Long ago, the world was nothing but an endless sea cloaked in a boundless sky, reaching as far as the eye could possibly imagine. Then two great titans came into existence. The Mwambionis, and the Mehmehchonis
@GuardianAngelEatos as the games meta developed, a lot of classes/gems/whatever that initially were thought of as the best, turned out to be just ok. and others that were thought to be bad turned out to be really good. enels guides are actually very very good in the standpoint of playing through the game and beating the superbosses. and incredibly well made considering how early into the games lifespan they were. however in fully optimal setups that we know now, they ended up being wrong. for example: attacker soulhacker is really not very strong, signifer is really not very strong, war medic is actually super powerful, yumsmith is super powerful. optimized xc3 is insanely strange compared to what youd expect. that being said, with how new the game was when the guides were made, enel did an amazing job.
@TimothyGod theres a video out somewhere called something like "a comprehensive xc3 combat guide" (sonething along those lines) its quite long but goes over pretty much everything. theres also a word document somewhere, maybe attached in the video description, that has the best builds for every class, as well as some of the best comps
You may say you don't remember certain quirks or saying by Noah but I've had "THE TIME IS NOOOOOOW" when he draws Lucky Seven in battle permanently etched into my head I think lol.
@@dave9515 lord, I think I cheesed everything from the beginning of chapter 6 through endgame with capable hands/unlimited sword and by the time the credits rolled I actually kind of missed Sena telling us she was the girl with the gall.
@@KARLOSPCgame I mean 4-5 years (assuming they started development in the late stages of 3) would be plenty of development time. But yeah, no need to rush it
It's not a perfect game, but is definitely a must-play JRPG worth every cent. Looks, sounds, and plays great with an immersive story. Had fun the whole way through as it lives up to the Xenoblade games before.
The fact that we're having to talk up a fucking Xenoblade game by saying "it's defo worth $60 if you're into JRPGs guys" is such a shame. I would describe the previous entries as priceless.
@@ChrisStoneinator I'd say that description is accurate for all four games. None of them are perfect, but they're all must-plays. Not being perfect doesn't mean a game isn't good (1 was my favourite game ever until 3 dethroned it, and 2 and X are up there as well), it just means there are ways it could be improved (like if 2 actually started doing anything meaningful with its story and characters before chapter 7).
@@dudeguy2330 wouldn’t call them perfect either, 1 could come closest with refinements to the quest system, but I’ve never wanted them to be perfect. I wanted them to be special. 3 is very developed, it’s an evolution in a lot of ways, but it isn’t special. I don’t think about it all the time like I do for the others.
@@ChrisStoneinator I agree that 1's probably the closest to perfection (others have evolved on its strengths, but it had the fewest glaring flaws), but 3's had more of an impact on me than any of the others have, if we're going by how much time I've spent thinking about it as a metric. All four of the games have differing strengths in terms of their gameplay, stories, and themes, and as a result I've seen a ton of differing opinions on which is the best/worst based on what each individual values most.
Xenoblade 3 gameplay is crack cocaine to me. Takes almost everything I loved about the previous 2 games' combat and turned it up to 11. The story and voice acting was incredible. The character's expressions in each cutscene was surprisingly good and a massive step up from previous games. Easily my favourite xenoblade game.
For me I love each one for different reasons. 1 I love most for the story. 2 I love the most for the characters. 3 I love most for the combat. 3 is easily my least favorite of the trilogy. It's missing two of the things that I love about all of the other Xenoblade games. Heart to heart and an unpredictable mind-blowing plot twist. 3 has the best section in the franchise in my opinion by far being the end of chapter 5. I didn't think it was possible for me to cry more than I did in the end of Xenoblade 2, let alone cry for another video game, and another Xenoblade game at that. Monolith soft has a way with making emotional cutscenes that make me tear up.
I geniunely feel awesome for you, because I was unable to enjoy it as much as the previous two games. It's simply that there is so much going on onscreen since you got seven characters at a time, and I felt that the majority of gameplay was just a few steps away from being a cutscene. And it was unfortunate, because I really liked the story, the characters, the voice acting... but I just didn't felt like playing the game and trudged through it to finish it, and have never played it since.
@@shedinyavi8233He's talking about the gameplay's cycle of doing side quest, heroes' quest and everything, that the real deal in terms of gameplay loop of xc3
I personally found XC2's combat to be more fun I liked the elemental system it made it feel like there was way more depth than just break>topple> whatever you need next for the combo.
Don't listen to those people, you're one of the undisputed goats of the Xeno community and it's thanks to your guides that I enjoyed the trilogy as much as I did. I am grateful for your hard work and I look forward to your future content. Also if you want can you do a tier list of your favourite Osts from the Xeno series? That would be dope
I remember getting my mind blown when I learned you'd use 6 characters at once in one of the trailers. I was going out of my way to learn more info about the game pre-release. It was the first Xenoblade hype cycle I've been a part of. I wasn't really hyped for XC2 beyond thinking it looked cool because I didn't think I was going to be able to play it (I didn't have a Nintendo Switch back then). This game was a huge part of my life for the next few months. I remember having fun with Full Metal Jaguar, breaking the game with Chain Attacks, tuning in to Enel's guides, and a core memory about playing with the Seraph class when I took the game with me to Thailand on my down time. I ran home the day Future Redeemed released, and played a huge chunk of the game docked (which I rarely did back then since it was a pain to set up). Rarely a week goes by without me listening to this game's soundtrack. This game means a lot to me. I played it during what I'd consider to be the best year of my life post-pandemic. I'd go so far as to say this is my joint favorite game, shared with the numbered Xenoblade games. Happy birthday, Xenoblade 3.
I'm still not a fan of the massive amount of characters at once. Seven party members all doing their own thing in battle is just too much to realistically keep track of and it just bloats the UI and creates number spam on the screen, especially once you start getting into the thousands and tens of thousands of damage each attack. Love the game overall, but this wasn't my favorite design choice.
Yes! Same here. I absolutely loved having six characters in battles. I was super excited about it when I first found out in game and it did not disappoint. I hadn't watched any trailers. It gave us as the player so much more to do and to keep track of, which made it so much more fun. Being able to use 6 characters at once is something I never thought developers of xeno games would think of.
Im not surprised that people started to talk down about what you helped put together. Obviously, time allows more and more people to find new and improved methods, but I don't think it should discourage you from making further content. Even if that is what happened for a while now. I know your guides helped me a ton when the game first came out. It's hard to believe it has been 2 years....crazy
I think the ending of chapter 6 with the Joran fight was great. When Joran reveals that you get all the memories of your past lives once you become moebius, it really made me feel bad for him. Especially when you see that he was a failure in every life, and it even showed Lanz facing Joran on the ground in one life
People don’t always feel this way but I love the characters, especially Sena because her struggles are relatable. I would also say that the Hero section during the final boss is genuinely one of my favorite moments in the Xeno series because by doing the side quests you feel like it emotionally pays off
Those people that were putting your videos down are jerks. I’ve played every other Xenoblade game and your videos still helped me out a lot with the challenge mode in 3. Keep up the good work!
xenoblade 3’s cast is my favourite cast in any game. all 6 of them, even the nopon are written with such care and nuance that make them seem like an actual family. like they all feel real.
The player's build options and incentives to use sub-optimal builds while leveling classes is good, the endgame builds are alot stronger than the enemy design can handle. The enemy design can only be so difficult as the friendly ai can not handle high damage burst or positionals. If the friendly ai is down your options are far more limited
I think your relationship to Xenoblade does influence how you feel about the game. Doing guides, speedrunning, discord conversations, etc. I personally played the game twice and really loved it. The second time around I really took my time with side quests to get a firm grasp on the world’s lore. I played at my leisure with little help from guides or walkthroughs and noticed my strategies late game were different than most. And at this point I regard it as one of my if not my most favorite Switch games. Thanks for making this video.
Thinking about the game just makes me sad cos I’ll never get to play it for the first time again 😔 was so special. The best game ever. I do hope for the next game we disconnect the story entirely, we wrapped up this trilogy so nicely and these games are so big that it puts a lot of homework on new fans wanting to play a new game if they’re as interconnected
One thing from Xenoblade 3 I hope more RPGs try out is the main party structure. You got the entire main party at the beginning of the game and they were all always on field simultaneously. I hate having to pick and choose which characters I want to take with me into battle when canonically they're all present. Having the party fully formed at the beginning also gave them ample time to grow together as a team. When I play other games like FF7 Remake or even Mass Effect, I'll have my main team from the first few party members and then as new characters come in I don't care nearly as much about them because I don't use them. Edit: Just got to the part of the video you talk about demotivating comments from folks online. That sucks. I try to remember that people suck at communication over text. Sometimes things come through much harsher than intended. And if it was intentional, some people just suck. Keep up the good work! You've helped so many people enjoy this series. I've pointed several people to your Xenoblade 2 videos to understand combat there when they were on the verge of quitting.
One notable problem I noticed shortly after release is that a lot of people expected the game to contain a ton of fan service instead of mostly original content. They wanted to see all these returning characters and... No, that's not what happened, and it was never going to happen. Takahashi stated before release that he wanted Xenoblade 3 to stand on its own feet and even be a decent starting point for someone getting into the series. Of course, I can't say the same for Future Redeemed, but for the base game, I think a lot of people's experience with the game was soured by false expectations. I won't claim the story and characters are perfect or anything, but I think simply approaching the game with different expectations is what helped me enjoy the game a lot more than other players. I actually replayed the game a couple weeks ago and found myself enjoying it just as much as I remembered, if not more so. I will say, I remembered the exception being the final battle with Z since I didn't beat him on the first try. The first phase in particular just feels like it drags on for too long. I personally think that if the fight was just Z∞, it wouldn't be hated as much. Phase 1 probably takes about as long as all of the other phases by itself. I will however say that seeing Z go down super fast after the forced chain attacks made me realize that it may be thematic. Considering the whole thing about Moebius's power and ideology being a delusion, as well as "smoke and mirrors" as Taion says, feeling the fight suddenly become one of the easiest fights in the game after being one of the hardest feels quite fitting. It was also VERY liberating to destroy him like that.
