A great story trapped in a frustrating game (Xenoblade Chronicles Spoiler Free Review)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is a fantastic story trapped in a frustrating game. In this (almost) spoiler free video essay, I explain why.
PS. Welcome to my new channel! This video was originally posted on my old channel on April 22nd, 2022. It’s reposted here because I’m starting a new channel dedicated to this type of content. I also took the opportunity to make some small updates to the video while I was at it.
#xenobladechronicles #xenoseries #jrpg
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:44 Exploration
10:29 Combat
17:23 Grinding
22:02 Story
31:57 The Reward - เกม
![[UNCUT] ฝันรักห้วงนิทรา | EP.9 (3/4)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ikd1tEhXbp8/mqdefault.jpg)
Welcome to my new channel! This video was originally posted on my old channel on April 22nd, 2022. It’s reposted here because I’m starting a new channel dedicated to this type of content. I also took the opportunity to make some small updates to the video while I was at it.
Thanks for watching! I can’t promise the video has NO spoilers at all, but I did my very best to keep all of the game’s important plot twists secret.
It took me a long time to get this video out (I actually played through Xenoblade Chronicles back in June/July of 2021, so yeah…) but I’m pretty happy with the results. I’m replaying Xenoblade Chronicles 2 right now and I’m hoping to get a video out before the third game arrives in July! (I’m VERY excited for that lol.)
You can probably tell from the video but I love love LOVE the Xeno series, and I’m planning on covering every game in the series eventually. Don’t be surprised if one day in the distant future you see a 6-hour long Xenogears video essay here LOL.
As always, I really appreciate all your love and support! 😍🙏
Great video. I love this game a lot, I've played it several times across it's various releases so I might have forgotten how my first time on the 3DS went but I disagree about your points about how much grinding is required in this game and the tutorials. Perhaps it's my playstyle of exploring as much as I can before the next story sequence that boosted my levels via exploration and fighting unique monsters but grinding was never an issue for me. The complaint's about this game's tutorials was a bit out of left field, out of all the Xenoblade games I've heard someone say 1 had bad ones, usually that dishonor goes to X or 2.
But I don't think your complaints are invalid, you did a good job explaining your experience to make me understand your perspective. I do recommend one day looking deeper into 1's combat as I think it is underrated. I usually go for a topple locking team with Melia, Seven, and Shulk. My team might be squishy without a tank but you don't need one if your opponent's constantly stuck being toppled.
Thanks for the friendly comment and for sharing your experiences with the game!
Looking back at this video now, I feel I did a bad job explaining what I meant by grinding, and conversations with fans of the game since then have allowed me to see my issues more clearly. XC1 isn’t grindy, but it strongly discourages casual playthroughs (unless you literally activate casual mode lol) because the game is designed with the expectation that you’ll do a lot of exploration and engage heavily with the optional content. If you take your time with the game, you won’t have any issues with progression and you won’t feel like you did any grinding.
I learned this lesson on my second playthrough of XC2, when I realized that almost every single issue I had with the game on my first time through disappeared when I just took my time and dove into the content. All of the Xenoblade games are like that imo. They’re made to be played voraciously, not rushed through for the story. And that was my mistake with XC1. I’ve adjusted my playstyle in the last couple of years and as a result ended up absolutely loving my first run through XC3.
Thanks again for such a nice comment, and I’ll definitely give the topple lock build a shot the next time I make my way through this game!
@@AltercateTV Shulk, Reyn, and Duncan are a better topple locking team but I prefer my little set up with Melia as starlight kick can immediately topple enemies without even needing them to be broken.
Really respect the effort put into this video and overall you raise some good points, but some of your gameplay complaints just didn't make any sense to me.
You say the game limits your team building bc it expects you to have an attacker, tank and healer... no? Optimal parties in this game don't even use dedicated healers to begin with. I benched Sharla permanently as soon as I got Dunban and never struggled. My gf played through the game sticking only to Reyn, Dunban and Riki, had to swap it only 4 times with some telethia or mechon bosses.
