I was ready to laugh but instead I'm just impressed with how good he looks

I think playing FC like you have been playing Xenoblade would be far better than not playing it at all. As a crazy 100%er of these games, you get some stuff from playing as a completionist, but you won't miss 'the experience' by refusing to do every quest or talk to every NPC constantly.

Time to rewatch the old podcast clip of Pat shitting on the Gameboy at the top of his lungs.