I spent most of my time with Xenoblade X and there’s a lot I want to say. I quickly realized why my memory of this game is so spotty, especially the actual gameplay. The Wii U era was a weird time where a lot of games had smaller text that was very hard to read on my old 4:3 TV. As a result, I didn’t really understand a lot of mechanics. I remember not knowing what TP are until almost the end of the game! I basically played combat like it was Xenoblade 1 and ignored all new mechanics because it was too hard to read the explanations! As such, I don’t even know what’s new in the Definitive Edition. Did the original have the fast Arts thing you use with Y? If it did, I probably never used it, lol.

I think there’s been some rebalancing that I like. I might remember this wrong, but I think the big camel-like enemies in the very beginning would absolutely destroy you despite being the proper level because you weren’t supposed to fight them without robots. The way you weren’t able to tell easily if an enemy’s level is scaled to ground combat or not really bothered me but it seems to make more sense now. And the new level cap is exciting, being restricted to level 60 was very awkward.

But the biggest thing I love is that the exploration is directly tied into the story. It’s almost the entire point and probably why the series didn’t sit well with me after this game. Exploring the world was my favorite part of the first game and X is the exciting next step. I didn’t feel that anymore in later games, especially 3, which lost the weird, alien landscapes that I loved so much. I remember being really excited when I first came to Sword Marsh only to quickly realize that little area before the sword is the only part of this area that looks like that.

There’s also a lot of little things that I don’t understand why they were removed from future games. Like being able to auto-attack while moving! Having to stand absolutely still is such a bummer (and Xenoblade 2 was the first game where I experienced Joy-Con drift, so that was fun!). Or the enemy icons that tell you how, if at all, they aggro on you. That’s valuable information! You can just walk past a lot of high-level enemies because they won’t bother you, but you need to know that they won’t! And of course the big one: the characters actually wearing the armor you put on them, especially with a Fashion Gear option! I’ll excuse Xenoblade 3 because I’m a big fan of the job system from Final Fantasy 5 and beyond and the costumes are just a part of that.

I’m also almost done with The Witness. I’ve beaten the game, but there’s a lot of stuff underground that you can’t access that easily. I’ve found four ways out, but no way in, so I looked it up. From the final tally of puzzles, 15% of the game is hidden down there, so that should be interesting.