Xenoblade Chronicles' new Switch 2 Edition is a lot of things, but it is not a good racing game

A long-awaited Switch 2 Edition has arrived, but one of the new features is a head-scratcher.

I have tried to play and fallen off of Xenoblade Chronicles several times. On the Wii, on the 3DS, and when it first hit the Nintendo Switch, and when the Switch version was… modifiable (yeah, let’s go with that). With the new (deep breath) Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - Switch 2 Edition, this double-dipping Edition Sandwich seemed like the ticket, the thing that would address my needs for being able to see this thing through to the end, or at least beyond the first few hours. The good news is, that indeed seems to be the case. The bad news is that the “Switch 2 Edition” parts are the opposite of impressive.

If you’re wondering if you should dive in here for the first time, to see what all this Xenoblade ruckus has been all about, here’s a fair warning. This is an interesting game, a story with some absurd storytelling DNA that includes the legendary Xenogears and… infamous (but also legitimately beloved by its audience) Xenosaga. It’s also a gussied up Wii game, a Wii game that was so bizarre in some ways it took legions of internet sickos yelling to convince Nintendo of America to halfheartedly sell it as a GameStop exclusive. It’s messy and ambitious in the way it plays, sitting somewhere in the timeline where open world gaming was becoming The Thing, ripping off World of Warcraft was crucial for RPGs, and nobody could tell (or admit) if anime was cool or not yet.

Being a Wii game kind of smashed in-between eras and time is both a benefit and problem for Xenoblade, but the Wii game part has kind of plagued it the most. I don’t mind a fuzzy, 4:3 open world RPG, but I imagine a lot of folks out there do. The 3DS version was impressive but not exactly a winner in the visual department, and of course the Switch version (as were all the sequels to follow) chugs and struggles to maintain a stable resolution like a fish out of water desperately gasping for oxygen. It’s kind of a repeating theme with these Switch games and their Switch 2 ports, but it is what it is. That’s why the demand for ports persists! That’s why I’m so interested in covering them! It’s cool to see these redemption stories, or attempts at them in some cases.

In Xenoblade Chronicles’ case, it’s kind of a double redemption! Xenoblade Chronicles X was the first game in the series to get a Switch 2 Edition, and fans were bummed out due to some aggressive upscaling used to hit the game’s resolution target. That upscaling looks much better here, giving clarity to the image without as much smearing compared to the previous effort. In terms of performance, it’s another “target” situation. It’s a bit on the unstable side, doing everything it can to seek out 60 fps but failing fairly often. That said, while there are drops aplenty, it’s still much more fast and responsive compared to the original Switch version. All in all it’s a technological upgrade you can expect, without any surprises. “Does the job” type vibes.

Now, if Xenoblade Chronicles simply showed up with some buffs under the hood and that was that, perhaps this would be a less interesting story. But this Switch 2 Edition also comes with new features, the kind that are introduced to encourage true enthusiast double-dipping. The first addition is voice acting in the heart-to-heart conversations, which is pretty cool. It’s still weird to me how British everyone in this series is, but it seems like a tradition with the series at this point. The second thing is what has me a little confused. Now, you can unlock Ether Jets, these F-Zero-looking-ass water ski things you can summon from thin air and use to cruise around the world. In some cases they’re fairly useful, since Xenoblade Chronicles’ world is quite large and things like side quests ask for lots of running back and forth. But the world is also very precarious, with lots of thin walkways, random holes in the ground, and other winding paths that aren’t exactly built for speed.

Enter the racing minigame. With Ether Jets come a series of racing challenges you can participate in, and if you do well enough you can earn further goodies like fancy and powerful new armor sets. The only problem is racing these things is not even a little bit fun, largely for the reasons I highlighted above. The courses don’t really have tracks; it’s more like a series of Superman 64 rings strewn about environments you’re meant to pass through in order. It sucks! Because of the verticality and goofy terrain, you often can’t really see what you’re driving into, making winning a race a frustrating exercise in figuring out when it’s safe to actually race. There are also doohickeys to collect strewn all about for a boost gauge gimmick that’s not interesting at all, compounding the visual noise and demanding even more precision from what are essentially sci-fi Wave Race vehicles. Not a fan!

There’s “this could have been an email,” and there’s “this should have been an email.” Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - Switch 2 Edition feels like the latter. I think most folks would’ve been happy for their many-dozen-hour RPG epic to simply look and run better, without padding things even more with bizarre vehicles and racing minigames. Especially bolting that onto an old game without really doing anything to accommodate it structurally. New ideas and features are fun and all, and perhaps Nintendo is still trying to figure out what constitutes a “Switch 2 Edition” versus a regular old update, and which resources are worth allocating to which angle and why. And Xenoblade was likely marked as one of the big series to swing hard with. But sometimes less is more, and in the case of an already massive adventure, I don’t think anyone was begging for Shulk to have more things to worry about.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - Switch 2 Edition is available now. A code for the upgrade was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this article.

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