You say you never knew what stuff like 'lock on resist' did when you can just press the minus button for extra info both in menu's and during the battles?
The fact that you needed to grind despite you doing so many quests and side content also astounds me. If you speedrun through the story then sure it's easy to end up underleveled, but normally you can level up very easily as long as you do some of the current area's side quests or defeat its unique monsters.
It really just comes over like you just didn't know how to play the game properly, you seemed to like using Dunban and Melia but with a lack of understanding on chain attack multipliers or gear weight these 2 characters become much less effective. You actually did raise an interesting point with the tutorials though, with how they should have had better demonstrations, I can understand how some people lose track of some of the mechanics but some of these problems go way beyond that.
Also your pronunciation of Reyn just reminds me of the ign review lol
Thanks for commenting! In hindsight, a lot of my complaints probably do stem from the fact that I never made enough of an effort to actually learn the combat beyond the basics. And maybe I missed some info in the menus that would have helped.
At the end of the day it’s just my personal experience with the game, but I do stand by the fact that I found this game (especially the original Wii version) to be a lot more frustrating that almost any JRPG I’ve played. That may be my fault, but it’s still a thing that happened. 😂
For reference, I had a rough start with XC2 but ended up loving the gameplay in the end. And XC3 was a pure joy from start to finish. :)
I still need to get back to this game. I did put casual mode on pretty early due to frustration, but I'm glad you can switch it off and on so I might try going back after I get a better handle on the mechanics. Only a few hours in thus far.
Agreed, casual mode is implemented really well! Hope you enjoy the game :)
I played this game on my 3ds when i was 8th grade and i seriously thought the game was crazy easy. I only focused on equipments and gems that raised Agility stat and the enemies couldn't touch my party 80% of the time. The only time i felt the need to grind was for those post-game super bosses. Despite being poorly balanced, XC1 is still my favorite game ever because of its fantastic cast of characters, epic story and soundtracks.
It's funny how everybody's experience with Xenoblade is different. My girlfriend doesn't play video games too often but she was able to grasp Xenoblade, and has played 2 of the 3 games so far. She played on easy at first, but was able to move to normal and adjusted to it just fine.
As for me, I never struggled with it, aside from a few stutters learning the menus. I played on normal from the start in every game, even switching it to hard at some points, and after that? Whooooo I had fun breaking the game and abusing every little thing I could take advantage of, and the gameplay of Xenoblade has become my favorite of any game I've ever played, along with the story and music. Persona was my previous favorite game series, and Xenoblade (all 3 games) blew it out of the water in *every* category.
I think it's just a case of how differently people play/enjoy/learn from games. My best friend for example is super used to video games where all you have to do is mash a few buttons for the combat, like beat-em-ups or musou games. As such, every game with more complexity/thinking involved in it, like Zelda (puzzles) or Xenoblade (complex, in-depth systems) or dark souls (complex combat), he struggles with. One of my other friends is the opposite; they're super used to games with plenty of complexity in them, but they can't stay interested in games that are too simplistic. At the end of the day, everybody is going to have their own opinion/experience of a game, and it'll vary wildly from the next person's opinion whether based on subjective or objective reasoning. The most important thing here is that hey, you gave it a *fair chance*, and THEN you gave your opinion of it, and for that, I appreciate you. There's too many people out there who bash on this great series without giving it a fair chance - heck, some people don't even give it a chance at all! Too many people nowadays forget the phrase "don't knock it 'til you try it!"
Thanks! You make a lot of great points. I learned a lot from making this video and the feedback I got for it. What really fascinated me was how divided people are about the series, and yeah, it comes down to what you said: personal play style.
