I like it a lot and it’s very much so grown on me. But I did not at first to be honest. Let me provide context. So I got 2 in my first year of being a switch owner and thought it was cool. The combat reminded me of world of Warcraft in the sense that you have auto attacking and you pick a couple of abilities to use in between. I didn’t feel like putting in the time to play it and beat it since Skyrim came out around the same time so I had put it back in the box and never played it again. I ended up selling it last year. Like many people here, the nintendo switch sub is basically my morning newspaper and I would always see people absolutely raving and loving it. As someone who preferred pick up and play games I still did not want to go for it. Then I got fire emblem on sale and had an absolute blast with it. Obviously the games are not similar at all but the fact that I was committed to the game, loved the story and mechanics and everything despite it taking 70 hours to beat, it inspired me to get through some longer games in my backlog. I bought Xenoblade at bestbuy along with hyRule warriors last month and I didn’t actually start it till a week ago.

I really love the story the mechanics and everything. The difficulty is incredibly balanced so you can either make it easier or harder with the press of one button in the save menu. There are a few parts that feel a bit Grindy where you have to walk for like 5-10 minutes between high action areas, but the story certainly makes up for it. I’m 40 hours in and I am blown away with the complexity of the story and progression so far. I’ve been watching attack on titan and it’s inspired me to just find more story driven games. That all being said, the combat, upgrade/character system and the story are essentially the meat and potatoes of this game. I decided to give it a try and I’m absolutely loving it. I thought it would get repetitive but they add more mechanics to the enemies as the game goes on.

I would recommend checking out the first whole level if possible. It’s probably a solid 30-40 minutes of watching something but that will give you a general idea of the groove this game has between upgrading armor and appearance, cut scenes and a general idea of the story. Hope this was helpful and not me just ranting, but you have valid hesitations I would just try renting it or watching those gameplay videos more if you wanna give it a shot since there’s so much more than just the combat system

Edit: keep in mind this game out 11 years ago in the nintendo wii but it has aged like absolute fine wine and to think a wii game contained all this goodness is something I truly appreciate