Outlined in its Q2 fiscal year 2025 financial results and corporate management policy briefing, president Shuntaro Furukawa discussed how the series performed on the Nintendo Switch compared to the Wii U and 3DS. Alongside Xenoblade Chronicles, franchises like Pikmin, Kirby and Metroid have seen “dramatic sales growth.”

Granted, only Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is available on the Nintendo 3DS, and we don’t know how each title has performed individually. As of December 2022, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition sold 1.88 million, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sales totalled 2.7 million (not including the DLC, Torna – The Golden Country). Xenoblade Chronicles 3, meanwhile, sold 1.86 million as of March 2023.

The series should see another significant bump on the Switch, with Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition launching on March 20th, 2025. Stay tuned for more details on its improvements and new content in the coming months.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, optimization and development has faced some issues. It could be announced before 2021 is over and possibly release in the first half of 2022. As for gameplay details, very little is known aside from the goal of having more characters on screen at once (both among the playable characters and various enemies fought).

Story-wise, the sequel will mark the end of the trilogy and take place in the “far-flung future” where some characters  from both previous games who have “long-outlived their human counterparts” will appear. One of those is Melia, who Coleman voices, which is why she would be aware of a sequel (though the extent of her part is yet to be confirmed). At this point, the sequel is nearing its “final stages of development.”

It should be interesting to see how Xenoblade Chronicles 3, if that’s what it ends up being called, unfolds. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 took a decidedly different approach from the original and while some fans were less than kind, it still received a strong amount of critical acclaim. It’s currently available for the Nintendo Switch along with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition.

Omega Zero – Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection

The quest to face Omega Zero requires some work since you need to beat Mega Man ZX on Normal or Hard, and then navigate to Area M. After some platforming, you’ll battle what’s essentially a super-tough version of Zero. He’ll unleash all kinds of powerful attacks, including an extensive multi-hit combo that can chunk down half of your HP in a hurry. If that weren’t enough, he even deploys a barrier that negates any attacks and heals him, prolonging the fight further (as if having three health bars wasn’t bad enough already).

With the Switch selling 68.3 million units worldwide and first-party titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons continuing to soar, one has to wonder how Nintendo’s other titles are faring. As it turns out, pretty well. In Nintendo’s 2nd quarter results for the fiscal year ending March 2021, it announced that Super Mario 3D All-Stars had sold 5.21 million units as of September 30th.

This is fairly impressive because the game managed these sales numbers in just 13 days (having launched on September 18th). Paper Mario: The Origami King has also done well, selling 2.82 million units. Ring Fit Adventure dominated above both with 5.84 million units sold while Luigi’s Mansion 3 has sold 7.83 million thus far.

Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics managed to sell 1.81 million units while Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition sold 1.40 million. Overall, more than 456.49 million titles have been sold on the Switch worldwide till date. With Nintendo forecasting 24 million Switch units sold by March 2021, it should be interesting to see how the current crop of titles fares.

Back in 2010, many were wondering if Nintendo would even release Xenoblade Chronicles in the west, and now, the franchise continues to enjoy impressive sales on a consistent basis, especially on the Switch. Earlier this year, Nintendo launched the expanded remaster of the first game, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, and in during their recent quarterly financial briefing, they announced impressive sales figures for it.

As of June 30 – just a little over a month from the game’s launch on May 29 – the RPG has sold 1.32 million units worldwide. Of these, 0.28 million units were sold in Japan, while 1.04 million sales came from markets outside of the country. Considering the fact that it’s a re-release of a game that many would have once considered niche, those are impressive figures.

Shortly after the launch of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, series creator and Monolith Soft studio head Tetsuya Takahashi said that the studio wanted to “focus on increasing the value” of the Xenoblade Chronicles brand, and these sales figures will likely only serve to reinforce that desire for both Monolith and Nintendo.

During their financial meet, Nintendo also provided other updated sales figures, confirming that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold a ridiculous 22.4 million units since launch, and that the Switch’s worldwide shipments stand at 61.44 million units.

Max Thunder – Streets of Rage 4

The Streets of Rage 2 hero makes his return but this time as a boss thanks to Ms. Y’s mind control techniques. Many of his moves, like the Thunder Tackle and Spinning Knuckle Bomb, are all here and hurt like hell. Max also won’t flinch from normal moves and can only be knocked down by Star Supers. Hit and run tactics are advised, along with reading which attack will be coming next, but it’s easier said than done.