For the Xenoblade series in particular, I finally figured out my personal issue with it while working on my Xenoblade 2 critique. I was trying to rush the story in both games. Once I realized that these games are designed for players who want to dive in deep and take their time, adjusting my play style accordingly made a huge difference! And by the time XC3 launched, I carried that mentality over to the third game and ended up having the time of my life. 😀
Loved the video! 💯
😀
Great video!
Thank you! :)
Side note, I'm still bitter that some of the trophies and spirits in super smash bros 4 and Ultimate spoil some details about some characters. I want to experience these stories completely blind without any big spoilers.
Yeah, that kind of sucks. Given that Smash can be a sort of gateway into other franchises for people, they really should have taken more care not to spoil anything.
@@AltercateTV shulk appearing in the super smash bros games was how I was introduced to the Xenoblade Chronicles series. At least there was plenty of story to tell besides what was spoiled.
I dunno. I didint have grinding problem on definitive edition. I did not do casual mode. Only did quests that where on my way. Only killed enemies mostly that where my level or higher that definetly helped. 60h it took.
Thanks for sharing! I'm fascinated with how different people's experiences with this game have been. Out of all the comments I've gotten and people I've talked to, it's been about a 50/50 split between people who agree with me and people who disagree with me. 😂
Xenoblade 1 just clicked with me back when it came out. It has some weird difficulty spikes but i dont think the actual combat is bad
I think I might've been too hard on the game in my critique lol. The combat didn't click for me, but I definitely don't think it's bad!
@Altercate TV I think its the weakest combat wise out of the main 3. 2 is so fun when you can break it and while 3 has a lot of quality of life changes for the better, it dosent really feel as good as 1 or 2 when it comes to combat. Then again I love cheesing every game I play and 3 dosent really have a whole lot of it lol
@@gamma_dc8289 2 is definitely my favorite when it comes to combat, especially Torna!
Omg I thought I was the only one that felt like this 😭
I don't quite get how you had so much difficulty with the game. I'll grant you that the game doesn't explain some of it's system mechanics in the best way possible, such as deeper layers into chain attacks and what not that are usually available to read in extra tutorials that show up. The ones that do show up, however, do explain the mechanics quite well and kind of force you to use them as soon as you're told about them, otherwise you'll fail. Examples are: Chain attacks forcing break/topple/daze status on enemies during the first fight against Xord in the ether mine, Monado Purge removing and locking away auras together with spike effects when fighting the telethia and spike ridden enemies in makna.
It's not necessary to have a complete understanding of everything to be able to play the game well. It's easy enough to get through if you understand the basics and move along.
Understanding how battle mechanics work, however, do allow you to use characters in different roles. Pretty much anything you can do is possible, so with the proper equipment and skill links, you can do wacky builds, like Tank Melia, DPS Sharla, Healer Melia or what not. Reyn can dish out massive DPS if his art palette is properly built to do so, in the same way that Riki can tank if he has the proper gems and skill links to help him do that. And even then, it's not necessary to have a tank in the party, as it's not something necessary. Inflict debuffs on enemies such as paralysis, sleep and good ol' topple make it so you don't need to have someone tanking for the party as the enemies will be largely harmless, unless we're talking about a great number of enemies, then it might come in handy to have one around.
Also, Mechon really only are prominent up until Satorl Marsh and later starting from Sword Valley. In the early portion of the game you really only have Shulk and Reyn in your party, so Monado Enchant will always be available and later in the game, everyone will be equipped with anti-mechon weapons (that don't do as much damage, but if you don't want to play as Shulk are what you're gonna be using), so having to use Monado Enchant every fight isn't necessary, not to mention that even if you purposefully choose to not use anti-mechon weapons, you _can_ still topple lock enemies and damage them that way, but it would just be silly, despite being possible.
You don't need to grind. A big problem in the original game was actually being overleveled, since doing quests would be giving you so much EXP that you would easily be 10 levels ahead at any given moment. In XCDE they added expert mode where you're allowed to give or take EXP points in order for that to not be a problem anymore.
