Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 3

@Xyphon22 Ashera's ascension quest is a good one.

@VoidofLight Cool, thanks. That's one I tried to do because I thought it might be good but I couldn't find it. Hopefully it just wanted unlocked yet, so I'll try again.

@Xyphon22 I think you have to max her class on Eunie and have her in the party at Old Kana battlefield.

@VoidofLight So I finally found it and after I did it I decided to look up the top quests in the game, and I found a site that made a list of the top nine (not sure why they couldn't add one more to make a top 10, but whatever). Ashera's Ascension was number 2, so good call on that one. Number 1 is I assume a postgame quest Melia's Ascension so I probably won't bother with that one unless it is easily and quickly accessible right away, I had already done 2-8, and number 9 was one that I recognized because I had literally just unlocked it and added it to my Quest List. Just I guess I'll do that one just to finish the list and then go off to beat the game. Almost done!

Finished the game last night! I won't get too much into the stuff I've already discussed on here, because quite frankly, pretty much none of my previous questions/issues were adequately answered and there are in fact even more things about the story that make absolutely no sense to me. But I think I realized my issues with it basically come down to two things:

1. Everything was done to be emotional, to take the player on an emotional roller coaster, rather than actually being rational or making sense. And as this game is particularly character-driven as others have said, it doesn't really work if you don't care for the characters, which I don't that much.
2. I have the same issue with this game that I have with another extremely popular series that I don't really care for: Harry Potter. It cannot decide whether it wants to be realistic or fantastical. Personally, I prefer realistic, but I'm good if it at least sticks to fantastical. But it doesn't. It goes back and forth depending on the emotions it wants to create, and for me, that ruins the flow and continuity of it.

I still thought it was a fun game, just not the greatest RPG (or even game) of all time like so many others think. Not even the best in the series for me. That belongs to 2. I like those characters better, that world better, that battle system better. This game was definitely the easiest of the three, I was so overpowered by chapter 5 just by going through the game doing normal things that I was never challenged and even the final boss was a joke. I often got bored during boss battles because I had no chance of dying (unless a random big attack took out both healers which would occasionally happen), I just had to sit there attacking the large damage sponge until it finally fell. X2's battle system felt like a puzzle to solve and was a lot more intricate and involved and fun.

Overall, a good game, just not an all-time great for me. Except for Taion. He is easily the best character in the entire series. Now a little break before tackling Future Redeemed.

@Xyphon22 A lot of the story makes a lot of sense. The clues for context are pretty much shown through character actions or buried in dialogue. The reason I feel like the story is better than 2 is because the game actually trusts the audience to piece everything together- rather than spelling it all out to them.

@VoidofLight Once again, I know you probably don't mean it this way, but your words really come across as, "The story makes perfect sense, you are just too shallow or dumb to see the clues and piece them together because it wasn't spelled out for you." I saw the clues. I understood what they were trying to do and say. In my clearly unpopular minority opinion, it was stupid. The major theme of this game was free choice, having the ability to choose your own path when that choice was not offered before. And everybody just chose to continue to do what they had always done.

This game was basically if there was only one restaurant in the world, and the only thing they served was spaghetti. All you ever ate was spaghetti every day, all the time. Then suddenly a new restaurant opens that serves 100s of options. You can have burgers or steak or curry or salmon or just a giant ice cream sundae. Whatever you want. And you choose to eat...spaghetti. That's what everyone in this game did.

Except Zeon. Zeon chose potatoes. So many potatoes.

And by "everyone," I mean the side characters. Obviously the main six tried to forge a new path. Well, at least Noah did, and the others followed him. And the characters in the game and the people in this forum rationalize it all by saying "it's human nature." I say it's a cop out from trying to pry tears out of the player and having nowhere else to go after. But again, it's just my opinion on the game. I know most people thought it was amazing. I also didn't like the first game nearly as much as most people, and I think I liked the second game more than most people. It's amazing how different people can have different opinions on things. I guess it's human nature.

@Xyphon22 I mean, it's pretty realistic. If you're born into a system where it's nothing but fighting without question, and designed for those on top to keep a lid on anything or anyone attempting to enlighten the general public that life can be different, most would probably stick to killing one another and nothing more. It isn't a cop out at all, but rather Moebius effectively stopping anyone from actually rebelling or attempting to form a society under their system. Preventing them from having any form of culture- down to stopping them from even growing food. On top of this, the Flame Clocks most likely are what keep people in this state of primitive thinking, or being unaware of the actual world around them.