Here's my problem. I feel like XC3 and Future Redeemed actually have too much fan service. Or perhaps you could say, they tease too much and satisfy too little. I honestly wish XC3 had either gone whole hog with the idea it was marketed with ("a brand-new story that ties together the futures of the worlds depicted in Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2") and shown us what happened to the characters, towns, nations, and peoples we know and love, or else just been entirely standalone - maybe have a XC2 type ending where you learn how it fits into the rest of the universe, but other than that doesn't reference the previous games. Instead, XC3 + FR does way too much of that wink wink nudge nudge type fan service and it irritated me. It kept teasing me with the kind of stuff I'd really be interested in knowing, and stubbornly refusing to reveal anything worthwhile. In the end it just distracted from XC3's main story for me. I get that it's kind of due to the story and the whole Aionios thing of being trapped forever and no one really remembers the "real" world, but I guess my question is did this story need to be told, or be told in this way?
It should have been, this is supposed to be the last game in this saga, why not do an IW/Endgame crossover? And wanting to make the final game in a trilogy a starting for new people is stupid and stifles your story telling.
Unfortunately Xenoblade 3 suffered from what a lot of other franchises also suffer from, the fanbase gets super hyped about something based more so on their wishes and desires and then when the thing finally comes out they've hyped themselves up so much that the actual product could never deliver to meet their expectations. I've always disliked the criticism of it not including enough fan service references to past games. Frankly we got a lot of that anyway, especially with Future Redeemed.
@@quiddity131 Base game and Future Redeemed have an interesting dichotomy where, for the most part, you could play the base game without playing any earlier game and be fine, while with Future Redeemed, you NEED to play everything beforehand. I think Future Redeemed is the kind of thing those people wanted.
I really feel what you're saying here with regards to fanservice. When I finished my first playthrough of XC3, I didn't quite know how to feel about it. I thought the game was excellent, but I could'nt help but feel a bit let down by how little the game actually had to do with the greater world of Xenoblade, as well as a number of other relatively minor issues. A couple months after beating it, I decided to do a replay. Now usually, it's pretty common for people to enjoy a game LESS upon a replay because they notice things they dislike that they didn't conciously recognize upon a first playthrough or start to nitpick certain things. However, replaying it actually made me enjoy the game MORE, and I think that it's because my expectations were no longer hyped beyond belief. It was that replay that truly solidified XC3 being my favorite of the trilogy. Sure, I still have a number of minor issues, but the game still means so much to me even two years later. I'm thinking of starting another playthrough sometime soon.
You shouldn't doubt your love for a game when you clearly remember enjoying it a lot. Whatever the reasons or context might have been doesn't change how you felt and that is what matters in the end. I for one love the shit out of Xenoblade 3.
2 years ago when I beat XC3 I thought it was the best game in the series. 2 years later after playing through it again.....yeah, it's still the best game in the series.
That's a bold factual claim. Favorite, fine, but 3 has some serious problems that I cannot forgive and give the game more than a 7 out of 10 which hurts to say with Xenoblade Chronicles being my longtime favorite rpg franchise since playing the first one on the Wii.
Insane that it’s been two years. This is easily my favorite of the three games, it has the best gameplay and story for me, i really enjoyed the cast of characters and their interactions, I love how they have a rough start but then they end up caring for each other which makes the ending even sadder (I still remember crying and it’s still the only time I’ve cried when playing a game). I know that Moebious isn’t that well liked but I think their presence was serviceable enough. I really liked how the call backs were used to tie the lore between the games and weren’t made just for fan service. Of course the DLC was incredible and I can never get enough of Rex, he’s just the best. God I love this game and series
Xenoblade 3 is definitely really good. The classes make combat feel so freeform especially being able to swap characters mid battle. I just wish Mobieus was better
I've been replaying the game recently in order to stream it to a friend who doesn't have a Switch nor money to spare for one. I've been loving it just as much as I did the first run though. The characters really shine to me. Not in the wacky anime sort of way that really sticks with you, but rather in how they all feel very real+. They feel to me like people experiencing all the normal emotions and reactions we would, but elevated by their acute feeling of the limited time they have. Absolutely my favorite in the series.
It's interesting how different the characters have aged between us. The cast has stuck with me more than any other game. I think I like them because they all have that squad that they will spend their entire lives with.
I’ve been seeing hyperbolic criticisms more and more often lately, not just for xenoblade, but for a bunch of other media as well. It’s so annoying when the only things I see people saying about a piece of media are “it’s peak”, “it’s trash”, or “it’s mid” (Which is sometimes worse than trash somehow????)
@@cash-onlycaveman6637 Yeah its pretty exhausting. I just dont use social media and interact with fans of things anymore. Early days of the internet was so much more peaceful which is ironic because platforms are more censored and sanitized than ever
I've played through the game 3 times. I played xenoblade 1 twice and Xenonlade 2 probably 9 times. I think Xenoblade 3 is my favorite game of all time and the cast upon replays is a huge part of that. I thought before launch that I'd identify most with Taion, when in reality the most powerful part of the game was Lanz and Sena's dual issue of imposter syndrome and martyr syndrome I struggle day to day with a lot of trauma and mental stinkies that the entire party mirrors, but Lanz and Sena forced me to look at myself hard
Man I love your stuff. I was just checking in on your channel the other day bc I felt like I haven't seen any of your content in a minute. Glad to hear you still have more to say on this wonderful series!
I apparently ended up in the top .2 percent of watchers in my yt recap it was because I got completely addicted to the xeno series mostly 1 and 3, I finished out 2 and Dove headfirst into 1 de. I did EVERYTHING maxed out every art every affinity every skill tree watched every heart to heart forked my save to level up colony 6 in ng+ and my first save and after all was said and done I did it all again in xc3 the only thing I didn't do was max out colony affinity I've watched every xeno guide you've made and had so much fun on my own finding my own way. I don't even have any of the dlc just the base games and they've sucked up so much of my time and let me daydream and look foward to what was next and how to succeed everything and everyone felt so cool and "real" but it could be because I've been cooped up since even before lockdown and haven't really been out since but it felt nice to just see people even if they are made up people with voices that read from a script just be real understandable people that make sense, it just letsme pretend for a moment that I'm out there not afraid of people, not afraid of just failing at any small thing just going.
For me, I really connected with Xenoblade 3 way more than any of the other xenoblade games. I didn't have too much JRPG experience before going into the series, so I was a lot more overwhelmed by the combat and party complexity in XC1 and XC2 compared to 3. Being able to change between party members, as well as all the party members being in each battle both made me enjoy the combat XC3. It just made it a lot more approachable for me. I also connected with the characters a lot more in XC3, though that might be because the tone and theme was a lot more serious and aligned with my interests. I still love XC3, and it is still my favorite of the three games. I enjoy these games more as single experiences rather than going super in-depth with repeated experimentation, so I really can't comment on how it compares in that regard. For what I want/enjoy out of these games, XC3 was almost flawless.
Love your xenoblade content Enel! sorry to hear about the negativity surrounding your guides, i've always enjoyed them and I can tell a lot of work goes into all of them. Looking forward to more xenoblade vids!
Don't be discouraged by toxic people in the community, you're one of THE most noteworthy Xeno creators out there and always will be for the amazing things you've achieved in the past. But also make sure to keep a healthy mindset, take breaks when needed & don't feel pressured into something because people expect it from you. WE LOVE YOU ENEL
Played XC2 from start to finish 8-10 times. I keep my 100% game around and periodically revisit it just to remind me of how interesting and varied the gameplay was with all the blades and their specific optimization quests. There are cut scenes from XC2 I'll never forget. I played XC3 to finish twice, and struggled to get through it the second time. I just never really warmed to the story or the gameplay. I found your XC2 content invaluable for helping get deeper into the game with late game / challenge strategies. I very much appreciate this video for the overall dialogue and allowing your community to reflect on this special series. Hoping the next XC is more like 2 than 3, but I totally get if people found 3 special. The ending was definitely touching...
honestly a lot of your sentiments echoed here were exactly what I felt 7 years ago with XC2. with me pretending to like it and giving it so many chances because it was a part of my favorite series and I felt like I had to like it. the exact words “trying to look for meaning and significance where there isn’t any” sums up exactly how I feel about XC2, story, gameplay, and all. I definitely agree that a proper replay is in order to really sort out your feelings on the game, as it was only after a 2nd 100% playthrough of XC2 that I really settled on how I feel about it. It honestly sucks that a lot of the negative feelings you have associated with XC3 come from making content about it, as I’m also certain a lot of your positive feelings about XC2 also come from making content about it. I think it’s up to you to judge whether or not your enjoyment of these games should include or exclude your proclivity as a content creator and how you associate your feelings with these titles. I hope you find your own way to express that without being influenced by what other people want you to feel about the titles, negative comments and all. I haven’t done a proper replay of XC3 either, and having done more than a dozen playthroughs of XC1, more than 4000 hours of XCX, and two 100% playthroughs of XC2, I feel like this anni is the day I pay that due to XC3 so I can also decide where this game belongs for me
I still remember being excited to come home from work and play this game on release day. I was stoked out of my mind for this game to come out, and I remember racing to open the package in the mail that arrived that afternoon. I have never had the same excitement for a video game release since.