I really think that most of your frustrations with the game stem from an unwillingness to learn it. Saying that you want a casual experience without wanting to dig deep in reddit and youtube to master the game's systems seems a bit out there. You really don't need outside help to wrap your head around the game's system. Don't know what an attribute does? Look up the attributes tutorial in-game. Want to see the effect of a gem? Select it in the effects sub-menu. A lot of gems essentially work around either upgrading basic attributes, making attacks better or increasing defense for something. So you don't really need to be super optimal for anything. Just go equipping the gems you get along the way and you're pretty much good to go. Actual optimization is only necessary for endgame content and, if you really want to be casual about it, I don't see why you would be wanting to do it anyway.
Thanks for commenting! I appreciate your viewpoint. I wouldn’t say I was unwilling to learn, but I’ll admit that I could’ve dug deeper into the game’s tutorials and explanations to try to do better. At the end of the day, I think this system just didn’t vibe with me and so I felt less motivation to work at getting better.
Regarding grinding, I don’t know what to say except that I was constantly underleveled lol. Especially in my original playthrough. I don’t doubt that your experience was different, but this is what happened to me when I tried to play the game my way. 😀
@@AltercateTV Aye, fair enough. It does feel odd to me that you found yourself underleveled, though.
Yeah it definitely makes me feel like I’m still missing something important about the game lol.
Too much grind, you don't have to reply too long. Lmao
@@AltercateTV
Finished the game today and I totally agree with you
The combat system and the too much grinding killed the game for me.
I stopped playing the game in march near the end and started again a week ago.
I put on casual just to finish it without any regret.
In my case even being 2 levels up Vs the bossess wasn't enough.
Now I don't know if I'll ever play the second(don't like the character design) or the third for the aforementioned problems(combat system and grinding),but if I'll ever do will be on easy since the beginning.
I really hate being that guy but your complaints are 100% a skill issue. EXP is also not an issue since questing is there. The quests force you to explore. My only problem with the quests is having to constantly change the clock to get certain NPCs to spawn
Edit: did you seriously just say the story couldve taken place anywhere? 💀. You are literally scaling each titan and very clearly in fact. Not to mention the ENTIRE STORY revolves around the titans
I can see how what I said about the world building could be confusing. I should have explained it better in the video instead of just mentioning it offhandedly. So I'll try to explain it here lol.
Yes, they talk about the titans a lot, and cut scenes make it clear you're traveling across their backs. But if you took Satorl Marsh, Valak Mountain, or Makna Forest and moved it into another fantasy RPG, you wouldn't have to change anything about the area to make it fit. There's nothing about the areas themselves that is unique to being found on the back of a titanic lifeform.
Similarly, Colony 9 could have been built on any fantasy world. The lives of the Homs are shaped by their conflict with the Mechon, but not very much by living on the back of the Bionis. As an example, what if the Bionis occasionally stirs in its slumber if you're careless during construction work or mining, causing earthquakes and rock slides? What if the Homs had to nurse wounds in the Bionis' body to avoid "infections" spreading and damaging the land?
This is what I mean by missed opportunities for world building. Ideas like these that are unique to this specific type of world could have been really interesting to explore. (Xenoblade 2 did a much better job in this area.)
I never really had an issue with the game’s Controls. I usually moved the cursor pretty fast to where I wanted it for certain attacks. So sitting still and selecting an Art didn’t last very long where it became a big detriment.
Recently I saw a video where someone recommended swapping the button layout for
⬅️ & ➡️ on the D-Pad to L & R. That way you can keep your left thumb on the analog stick and Move the Cursor with L & R instead of the D-Pad.
Now as for any issues I have with the game. I didn’t really have any big ones. Just nitpicking smaller stuff.
•I wasn’t a big fan of constantly being requested by NPCs to kill 5-10 of the basic enemies early on and in the middle of the game just because they felt unsafe lo.
