Xenoblade Chronicles Helped Me Find My Soon To Be Wife

Fast-forward to 2021, which is when we actually met face-to-face for the first time. She was visiting family near me, we met up, and in the few hours we spent with each other, we knew instantly that we wanted to keep seeing each other. Before she left to go back home, she asked me to borrow some games. I’ve been burned before loaning games out to people, but I had no problem giving her a game or two before she left. And I knew instantly what I was going to give her. I lent her my copy of Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and said that when she beat it, I would give her the next game. We would see each other every two or three months, so I thought that was more than enough time to beat it.

For the next several months, when we would call each other each night, she would update me about Xenoblade Chronicles. She would ask for advice on how to customize her party, where she should go next, and some strategies for fighting some of the tougher bosses. I’ll always remember our long phone calls being interrupted by the low muffles of “REYN TIME.” Then when she beat it, I loaned her Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Then Torna: The Golden Country.

By this point, it was 2022 and she was hooked into the series, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was on the horizon. It had a July release, and her excitement for the game matched mine. For once, I could look forward to a video game release alongside someone else. The game had a collector’s edition, and because Nintendo is terrible when it comes to actually coordinating collector’s editions for games, the process to get ahold of it was terrible. It was available exclusively on Nintendo’s online store in limited quantities, and it would be released at some arbitrary time with no rhyme or reason. It was like Amiibo all over again.

I remember trying in vain to get a hold of the collector’s edition the day it dropped. It was a futile effort. Nintendo’s servers crashed, and they said they would reschedule the preorder opportunity. By that point, I was convinced that I wouldn’t get the collector’s edition. Admittedly, it’s a pretty negligible problem at the end of the day, but for a series that I had a deep personal connection with, it was a bummer. I told my future fiancée about my attempt to get it, she said it’s okay and we would both just play the standard edition.

A few weeks later, Nintendo would put the collector’s edition up for pre-order. I didn’t even bother trying to get it. I resisted the FOMO and went about my day. After I was done with work, I got a text from her with a single screenshot. I opened it, and it was a picture of a confirmation order for the collector’s edition. I don’t know how she got it, but she said that when we saw each other next, we could experience it together. So when I saw her a few months later, we did exactly that. We sat next to each other, enjoying Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and I knew then that she was the one.

Since then, a lot has changed. We moved in together, we play more games together beyond JRPGs, and now we’re engaged. And when Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition was released, I bought it for us so that she could experience the former Wii U exclusive for the first time. It’s going to be her big summer game, when we both have more time to delve into Mira and experience its new content. To us, Xenoblade Chronicles is the franchise that we bonded over, and it will always be the one video game franchise that we’re able to share our mutual love for together.