I played 10 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles (DE) and I'm baffled that anyone considers it anything beyond...deeply okay, at best.
The combat ranges from braindead in 90% of encounters (literally being able to put the controller down and still win most fights with random mobs) to sudden spikes of "hyper-specific optimal tactics are the only possible path to victory" during certain boss battles. It's not that one or the other is game-breaking on its own, but it's lopsided and the mindless random encounters train you not to bother with the systems that the game then demands you to have mastered once you reach key moments.
The story is incredibly contrived (of course, I'm not done with the game - I'm basing this off of the first 8 chapters or so of the game) - the melodramatic, serious tone and seemingly grim state of the world the game takes place in invites questions about how things function and why things are the way they are, but provides no satisfactory answers. The visions of the future happen at totally arbitrary times just to further the plot / string you along, it's like a hallmark of bad writing that the entire plot is constantly using as a central device to feed you information - not to mention how actually thinking about how this works in terms of continuity, etc. is a total dead-end and not intriguing (time travel can be treated with levity and written off as "suspension of disbelief" in something with a more humorous, lighthearted tone a la Back To The Future - but this game is so "serious" that it doesn't create that vibe). Shulk has a vision of something horrible happening, usually someone dying - then goes through multiple hours of events to still reach that exact point, only bothering to diverge from the plan seconds before the tragedy he's known about the entire time strikes.
The characters are bland and one-note - I literally can't think of adjectives to describe their personalities outside of the vaguest notions of "brave" and "loyal". I guess Reyn is loyal - because the only thing I know about him is that he's Shulk's friend. Even the hints of characterization that do exist are provided via characters telling us rather than us seeing it for ourselves: "Shulk, you need to get some air and stop working in the lab. You're smart and hardworking - which we all know because I'm expositing about how hard-working you are, in the science lab, but seriously, take a break sometime!" It's horrible. Fiora was the only one that remotely endearing - if only so slightly - because we see her actually interacting with Shulk (at least for like five minutes) and get to interact with her - and...welp.
Every area, while visually nice enough, lacks anything fun to do within it. The sidequests are pointless fetch-quest fodder to the point that it borders on parody. The vistas are all just wide-open fields - no more, no less. I genuinely can't comprehend what exactly is captivating or beautiful about what essentially amounts to a wide expanse of grass with an above-average skybox. When the fights within are boring, the only means of navigating is walking at a set speed (even the religiously traditional Dragon Quest 11 had the decency to throw in mountable monsters to add some variety to moving through open zones), and the story is badly-written chosen hero shlock that doesn't even bother to hang its hat on a likable cast / appealing monsters / fun activities - what keeps people going?
I genuinely think the only reason the game gets the praise it does - and this is after going into it wanting to like it, and being a fan of other RPGs, both old and new (Metaphor: ReFantazio was my GOTY last year - Dragon Quest 1 is a game I played 30 years late and I still found it to be delightful) - is because it landed on a console desperate for anything resembling a hardcore game, at a time when JRPGs were down in the dumps, and open-world games were the new hottest thing on every other contemporary console. To a lot of (easily amused) people, this game seems to have been just the right bone thrown at just the right time to elevate it from a "6/10 for the effort" to the laughable designation of "all-time classic". Even the first few sentences of the IGN review from all the way back then on the Wii are emphasizing how everyone should rejoice and be glad they didn't throw out their Wiis - it's a praise rooted in the cultural context of the moment.