One thing to consider is that how much you enjoy a game can also have nothing to do with the game. It can just be where you are in your life at the time, etc. Do I think those things have HUGE effects? No. But they can add up and push past thresholds with how a game resonates with you etc.
In terms of xeno characters I think riku is one of the best written. One scene where he throws a fit about being hungry to give a break to a character who is too driven and proud to ask for a break. He is inarguably the least important character, yet, he shows more character than most of the characters from other games can even tell you about.
Currently on my 100% run on Hard Mode (and yes, that includes the level up superbosses rematches). 2 years ago, XB3 was released and became my all-time favorite game. It ain't perfect, but I still love it with all my heart. Happy 2nd anniversary, Xenoblade Chronicles 3!
Excited about the new content! I'm pretty much agree with most of what you said except about how Xenoblade 3 wasn't so memorable because the journey of XC3 was great for me and those ending cutscenes blew me away emotionally. Can't wait to watch all the new Xenoblade theme videos from you.
I find it interesting to hear that people didn't resonate with this game as much, cause most if not every aspect of it shines to me and it had a profound impact on my life. From the writing to characters, music and gameplay, I gush about this game constantly. The symbolism everywhere is so fun to piece apart a think about, I love analyzing the cutscenes in this game, specifically the scenes with Noah and Mio, and then N and M. I think the Ouroboros party is the best out of the entire series because they all have this underlying trauma and PTSD that they don't realize is even there until they start to break more flame clocks and flip Aionios on it's head. The world design feeling very fresh and original despite being a mesh of Xenoblade 1&2's world's is ingenious to me, the amount of meticulous work and thought that every single person had to do in designing this game is so obvious to me. Absolutely my favorite game ever, I had to stop myself from gushing about it more.
I also think that a lot of people just watch cutscenes, and a lot of the development is not necessarily in the cutscenes. Also while Noah and Mio are the faces of the group, it makes more sense think of the entire group as the main character. Or at least each pair as one main character.
I personally did enjoy this cast over the other games And i love Xenoblade 1 and 2's cast But 3 just felt so genuine yet fantastic Also, with the story, i have seen the complains but i cannot agree, people want everything to be so connected and always referencing something else Having the plot giving us just enough info about the aftermath in Bionis and Alrest is all i need, they didn't need to overexplain everything since the message of the story gets stronger by leaning that way We may not know the whole story, but it's worth taking the chance, Faith i may call it, rather than getting stuck in an endless now, a life that doesn't advance, a life that doesn't grow We'll walk this path together, for our future awaits And yeah, the gameplay is super fun, every now and then i'll just pop it in for another hard battle and claim victory
Xenoblade 3 was my first completely blind Xeno experience so I'm slightly biased towards it, but despite its flaws, it's my favorite Xenoblade. I played Xenoblade 2 for the first time after playing 3 and there's something special about it that made me really enjoy it. As such, I'd say 2 is the best, but 3 is my favorite
I started a new playthrough of Xenoblade 3 last week and I've been really enjoying it! I've been focusing on getting class experience on everyone which made the game more enjoyable to me since I get to try out different builds than I normally do. And revisiting the cutscenes and story and being able to spot things I missed or did not have the context for on my first playthrough was amazing (for example, Teach says at the end of his Hero Quest that he once knew a soldier that had gone mad with power. Given the context of his Ascension Quest, it's likely that he is referring to himself.). Also, I love your guides! Even if they're more geared towards endgame/postgame and may be outdated now, they still contain solid strategies on how to play every class that could be applicable to early-/mid-game. So thanks for that!
I truly hope there will be a next gen update when switch 2 comes out. It’ll be the best reason to play again and experience the dlc for the first time (outside of FR)
I’m really sorry to hear about the negativity you got from some fans of the game for your early strategy guides. You don’t deserve it; you have been a huge gameplay/strategy/technique pioneer in this community and deserve so much respect for that, genuinely
25:55 I would like to point you toward, of all things, the character tier list on prydwen for Honkai: Star Rail. Characters are separated into relevant categories within the tier list. Each row is overall effectiveness, while each column separates characters into damage dealer/specialist/amplifier/sustain. Damage dealers are your main source of outgoing damage, Specialists typically have a demanding gimmick to fulfill but very particular utility, Amplifiers enhance the effectiveness of the rest of the team as their primary function, and Sustains are any unit that keeps you in the fight for longer (typically, but not always, with active healing). Under this system, Signifer would be a high-tier amplifier, while Life sage would be a high-tier sustain. They're both high tier, appropriately sorted into their own niche, not unduly compared to "Wowie zowee DPS," when actually placing them in a tier.
2 years later Xenoblade 3 is my favourite game by such a wide margin. From watching the livestream of it being announced, watching every following trailer and playing the few OST released on repeat, it’s easy to say this has been my most hyped up game I have ever had, I took time off work, I had 2 versions pre-ordered (digital and special edition) and was ready The game finally released and it was better in every aspect than I expected, straight away the music and art style is my favourite of all the Xeno’s, the combat was fully explained this time and it felt so much more satisfying, the characters were instantly my favourite cast and the world felt so fun to explore (I do prefer the titans in Xb1 but still adore Aionios) I own all the consoles and a PC, I play so many different games from Racing to VR to JRPG’s, so I’m dead serious when I say this game is perfect to me, there wasn’t a single moment I didn’t like It’s been 2 years and I still feel this way, I have no idea how any other game will be better for me, and I really hope MonolithSoft goes a different direction than Xenoblade 4 as with the DLC I don’t need another Xenoblade Chronicle
For what it’s worth I and many others greatly appreciated your efforts when the game first came out. Learning some of the better ways to build and utilize the classes was something I looked forward to while slowly etching at the games story. Even if some of the strategies have evolved they wouldn’t be as progressed if it wasn’t for your initial efforts.
I mean there's not a bad game in the series but if I have to put a game as the "worst" must be X2, too anime tropes, awful VA, awful tutorial, custionables desighs, Gatcha system, annoying skill fields. Still the game is good I really like it, but have too many flaws compare to 1 and 3.
- stale af characters, prove me otherwise - having to stop at 40+ campfires to advance the plot (in case I overcounted, this is the entire first half of the game in a nutshell) - I can count on one hand scenes that people care about....lets see....that one moment at the end of chapter 5....nope that's it - but don't worry about how hollow the main story is, pay us $30 to get the rest of the actual story - and it's alright that the story isn't finished to the point where the art book has to be where we find the answers, and for questions that *haven't* been answered yet, the much much more exciting sequel is in the works. - Insert Xenosaga references to make fans wet their pants. Except for those who won't understand it, they can just read it up on Wikipedia. - difficulty = camps, camps everywhere. And health sponges too. - is fighting even fun in these games anymore? Who knows wtf is going on but anything to demonstrate how much *stuff* can fit on the screen at the same time But I suppose 3 is still better than 2 because it simply doesn't have gatcha lol
One of the best rpgs I played 2 years back. Future redeemed topped it with so many qol changes and a tighter pacing (though that can be chalked up to being shorter) that really pushed me to 100% the dlc. What a wonderful game.
I feel like one of the issues of the "outdated guides" is just that you're the biggest xenoblade content creator so people hyper focus on you just for that, forgetting that you're just a player like them. This is also another consequence of the info not being easily available because its in discords instead of wikis, an absolute bane for any game. People probably project onto you the duty to keep them informed on all this info that is hard to find specifically because you're so good at explaining stuff in your guides and there's no one else really to do so. If anything your passion to make good quality videos is why people will get disappointed that there aren't more updates on info that is tough to find. And to those people I remined them: Enel enjoys the games like us and does videos because of that, he's just sharing his thoughts and experiences and everyone has different ones, especially over time (I mean seriously the signifier video is from 2 weeks ago!).
I don't know if you'll see this but I must say I really like your videos, thank you so much for all the effort you put in your guides, its no exaggeration to say that part of the fun I have with this series is waiting for content from my favorite xeno youtubers like you. Really appreciate your channel and your love for the series! Thanks for letting a noob like me be able to kill superbosses with ease!
I still remember... it was a week before my birthday and the game arrived. My mom allowed me to play it before my birthday started. We were going on vacation 2 days later and well... I played it on the entirety of the drive AND I played ut every night I came home from the beach. And the ending of ch.5... it was 3am (not kidding) I sat there in the bed of our apartment where we were staying... I cried the whole way throughout the ending, the fight included. When the flutes, a symbol of peace, light and serenity turned into a symbol of despair and death... it did something with me. The following scene about Ns backstory killed me... I wanted nothing more to kill N before that, asking myself why he would do such a thing... when I then understood why. That cocktail of emotion... incredible. The end also hit hard. The line "we all have moebius in us" is so good. The narrative that death is essential to life and nothing to be afraid of... it hit home as I am afraid of the end... no matter what I do. I don't like when things end... I don't tend to finish the games I started, leave books unfinished because the emptiness it leaves behind... well... but Noah's ending line... "So look up, face forward toward your chosen horizon, and just walk on" became my life philosophy.
FINALLY!!!!!! WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO!!!!!! I really hope you make a XC2 video like this too, since you already did for XC1, and now for XC3 as well.
Today I watched like all your Definitive Edition guides since I'm doing my second playthrough 4 years later and you just posted a Xeno video the same day lol
I think the fact XC3 has it's own set of detractors is ultimately a good thing, Takahashi has gone on record as trying not to do the same thing twice, and if you look at 1-x-2-3 none of these games have been completely similar. I feel like 3 is closer to 2 then 1 mind, but there is still differences in how these characters are written, the ultimate tone of the game, even the style of locales. But ultimately it shows the series as constantly trying to reinvent while also not being too alienating from past entries, I feel the majority of xeno fans tend to like the entire series more or less. Personally i came away loving it though, i even rank Z as one of my fav Xeno villains, but i also consider him less of a character and more of a machine, everything that makes Z fascinating to me is less who he is and more what he is, because that's all he is a "what" that just happens to have a human face.
