This is my fifth replay of Xenoblade 1 after my two runs on Wii and on Nintendo Switch. This replay was absolutely spurred on by the announcement of a certain game would be getting a rerelease. I was going to replay this anyway in 2025, but snuff happens when a reveal gets you to crave for a series replay.
Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was my favorite game of all time for about two years. Like many, I was introduced to Xenoblade through Shulk’s inclusion in Smash Bros. 4 and YouTuber Chuggacconroy’s LP of the OG Xenoblade 1. After being intrigued enough (and getting into JRPGs after playing Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi, and Fire Emblem), I somehow got a physical copy of Xenoblade 1 on Wii at GameStop in 2016 and I adored the game. It wasn’t until a replay of Xenoblade 2 in 2018 that it took that spot as my favorite game of all time. Discounting the rule of one game per series, Xenoblade 1 would technically be my runner-up as my second favorite game of all time. This replay of Definitive Edition affirmed this spot.
The creative imaginations of Xenoblade 1 came from developer Monolith Soft (originally composed of a team within SquareSoft that made the acclaimed Xenogears and later left SquareSoft and formed their own company that went on to do the Xenosaga Trilogy and Baiten Kaitos) and Tetsuya Takahashi (originally a former Nihon Falcom employee who did work on Ys III and the very first Legend of Heroes who joined with SquareSoft and worked on iconic games such as Final Fantasy IV-VI, Romancing Saga, and Chrono Trigger, the founder of Monolith Soft, and the guy who Xenoblade fans worship him as a god in the same vein Kojima fans are to Hideo Kojima or Falcom fans are to Toshiro Kondo). Takahashi got the idea of rival civilizations emerging from the frozen bodies of two gods and constructed models to visualize the idea (which became the settings of Bionis and Mechonis). After the idea was brought to Nintendo, development began in 2007. It was originally called Monado: Beginning of the World before being renamed to Xenoblade by the suggestion of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata in honor of Takahashi’s work on Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Coming out in Japan in 2010, it was given a release date for PAL regions in 2011 but not a date for North America. Thus, Nintendo of Europe was responsible for the English localization and the now iconic U.K. dubs that made Xenoblade stand out. After the fan-launched campaign known as Operation Rainfall was made aware by Nintendo of America, it came to NA in 2012 exclusively on Nintendo America’s online store and GameStop - thus it was limited and expensive to find. Despite the odds, Xenoblade 1 sold well and was given critical acclaim, and thus, Xenoblade was born as a series.
After a New 3DS port, another game on Wii U, and a sequel and its own DLC story, Xenoblade 1 was once again given the spotlight back in 2020 as Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (abbreviated as XC1: DE). This is easily the best version of Xenoblade 1 and it's my main reference point for the Backloggd review.
Taking place in a world that was an endless sea with a boundless sky that reached as far as imagined, came the existence of two titans: the nature-filled Bionis and the mechanized Mechonis. Long ago, the two titans fought in a timeless battle, which ended with the Mechonis losing an arm and the Bionis being struck in the waist by the Mechonis’ large metallic sword. Thus, their corpses are what remained to those who survived that tumultuous battle.
Eons later, the humanoid Homs came to live under the corpse of the Bionis, but their mechanical counterparts, the Mechon, repeatedly attacked them. The game begins with the Homs and Mechon clashing against each other in the Mechonis’ Sword known as Sword Valley. When the tides of battle began to turn against the Homs, one man marched on against the advancing Mechon. That man was Dunban (my GOAT) and he wielded a special red sword with fiberglass in the center known as the Monado - a weapon that could destroy the Mechon with ease.
Joining him was his war buddies Dickson (I call him Dicks for reasons) and Mumkhar. When the three were pushing ahead and Dunban began to lose control when wielding the Monado, Mumkhar deserts the two in an attempt to save his own skin (which ends up with him getting washed by the Mechon). With the will to seize their destinies, Dunban and Dickson eventually defeat the Mechon in the Battle of Sword Valley at the cost of the Monado paralyzing Dunban’s right arm.