One bit I noticed in an early scene of the game was after the gang became Ouroboros for the first time. In the scenes before this, the game showcases that the colonies have mixed baths. That both the men and women effectively shared the same facility, and neither of them batted an eye at it. It wasn't until the group became ouroboros and got removed from the yoke of control that they started to have shame. The guys shied away from changing in front of the girls because of that. The ouroboros stone basically represents the forbidden fruit of knowledge, and the flame clocks basically represents humanity being barred from the forbidden knowledge.

This is basically what I mean by things being deeper than what they are. You can still understand the core theme, but I found that most of the game's enjoyment for a lot of people tends to stem from how deep everything actually is on a thematical level. How every little thing in the game pretty much was well thought out and made perfect sense- so long as you effectively dig for those answers. Something like this here:

What's light energy? Why does it exist? light energy is most likely what the conduit was comprised of, given how it's always depicted as a pure source of light. Origin was originally depicted as being similar to a Zohar emulator in the concept art book, which makes it more apparent that light energy is most likely one in the same with the matter that the conduit is comprised of.

Another cool thing to note is that Z is a puppet. He isn't actually a person with his own motives. A lot of the scenes he's in tend to show him fluctuating in terms of how he interacts with people, and who he interacts with. To Noah and the others, he basically becomes the villain that they see him as. To N, he voices the disdain and discontent N holds for fighting- telling him to give up, when N was wishing to flee. To be with Mio.

People exist and act within the social context in which they're born and live, and rarely manage to conceive of things outside of that context. That's true of all time periods. Look at people who live in deeply isolated tribal communities, or, hell, the majority of people who live in totalitarian cultures without access to the outside world. Your social context is your reality.

In this case, add on a layer of practically religious fanaticism and ritual (such as surviving to Homecoming), and, if anything, I think the game undersells the degree to which there'd be resistance from liberated colonies.

I'd say it's less about prying tears from the eyes of players and more reflective of a fairly nuanced understanding of human psychology on the part of the writers. Aside from late chapter five, which was obviously emotionally manipulative by design, I'd say the majority of the emotion evoked by this game is a byproduct of its more existentialistic focus on mortality, meaning, and how people grapple with the conditions of their lives.

That said, people like what they like. Most fans seem to hold the first game up on a pedestal still, and, for the life of me, I'll never understand why.

@Ralizah Exactly. If anything the game is a bit too soft on how people would react when they're liberated from the thumb that's been crushing them down for their entire lives. A lot of the colonies in 3's world do a good job at subtly showcasing human nature and what factors in their environment sort of contribute to how they act or what information they end up receiving. How even religion is dragged into it within a way that is more nuanced than what Xenogears did. The only real chapter that gets heavily emotional is Chapter 5, but even then it basically calls for that.

As for Xenoblade 1- I like it, but I don't think it's the most amazing game ever made. Has the best main theme in the series. Story is decent, but a lot of the characters sort of tend to fall behind after a while. A lot of the focus is on Shulk and the Monado, with the other characters feeling like after-thoughts at times, or just not being as well written as the characters in later games. I do prefer 1 over 2, but mostly because while I like a lot of 2's central ideas- the execution can get messy at times. Mainly just a lot of jokes that tend to bleed over into serious moments and ruin the chances of me actually taking those serious moments seriously.

@VoidofLight Xenogears and Xenosaga go full Evangelion in terms of throwing around religious language to make things sound cool, lol. The Japanese version of Xenoblade 2 does that to a lesser extent (Nintendo localized all this language away, unfortunately), although considering that game is almost literally a pilgrimage to meet God, I think it gets away with it more. Xenoblade 3 is far more nuanced in its approach, and so can be read in multiple ways: as an existentialist text; as sociopolitical satire (it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see the parallels to, say, a Marxist worldview); I've even read some interesting pieces approaching its themes from Christian and Buddhist religious viewpoints.

That said, I also like Xenoblade 2. I thought the balance of humor and drama worked well, and its cast is one of the most memorable in the entire Xeno franchise. And the music! Best OST Monolith has ever produced. I think the thing for me is that Xenoblade 1 is almost entirely plot-driven, but the plot turns into a lot of metaphysical gobbledygook, so it never really resonated with me.

Torna is also my favorite expansion in the series, and probably my favorite expansion from any game I've played, including the excellent Witcher 3 ones.

@Ralizah Ehh I just don't feel the same passion for 2 that I feel for 1 or 3. I like it more than X (X is something I hope never gets a sequel because it feels like a waste of a game), but 2 felt like it only really got good towards the end. The humor didn't really sit right for me. Especially when it was bleeding into the moments that were supposed to be taken seriously. One of the fights had a Nopon piloting a Chibi maid, with it bleeding into a scene where a character actually is about to reveal something important about them- and a near death experience for another character that's not played for laughs. I also just didn't jive with the combat for 2. People swear by it being the best system, but it bugged me that most of the combat was centered around standing still and slowly going through the motions until you build up enough affinity or utilize pouch items. 3's combat streamlines things a ton more imo, making it to where positionals actually feel good to pull off and not totally headache inducing.