I liked it better when there was something more unique like taking down the stronger/larger enemies or the leader of a group.
Now that I can understand the NPCs actually being afraid of.
But if the developers really needed to add in hunting side quests for the basic enemies. They should have just had them automatically added in when starting a new area like they began doing later in the game for certain enemies.
•Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough Fast Travel Markers or they were put in locations which weren’t very convenient.
Like for the tedious location where a certain Nopon is hiding while hoarding Red Pollen orbs. I’m sure people that did his side missions know what i’m talking about.
•When Building Colony 6 you pretty much have to look up where to get items either through trade, hunting or finding their spawn points. The game doesn’t give you a waypoint to where they are located.
Although there is a way to find the location for people to trade with.
•This last one is more minor which the game limits how many crystals you can carry with you even though you can carry as many collectibles and materials as you’d like. Overtime you either need to sell them off, discard them or turn them into gems. For me they filled up every once in a while.
Other than these 4 nitpicks. The Game is Very Solid. I look forward to XenoGears and XenoBlades 2&3.
That button remapping idea is brilliant! Will definitely go with that when I eventually replay the game. :)
Definitely agree that there should have been some sort of in-game hints for where to look for specific collectibles or other items. This goes for both XC1 and XC2. I don't like having to either run around blindly or go to Google for answers, and I would have loved it if the game gave you at least an idea about where to start looking for different items.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, and have fun with the other games in the series!
I felt this way with Xenoblade 1 aswell, i played like halfway through and the gameplay wasnt clicking with me at all. I eventually turned on casual mode and spammed topple in order to beat the story. Thankfully, i found future connected (The epilogue that comes with DE) to be pretty barable and i really enjoyed the gameplay in Xenoblade 2 and 3.
Same for me - Xenoblade 2 ended up being a slow start but really clicked towards the end, and I had a blast when I recently replayed the game in preparation for XC3. And XC3 is just wonderful so far. :)
Yep, even if the combat mechanics are better in Definitive edition with the highlighting off sequence there are many things that take effort to understand
Is that so bad? For a game to make you learn its systems?
? The combat isn't that difficult to grasp, and most mechanics are pretty straight forward, most of the issues you have with the combat seems to be "you" issues, and not necessarily the craft being flawed. The visually crowded combat you describe also completley ignore the most important informations always being displayed either on your left or on the enemy health bar. If anyone get downed, they will be clearly visible with a beam coming from their body. Timing is very loose, the game will almost never require you tight timing
You also tend to forget that this was made for the Wii 12 years ago, and that the Wiimote was the original way this game was designed to be played, since it needed to be compatible to the lowest common denominator
It's interesting to me that you say that the game doesn't teach the combat system well, I don't own an Nintendo system and probably never will again, so I've only experienced this game through let's plays. But I felt like the game did explain the combat well enough for me to understand all of those elements that you didn't. But we all learn things differently so maybe the way the game teaches things just didn't work for you. It can be hard to express/understand when tutorials don't click for some people but work totally fine for others.
It’s definitely a matter of personal preference! I just wish the game gave me a bit more space to try each new thing out for myself before launching right into the next tutorial 😂
@@AltercateTV Yeah, that's a good criticism. It's hard to pick up, much less master, mechanics when to many are thrown at you at once.
Don't know much about the Xenoblade series but I can sympathize with great but frustrating games. Okage Shadow King with it's bell curve difficulty springs to mind.
Never even heard of Okage before! Do you think it’s still worth checking out?
@@AltercateTV Yeah if you can find it. It's an old ps2 game. I'd definitely check it out. The plot is the main character, this weird kid nobody pays much mind to, gets cursed and an evil demon named Stan takes over his shadow. Stan wants to get back on top so they go off to fight these other demon kings. Too much more would be spoilers.
The gameplay definitely takes a backseat to the story in this game, and that’s all fine, I do genuinely enjoy the story as one of my all-time favorites as we both agree there.