One year later, the game shifts to our main lead, Shulk. Shulk is a humble Homs scientist from Colony 9 (stationed at the Bionis’ right calf) who is currently studying the Monado after Dunban left it in his care. While on a mission to collect ether cylinders with his best friends Reyn and Fiora, the Mechon (led by a peculiar Faced Mechon) attacks Colony 9. In an attempt to find Dunban and the Monado, Shulk and Reyn are separated from Fiora and almost become food for the Mechon when Dunban comes back swinging with the Monado. That powertrip doesn’t last long as Dunban is still unable to wield the Monado properly, promptly Shulk to use it when the Mechon advances them. With ease (and gaining the power of visions of the future), Shulk, Reyn, and Dunban repel the Mechon but get to a roadblock with the Faced Mechon as it is immune to being hurt by the Monado. In the end, the Faced Mechon (later called Metal Face) ultimately kills Fiora when she tries to save them. With that, the Mechon retreats leaving Shulk in a grieving mess. With the Monado in hand, Shulk and Reyn seek out revenge against the Mechon by leaving Colony 9 and traveling around the Bionis - meeting other characters that eventually join them - to reach Mechonis and destroy the Mechon and Metal Face. What starts as a journey of revenge escalates to Shulk and the gang finding layers of secret truths regarding the Mechon attacks, the stained history between Bionis and Mechonis, and the truth about the Monado and its many secrets - resulting in a story with so many twists and turns that you don’t want to put the game down whenever snuff goes down.
The gameplay of Xenoblade 1 (XC1) is a mixture of real-time active combat and exploration.
To begin the combat section, the player will control one character as their lead while the A.I. will control two others. Acting in real-time, the characters will automatically auto-attack whenever they are close to the enemy. The enemy will aggro at a character which is shown if a character has a red ring around them. The characters can manually perform a special attack called Arts - which is limited in use due to their cooldown. The player can decide which Art the controlled character can use in an option of eight displayed at the bottom of the screen in a menu known as the Battle Palette.
Each Art is represented by a different color and these colors usually indicate what their general purpose is. Red Arts are usually physical attacks that make contact with the enemy with some giving out the Bleed Debuff or are wide-range attacks that hit multiple enemies. Blue Arts are considered Ether Arts as they provide healing, shielding, stat-boosting, and Buffs/Auras. Purple Arts are Ether Arts launch attacks or offense status effects that usually require a prerequisite to be done before the Art can be chosen such as Auras. Pink Arts are simply Arts that inflict the Break Status, with Green Arts inflicting the Topple status to enemies that have the Break Status, and Yellow Arts that inflict the Daze status to enemies that are already toppled - giving it the status line of Break -> Topple -> Daze as the primary way to stop the enemy from dishing out damage to the player’s party. Finally, Orange Arts are the primary Arts that grant Auras (special beneficiary buffs to special characters) and these Aura will cancel each other out if another Orange Art is used. While only eight Arts can be chosen in the Battle Palette, the player can switch an Art for another Art as the party (except Shulk since he only has eight normal Arts) will gradually gain more Arts from levels.
In the middle of those eight Arts is the Talent Arts, a special art that can be used once enough auto-attacks fill its Talent Gauge up and can be situationally useful in the heat of a battle. The only exception to the Talent Art’s auto-attack refill would be Sharla since her Talent Art is simply cooling down her Ether Rifle and Melia since she needs the Talent Art to cast her Summon Arts to the enemy.
Adding more to the system is the Tension mechanic. Tension is the measure of a character’s morale which affects how the character can perform during a battle. This can be indicated by how the active character’s portrait is in a fight. If tension is increased during the battle, a red up arrow will signify the increase with a blue down arrow doing the same for the decrease. There are five states of tension: Normal Tension (default portrait), High Tension (portrait becomes fiery), Very High Tension (which makes the fiery portrait have flames in the back), Low Tension (portrait becomes gloomy), and Very Low Tension (gloomy portrait becomes sick in blue). The effects of each Tension state vary with the higher tensions increasing critical rates and increased damage in chain attacks while lower tensions penalize critical hit rate and lower agility (with Very Low Tension making nearly all attacks fail to connect). The tension rate can be increased usually by doing a lot of things in a fight such as Battle Start Affinity, specific character Arts, critical hits, Arts used against toppled, dazed, or sleeping enemies, or healing a party member from a specific status. The tension rate decreases when an active character gets washed, suffers topple, daze, confuse, and sleep statuses, or attacks are missed, resisted, or blocked.
