountain and climb it, a bit of the same feeling like in Breath of the Wild, but here it is more like corridors. Still, great game. Playing it again also makes one think about certain aspects, for example how the Bionis soul is represented by a man and the Mechonis is a woman. Not only is the man the titan of life, what we usually attributed to female gods like Gaia, Venus, Freya and so on, he's also emotional and irrational which we used to (well, at least some used to, many still does) describe woman overall and kept them out of power. Meyneth is rational, a machine and is the good god in comparison giving life a chance. It's a bit subversion off clichés. Its anti-god message is hammered in at the end and really lifts free will as the greatest thing of all living. Also, the games main quest for the first 1/2 is a revenge plot where the heroes goes out to exterminate a whole race. And really, is Shulk really the leader in the beginning? Reyn is the more cliched hero from older games and is pushing the plot (although he is stupid and hotheaded like Garet in Golden Sun and Garet was clearly not a leader), and Dunban when he joins is the natural leader that shows the way. But the longer the game goes on Shulk grows to the leader that they look too. Probably helps that he can see the future so what he says is probably the right thing anyway. Also, Dickson is really fun observing how he affects the story and where it goes, and his 70's hippie outfit is amazing.
I bet he ha the metal soundtrack on some mp3-player in the satchel.
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