So, I take it not too many people got the game on this site. Even my half-dead Chrono Trigger forum community that’s been around for almost 30 years has more chatter about this game.

There have been numerous changes made in comparison to the original and so far I consider all of them to be an improvement. Which is not a given in a new version, considering how Nintendo bungled the screentext speed of last year's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door by removing the fast-forward function of the original. Anyway, the most notable changes are:

1. Being able to perform artes that aren't ready. This is such a huge improvement because it speeds up battles so much. Whether or not you use this feature is up to you, but when enemies have commonly so many HPs, it's a godsend. Of course the usage of this feature is limited per battle, but most of the time the number of uses is more than sufficient. This ties in with...

2. ...rewards for reaching certain percentage milestones of exploration on each individual map. Among the early rewards are extensions for the usage of the aforementioned feature, but also probes that grant more miranium storage that were very hard to come by in the original. The rewards are very beneficial in general, so they are surprisingly good.

3. BLADE levels have been ditched. This means when you go exploring, you don't get disappointed by Frontier Nav points you can't activate or treasure you can't collect due to insufficient levels, which was very common in the original. There are still a few treasure boxes that are locked until much later in the game, but they amount to a single digit percentage of all treasure in the game.

4. Quest markers for everything, including the dreaded rare collectibles where it could take hours to find them in the original.

5. Adjusted pacing for basic missions that you can accept at the BLADE terminal. Now there's only a limited amount of them that get added per chapter instead of the far looser feed of the original that could be confusing and frustrating as hell. Limited amount still equates to ~40 per chapter, so plenty to do.

6. Almost all story and affinity missions have ditched character restrictions, so you have a lot more freedom in your party setup.

7. Shared EXP across all unlocked party members, again giving you more freedom to switch between people as you see fit.

8. Party members can be selected from a basic menu instead of having to pick them up at their designated spot in NLA.

9. Likewise, the time of day can be changed in the menu instead of having to look for specific resting spots.

10. The in-game bestiary doesn't record quest-specific enemies anymore from what I can tell. This means that quests with multiple routes are now a lot less likely to bug completionists by having to pick one or the other between a superior affinity outcome or recording an enemy entry.

The Wii U version isn't just obsolete because of these tremendous improvements for the Switch version, but obviously also because its servers have been turned off.

Sure, I went there before chapter 4. Of course it can be frustrating to get there on a few occasions because of the high level enemies that can surprise you. The benefits of going to Sylvalum and Cauldros early are limited though, because there are hardly any quests before the second half of the game starts. Naturally, expanding the Frontier Nav and placing more probes is the biggest payoff.

Unlike Sylvalum, it's very difficult to get far in Cauldros. Too many narrow paths with multiple level 40+ enemies whereas Sylvalum has a commonly wide open design.

Having watched the new story content now, it finally feels like the game's narrative is complete, as opposed to the original where it feels like they ran out of time and money two thirds of the way through, stitched together what they had, and released it.

For such an old game, made on hardware that was well behind the curve even at the time, I will also say its remarkable how well it holds up. Monolith Soft are masters of technical engineering and this is still the best looking Xenoblade game in my opinion. (2 and 3 use more advanced effects, but the lower resolution makes them less visually appealing)

Got my skell today, but since I've played the game before, I know that it's merely a tool for exploration and not worth it for combat for a long time. Its speed makes it manageable to drive past the strong enemies in Cauldros, so I could finally expand the FN to the east after I had first visited the continent around 40 hours earlier.

I always liked the visuals of XCX better than 2 and 3. Much like the first game, there are a lot of beautiful locations all throughout the world… only there are about 10X as many of those stunning locations IN XCX - I find myself getting hood views and snapping pictures all over the place, the only game I’ve done that in outside of ACNH, Witcher 3, and Breath of the Wild. But on top of beautiful locations, everything is more tangible looking, less over-saturated and cartoony looking. Plus, it looks more like the older Xeno-games in style - Xenogears and Xenosaga Episode 1.

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Anyway, on another topic:

I’ve been hanging out after Chapter 4, completing lots of basic quests and Affinity Missions, but I’m about to clear Chapter 5. But I have 12 additional team members now and I’m  about dividing them up into four different squads:

Team Rowdy: Doug, Frye, and Yelv.

Team Elma: Elma, Lyn, Lao*

Team Introvert: Irina, Gwin, Phog

Team Superior: L, HB, Alexa*

* I’m considering bringing Alexa into Team Elma, and Lao into Superior. Alexa fits well with Lyn because of the Skell fandom. But I mostly wanted to isolate Lao, and just use him as a filler for teams who I don’t have 4 characters for yet.

And, once I get to newer chapters, I’ll probably switch these teams up. Right now I’m mostly getting everyone I have up to ~3 Affinity.

Got my skell and found Erica Lindbecks (Misty CP2077 and Peppermint Hi Fi Rush) character in the DE. Nice of Monolith to again put a playable Lesbian in a game. (Morag was the other)

The OG being so much lower on meta despite this having very minimal QOL updates just proves no one wanted to like anything Wii U very much at the time

The QOL updates aren't minimal, they are significant. Now X isn't some sort of black sheep in the Xenoblade Chronicles IP anymore, but on par with the numbered games as far as overall game quality is concerned. Obviously, X being open world still makes it a very different game, but now it's merely a matter of taste. Before the Definitive Edition, X had a bunch of blatant flaws that dragged it down for no good reason.

As far as overall scoring in reviews is concerned, Nintendo games are underrated in general, so it has never been something specific to the Wii U. The only two Nintendo IPs who can regularly buck this trend are 3D Zelda and 3D Mario. Come to think of it, production values may play a big part in all of this. Too many reviewers are easy to impress with visuals, hence why there are so many overrated non-Nintendo games out there.

Great game but way too long in my opinion.