At the top left is three bars that represent the Party Gauge. The bars can be filled by performing well on Burst Affinity prompts with the B Button, auto-attacks at Very High Tension, inflicting critical hits, and triggering a “Chance” effect from a specific Art (like hitting the enemy in the back with Back Slash). One bar can be used to revive an incapacitated character, but the primary use of the Party Gauge is to initiate Chain Attacks. Chain Attacks will have the active characters take turns one after another with one enemy targeted. There are other factors within Chain Attacks such as Chain Multipliers which boost Art’s power and healing capabilities and are only allowed to be increased by the characters using an Art of the same color, and Chain Links which affect the amount of times a consecutive attack occur ranging from zero to fifteen and is affected by the successful press of a B button prompt, which will appear depending on the character’s affinity with each other, character tension, and skills.
The last relevant factor during combat is the Vision mechanic - which becomes relevant when Shulk begins using the Monado. In a fight, a vision will activate whenever an enemy is preparing to launch a skill that will wash or critically injure a character that the active character is being aggroed at. Displayed at the top of the screen, the vision tag will show the enemy’s name, the attack (physical, ether, or Talent Art), the targeted character, and the damage they will take. There is a timer for each vision and the player must react quickly to prevent the Art from potentially snowballing a battle into a life-or-death game. For physical and ether Arts, Shulk’s Monado Speed and Armor, or a character getting healed or buff will break the vision tag while Talent Arts will be blocked if Shulk can cast Monado Shield that is equal or higher than the Talent Art’s level (ex. Conglagrant Raxeal’s Talent Art: Thunderbolt II vs. Monado Shield Level II). If you’re playing as a character that can do much in terms of aggroing or healing, they can use up one bar of the Party Gauge to warn another character about the enemy’s incoming attack. Either way, delaying a vision or breaking a vision tag will cause the future to be changed and the song called Visions of the Future will play and replace the current battle theme for the rest of the fight (with only a few exceptions). The song is a banger, but it gets old when you constantly hear it for every vision break against bosses and unique monsters.
For every enemy defeated, the characters will gain Experience Points (EXP), Art Points (AP), and Skill Points (SP). EXP does the usual leveling up while AP is used in reserve for usage in leveling up Arts (and Monado Arts). The player can choose which Art will get leveled up and each level-up will increase that specific Art’s effectiveness like damage or healing, longer times for Break, Topple, Daze, Auras, and Buffs. All Arts will automatically get shorter Cooldown times so it is recommended to always spend AP on the Arts you like using the best.
SP is tied to the Skill Tree system and this is probably the one mechanic that I feel people forget or disregard it. The Skill Tree at first contains three Skill Branches (with one being unlocked later in the midgame and another unlocked after Mechonis Core) and each branch contains five skills (of different shapes) with each requiring an increasing amount of SP. Prioritizing a chosen skill branch will gradually unlock skills and these skills enable special abilities or stat boosts. Adding those boons are Skill Links which have the party members share skills depending on their Affinity and shape of the skill slot that they can fit in using Affinity Coins (collected by leveling up or killing a Unique Monster for the first time). This does make the combat align more to the player’s favor and it is a must if the player plans to tackle the five Superbosses.
Lastly, tied to the combat are equipment and gems. Equipment is categorized as Light, Medium, and Heavy and is divided between headgear, body armor, arm parts, legwear, and footwear while Weapons are separate from it. Some characters like Reyn can automatically equip the three categories of armor, and others like Melia and Dunban will equip Light to Medium equipment - but unlocked skills and skill links will make it a non-issue. Each piece of equipment will have an associated image that represents whether the equipment is normal (no slots), has slots (imaged with S), and has a unique slot (imaged with U). Weapons also have this too with their slots getting up to three. The cool thing about every piece of equipment is that it always physically changes the character’s appearance and it will remain that way for every fight and every story cutscene until you change it. If you don’t like the look of the newer equipment or prefer an older one, DE gives you the option to keep a character’s outfit that way regardless if you change it to another. It makes a player’s run feel more personalized, though I purposely try to mix and match every character’s outfit to feel like it can work even if I could just give them objectively better equipment. As for those slots, these are where the gems come in.