And on my first play through of the game (on the Wii), I honestly did also have trouble grasping a lot of the little details of the battle system. It seemed complicated in some ways, and incredibly simple in others. Although coming back and playing it again in DE, I noticed that it cleaned up a lot of the combat system so things were very simple to grasp if you just read what’s on the screen.
Melia provides buffs when she has an element active, that’s just immediately seen when looking at the characters. All and buffs were either very self-explanatory such as “topple resistance”, “blaze effect” which does residual burn damage, or even “lock on”, which when active doesn’t let you change targets since they force you to fight only them, hence “locked on”. Or if debuffs/buffs were confusing, looking at the description (which is one sentence at most), gives all the info you need. The casual mode is perfect since it doesn’t require the most optimal built to do what you got to. You don’t really need to do research beyond looking at the occasional item description.
It seems a lot of the combat was built around making it fairly simple to use, while rewarding if you truly learned its nuances, due to them desiring your focus on the story moreso than the gameplay. The gameplay and story almost always work together so seemlessly, and whatever you face in battle reflects in the story and vice versa.
Calling it simple for breaking each character into a set class that’s easy to know how to organize, while also saying it’s too complex for not wanting to learn what a tank or healer should do is somewhat ingenuine. You don’t even have to change characters art palettes for them to do everything they have to. And this is assuming this is catered toward someone who isn’t trying to learn every fine detail about the combat.
You have valid critiques, I just think that the gameplay wasn’t enough of a hindrance to stop you from accomplishing what a even casual player might want to achieve in the game.
Thanks for sharing! Was there actually a place in-game that gave a description of the different status effects? For "lock-on", I figured it was something that allowed an enemy to lock on to your character for bonus damage lol. Maybe that's my StarCraft 2 brain tripping me up, thinking it's like the Cyclone's ability.
My issue with Melia wasn't her buffs (I thought those were pretty well explained) but rather that I couldn't figure out how to weave her summons/releases properly or what actually happened when you unleashed her Talent Art. Granted, I'm sure I could have paid more attention to the in-game tutorials.
I sympathize with your struggle but I never once had to grind in Xenoblade 1, my issue was that the game was way too easy up until the final boss
Fair enough! Out of curiosity, do you know how many hours it took you to finish the story?
@AltercateTV Forgive the 1 year long delay LOL
took me about 80 hours, but I play RPGs pretty slowly
The only thing I disagree with is that the text boxes are an inherently bad way of teaching it. I learned what everything did incredibly easily by reading the text boxes. Btw, gear weight lowers your agility, which is your accuracy and evasion stat. You want to get the lowest weight stat you can while also getting good defensive stats. Also, lock on resist makes it so that the player cannot lock onto specific opponents while active, and vice versa
Thanks for the explanations! I should clarify that I didn’t mean to say that text box explanations are inherently bad for teaching game mechanics. I agree that for many players they are enough. What I wanted to express was that text explanations should ideally be paired with demonstrations and a chance for the player to try the mechanic out on their own. Especially when multiple new mechanics are introduced at the same time! At least for me, that makes a big difference :)
This is a issue with the franchise. I love Xenoblade and the gameplay but for having the much I need guides for understand the gameplay. 2 and X suffer of that. 1 it's the game I get the less issue (exept chain attack). If you want to know Melia gameplay is about element who give buff then release element with the special. For 3 it's a mixt. I understood many thing but I didn't understand everything.
I retry Xenoblade 1 on wii and I succed to beat it without much farm (exept for lorathia but if you are on forum you know how this fight is a pain). It was also a no Shulk run and there is some stuff for damaging mechon.
Thanks for your comment! I had a pretty easy time with Xenoblade 3, but maybe that’s because I’ve gotten used to the series by now? The other games gave me a lot more trouble!
