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The enhanced Nintendo Switch port of sci-fi JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles X has been out for a grand total of one day, but it took dedicated fans just hours to break its combat system in order to deal millions of damage in a single hit.
If you're a person with great taste and played XCX on the Wii U, this might not come as a massive shock. The JRPG has a lot of complex combat mechanics and stats that can be, frankly, incredibly overwhelming to look at, and it'd be very easy to play through the whole thing without fully understanding how everything works. On the other hand, if you really, really understand the tools in front of you, it's possible to craft character builds that can one-shot even the highest level enemies in the game when you're right at the start of your adventure, trivializing what should be tricky fights.
Over on Twitter, Xenoblade content creator and speedrunner Enel has perfectly demonstrated exactly how powerful you can become in Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, after hitting the game's maximum damage cap using one of the newly added Battle Arts (basically, moves). Using a Caro enemy as a training dummy, we see the player making use of Overdrive – which is basically, without debate, the most powerful combat mechanic available in the game. Using it in this case, Enel can increase damage sixfold, as well as reduce the enemy's resistance to attacks by 100, not to mention allow the playable character's Arts to go into "tertiary cooldown," giving them increased additional effects (depending on the Art, this is sometimes just greatly boosted damage).
We got the damage cap. new arts are so broken LOL pic.twitter.com/oywQmNWwy5March 20, 2025
After applying a buff and waiting until another party member's "Soul Voice" activated to prompt the player to use a melee attack, Enel finally hits Hercules Blow – a new Longsword Art added in Definitive Edition, for a staggering 99,999,984 maximum damage in one strike (the 100 million number that pops up afterwards is from the entire duration of Overdrive, including the attacks Enel used when getting ready to deploy the big move). "New Arts are so broken LOL," Enel writes, and that seems to be putting it lightly.
Not every tool at Enel's disposal is actually visible on the screen, mind you – for a start, we don't see the player's gear for a proper look at the overall build. There are loads of "augments" that can be added onto weapons and armor for significant bonuses in battle, for example, and I'm guessing that plenty were used here. It's also not clear what buffs the other party members could have been applying. Here's hoping we get a full look at the complete setup at some point – there's no better way to deal with a troublesome story boss than to get a new loadout and simply hit the delete button on them, right?
