Xenoblade Chronicles X Was the Mech Game I Always Wanted

Incredible mech action in an alien world

In late 2012, Nintendo released the ill-fated Wii U. Successor to the massively successful Wii, the Wii U continued Nintendo’s approach to fun and innovation by introducing a very unconventional controller alongside its superior online capabilities and fully backwards compatible features. While the Wii U (to this day) has one of the best virtual consoles available for any Nintendo system, its weak game lineup and extremely limited third party support eventually killed the system by 2017, giving it an extremely short lifespan for a home console.

My siblings and I picked up our Wii U for one reason: the Wind Waker remaster. We saved up and waited for the special edition console to drop, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing through one of my favorite Zelda titles with the Wii U’s unique controller. Despite the brief fun we had with a smattering of the console’s games, it wasn’t until the eagerly awaited release of Xenoblade Chronicles X that I felt like the Wii U had finally found its redeeming quality.

A spiritual successor to the Wii’s Xenoblade Chronicles, XCX explored a different route compared to its predecessor. Executive director Tetsuya Takahashi (famed for Xenogears, Xenosaga, and work on Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI)…