This is the typical example of "Gamers will optimize the fun out of games" as you mentioned in the video, yes your guides might be outdated, but that doesn't change the fact that they were still very useful for their time, I remember looking forward to your guides to get better insight of the different characters and classes. I can totally understand that it wouldn't be fun to make guides if you would get backlash upon upload, since they wouldn't be 100% optimized and can kill any end game boss in 15 sec or less. As it stands your still my favourite Xenoblade Chronicles content creator, your guides were easy to understand, and you having a very good understanding of the game, made the guides very detailed as well. Its always great to get an update, and I will look forward to the next game and the information you bring with it.
Personally, XC3 is still my favorite in the series and my favorite game of all time. I absolutely love the characters and world and I would found myself spending 8-10hrs per session just grinding the game and having a great time. Ouroboros is my favorite cast in any JRPG because they mesh so well with each other and the dynamic from being enemies who tried to kill each other, to learning how to work together and finally turning into a found family was beautiful to experience. Noah is such a charismatic leader with a heart of gold, Mio is sweetheart and surprisingly delicate, Taion is incredibly cautious because he cares about the people around him, Eunie comes off as brash but emotionally intelligent, Lanz is stoic but deep is vulnerable and finally Sena the sunshine of the group but also suffers from self-esteem issues. I love these characters a lot and can talk about them all day. The story and themes are done perfectly and I don't think i've ever been invested into a narrative as hard as XB3. I have noticed that certain parts of the xenoblade community usually says "yeah XC3 is great but.." and then list the issues they have, some fair and others not so much. One example being, ch6 being weaker than 5. I've noticed that people (understandably so) conflate the M reveal with being apart of chapter 5. But no, the reveal and one of the best cutscenes in the media is in chapter 6. Yeah, the rest of the chapter slows down but personally I preferred that. I needed a break after that emotional exhaustion I took from N's backstory + the reveal. Another complaint I see is moebius and Z being weak villains. I find it interesting how much focus there is on the faceless moebius, while we know the main antagonists are N and Z. it would be like me focusing on torna members like Akhos or Patroka while Jin and Malos are clearly the ones that deserve the focus. This is getting long so i'll wrap up by saying, XC3 learned from the mistakes made in XB2 (i love XB2 btw) such as combat not being properly explained, blades (classes in xb3) being locked by a gacha mechanic and field skills hampering exploration and I'm so glad they did. The game truly gave an experienced I'll never forget and i wish i could wipe my memory and do it all over again. Happy 2 years!
I found that individually, most of 3's main characters weren't all that strong compared to 1 or 2 (Riku aside, obviously), but the overall party dynamic and the interactions that everyone had with each other were some of the best I've seen in any game, let alone just Xenoblade. They did such a perfect job of organically capturing the experience of going on an adventure with these people as they grew and experienced the events of the plot, whether we're talking main story cutscenes, side quests (as an aside, 3 had absolute A++ side questing, brought down only by the fact that it overlevels you and messes with the class system), random voice lines while exploring, or just camp chats/interactions. Collectively, the group had so much personality that it was an absolute joy to play with them, which I think might be where your disconnect is coming from: Two years later, you're thinking about them more in the sense of analyzing individual characters, which tends to focus on specific highlights instead of being immersed in the day-to-day experience of going on a journey with them. You're remembering really liking being a part of that casual social experience, but that experience just isn't captured when you try to take a step back and evaluate the characters more objectively.
What the hell are the chances of this LMAO I was just rewatching your future redeemed thoughts video just last night. This caused a bunch of your other Xeno vids to be in my recommended, so I saw this one and figured it was the same until I saw it was uploaded less than an hour ago. Cool timing, can’t wait to watch!
The fan rebalancing hacks for XB3 were quite good in fixing post-game/NG+ issues. Actually kinda curious to see where the fanhacks ended up now that it’s been 18 months or so since I last played; might be interesting enough for another playthrough
I agree about the whole chain attack thing. Like, not only is it really long, compared to the previous games, but it's really up to the game of chance. Sort of like how 1's was, in which you have to pray certain character's orders pop up when you want them to. Otherwise you miss making an Ouroboros order, or you don't get the one you wanted to help cause bigger damage to the enemy. Doesn't help that it feels like it's the biggest way for you to deal most damage, most percent of the time in the game. Unlike previous games, like as pointed out, where those like 2 had more ways to deal a lot of damage in the shortest amount of time. To the point where if you even got rid of the Party gauge or chain attacks, which bringer of chaos mode does, there's still ways to deal with enemies in the shortest amount of time. But if you brought something like that to 3, I don't know what you would do if you are mostly locked out of chain attacks most of the time, other than fight a really long slog of a fight sometimes in the game.
The more I think of Chain Attacks in the Xenoblade games, the more I grow to dislike them. Feels like interactive cutscenes, and in 1 or 3's case, annoying rng affects them
Funnily enough, I think this is why bioluminescent bob in FR was my favorite fight in all of xenoblade 3, precisely because you can’t use chain attacks in that fight
I think our thoughts on what xc3 postgame stuff became are kind of similar so I wanted to write them out in a place which no one will read. I actually think that the game closest to xc3 in combat terms is xcx. You can see a lot of the influence there: the class-based system with ability to combine arts, the focus on burst damage, and so on. I think the main problem I have with what postgame became is that enemy hp values are too low relative to the damage cap. The reason why stuff like xc2 boc works is because you can only do so much damage so fast in comparison to an enemy with 125 million health, so the game is relatively slow and thus interactive. There's more to think about like "how do I get the next break? What's the best combo setup?" But the options in xc3 to achieve that high damage do exist but are relatively small (stuff like SF smash, raging force, I haven't really experimented with elemental genesis). So the game becomes focused on burst damage, which is interesting, but just not to me.
I think 3 has the best character writing out of all the Blade games and possibly any RPG I've ever played. Every word that comes out of the main cast's mouths is perfect characterization, and I empathize completely with all their struggles, insecurities, and accomplishments. That alone makes up for any other writing criticism I could make with the broader story. As long as I care about the characters, their stories, and their resolutions, almost nothing else matters to me.
Xenoblade 3 has my favorite main cast of any game, closely rivaled by FF7 Remake/Rebirth and Persona 5. Each of the main six has personal motivations for being there, inner conflict that feels believable, and meaningful interactions with each of the other characters. Moments like Taion giving Eunie a cup of tea for her shaking hands, Eunie listening to Mio vent about her impending homecoming, Lanz and Sena trying to force themselves to Interlink (which is bookended by an insane moment for them later on, which I don't want to spoil here just in case someone hasn't played it yet). I love all these guys so much!
ITS BEEN AGES HE'S BACK WITH THE XENOBLADE UPLOADS! WE DEFINITELY GETTING THAT MWAMBA GUIDE LET'S GO!
Or the Na'el guide
@@the_beans_man1524 Or the infinity blade guide!!
You get 1 video. That’s it.
Fr
Long ago, the world was nothing but an endless sea cloaked in a boundless sky, reaching as far as the eye could possibly imagine. Then two great titans came into existence. The Mwambionis, and the Mehmehchonis
Sorry about some people being disrespectful about your early xc3 guides. They helped me and my casual friend group so much when the game came out.
They what?! But why? How rude of them.
@GuardianAngelEatos as the games meta developed, a lot of classes/gems/whatever that initially were thought of as the best, turned out to be just ok. and others that were thought to be bad turned out to be really good. enels guides are actually very very good in the standpoint of playing through the game and beating the superbosses. and incredibly well made considering how early into the games lifespan they were. however in fully optimal setups that we know now, they ended up being wrong. for example: attacker soulhacker is really not very strong, signifer is really not very strong, war medic is actually super powerful, yumsmith is super powerful. optimized xc3 is insanely strange compared to what youd expect. that being said, with how new the game was when the guides were made, enel did an amazing job.
@@sleeve.3995where should i look for high quality sutt? Since his early stuff hasn't been remade?
@@sleeve.3995I wanna relearn this game for challenges, but my setup is a it outdated
@TimothyGod theres a video out somewhere called something like "a comprehensive xc3 combat guide" (sonething along those lines) its quite long but goes over pretty much everything. theres also a word document somewhere, maybe attached in the video description, that has the best builds for every class, as well as some of the best comps
You may say you don't remember certain quirks or saying by Noah but I've had "THE TIME IS NOOOOOOW" when he draws Lucky Seven in battle permanently etched into my head I think lol.
That and after inflicting deathblow or killing with lucky seven still active: "THIS IS OUR PATH TO THE FUTURE"
@@dave9515 lord, I think I cheesed everything from the beginning of chapter 6 through endgame with capable hands/unlimited sword and by the time the credits rolled I actually kind of missed Sena telling us she was the girl with the gall.
And dont forget "upon this sword, I (UNINTELLIGIBLE)"
tachyon slash!
"We'll forge our own way!"
It really doesn’t feel like 2 years wtf. Hope the next Xenoblade is closer than the last one
Doubtful.
Please no
Please no rush
@@KARLOSPCgame
I mean 4-5 years (assuming they started development in the late stages of 3) would be plenty of development time. But yeah, no need to rush it
That's not happening, and I don't want them to rush another game if they make another Xenoblade game.
Every 5 years before a new mainline title is healthy imo. Hoping we get a new IP and X remaster before Xenoblade 4.
