

The original game had a plethora of character customization options, and that complexity provided a certain sense of accomplishment if you came up with your own ways of building strong characters. But they couldn’t exactly redesign the game from scratch. Because of this, the developers made streamlining Xenoblade’s systems a focus for the remastered edition, according to Yuki Sakamoto, a director on the game at Nintendo. A sequel, 2017’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, streamlined things somewhat, and that was followed by a standalone expansion that was explicitly designed to be more approachable. You need to carefully plot your moves and approach character upgrades thoughtfully.īalancing that complicated nature while also welcoming new players has been an ongoing challenge for the series. It’s not the kind of game you can hack and slash your way through. The game’s real-time combat, for instance, is dominated by a cluttered interface and various abilities that can only be used effectively at certain times. “The content of the game itself holds up rather well to modern standards.”Īs for how the game plays, complexity is both a large part of Xenoblade’s appeal and a potential sticking point for some players. This has the dual effect of making the cast look more modern and more in line with recent entries in the Xenoblade series. “The content of the game itself holds up rather well to modern standards,” Takahashi says, “so we decided to focus on making it more playable, easier to understand, and better looking.” While the characters are still recognizable, they’re much more detailed and are rendered in a new anime art style, making them stand out even more from the lush backgrounds. (That’s particularly helpful in a world this large.) For those who played the original, though, the most striking change is how the game looks, with updated visuals that include completely reworked character models. The new version makes a number of notable quality-of-life changes, including redesigned menus and a navigation system that makes it easier to know where you’re supposed to go.

Nintendo’s new Xenoblade expansion eases players into the daunting world of RPGs Sci-fi epic Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the perfect thing to play after Zelda

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“Now that we have the opportunity to remaster the game as the definitive edition, I am very happy we got the chance to upgrade the graphics, which had been the one regret we had with the original,” Takahashi says. “We deliberately passed on using the best-looking graphics so we could pour every last ounce of effort into the content of the game itself,” Takahashi tells The Verge.Ī decade later, a “Definitive Edition” is out on the Nintendo Switch, finally giving Monolith Soft a chance to remedy that. But because of the limitations of the hardware, that came with a price: the visuals. When the game was ported to the Nintendo 3DS a few years later, its huge size meant that it was only playable on the enhanced version of the handheld.Īccording to Tetsuya Takahashi, executive director at developer Monolith Soft, the team was able to cram almost everything they wanted into the experience, including a sprawling world, epic storyline, and intricate battle system. The sci-fi RPG, which debuted on the Wii in Japan in 2010, takes place in a massive open world set on the backs of gigantic creatures. Xenoblade Chronicles was always an ambitious game.