Gems are equipable items that provide mechanical bonuses of some sort - such as increasing Strength, Defense, Agility, Ether, or Ether Defense, resistances to status such as Break, Topple, Daze, Sleep, Spike Damage, or even increasing the walking speed. Gems can be acquired by completing XC1’s many sidequests, trading, completing a section of the Collectopaedia, or crafting gems from the Gem Man’s Stall in Colony 9 or the Mobile Furnace. Gems will range from Levels I - VI and forging them ether crystals and cylinders will result in better gems on average (where sometimes it levels up) depending on the characters chosen for their roles as Shooter and Engineer and the affinity they have with each other. It is recommended to forge a lot of gems since there will be some points in the game where the player will have too many crystals in their inventory that you’ll need to throw or sell them out for later.
Combined with all these factors, the combat of XC1 may look complicated, but once you get an understanding in practice, it becomes simple. You can do the bare minimum of equipment, gems, skill branches or links, or Art levels, and you’ll still be fine provided you fight a lot of enemies and are on par with the enemy or boss’s levels. If you still don’t completely understand an aspect of the combat and its systems, the game got you covered as it gives out really well-tutorialized tutorials that show up consistently when new gameplay elements show up or a tutorial tag will show whenever a status or effect occurs and the player can look at it with the - button.
From a retrospective analysis after playing the other Xenoblade games, XC1’s combat is still good, but it sometimes feels slow at times due to the cooldowns and the auto-attacks due to the animation playing fully without interruption. That is more so because I preferred Xenoblade 2’s combat and its unique quirk of quick sidestep that makes it faster for me. Regardless, XC1’s combat is still fun and it makes the battles more engaging.
The other main gameplay element that defines the Xenoblade series is exploration. The game encourages the player to explore as not only do you get to witness some really jaw-dropping visuals (such as Bionis Leg, nighttime Satorl Marsh, nighttime Eryth Sea, nighttime Valak Mountain, and Sword Valley but realistically every location is beautiful), but you gain EXP, AP, and SP for every new landmark and area discovered.
Each area sometimes has a town area or open areas that contain the many creatures living on Bionis and Mechonis with a day and night cycle operating that changes creatures, NPCs, and item orbs for every passing hour. The hours can be manipulated by the player and they can set whatever hour they desire. The town areas (like Colony 9, Colony 6, Frontier Village, or Alcamoth) all contain many named NPCs and these areas are the primary sources of obtaining the sidequests. For every named NPC met, they will show up in the Affinity Chart and the game shows those NPC’s relations with one another and how they feel about each other (which can change depending on some options chosen during a quest, a quest being completed, or a particular character was invited to Colony 6). While now in hindsight it feels barebones in comparison to the Trails series' way of doing their named NPCs (in fairness no series could compare), at the time, it felt nice to get to know these people better as just not no-names and the Affinity Chart is probably the best reason to do sidequests.
As for the sidequests, it is split between several categories. The first is the commonly generic sidequests that consist of Monster Quests (kill a specific amount of a monster), Material Quests (find a specific amount of a collectible item), Search Quests (find a specific red item orb), and Challenge Quests (hunting down a Unique Monster). Then there are Surprise Quests that show up suddenly by entering an area at the right time or during a large quest chain, but there is far and few that appear. Next, the Timed Quests are quests that can appear, but will eventually disappear once the player progresses far enough to a specific story point. Story Quests are quests that the player is acquired to do to advance the story. They don’t ever give out rewards, so they are just flavor text. Finally, the NPC sidequests are really the ones to do since not only do they update the Affinity Chart, but they also provide some neat lore about Bionis or Mechonis and give out some good rewards for the point of the game they are available to start. Regardless of whether you do them all or not, they do provide gold, EXP, AP, and SP which will make the game much easier and will help boost the party’s reputation with each main area (divided between Colony 9 Area, Colony 6 Area, Central Bionis, Upper Bionis, and Hidden Village). I do recommend doing the sidequests regarding the Nopon and the Red Pollen Orbs because of how absurd the climax is and Melachony Tyrea only for the purposes of Future Connected.
