With its weird rock formations and bizarre exotic vegetation, it sits halfway between Pandora, the setting of James Cameron’s Avatar, and the kind of world glimpsed in overblown 1970s progressive rock album covers. This isn’t some half-assed sci-fi world with a few pink trees and craters, but a rich, strange and beautiful alien planet with an unearthly geography all its own. You begin the game as one of those awakened, joining up with the nascent army/security service, BLADE, to help protect the survivors, explore Mira and ensure the city of New LA continues to thrive. Those alive and awake begin a search for the survivors, awakening those they find from cryogenic slumber while battling to gain and maintain a foothold on a hostile world. The ship crash-lands on the surface of an alien planet, Mira, its different sections scattered but its core habitat structure mercifully intact. One of these ark ships makes it out into deep space, only to be attacked by forces unknown. The remnants of humanity survive in giant ark ships, barely any of which escaped the Earth’s destruction. The whole premise is that Earth, caught in the crossfire of an intergalactic war, has been abandoned and subsequently destroyed. You can probably work out from those reference points whether Xenoblade Chronicles X will be your cup of tea or not. It’s a Sci-fi game, but one that seems in thrall to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series. It’s predominantly a single-player game, yet – like Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII – it borrows more from MMORPGs than it does from the average Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. It looks like and has the combat systems of a classic JRPG, but has a much looser narrative and comes set in a massive open-world. It’s also fascinating to see the influences at work here. In terms of accessibility, Xenoblade Chronicles X makes Fallout 4 look like Call of Duty. It’s a game that seems hell-bent on exposing all its weaknesses within the first hour, but holding off its strongest features until you’ve already proven your commitment. While it’s always a striking, visually-impressive game, punctuated by moments of awe-struck wonder, it takes half-a-dozen hours to even get interesting, and roughly half-a-dozen more to get you in its grips.

If you want to get into the Wii U’s biggest RPG, then you need to be sure that you’re ready for the long haul.

Xenoblade chronicles x level grinding