Xenoblade Chronicles my beloved ... for more detailed thoughts, check out my dedicated page here!

the story of how i came to play Xenoblade is quite a cool one, imo. i'd just started watching Chuggaaconroy's LPs in 2014 when he started his playthrough of Xenoblade Chronicles, and i watched maybe the first episode or two before i realised that, fuck, maybe this was a game i really needed to play through and experience for myself. dumb bitch highschool me forgot about the tiny lil detail that i didn't own a fucking Wii -- but then the 3DS port was announced! so i was like okay, i'll get the 3DS version. except it was specifically for the New 3DS, and i only had an original -- so i figured i would wait a bit, save up some money, and grab a New 3DS when i went to upgrade my old one. except, so few (new) games were announced for the New 3DS that i couldn't really justify dropping the ~$300 on an upgrade, and by the time i had the money the Switch was a thing, so i bought one of those instead. second-hand copies of Xenoblade used to be on sale at my local game store aaaall the time, and i cannot count how many times i would have to talk myself out of buying it in hopes of '"one day"' having the appropriate system to play it on.

AND THEN. THE DEFINITIVE EDITION WAS ANNOUNCED. it released shortly after my birthday, and i hoarded my birthday money so that i could pick up a copy on release day. the hunch that 16-year-old me had was 100% correct; i am so so glad that i listened to it because playing through the game for the first time blind was a really special experience :')

i spent, no lie, 6 whole fucking years in anticipation of one day getting to play this game, and it was worth every dang second of the wait.