One last thing to note about the named NPCs is the ability to trade items - another mechanic I feel people forget about. Pressing the Y Button, the character in the lead will trade an item to that NPC by choosing an item and have an item of equal or greater value offered in return. Sometimes, if the player trades an item that is the combined value of the requested item and the overtrade item, an overtrade happens and another item will be given out as compensation. The thing to know is that the NPCs will have items and materials needed in some sidequests (items that can only received through silver chests), thus to save time, just trade some items to complete those quests quickly.
Outside of those areas of civilization, the player will explore these large open areas where many creatures (and Mechon) will be minding their business, many item orbs are visible to collect (which is a must to complete some sidequest and the Collectopedia), and many ether crystal formations to mine for gems. From docile creatures to giant ass gorillas that’ll surely wash every rookie Xenoblade player, the areas are lovely to explore and look at and deadly with the sometimes hostile creatures. Defeating an enemy will always net some items needed for quests or new weapons and armor from a drop of bronze, silver, or golden chests.
To know how relatively strong the team is in comparison to the enemies, lock in the enemy and pay attention to the color of the enemy’s health bar. If it’s black, then the team lead is over-leveled by six and the enemies are no threat. Blue bars indicate the team lead is over-leveled by three to five and the enemies are considered weak. Brown bars (originally White in the OG XC1) indicate the team lead is equal to or is two levels higher or lower and thus the team is equally on par with that enemy. Yellow bars indicate the team lead is three to five lower and thus the enemy is a strong threat. Finally, red bars indicate the team lead is six or greater levels lower, and thus the enemy is a huge danger and will more likely wipe the team out in a few hits (like encountering Territorial Rotbart in the first five hours of the game).
The last thing to note about exploration is the Unique Monsters. They will be obvious if they have an out-there name like “Aggressive Cornelius” or “Immovable Gonzalez” and if their health bar is flashing with lights. They are usually semi-powerful monsters that’ll take more time to kill and they are more common to inflict debuffs (like the dreaded spike damage or sleep statuses) and Talent Arts, and the iconic You Will Know Our Names plays. They usually give out Affinity Coins (which will be needed for the more expensive skill links) and give out some good loot from golden chests, so it is recommended to kill any you encounter. And if you don’t care to do much of that, at least kill Territorial Rotbart by level 80.
Overall, there is so much to do outside of combat that you’ll spend an equal amount of time in between exploration and fighting. The game does a good job of keeping those two elements on par with each other in importance, even if I admit that Monolith Soft could’ve cut down most of the generic sidequests.
Now for many new neat features that make Definitive Edition the best version to play XC1. I already mentioned the ability to change the party’s look without penalty so it bears no repeating. The game will inform the player on the party screen whenever there is a new Art learned, a new Skill ability is unlocked, and a new slot of Skill Link is open. Items needed for a quest will be marked on the map as red exclamation marks with a prioritized quest will mark that item as blue. Statuses like the aforementioned Break, Topple, and Daze will have a small bar that indicates how long it’ll last while the game will flash an exclamation mark for when a character can use that art efficiently (ex. Shulk’s at the back of an enemy will signify using Back Slash or Dunban’s Worldy Slash is best effectively used after Gale Slash).
My favorite one is the difficulty options. Casual mode as you’ll expect makes the game much easier for the player, but Expert Mode is what makes it interesting. Now, Expert Mode isn’t exactly a difficulty setting, it's more a level modifier. Activating it, the player can de-level their characters to a specific level while Expert Mode keeps those future levels as reserved experience. This makes the final boss way less easy since I usually do all the sidequests and I’m always near the level 99 mark. Admittingly, the game is still relatively easy regardless since as long as you are on par with the enemy’s levels, you should be fine. However, if you crave a stronger challenge (or want to grind AP and SP), then this is a convenient tool to use.