It's not a perfect game, but is definitely a must-play JRPG worth every cent.
Looks, sounds, and plays great with an immersive story.
Had fun the whole way through as it lives up to the Xenoblade games before.
The fact that we're having to talk up a fucking Xenoblade game by saying "it's defo worth $60 if you're into JRPGs guys" is such a shame. I would describe the previous entries as priceless.
@@ChrisStoneinator I'd say that description is accurate for all four games. None of them are perfect, but they're all must-plays. Not being perfect doesn't mean a game isn't good (1 was my favourite game ever until 3 dethroned it, and 2 and X are up there as well), it just means there are ways it could be improved (like if 2 actually started doing anything meaningful with its story and characters before chapter 7).
@@dudeguy2330 wouldn’t call them perfect either, 1 could come closest with refinements to the quest system, but I’ve never wanted them to be perfect. I wanted them to be special. 3 is very developed, it’s an evolution in a lot of ways, but it isn’t special. I don’t think about it all the time like I do for the others.
@@ChrisStoneinator I agree that 1's probably the closest to perfection (others have evolved on its strengths, but it had the fewest glaring flaws), but 3's had more of an impact on me than any of the others have, if we're going by how much time I've spent thinking about it as a metric. All four of the games have differing strengths in terms of their gameplay, stories, and themes, and as a result I've seen a ton of differing opinions on which is the best/worst based on what each individual values most.
Xenoblade 3 gameplay is crack cocaine to me. Takes almost everything I loved about the previous 2 games' combat and turned it up to 11. The story and voice acting was incredible. The character's expressions in each cutscene was surprisingly good and a massive step up from previous games. Easily my favourite xenoblade game.
For me I love each one for different reasons. 1 I love most for the story. 2 I love the most for the characters. 3 I love most for the combat. 3 is easily my least favorite of the trilogy. It's missing two of the things that I love about all of the other Xenoblade games. Heart to heart and an unpredictable mind-blowing plot twist. 3 has the best section in the franchise in my opinion by far being the end of chapter 5. I didn't think it was possible for me to cry more than I did in the end of Xenoblade 2, let alone cry for another video game, and another Xenoblade game at that. Monolith soft has a way with making emotional cutscenes that make me tear up.
I geniunely feel awesome for you, because I was unable to enjoy it as much as the previous two games. It's simply that there is so much going on onscreen since you got seven characters at a time, and I felt that the majority of gameplay was just a few steps away from being a cutscene. And it was unfortunate, because I really liked the story, the characters, the voice acting... but I just didn't felt like playing the game and trudged through it to finish it, and have never played it since.
@@shedinyavi8233He's talking about the gameplay's cycle of doing side quest, heroes' quest and everything, that the real deal in terms of gameplay loop of xc3
I personally found XC2's combat to be more fun I liked the elemental system it made it feel like there was way more depth than just break>topple> whatever you need next for the combo.
Nah be real the voice acting was the worst in the series by a country fucking mile
Don't listen to those people, you're one of the undisputed goats of the Xeno community and it's thanks to your guides that I enjoyed the trilogy as much as I did.
I am grateful for your hard work and I look forward to your future content.
Also if you want can you do a tier list of your favourite Osts from the Xeno series? That would be dope
I remember getting my mind blown when I learned you'd use 6 characters at once in one of the trailers. I was going out of my way to learn more info about the game pre-release. It was the first Xenoblade hype cycle I've been a part of. I wasn't really hyped for XC2 beyond thinking it looked cool because I didn't think I was going to be able to play it (I didn't have a Nintendo Switch back then).
This game was a huge part of my life for the next few months. I remember having fun with Full Metal Jaguar, breaking the game with Chain Attacks, tuning in to Enel's guides, and a core memory about playing with the Seraph class when I took the game with me to Thailand on my down time. I ran home the day Future Redeemed released, and played a huge chunk of the game docked (which I rarely did back then since it was a pain to set up). Rarely a week goes by without me listening to this game's soundtrack.
This game means a lot to me. I played it during what I'd consider to be the best year of my life post-pandemic. I'd go so far as to say this is my joint favorite game, shared with the numbered Xenoblade games.
Happy birthday, Xenoblade 3.
I'm still not a fan of the massive amount of characters at once. Seven party members all doing their own thing in battle is just too much to realistically keep track of and it just bloats the UI and creates number spam on the screen, especially once you start getting into the thousands and tens of thousands of damage each attack. Love the game overall, but this wasn't my favorite design choice.
I also played the shit out of this game when my family and I went to Thailand for a holiday!!😂
Yes! Same here. I absolutely loved having six characters in battles. I was super excited about it when I first found out in game and it did not disappoint. I hadn't watched any trailers. It gave us as the player so much more to do and to keep track of, which made it so much more fun. Being able to use 6 characters at once is something I never thought developers of xeno games would think of.
@@maynardburgeryou can actually turn off the damage numbers from allies in the settings. I did it for auto attacks and it’s so much less spam
Im not surprised that people started to talk down about what you helped put together. Obviously, time allows more and more people to find new and improved methods, but I don't think it should discourage you from making further content. Even if that is what happened for a while now. I know your guides helped me a ton when the game first came out. It's hard to believe it has been 2 years....crazy
I think the ending of chapter 6 with the Joran fight was great. When Joran reveals that you get all the memories of your past lives once you become moebius, it really made me feel bad for him. Especially when you see that he was a failure in every life, and it even showed Lanz facing Joran on the ground in one life
Every time I think about XB3 I shed a tear
To this day i dont know how they fumbled Sena Hero quest, which didnt even focus on her.
That was super disappointing! But I did enjoy all the other hero quests
I really do think it was intended as a main quest line and got re-purposed later on.
It was a fine side quest for Ghondor. But not Sena
It didn't focus on Sena herself but it focused on her development by being a parallel and the potential "bad end" she could've had
We need talk about this, I can't believe they did this to Sena.
People don’t always feel this way but I love the characters, especially Sena because her struggles are relatable. I would also say that the Hero section during the final boss is genuinely one of my favorite moments in the Xeno series because by doing the side quests you feel like it emotionally pays off
Those people that were putting your videos down are jerks. I’ve played every other Xenoblade game and your videos still helped me out a lot with the challenge mode in 3. Keep up the good work!
Yeah they thoght me how to use chain attacks…
Heck his vids are the reason I ever beat super bosses in 2
xenoblade 3’s cast is my favourite cast in any game. all 6 of them, even the nopon are written with such care and nuance that make them seem like an actual family. like they all feel real.
So, in other words, they're relatable?
@@GuardianAngelEatos yeah, more so than any game i’ve played before
The player's build options and incentives to use sub-optimal builds while leveling classes is good, the endgame builds are alot stronger than the enemy design can handle. The enemy design can only be so difficult as the friendly ai can not handle high damage burst or positionals. If the friendly ai is down your options are far more limited
Tldr; having +5 friendly ai severely limits enemy design
I think your relationship to Xenoblade does influence how you feel about the game. Doing guides, speedrunning, discord conversations, etc. I personally played the game twice and really loved it. The second time around I really took my time with side quests to get a firm grasp on the world’s lore. I played at my leisure with little help from guides or walkthroughs and noticed my strategies late game were different than most. And at this point I regard it as one of my if not my most favorite Switch games. Thanks for making this video.
Thinking about the game just makes me sad cos I’ll never get to play it for the first time again 😔 was so special. The best game ever.
I do hope for the next game we disconnect the story entirely, we wrapped up this trilogy so nicely and these games are so big that it puts a lot of homework on new fans wanting to play a new game if they’re as interconnected
WOOOOOO ENEL XENOBLADE UPLOAD WE LOVE YOU WOOOOOOO
One thing from Xenoblade 3 I hope more RPGs try out is the main party structure. You got the entire main party at the beginning of the game and they were all always on field simultaneously. I hate having to pick and choose which characters I want to take with me into battle when canonically they're all present. Having the party fully formed at the beginning also gave them ample time to grow together as a team. When I play other games like FF7 Remake or even Mass Effect, I'll have my main team from the first few party members and then as new characters come in I don't care nearly as much about them because I don't use them.
Edit: Just got to the part of the video you talk about demotivating comments from folks online. That sucks. I try to remember that people suck at communication over text. Sometimes things come through much harsher than intended. And if it was intentional, some people just suck. Keep up the good work! You've helped so many people enjoy this series. I've pointed several people to your Xenoblade 2 videos to understand combat there when they were on the verge of quitting.
One notable problem I noticed shortly after release is that a lot of people expected the game to contain a ton of fan service instead of mostly original content. They wanted to see all these returning characters and... No, that's not what happened, and it was never going to happen. Takahashi stated before release that he wanted Xenoblade 3 to stand on its own feet and even be a decent starting point for someone getting into the series.
Of course, I can't say the same for Future Redeemed, but for the base game, I think a lot of people's experience with the game was soured by false expectations.
I won't claim the story and characters are perfect or anything, but I think simply approaching the game with different expectations is what helped me enjoy the game a lot more than other players.
I actually replayed the game a couple weeks ago and found myself enjoying it just as much as I remembered, if not more so. I will say, I remembered the exception being the final battle with Z since I didn't beat him on the first try. The first phase in particular just feels like it drags on for too long. I personally think that if the fight was just Z∞, it wouldn't be hated as much. Phase 1 probably takes about as long as all of the other phases by itself.
I will however say that seeing Z go down super fast after the forced chain attacks made me realize that it may be thematic. Considering the whole thing about Moebius's power and ideology being a delusion, as well as "smoke and mirrors" as Taion says, feeling the fight suddenly become one of the easiest fights in the game after being one of the hardest feels quite fitting.
It was also VERY liberating to destroy him like that.