Dreams

It’s hard to measure the level of fidelity in Media Molecule’s Dreams. The main story mode, Art’s Dream, is stunning with its painting-esque backgrounds, ethereal textures and stellar particle effects. However, the creation tool-set is where things truly become crazy. Players have been creating everything from first person hack and slash titles with realistic graphics to mind-blowing sculptures of a full English breakfast. It’s a lot to take in and this is only just the beginning.

While I’ve said it many times over the course of articles written about Xenoblade Chronicles, I still find myself marveling at its journey. Originally released on the Wii as an exclusive to the Japanese region, it was finally brought to the west in a very limited capacity, before being ported down to the 3DS. It’s since spawned a whole franchise for Nintendo, and the newest game, an enhanced remaster of that first title, has garnered high praise.

A new trailer has been released that compiles all of the various accolades for the game that released at the tail end of last month. It sits on a very comfortable 89 currently at Metacritic and lots of praise is heaped on the game’s immersive world as well as the many improvements made from the Wii original. You can check out full review of the game through here.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is available now for Nintendo Switch.

As the Xenoblade Chronicles series celebrates its 10th anniversary, it’s an interesting franchise to reflect back upon. There’s now been three different games and one major standalone expansion encompassing it, and all three are very distinct in their look and tone. If you want to even get deeper in the weeds, the sames are also part of a spiritual lineage to Xenogears and the Xenosaga franchise, where they share a variety of themes and imagery. What connects them all? Well, it seems it’s less about the story and more about the world you are in.

In an interview with VG24/7, Writer and Director Tetsuya Takahashi was asked what it was that made a “Xeno” game. There he said that while there are some familiar story beats and characters, for him the true connection is the immersive worlds the game encompasses and how it aims to suck players in. He acknowledges there is some more direct connection (those who have played through Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 are aware of that), but it seems for him the focus is more of a spiritual connection of shared ideas and those direct story connections can be changed.

“The stories and characters that appear in the Xenoblade Chronicles series vary with each entry, but the same concept is shared among them all; it is players immersing themselves in the game world, and freely walking around and adventuring in it. Maybe it would be better to rephrase and say that the concept is to get players to want to remain in the game world. We’ve kept this concept unchanged since Xenogears, although the Xenosaga series might be the only one of these series that doesn’t follow that concept.

“From the beginning, each entry in the Xenoblade Chronicles series has depicted a single episode within the flow of a larger time and space. So they are, at their roots, closely connected with each other, but we’re flexible with changing the means and ways in which we depict this in each entry.

“Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are like two sides of the same coin which might be why it feels like the connection between them seems to be particularly standing out.”

The latest entry in the series, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is available now for Nintendo Switch. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and its expansion are also on the Switch, with Xenoblade Chronicles X still only currently on the Wii U.

The Xenoblade Chronicles franchise just had its latest release, a remaster of the first game in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. The series has become one of Nintendo’s most unlikely successes, and is now celebrating its 10th anniversary of 3 mainline releases and one standalone expansion. There’s lots of credit you can play to this interesting development, but Co-producer Genki Yokota points to one thing in particular that jump started things.

In an interview with USGamer, Yokota pointed to Shulk debuting in the Super Smash Bros. series with Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and 3DS as “huge” for the franchise. He said that helped to bring in an influx of new eyes to the brand, and pointed to it as especially important to introduce these characters to an audience unfamiliar with RPGs.

“I think getting to introduce the character of Shulk who typically don’t play RPGs was huge,” Yokota said. “That’s why we added a ‘Casual Mode,’ so that people who aren’t good at RPGs or have never played them before can enjoy the story.”

Producer Shigekazu Yamada also weighed in to say that it was also the presentation of Shulk, saying, “I think this design and the nature of the attacks themselves left a lasting impression on the audience. On top of that, it seems like he’s considered a strong playable character with good performance, so I’m happy about that too.”

There is actually precedent for this, since Fire Emblem was in a similar situation where it was basically unknown outside Japan until characters from the franchise were added in Super Smash Bros. Melee, leading to more localized games in the series, with it now being one of Nintnedo’s staple franchises. While it’s hard to say if Smash had that same kind of impact for Xenoblade Chronicles, it almost certainly helped.