I often feel like I have to be one of a kind for not liking this game. To me, I liked neither the gameplay nor the story.
Thanks's OK, too! I think people get a bit too caught up in their feelings when discussing their favorite games, sometimes. Not everyone has to like the same games. :)
I loved the story, but I'm definitely in the camp of thinking it was cheesy to a fault, and I also thought it preached A LOT, which isn't necessarily bad. But I don't know how you could call all those times they spout about "seizing the future" anything but preaching. I promise I'm not a nihilist or anything. I love me a good story of hope and impossible triumph and also consider myself a quite hopeful and optimistic person. That said I'm also very realistic, and maybe that's why many of the moments where Shulk preaches about paving his own future felt ingenuine to me. Really all my issues boil down to the fact this story completely disregards nuance. Yes it's good to be optimistic and hopeful. In many ways, we do have the power to change or rather affect the future. However, reality is a lot more complicated than what this story tries to have you believe. Many things are outside our control. That's no excuse to stop striving for the best, but it is true. Courage and optimism aren't enough to solve all problems, and there are some cases where cutting your losses is actually a win. Now obviously these don't apply to this story, but it's just the way it's all presented makes life seem so simple, like all you need is unwavering determination, when in reality everything is more complex. A much better example of a story about hope imo, is actually Xenoblade 3. That game explores a lot of other themes, like what human life should be, how do we make it meaningful, and even the human desire to live in the moment, how it's both hurting and comforting at the same time. It's overall much more mature and philosophical. But I want to talk about hope as a theme specifically in that game because it makes it a point to say their victory is not a given. They emphasize a couple times that luck has played a role in their adventure as well. And when confronted by one of the end game villains who tells them their plan may not work, they acknowledge it. And yet they still keep going because they want to stick to their ideals. It's the simple acknowledgement that hope isn't some magic power that'll win against all odds, it's just hope. It's still hella cheesy but that makes all the difference to me.
I think you make some great points, and I appreciate your analysis. I do agree that XC1's story is extremely unrealistic - the heroes defy a god on pure determination alone, and win. And ultimately their victory is assured because they have the backing of the world's ultimate power, the Monado, whose consciousness judges their cause worthy. Without the Monado's express desire for them to win, they would have lost. Which kind of proves the bittersweet point that while determination is necessary to achieve things, without power, you'll still fail.
That said, I still find some sort of distinction between what I'd call "preachy" and this game's storytelling. I guess it comes down to personal preference, but to me there's still a difference between a cheesy, unrealistic story and an instructive one, and I while I agree that XC1 lacks nuance, I like that Shulk and the others at least waver in their determination along the way, before committing to their course of action. It feels honest that way, at least. And I suppose I forgive a lot of flaws in the story simply because I love the overall message. :)
I had to skim your thoughts about XC3 since I'm not done with the story yet (46 hours in and still on Chapter 4 lol) but I do agree that from what I've seen so far, XC3's story is more nuanced and in many ways better. Will be interesting to see how I feel when I'm done. :)
I totally get where you're coming from. I still mostly agree with your story analysis, and even though it was a bit cheesy for my taste, it's easily up there with some of the best video game stories and I enjoyed it a lot.
None of what I wrote has spoilers or anything so you don't have to worry about that, but it would be better to read after having finished the game anyways. Xenoblade 3 has its own story issues as well, but they're very different. Honestly I still don't know which I prefer. Enjoy the game!
Thanks! I'm having a blast with the game so far :)
Funny to see you calling XC1 preachy and then taking XC3 as a way to be more nuanced, when I noticed the preachiness way more in XC3 maybe because of it’s nuance. It adds more layers but then the way the hero reacts to it feels devoid of said nuance. It brings up more themes but it doesn’t explore them that deeply in terms of what the characters feel and think on it. Then again, I seem to be in the minority with disliking XC3 to the point of it being my least liked Xenoblade game in the trilogy, so yeah.
Skill issue