Lastly, DE includes a smaller campaign known as Future Connected which focuses on Melia and Shulk’s adventure of the Bionis Shoulder. I’ll not say more since Future Connected will get its own separate review, but I’ll say it's neat and brings more value to DE as a product.
The only things that I wished DE had retained were the 3DS version’s model and music gallery. They were neat and I have no idea why Monolith Soft didn’t incorporate it.
The story is divided into seventeen chapters, though they are all paced from each other differently that you shouldn’t view them as story chapters, but more as small arcs that happen over the course of the journey. Even with future ties with the other Xenoblade games, the story is still excellent on its own. It pulls its punches early with the Prologue (Battle of Sword Valley) and the Colony 9 attack and that momentum continues on from the start of Chapter 3 to the crazy revelations at the end of Chapter 16. It does dip in the last chapter, but that’s because they rushed the journey to the finish line in less than three hours (discounting sidequests). Even then, the ending still hits hard after all these years later. Still, I will say with confidence that XC1’s story is the most tight pact and most consistently well-written of the Klaus Saga and a replay of the story will make you appreciate how much good foreshadowing the story set up and paid off in spades.
To add to the amazing story is the amazing cast of characters that the player controls. Shulk’s my goat and his journey will put him through the wringer. Reyn and Dunban were both the goats of strength and speed since they were my heavy hitters who aggroed enemies consistently. Both of them have their great moments - especially Reyn’s trash talk to Jade Face and Dunban’s final clash with Metal Face. Riki may be the least connected in terms of relevancy to the story, but he has a lot of small moments (especially in the Heart-to-Hearts) that make him goated that he deserved his spot as an iconic character. Melia
is easily my favorite character and she goes through so much crap that you will feel sympathetic for her. The only thing that I want to note about Melia is that her A.I. is the most wonky since she doesn’t discharge her elements, but the player can adjust the commands to focus on attacks (by pressing ZL and up on the D-Pad), thus she plays normally as the player would if they controlled her. Seven is Seven; they join late but they do kick ass. The only one that was lacking was Sharla, but this is more so because she isn’t really relevant after her joining chapters until she has her moments in regard to Jade Face. It doesn’t help that she is the least fun character to play due to not having much attacking Arts and her Talent Art of cooling down her Ether Rifle makes her more of a sitting duck for herself and the team whenever they need healing. Overall, the team is strong in characterization (especially if you see the Heart-to-Hearts) and each has their moments to shine.
The side characters were also pretty good. Kallian, Dicks, and Otharon
were all goated, Miquol is hilarious because he shares the same voice actor as Daddy Pig, and Alvis is cryptic as snuff and I love him for it. Even lesser characters like Vangarre (who competes with Waluigi for the best mustache), Vanea, and the infamous Juju have their good moments.
The antagonists are kind of a mixed bag. You have my favorites like Egil (a guy whose motives are understandable but aren’t justifiable for the stuff he does) and Metal Face (a perfect example of a villain that has a simple motivation but is hard carried by their vocal performance). Then you got the middling Xord and Jade Face who serve as plot devices that are represented at that point of the game (hilariously both of them appear when Sharla becomes relevant to the plot). Then you got the Three Disciples (Three Stooges of Banaza as I nicknamed them) who came in too late to mean much in the story. One of them ruined a character I liked, one was a nothing character that I felt nothing for when they died, and the last one wasn’t really a villain to begin with. The final boss is weird as they are just generic, if a bit interesting within the context of only XC1. However, lore regarding their true identity from future games makes them far more interesting than they were before which is why I recommend replaying XC1 after playing the other games to understand that connection. Finally, shout out to Bana the Betrayer for being a sudden twist villain that was relevant to only a specific chain of sidequests and for being an entertaining one.
The visuals of XC1: DE are absolutely gorgeous. They already have a great basis from the original Wii version, but it needed that glow-up in terms of textures, lighting, models, and it being HD. This is the best-looking version of XC1 and I will forever disagree with the argument that the Wii visuals are better because it is more “unique” and “less anime”. I will always use Melia’s look from the Wii to Switch as my argument as to why DE’s visuals are superior in every way.
