With Xenoblade Chronicles being one of my favorite games of all time,
I am over the moon about the Definitive Edition coming to Switch next
year. Not only is the game getting a major graphical facelift but new
content will be coming to the game in the form of Bionis’s Shoulder
which was a cut area that players found after data mining the game. I
believe that we will be getting a lot more new content than just one
area so here’s 10 of my hopes for additions and changes in Xenoblade
Chronicles Definitive Edition.
Event Viewer
Many of the changes that I wish to see come from additions that
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 implemented and this first hope is one of them.
Event Viewer was added in a patch in Xenoblade 2 and it allowed
players to rewatch any of the full-motion cutscenes from the story.
The mode also lets players change the time of day and weather of
certain scenes as well. Xenoblade DE could benefit nicely from the
inclusion of this feature and would give a way for players to relive
their favorite moments of the game without having to replay through
it.
Inns
Within Xenoblade 2, Inns would allow players to revert the levels of
their party members. The feature would let new game+ players
reexperience the challenge of the first playthrough and create their
own challenges by tackling higher level enemies with reduced stats.
While this was a great concept on paper, Xenoblade 2 made the mistake of not allowing the player to reduce the levels of their arts. So even
though your normal auto-attack and health would be reduced, your arts
would deal the same damage that they did had the character level not
been lowered which defeated the purpose of lowering your level in the
first place. If they reworked inns so that they would reduce the level
of arts as well, they could be a great feature in Xenoblade DE.
Game Rebalancing
Xenoblade Chronicles may be a fantastic game but it’s far from a
perfect one. There are a handful of times where the difficulty spikes
significantly with one in particular that those who played the
original game are well aware of (we’re all still paying for our
insolence.) It would be nice to see if these sections were rebalanced
to make them more enjoyable.
Music Fixes
Xenoblade Chronicles has a fantastic soundtrack but there a handful of
times where I think the music could be better implemented. For example, Vision Reacts is a song that plays when the player successfully counterattacks a vision attack but it interrupts whatever song was playing before and continues on for the rest of the song. It
was always annoying when You Will Know Our Names or another high
energy song was cut short by Visions of the Future. If possible, it
would be nice to have an option where you could choose whether you
want the song to play or not.
The following contains spoilers for the late game of Xenoblade
Chronicles 1. Hover over the black box to see the spoiler.
I always found it unfitting with how the normal Bionis battle theme
plays during the last visit to Prison Island. ‘To the Last Battle' is
a great high energy and emotional track that could easily play during
the normal enemy encounters in order to heighten the feeling of it
being the finale of the game. It’s not a large detail but I would like
to see this change be implemented in Xenoblade DE.
Movement Options
Xenoblade Chronicles is an extremely expansive game with large areas
to explore. While the game gives the player features to help traverse
the world such as fast travel, the base movement options in the game
don’t do much to help make exploring the world more enjoyable. The
ability to sprint could greatly help make moving from different
locations faster without devaluing the exploration aspect of the game.
Fix the Playtime Clock
While not a huge issue, the Xenoblade series has always had issues
with its playtime counters. In the original Wii version of the game,
the playtime count maxed out at 99 hours 99 minutes and 99 seconds and
wouldn’t continue counting after that. While we may have the Switch’s
built-in playtime clock through the activity log, it would be nice if
they resolved this issue in the Definitive Edition.
Gear
One of my favorite aspects of Xenoblade Chronicles was how
customizable each character’s appearance was. Each piece of equipment
changed the look of the character both during gameplay and cutscenes.
One feature that I hope they incorporate is the fashion gear option from Xenoblade Chronicles X that would allow the player to choose a different set of gear that changes a party member’s physical
appearance while retaining the stats from a different set of equipment. This would allow players to be a lot more expressive with
how they dress their party members throughout the game. New equipment
would also be a welcome addition and they could potentially put in
special gear based on characters from X and Xenoblade 2.
Battle System Updates
The Xenoblade Chronicles series features a unique battle system that
plays almost like a single-player MMO with the player auto-attacking
as they select different skills and manage the commands of your other
party members. While the original game’s combat was great, it wasn’t
perfect and there’s plenty of room for improvement. One of the biggest
issues was the AI of the party members, specifically for Melia. Melia
is one of the most versatile party members however if you were going
to have her on your team, you would have to play as her yourself as
the AI could never properly take advantage of her to manage elemental
buffs and cast spells. It would be great if they tweaked her AI to be
able to properly utilize her playstyle. Another large issue was
Sharla’s usefulness as the game progressed. Sharla primarily functions
as a healer while also being able to deal minimal ether damage. While
she’s beneficial when she joins your party in the beginning of the
game, she gradually becomes less useful as the player learns how to
properly manage health with other characters and her offensive skills
aren’t strong enough to warrant using her over other party members. It
would be great if they reworked her playstyle in order to give her
more usefulness as the game progresses.
Prequel Story
Both Xenoblade Chronicles and its sequel have extremely expansive
stories, with the backstories of each game being extremely important
to the overall narrative. Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden
Country gave a prequel story that explored the past events that were
vital to the story. Without going into too much detail, Xenoblade 1’s
backstory lends itself just as well to a prequel expansion.
Multiplayer
Xenoblade Chronicles has traditionally been a single-player series and
while the idea of turning it into a multiplayer experience seems
incredibly far fetched, it could work in theory and there is evidence
that suggests that it may happen.
On Nintendo’s official product page for the Definitive Edition, the number of players for the game is mysteriously stated as “To be
determined”. While this may very well be due to the entire product
page not being completely finished, multiplayer in the Definitive
Edition may be a possibility.
Multiplayer could feasibly work with the game’s combat system as the
AI in the game simply functions as if a player was controlling the
other two party members. Through online play, two other people could
take control of the other party members and the three players could fight together and cooperate to sync up attacks in battle. This would make certain enemies like the late game super bosses even more fun to
take on. The Definitive Edition could even add new, more challenging enemies that can only be challenged through multiplayer. The only
issue, however, is that while combat suits itself well to multiplayer,
the rest of the game does not with its multitude of cutscenes,
sidequests, and large areas. Because of that, it’s possible that
Definitive Edition may make an entirely new mode in the game that
focuses entirely on multiplayer battles. This mode could also grant players exclusive new items and gear for winning battles.
With Xenoblade Chronicles being such an expansive experience, there
are plenty of changes they could make in Definitive Edition to improve upon the original. With it releasing in next year, the wait won't be
long to see how much they change from the original game.
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