Here's my problem. I feel like XC3 and Future Redeemed actually have too much fan service. Or perhaps you could say, they tease too much and satisfy too little. I honestly wish XC3 had either gone whole hog with the idea it was marketed with ("a brand-new story that ties together the futures of the worlds depicted in Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2") and shown us what happened to the characters, towns, nations, and peoples we know and love, or else just been entirely standalone - maybe have a XC2 type ending where you learn how it fits into the rest of the universe, but other than that doesn't reference the previous games.
Instead, XC3 + FR does way too much of that wink wink nudge nudge type fan service and it irritated me. It kept teasing me with the kind of stuff I'd really be interested in knowing, and stubbornly refusing to reveal anything worthwhile. In the end it just distracted from XC3's main story for me. I get that it's kind of due to the story and the whole Aionios thing of being trapped forever and no one really remembers the "real" world, but I guess my question is did this story need to be told, or be told in this way?
It should have been, this is supposed to be the last game in this saga, why not do an IW/Endgame crossover? And wanting to make the final game in a trilogy a starting for new people is stupid and stifles your story telling.
Unfortunately Xenoblade 3 suffered from what a lot of other franchises also suffer from, the fanbase gets super hyped about something based more so on their wishes and desires and then when the thing finally comes out they've hyped themselves up so much that the actual product could never deliver to meet their expectations. I've always disliked the criticism of it not including enough fan service references to past games. Frankly we got a lot of that anyway, especially with Future Redeemed.
@@quiddity131 Base game and Future Redeemed have an interesting dichotomy where, for the most part, you could play the base game without playing any earlier game and be fine, while with Future Redeemed, you NEED to play everything beforehand.
I think Future Redeemed is the kind of thing those people wanted.
I really feel what you're saying here with regards to fanservice.
When I finished my first playthrough of XC3, I didn't quite know how to feel about it. I thought the game was excellent, but I could'nt help but feel a bit let down by how little the game actually had to do with the greater world of Xenoblade, as well as a number of other relatively minor issues. A couple months after beating it, I decided to do a replay. Now usually, it's pretty common for people to enjoy a game LESS upon a replay because they notice things they dislike that they didn't conciously recognize upon a first playthrough or start to nitpick certain things. However, replaying it actually made me enjoy the game MORE, and I think that it's because my expectations were no longer hyped beyond belief. It was that replay that truly solidified XC3 being my favorite of the trilogy. Sure, I still have a number of minor issues, but the game still means so much to me even two years later.
I'm thinking of starting another playthrough sometime soon.
You shouldn't doubt your love for a game when you clearly remember enjoying it a lot.
Whatever the reasons or context might have been doesn't change how you felt and that is what matters in the end.
I for one love the shit out of Xenoblade 3.
2 years ago when I beat XC3 I thought it was the best game in the series.
2 years later after playing through it again.....yeah, it's still the best game in the series.
That's a bold factual claim. Favorite, fine, but 3 has some serious problems that I cannot forgive and give the game more than a 7 out of 10 which hurts to say with Xenoblade Chronicles being my longtime favorite rpg franchise since playing the first one on the Wii.
Insane that it’s been two years.
This is easily my favorite of the three games, it has the best gameplay and story for me, i really enjoyed the cast of characters and their interactions, I love how they have a rough start but then they end up caring for each other which makes the ending even sadder (I still remember crying and it’s still the only time I’ve cried when playing a game).
I know that Moebious isn’t that well liked but I think their presence was serviceable enough.
I really liked how the call backs were used to tie the lore between the games and weren’t made just for fan service.
Of course the DLC was incredible and I can never get enough of Rex, he’s just the best.
God I love this game and series
No matter what’s said you’re the best teach! Will be sharing with friends as well
Xenoblade 3 is definitely really good. The classes make combat feel so freeform especially being able to swap characters mid battle. I just wish Mobieus was better
Return of The King
XC3 is still my favorite game ever lmao
Same!
Same here 😌
00:01 "ittttts beeen one week..."
I've been replaying the game recently in order to stream it to a friend who doesn't have a Switch nor money to spare for one. I've been loving it just as much as I did the first run though. The characters really shine to me. Not in the wacky anime sort of way that really sticks with you, but rather in how they all feel very real+. They feel to me like people experiencing all the normal emotions and reactions we would, but elevated by their acute feeling of the limited time they have. Absolutely my favorite in the series.
They literally talk & react like no living real human I've ever met or watched, and I live in the UK. They are horrifically uncanny valley.
It's interesting how different the characters have aged between us. The cast has stuck with me more than any other game. I think I like them because they all have that squad that they will spend their entire lives with.
People are way too hyperbolic in their criticisms. The grab some minor flaws and make them appear as absolute deal breakers.
I’ve been seeing hyperbolic criticisms more and more often lately, not just for xenoblade, but for a bunch of other media as well. It’s so annoying when the only things I see people saying about a piece of media are “it’s peak”, “it’s trash”, or “it’s mid” (Which is sometimes worse than trash somehow????)
@@cash-onlycaveman6637 Yeah its pretty exhausting. I just dont use social media and interact with fans of things anymore. Early days of the internet was so much more peaceful which is ironic because platforms are more censored and sanitized than ever
I've played through the game 3 times. I played xenoblade 1 twice and Xenonlade 2 probably 9 times.
I think Xenoblade 3 is my favorite game of all time and the cast upon replays is a huge part of that.
I thought before launch that I'd identify most with Taion, when in reality the most powerful part of the game was Lanz and Sena's dual issue of imposter syndrome and martyr syndrome
I struggle day to day with a lot of trauma and mental stinkies that the entire party mirrors, but Lanz and Sena forced me to look at myself hard
2 years already? How??????
When the world needed him the most, he returned.
Man I love your stuff. I was just checking in on your channel the other day bc I felt like I haven't seen any of your content in a minute. Glad to hear you still have more to say on this wonderful series!
Enel if it makes you feel better I absolutely love your guide content and it really helped me two years ago
I apparently ended up in the top .2 percent of watchers in my yt recap it was because I got completely addicted to the xeno series mostly 1 and 3, I finished out 2 and Dove headfirst into 1 de.
I did EVERYTHING maxed out every art every affinity every skill tree watched every heart to heart forked my save to level up colony 6 in ng+ and my first save and after all was said and done I did it all again in xc3 the only thing I didn't do was max out colony affinity I've watched every xeno guide you've made and had so much fun on my own finding my own way.
I don't even have any of the dlc just the base games and they've sucked up so much of my time and let me daydream and look foward to what was next and how to succeed everything and everyone felt so cool and "real" but it could be because I've been cooped up since even before lockdown and haven't really been out since but it felt nice to just see people even if they are made up people with voices that read from a script just be real understandable people that make sense, it just letsme pretend for a moment that I'm out there not afraid of people, not afraid of just failing at any small thing just going.
For me, I really connected with Xenoblade 3 way more than any of the other xenoblade games. I didn't have too much JRPG experience before going into the series, so I was a lot more overwhelmed by the combat and party complexity in XC1 and XC2 compared to 3. Being able to change between party members, as well as all the party members being in each battle both made me enjoy the combat XC3. It just made it a lot more approachable for me. I also connected with the characters a lot more in XC3, though that might be because the tone and theme was a lot more serious and aligned with my interests.
I still love XC3, and it is still my favorite of the three games. I enjoy these games more as single experiences rather than going super in-depth with repeated experimentation, so I really can't comment on how it compares in that regard. For what I want/enjoy out of these games, XC3 was almost flawless.
Updated Xeno characters tier list would go hard, can’t wait for more Xeno content!
Love your xenoblade content Enel! sorry to hear about the negativity surrounding your guides, i've always enjoyed them and I can tell a lot of work goes into all of them. Looking forward to more xenoblade vids!
I feel so damn old it feels like yesterday that future redeemed released!
Don't be discouraged by toxic people in the community, you're one of THE most noteworthy Xeno creators out there and always will be for the amazing things you've achieved in the past. But also make sure to keep a healthy mindset, take breaks when needed & don't feel pressured into something because people expect it from you. WE LOVE YOU ENEL
Played XC2 from start to finish 8-10 times. I keep my 100% game around and periodically revisit it just to remind me of how interesting and varied the gameplay was with all the blades and their specific optimization quests. There are cut scenes from XC2 I'll never forget. I played XC3 to finish twice, and struggled to get through it the second time. I just never really warmed to the story or the gameplay. I found your XC2 content invaluable for helping get deeper into the game with late game / challenge strategies. I very much appreciate this video for the overall dialogue and allowing your community to reflect on this special series. Hoping the next XC is more like 2 than 3, but I totally get if people found 3 special. The ending was definitely touching...
Just started playing and I've been using your guides since xbc1 to really understand different parts of the game. You've been a huge help
honestly a lot of your sentiments echoed here were exactly what I felt 7 years ago with XC2. with me pretending to like it and giving it so many chances because it was a part of my favorite series and I felt like I had to like it. the exact words “trying to look for meaning and significance where there isn’t any” sums up exactly how I feel about XC2, story, gameplay, and all.
I definitely agree that a proper replay is in order to really sort out your feelings on the game, as it was only after a 2nd 100% playthrough of XC2 that I really settled on how I feel about it.
It honestly sucks that a lot of the negative feelings you have associated with XC3 come from making content about it, as I’m also certain a lot of your positive feelings about XC2 also come from making content about it. I think it’s up to you to judge whether or not your enjoyment of these games should include or exclude your proclivity as a content creator and how you associate your feelings with these titles. I hope you find your own way to express that without being influenced by what other people want you to feel about the titles, negative comments and all.