If you never heard anything about Xenoblade, then chances are you might have heard songs from the series from Smash Bros. or content creators. Regardless, I can say with no hesitation that the music enhances the XC1 experience to great effect. The composers of Xenoblade 1 are made up of four (or rather seven) people. The first composer is Manami Kiyota - who worked on PokePark Wii: Pikachu’s Adventure, later Smash Bros. for Wii U, and would later compose more songs for the other mainline Xenoblade games. The second composer is the famed Yoko Shimomura known for her works of Street Fighter II, Live A Live, Super Mario RPG, the Kingdom Hearts series, and the Mario and Luigi series. The third composer(s) are credited as ACE+ - a music group that consists of the duo talents of Tomori Kudo and Hiroyo Yamanaka (CHiCO). The “+” in the end represents the involvement of Kenji Hiramatsu - who sometimes works directly with ACE together in the same project or separately in the same project. ACE+ had done work on Tamagotchi 64: Minna de Tamagotchu World, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, and later went on to do work on Code of Princess, Smash Bros. 4 (both 3Ds and Wii U), and the other mainline Xenoblade games. The last credited composer is Yasanori Mitsuda - who has done work for Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Mario Party 1, Chrono Cross, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, Shadow Hearts, Xenosaga Episode 1, Soma Bringer, and will later work on music for the other mainline Xenoblade games, Valkryia Revolution, and Sea of Stars. He is only credited for one song - which happens to be the amazingly composed ending theme called Beyond the Sky (song by vocalist - Sarah Alainn).
DE includes both options to play the original Wii arrangement or the newer arrangments - though I opted to have it always on the newer arrangments since they bang harder. Excluding some songs that I already mentioned, my top favorite songs includes: Main Theme, Prologue B, Engage the Enemy (banger), Time to Fight! (banger), Gaur Plain Day and Night, In the Refugee Camp, An Obstacle in Our Path (made the most repetitive song one of the best bangers), Unfinished Business (absolute banger), Satorl Marsh Day and Night, Eryth Sea Day and Night, Valak Mountain Day and Night, Sword Valley Day and Night, Mechanical Rhythm (absolute banger), The Fallen Land Day, Hidden Machina Village, Mechonis Field (underrated banger), The Battle is Upon Us (banger), Central Factory (another underrated banger), Agniratha Day and Night, A Tragic Decision, The Awakening of the Giant, The End Lies Ahead (banger), Zanza the Divine (absolute banger), The God-Slaying Sword, and Once We Part Ways. An overall amazing first soundtrack that will remain iconic for all who heard it.
As mentioned earlier, due to the whole debacle with Nintendo of America not wanting to sell Xenoblade 1 in the U.S., Nintendo of Europe was the one responsible for the English localization as well as providing an English dub using U.K. actors. Xenoblade is not the first game to do U.K. dubs as Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King has done something similar. The result is the iconic U.K. dub that made Xenoblade stand out from other JRPGs and it is well beloved that XC1’s English dub is the usually preferred dub over the Japanese dub. My favorite performances include: Adam Howden (Shulk), Carina Reeves (Fiora), Rufus Jones (Dunban), Jay Taylor (Reyn), Kellie Bright (Sharla), Wayne Forester (Riki), Jenna Coleman (Melia), Timothy Watson (Metal Face), Anthony May (Dickson), Rufus Wright (Kallian), Katie McGuinness (Tyrea), Peter Bramhill (Egil), Richard Ridings (Miqol), Blake Ritson (Alvis who also voiced Angelo from DQ8), Stephen Grief (Arglas), Jo Wyatt (Meyneth), and Alec Newman (Vangarre).
Overall, I loved Xenoblade 1 from the day I first played it back in 2016, and the replays of Definitive Edition in 2020 and 2024 affirmed this. The characters, music, visuals, story, and creative setting are fantastic and this is an excellent starting point for the series. This game is near and dear in my gaming career and it deserves a 5/5.