Also yeah, 3 is far more nuanced. It has a ton of inspirations from many different places, and all of them work really well together. People have likened things like Z to being satan and Alpha being God- or the Ouroboros stone basically being the forbidden fruit with the flame clocks being how humanity became influenced by the original sin- and thus becoming more aware of the world around them and ashamed of themselves. I've even seen people make mention of how Moebius could be seen as a generalization of a ruling class in governments- or heads of mega corporations almost.

3's story has a ton going on whilst seeming extremely simple on the surface. I remember a bunch of people walked away disappointed because they were expecting the game to just be heavy-handed with the references to both Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 2- but it turned out to be it's own original story, with it tying up a lot of narrative loose-ends. A lot of people don't even know that Klaus' whole story-arc ends perfectly with Xenoblade 3's ending.

@VoidofLight LOL The Giga Rosa fight was awesome. IMO the moments intended to be really hard-hitting in 2 weren't interrupted by comedy. ESPECIALLY late game. It's true there's some tonal dissonance in certain parts of the game, but I've always found this to be charming. For me, the bigger problem is that Rex's English voice actor threatens to ruin almost every scene he's in.

I desperately want a remaster of 2 that fixes the dodgy character animations, terrible voice direction, streamlines the fiddly aspects of combat and customization, and addresses the substantial resolution stability issues, which were almost all fixed in Xenoblade 3.

Yeah, a lot of people played XC3 expecting what Future Redeemed turned out to be. Oh well. I got a gorgeous, amazing original story out of XC3, and the people wanted Xenoblade Avengers pretty much got their wish with the expansion. I did love how Future Redeemed made it easy to 100% the game, though. I know people will disagree with me on here, but I desperately hope the next console has a trophy/achievements system.

I like XCX in concept. But the way its systems are set-up, up to and including the use of Skells, makes it not terribly fun. Imagine the boat in XC3 running out of fuel constantly, ugh.

@Ralizah I hate that Rex's VA got the short end of the stick. They really rushed 2's dub compared to XC1 and XC3's dubs. If they were to remaster it by fixing the cutscene animations, making the combat flow better, and pretty much redub the whole thing- I feel like I'd enjoy it a ton more. I also sort of hope that Monolith keeps up the quality with Xenoblade 3's visuals, since the differences between 2 and 3 are genuinely night and day in terms of shading and models.

Also yeah, Future Redeemed pretty much tied up the loose ends that Xenoblade 1 had, as well as basically making it to where Xenoblade 1 could connect better with the rest of the series (since it was in a weird spot). I genuinely feel like they made the right move to make it DLC over making it apart of base game, since base game worked so much better with telling the story that it chose to tell. A story that wrapped up the over-arching plot points of the series whilst barely touching the same characters.

As for XCX, my main hang-up isn't just the skell system, but mainly just how X doesn't really feel like Xeno to me. Not even really Xenogears or Saga. While Gears and Saga rely heavily on Sci-Fi, it felt like XCX just sorta took things on a whole different level. To the point where it just comes across as more generic imo.

@VoidofLight I'm still amazed Xenoblade 3 runs as well on the Switch as it does. It's a gorgeous Switch release. It doesn't look like it should even be on the system. And the upscaling solution they found means it looks really nice in portable mode as well, making it the only Switch Xeno that's fully satisfactory as a hybrid experience. I'm really excited to see what Monolith can do with decently more powerful hardware.

I don't mind the pure sci-fi vibe of X, personally. It's a spinoff, and they were trying something new. Just... the game needs to be fun to play, and it's not. It's a pain. Even something as simple as healing or managing TP in battles is a gigantic drag.

It also feels weirdly quasi-MMO-ish. And not in the normal Xenoblade way, but in terms of how the online aspects were integrated.

I was thinking the exact same way when I got this game back in June. Got into the eagus wilderness desert section and just kept moving the camera around and wondering how monolithsoft managed to fit a game with such a huge world, so many collectibles, features, characters and dialogue onto a console that can barely run a ps4 game properly without being modified specifically for the switch. It’s absolutely insane. And they did the same thing with Tears Of The Kingdom, monolith helped develop it I believe. Game is massive and has so much stuff in it, yet it runs with zero stutter on switch. Monolithsoft must have the Midas touch when it comes to fitting huge games on weaker consoles. They fit Xenoblade 1 on the Wii and Xenoblade X on the Wii u somehow. They even tossed Xenoblade 1 on the 3ds! Now that’s impressive

@Ralizah It really is a gorgeous switch release. Makes me wonder what wizardry they'll pull off for Xenoblade Chronicles 4 when the Switch 2 releases.