I haven’t done a proper replay of XC3 either, and having done more than a dozen playthroughs of XC1, more than 4000 hours of XCX, and two 100% playthroughs of XC2, I feel like this anni is the day I pay that due to XC3 so I can also decide where this game belongs for me
I still remember being excited to come home from work and play this game on release day. I was stoked out of my mind for this game to come out, and I remember racing to open the package in the mail that arrived that afternoon. I have never had the same excitement for a video game release since.
One thing to consider is that how much you enjoy a game can also have nothing to do with the game. It can just be where you are in your life at the time, etc. Do I think those things have HUGE effects? No. But they can add up and push past thresholds with how a game resonates with you etc.
You're my favourite Xeno content creator. I'm still watching your guides today, just because I like the way you made them.
In terms of xeno characters I think riku is one of the best written. One scene where he throws a fit about being hungry to give a break to a character who is too driven and proud to ask for a break. He is inarguably the least important character, yet, he shows more character than most of the characters from other games can even tell you about.
As a brit, I'm just appreciative of how accurately xenoblade 3 represented our general conversation. Favourite game of all time
No way the Xenoblade guide guy made the Xenoblade video
Currently on my 100% run on Hard Mode (and yes, that includes the level up superbosses rematches).
2 years ago, XB3 was released and became my all-time favorite game. It ain't perfect, but I still love it with all my heart.
Happy 2nd anniversary, Xenoblade Chronicles 3!
Excited about the new content! I'm pretty much agree with most of what you said except about how Xenoblade 3 wasn't so memorable because the journey of XC3 was great for me and those ending cutscenes blew me away emotionally. Can't wait to watch all the new Xenoblade theme videos from you.
I find it interesting to hear that people didn't resonate with this game as much, cause most if not every aspect of it shines to me and it had a profound impact on my life. From the writing to characters, music and gameplay, I gush about this game constantly. The symbolism everywhere is so fun to piece apart a think about, I love analyzing the cutscenes in this game, specifically the scenes with Noah and Mio, and then N and M. I think the Ouroboros party is the best out of the entire series because they all have this underlying trauma and PTSD that they don't realize is even there until they start to break more flame clocks and flip Aionios on it's head. The world design feeling very fresh and original despite being a mesh of Xenoblade 1&2's world's is ingenious to me, the amount of meticulous work and thought that every single person had to do in designing this game is so obvious to me.
Absolutely my favorite game ever, I had to stop myself from gushing about it more.
Can’t wait for Xenoblade X2, and we get to learn “How to make Tatsu overpowered.”
I also think that a lot of people just watch cutscenes, and a lot of the development is not necessarily in the cutscenes.
Also while Noah and Mio are the faces of the group, it makes more sense think of the entire group as the main character. Or at least each pair as one main character.
I see it as this Noah & Mio are good characters in Main Story
Eunie, Taion, Lanz and Sena are good characters in side quests that’s where they shine
I just noticed that this video is 33:33 long. Nice.
I am finally playing through the DLC after a second playthrough. I'll be back to watch this when I finish.
2 years already? This game still feels so fresh in my memory
I personally did enjoy this cast over the other games
And i love Xenoblade 1 and 2's cast
But 3 just felt so genuine yet fantastic
Also, with the story, i have seen the complains but i cannot agree, people want everything to be so connected and always referencing something else
Having the plot giving us just enough info about the aftermath in Bionis and Alrest is all i need, they didn't need to overexplain everything since the message of the story gets stronger by leaning that way
We may not know the whole story, but it's worth taking the chance, Faith i may call it, rather than getting stuck in an endless now, a life that doesn't advance, a life that doesn't grow
We'll walk this path together, for our future awaits
And yeah, the gameplay is super fun, every now and then i'll just pop it in for another hard battle and claim victory
Your guide videos help me a lot, when I just started Xenoblade. Looking forward to more Xeno guide from you. Thank you for the hard work.
Noah definitely left a huge impact on me and for me he seemed like the best written protagonist od the 3 especially relating with N
The video length being 33:33 is absolutely perfect, and HAS to be intentional
Xenoblade 3 was my first completely blind Xeno experience so I'm slightly biased towards it, but despite its flaws, it's my favorite Xenoblade. I played Xenoblade 2 for the first time after playing 3 and there's something special about it that made me really enjoy it. As such, I'd say 2 is the best, but 3 is my favorite
I started a new playthrough of Xenoblade 3 last week and I've been really enjoying it! I've been focusing on getting class experience on everyone which made the game more enjoyable to me since I get to try out different builds than I normally do. And revisiting the cutscenes and story and being able to spot things I missed or did not have the context for on my first playthrough was amazing (for example, Teach says at the end of his Hero Quest that he once knew a soldier that had gone mad with power. Given the context of his Ascension Quest, it's likely that he is referring to himself.).
Also, I love your guides! Even if they're more geared towards endgame/postgame and may be outdated now, they still contain solid strategies on how to play every class that could be applicable to early-/mid-game. So thanks for that!
Drinking game : Take a shot everytime Enel says "For the most part"
I truly hope there will be a next gen update when switch 2 comes out. It’ll be the best reason to play again and experience the dlc for the first time (outside of FR)
I’m really sorry to hear about the negativity you got from some fans of the game for your early strategy guides. You don’t deserve it; you have been a huge gameplay/strategy/technique pioneer in this community and deserve so much respect for that, genuinely
If anyone say "Video games aren't art" You show them this game
25:55
I would like to point you toward, of all things, the character tier list on prydwen for Honkai: Star Rail. Characters are separated into relevant categories within the tier list. Each row is overall effectiveness, while each column separates characters into damage dealer/specialist/amplifier/sustain.
Damage dealers are your main source of outgoing damage, Specialists typically have a demanding gimmick to fulfill but very particular utility, Amplifiers enhance the effectiveness of the rest of the team as their primary function, and Sustains are any unit that keeps you in the fight for longer (typically, but not always, with active healing).
Under this system, Signifer would be a high-tier amplifier, while Life sage would be a high-tier sustain. They're both high tier, appropriately sorted into their own niche, not unduly compared to "Wowie zowee DPS," when actually placing them in a tier.
2 years later Xenoblade 3 is my favourite game by such a wide margin.
From watching the livestream of it being announced, watching every following trailer and playing the few OST released on repeat, it’s easy to say this has been my most hyped up game I have ever had, I took time off work, I had 2 versions pre-ordered (digital and special edition) and was ready
The game finally released and it was better in every aspect than I expected, straight away the music and art style is my favourite of all the Xeno’s, the combat was fully explained this time and it felt so much more satisfying, the characters were instantly my favourite cast and the world felt so fun to explore (I do prefer the titans in Xb1 but still adore Aionios)
I own all the consoles and a PC, I play so many different games from Racing to VR to JRPG’s, so I’m dead serious when I say this game is perfect to me, there wasn’t a single moment I didn’t like
It’s been 2 years and I still feel this way, I have no idea how any other game will be better for me, and I really hope MonolithSoft goes a different direction than Xenoblade 4 as with the DLC I don’t need another Xenoblade Chronicle
For what it’s worth I and many others greatly appreciated your efforts when the game first came out. Learning some of the better ways to build and utilize the classes was something I looked forward to while slowly etching at the games story. Even if some of the strategies have evolved they wouldn’t be as progressed if it wasn’t for your initial efforts.
"XB3 is alright."
Is the most default opinion ever just to avoid saying that it's truly bad.
Yep it's the worst game in the franchise. I rather play the first Xenosaga
@misterhimura036 XC2 exists. Gacha! Field skills 🤮 I truly don't see how 3 is the worst, and I still liked 2 (Torna DLC more so)
I mean there's not a bad game in the series but if I have to put a game as the "worst" must be X2, too anime tropes, awful VA, awful tutorial, custionables desighs, Gatcha system, annoying skill fields.
Still the game is good I really like it, but have too many flaws compare to 1 and 3.
- stale af characters, prove me otherwise
- having to stop at 40+ campfires to advance the plot (in case I overcounted, this is the entire first half of the game in a nutshell)
- I can count on one hand scenes that people care about....lets see....that one moment at the end of chapter 5....nope that's it
- but don't worry about how hollow the main story is, pay us $30 to get the rest of the actual story
- and it's alright that the story isn't finished to the point where the art book has to be where we find the answers, and for questions that *haven't* been answered yet, the much much more exciting sequel is in the works.
- Insert Xenosaga references to make fans wet their pants. Except for those who won't understand it, they can just read it up on Wikipedia.
- difficulty = camps, camps everywhere. And health sponges too.
- is fighting even fun in these games anymore? Who knows wtf is going on but anything to demonstrate how much *stuff* can fit on the screen at the same time
But I suppose 3 is still better than 2 because it simply doesn't have gatcha lol
The king has returned
One of the best rpgs I played 2 years back. Future redeemed topped it with so many qol changes and a tighter pacing (though that can be chalked up to being shorter) that really pushed me to 100% the dlc. What a wonderful game.
I feel like one of the issues of the "outdated guides" is just that you're the biggest xenoblade content creator so people hyper focus on you just for that, forgetting that you're just a player like them. This is also another consequence of the info not being easily available because its in discords instead of wikis, an absolute bane for any game. People probably project onto you the duty to keep them informed on all this info that is hard to find specifically because you're so good at explaining stuff in your guides and there's no one else really to do so.
If anything your passion to make good quality videos is why people will get disappointed that there aren't more updates on info that is tough to find.
And to those people I remined them: Enel enjoys the games like us and does videos because of that, he's just sharing his thoughts and experiences and everyone has different ones, especially over time (I mean seriously the signifier video is from 2 weeks ago!).
I don't know if you'll see this but I must say I really like your videos, thank you so much for all the effort you put in your guides, its no exaggeration to say that part of the fun I have with this series is waiting for content from my favorite xeno youtubers like you. Really appreciate your channel and your love for the series! Thanks for letting a noob like me be able to kill superbosses with ease!
I honestly can't believe it's been 2 years and that even Future Redeemed was over a year ago now
This is insane timing. I haven’t thought about xenoblade in months until today and I happened to post this at the same time lool
Crazy to think it’s been 2 years already. Can’t wait for switch 2 and whatever is next from Monolithsoft
I still remember... it was a week before my birthday and the game arrived. My mom allowed me to play it before my birthday started. We were going on vacation 2 days later and well... I played it on the entirety of the drive AND I played ut every night I came home from the beach.
And the ending of ch.5... it was 3am (not kidding) I sat there in the bed of our apartment where we were staying... I cried the whole way throughout the ending, the fight included. When the flutes, a symbol of peace, light and serenity turned into a symbol of despair and death... it did something with me. The following scene about Ns backstory killed me... I wanted nothing more to kill N before that, asking myself why he would do such a thing... when I then understood why. That cocktail of emotion... incredible.
The end also hit hard. The line "we all have moebius in us" is so good. The narrative that death is essential to life and nothing to be afraid of... it hit home as I am afraid of the end... no matter what I do. I don't like when things end... I don't tend to finish the games I started, leave books unfinished because the emptiness it leaves behind... well... but Noah's ending line...
"So look up, face forward toward your chosen horizon, and just walk on" became my life philosophy.
FINALLY!!!!!! WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO!!!!!!
I really hope you make a XC2 video like this too, since you already did for XC1, and now for XC3 as well.
Thank you SO much for the heart! It genuinely means so much to me that you would acknowledge my comment!!! 🥰
Today I watched like all your Definitive Edition guides since I'm doing my second playthrough 4 years later and you just posted a Xeno video the same day lol
I think the fact XC3 has it's own set of detractors is ultimately a good thing, Takahashi has gone on record as trying not to do the same thing twice, and if you look at 1-x-2-3 none of these games have been completely similar.
I feel like 3 is closer to 2 then 1 mind, but there is still differences in how these characters are written, the ultimate tone of the game, even the style of locales.
But ultimately it shows the series as constantly trying to reinvent while also not being too alienating from past entries, I feel the majority of xeno fans tend to like the entire series more or less.
Personally i came away loving it though, i even rank Z as one of my fav Xeno villains, but i also consider him less of a character and more of a machine, everything that makes Z fascinating to me is less who he is and more what he is, because that's all he is a "what" that just happens to have a human face.
Enels back W and crazy how time flies I still hop on and play it just really fun and enjoyable great video enel
Wow I love how you release this just after I went back to watch your long XCDE review haha. Nice reflection on this game!
This is the typical example of "Gamers will optimize the fun out of games"
as you mentioned in the video, yes your guides might be outdated, but that doesn't change the fact that they were still very useful for their time, I remember looking forward to your guides to get better insight of the different characters and classes.
I can totally understand that it wouldn't be fun to make guides if you would get backlash upon upload, since they wouldn't be 100% optimized and can kill any end game boss in 15 sec or less.
As it stands your still my favourite Xenoblade Chronicles content creator, your guides were easy to understand, and you having a very good understanding of the game, made the guides very detailed as well.
Its always great to get an update, and I will look forward to the next game and the information you bring with it.
Personally, XC3 is still my favorite in the series and my favorite game of all time. I absolutely love the characters and world and I would found myself spending 8-10hrs per session just grinding the game and having a great time. Ouroboros is my favorite cast in any JRPG because they mesh so well with each other and the dynamic from being enemies who tried to kill each other, to learning how to work together and finally turning into a found family was beautiful to experience. Noah is such a charismatic leader with a heart of gold, Mio is sweetheart and surprisingly delicate, Taion is incredibly cautious because he cares about the people around him, Eunie comes off as brash but emotionally intelligent, Lanz is stoic but deep is vulnerable and finally Sena the sunshine of the group but also suffers from self-esteem issues. I love these characters a lot and can talk about them all day. The story and themes are done perfectly and I don't think i've ever been invested into a narrative as hard as XB3.
I have noticed that certain parts of the xenoblade community usually says "yeah XC3 is great but.." and then list the issues they have, some fair and others not so much. One example being, ch6 being weaker than 5. I've noticed that people (understandably so) conflate the M reveal with being apart of chapter 5. But no, the reveal and one of the best cutscenes in the media is in chapter 6. Yeah, the rest of the chapter slows down but personally I preferred that. I needed a break after that emotional exhaustion I took from N's backstory + the reveal. Another complaint I see is moebius and Z being weak villains. I find it interesting how much focus there is on the faceless moebius, while we know the main antagonists are N and Z. it would be like me focusing on torna members like Akhos or Patroka while Jin and Malos are clearly the ones that deserve the focus.
This is getting long so i'll wrap up by saying, XC3 learned from the mistakes made in XB2 (i love XB2 btw) such as combat not being properly explained, blades (classes in xb3) being locked by a gacha mechanic and field skills hampering exploration and I'm so glad they did. The game truly gave an experienced I'll never forget and i wish i could wipe my memory and do it all over again. Happy 2 years!
Can’t believe it’s already been two years. Wow. Such a beautiful game
I found that individually, most of 3's main characters weren't all that strong compared to 1 or 2 (Riku aside, obviously), but the overall party dynamic and the interactions that everyone had with each other were some of the best I've seen in any game, let alone just Xenoblade. They did such a perfect job of organically capturing the experience of going on an adventure with these people as they grew and experienced the events of the plot, whether we're talking main story cutscenes, side quests (as an aside, 3 had absolute A++ side questing, brought down only by the fact that it overlevels you and messes with the class system), random voice lines while exploring, or just camp chats/interactions.
Collectively, the group had so much personality that it was an absolute joy to play with them, which I think might be where your disconnect is coming from: Two years later, you're thinking about them more in the sense of analyzing individual characters, which tends to focus on specific highlights instead of being immersed in the day-to-day experience of going on a journey with them. You're remembering really liking being a part of that casual social experience, but that experience just isn't captured when you try to take a step back and evaluate the characters more objectively.
Ain't no goddamn way it's been 2 years.
I still remember spending nights till 5 AM playing this like it was last month..
What the hell are the chances of this LMAO I was just rewatching your future redeemed thoughts video just last night. This caused a bunch of your other Xeno vids to be in my recommended, so I saw this one and figured it was the same until I saw it was uploaded less than an hour ago.
Cool timing, can’t wait to watch!
Top memory was watching you complete the Pro gauntlet on Hard for the first time, banger stream
The fan rebalancing hacks for XB3 were quite good in fixing post-game/NG+ issues. Actually kinda curious to see where the fanhacks ended up now that it’s been 18 months or so since I last played; might be interesting enough for another playthrough
I agree about the whole chain attack thing. Like, not only is it really long, compared to the previous games, but it's really up to the game of chance. Sort of like how 1's was, in which you have to pray certain character's orders pop up when you want them to. Otherwise you miss making an Ouroboros order, or you don't get the one you wanted to help cause bigger damage to the enemy.
Doesn't help that it feels like it's the biggest way for you to deal most damage, most percent of the time in the game. Unlike previous games, like as pointed out, where those like 2 had more ways to deal a lot of damage in the shortest amount of time. To the point where if you even got rid of the Party gauge or chain attacks, which bringer of chaos mode does, there's still ways to deal with enemies in the shortest amount of time. But if you brought something like that to 3, I don't know what you would do if you are mostly locked out of chain attacks most of the time, other than fight a really long slog of a fight sometimes in the game.
The more I think of Chain Attacks in the Xenoblade games, the more I grow to dislike them. Feels like interactive cutscenes, and in 1 or 3's case, annoying rng affects them
Funnily enough, I think this is why bioluminescent bob in FR was my favorite fight in all of xenoblade 3, precisely because you can’t use chain attacks in that fight
I think our thoughts on what xc3 postgame stuff became are kind of similar so I wanted to write them out in a place which no one will read. I actually think that the game closest to xc3 in combat terms is xcx. You can see a lot of the influence there: the class-based system with ability to combine arts, the focus on burst damage, and so on. I think the main problem I have with what postgame became is that enemy hp values are too low relative to the damage cap. The reason why stuff like xc2 boc works is because you can only do so much damage so fast in comparison to an enemy with 125 million health, so the game is relatively slow and thus interactive. There's more to think about like "how do I get the next break? What's the best combo setup?" But the options in xc3 to achieve that high damage do exist but are relatively small (stuff like SF smash, raging force, I haven't really experimented with elemental genesis). So the game becomes focused on burst damage, which is interesting, but just not to me.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
nah I agree. And in xcx you had global nemesis while the servers were up to keep consistent damage strats interesting.
I think 3 has the best character writing out of all the Blade games and possibly any RPG I've ever played. Every word that comes out of the main cast's mouths is perfect characterization, and I empathize completely with all their struggles, insecurities, and accomplishments. That alone makes up for any other writing criticism I could make with the broader story. As long as I care about the characters, their stories, and their resolutions, almost nothing else matters to me.
Xenoblade 3 has my favorite main cast of any game, closely rivaled by FF7 Remake/Rebirth and Persona 5. Each of the main six has personal motivations for being there, inner conflict that feels believable, and meaningful interactions with each of the other characters. Moments like Taion giving Eunie a cup of tea for her shaking hands, Eunie listening to Mio vent about her impending homecoming, Lanz and Sena trying to force themselves to Interlink (which is bookended by an insane moment for them later on, which I don't want to spoil here just in case someone hasn't played it yet). I love all these guys so much!