Also that's fair. I never really got into X's gameplay either. Never even left Primordia. The battle system feels like it expanded upon XC1's, but it doesn't feel as good to me. The focus on sidequests really put me off as well, since it's apparent that it was probably meant to be an MMO before being retooled into a primarily singleplayer title.

You know, I may have been wrong. I said earlier that no one was going to be able to convince the other side of anything, but you may have convinced me. I like the Garden of Eden/Adam and Eve/forbidden fruit parallel that a couple of different people have mentioned on here. So, let's take that to its natural and logical conclusion/beginning, shall we?

Congratulations, you have made it so much worse! I now no longer thing the story is dumb, I outright hate it!

@Xyphon22 Well for one, God being an evil and cruel creator is a thing in Gnosticism, which is a heavy central piece of Xenoblade's entire lore. Jaldabaoth is the Demiurge, or the one who proclaims they're the "true" God. In many accounts- they effectively created the earth to withhold us from our actual creator, Monad. It explains why in the Old Testament, God is a genuinely cruel and horrible creator in opposition to how he's portrayed and depicted in the New Testament. In this case, Klaus- or rather Zanza would be the Demiurge. He basically barred people from their own original world by creating a new one, and proclaimed himself as being the one and only God. The "Monado" is a play on Monad, given that Alvis was the actual "creator" of Xenoblade Chronicle 1's world. The actual God compared to what Zanza was. Z is effectively an echo of Zanza. He needs an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth in order to persist, as Moebius require life force to survive in the first place. He withholds humanity from their original world and traps them within said cycle. Wishing to only live in the moment, as humanity desires to do so. Just as Zanza desired to do so.

Z isn't a God. Z is the perversion of what a God should be. If you actually compare 3 to the context of Xenoblade 1 and 2's backgrounds and themes, you can see as clear as day that all the "Gods" In this series are either flawed people, or horrible monsters that aren't actually what they claim themselves to be. Z is very much meant to resemble a nightmare monster or demon given the horns on his design. He never actually created Aionios, but rather set up the system of control that was utilized through the world itself. Aionios was created by an entirely different set of circumstances, with Z just being "humanity's champion," or effectively what the people wanted when their worlds were on the threat of collapsing in on themselves. On top of this, while the men felt shame after the Ouroboros stone, that wasn't my point. My point was moreso that the Ouroboros stone gave the group access to knowledge that was forbidden in the first place. The awareness that other soldiers lacked under the yolk of the flame clock. Breaking free from a system that was made to pacify the masses and keep them locked in the endless cycle that was necessary for Moebius to survive in the first place. A system which actively robbed humanity from them pretty much, and made them very very easy to influence. To the point where they were manipulated to see Ouroboros as the enemy. To the point where even information on natural biology was kept from them.

If you hate the story, that's your prerogative- but I guess that means you also should hate the other games too. Both Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 2- given they do a lot of similar stuff with their own narrative ideas. A ton of heavy biblical messages and Gnostic ideas. Lots of parallels to religion and twisting it for the sake of storytelling. It's just that it's done in a way that's more covered up and less easy to see than something like Xenoblade 3, as the other two games focus more on the action and less on the actual character building and development side of things. The action sort of made it easier to drown out the stuff that makes you hate 3.

Alright, just finished up Future Redeemed. So I guess I'm officially done with the series now (unless I decide to try to go back and finish X one day, but it has been so long that I highly doubt I'll do that because I won't have a clue what I'm doing and I definitely won't want to start it all over). I thought it was good, I probably would have appreciated it more if I had taken a longer break after beating the main game. I'm a bit Xenobladed out by now. And if I had remembered more about the first game, but it's been well over a decade since I played it so I don't remember a lot of it. I thought these characters were definitely better than the ones from the main game, if they had just given them these personalities, it would have been a lot better. This grown-up Rex was like the perfect way to do Lanz. And maybe not so much personality-wise but action-wise, Glimmer and Nikol were exactly what Ethel and Cammuravi should have been (I know most of you disagree with me about them, but that's just my thoughts). The funniest part, though, was how clearly the gamemakers or the playtesters or someone saw all the same stuff I did that made no sense in the main game, because most of Future Redeemed was spent trying to answer those questions and make it make sense. It still didn't do everything justice for me personally, but it is a fantasy world of their creating, so I can go with it. There is at least one big question that has been left unanswered for me though since practically the beginning of the main game, which maybe it's just because I don't remember from the first game, but why do all of the Kevesi things look like the Mechonis, the bad guys? If Melia is their queen, wouldn't she have made everything to look like the Bionis?