My Thoughts On Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (NO MAJOR SPOILERS)

[@TheCrazyGreenGamer]

The beginning and ending of Chapter 5 were so good that Chapter 5 was trending on twitter for a few days. It's not everyday that a JRPG that isn't from Square gets something like that.

[@BigKlingy]

I think I heard that EVERY chapter trended on Twitter once most people got to that point. But Chapter 5 absolutely deserves it.

[@frankieseward8667]

@@BigKlingyxenoblade 3 definitely seems like the series huge breakthrough. This has definitely become a huge series for Nintendo

[@jakewerderly5959]

I was a damn fool on skipping in one of those button pressing events. I skipped so much story cutscenes, and I didn’t even realize till later. Was lost

[@emilstoqanov3270]

Hear that Noah!Klingy wants his backround music a bit meatier!

[@TheJaredPunch]

Characters in universe: We’re unstoppable with the Chain Attack theme playing. Chain Attack theme: hehe 😉 I’m the music with the gall!

[@BigKlingy]

That's honestly how I'd sum it up, "meatier" is how I like my Xenoblade music. I'm a rare person who prefers base game Gormott to the Torna Gormott theme.

[@SomeAsian]

Grass grows, birds fly, and Xenoblade is amazing.

[@hisen3.146]

And Sena is the girl with the gall.

[@TheJaredPunch]

@@hisen3.146 And Lanz is still craving for something meatier.

[@BigKlingy]

@TheJaredPunch And he's the MVP. (You were all thinking it!) In my headcanon, Lanz can somehow become the MVP of anything. Sena: "So we just got back from shopping..." Lanz: "AND I WAS THE MVP! YOU WERE ALL THINKING IT!"

[@BerserkerRohan]

While I haven't played it just yet, I have been watching my brother play it from start to finish and it has been quite a lot of fun for the both of us. I do agree that it feels like it took a lot of what worked in 1 and 2 and mashed it together in a very nice package. Tutorials did feel a bit sluggish in the beginning so it is safe to say that XC1 probably has the best tutorials. It was kind of shock that money felt worthless but it really does. The music is really good overall with the main issue being the chain attack music interrupting pretty much every battle in this game. Chain attacks are pretty stupid but I do find them pretty fun overall. The class system kind of reminds me of FF5 which is a good thing since I really liked how that game did its class system so I can't wait to give it a go myself after seeing what my brother came up with. Heroes were really well done too and they were very exciting to unlock and experiment with. Me and my brother decided to chase after as many sidequests as possible which did mean quite large breaks in the plot but I think we were both still quite satisfied. Call backs were really well handled and the subtle angle they decided to take worked out quite well. To be vague, story did leave me satisfied by the end and it will be interested to see what can be discovered on my playthrough, knowing what happens. Other than the after battle dialogue not being as varied as XC2, the voice acting is extremely good and probably the best in the series. Comparing these games is going to be hard since I really liked XC1 and XC2 for different reasons and I feel like that might be the same with XC3 when I get around to playing it. Unrelated but I probably should have split up my two and a half hour Cold Steel video between spoilers and non spoilers but it is what it is and I did enjoy making that video since I quite liked Cold Steel 1 and I can't wait to check out the sequel.

[@hungryhippowdon7141]

One other gripe: the level curve from Chapter 5 onwards. Ch 4 end boss is at level 43. You get a lot of quests in Ch 5 but you're only expected to be at 50 by the end of the chapter (I was 55 by that point). So toward the end of Ch 5 and most of 6 I felt overleveled. But then the level spikes for the final dungeon. I got there at level 63 but the game expects you to be 75 by the final boss, which is a HUGE difference.

[@BigKlingy]

The funny thing was that I appreciated that, because it meant my level advantage from sidequests finally plateaued out in the final dungeon and I ended up entering the final boss at exactly its level. The enemies in the final dungeon, especially UMs, give a LOT of experience, so your level catches up quickly.

[@hungryhippowdon7141]

As a side note, I played most of the game on Normal but I did turn it to Hard whenever I got slightly overleveled. I think it may have been mentioned somewhere that your Chain Attacks are nerfed significantly on Hard. They didn't seem to be doing as much. I tried to not overlevel because doing so makes it harder to rank up classes and unlock new ones. Also: SOULHACKER SHOULD HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE EARLIER!!!!

[@ilavain]

after doing all ascension quests and MOST sidequests (i missed like 2 from colony 15) i was overleveling the final boss by 5 levels or so. It still felt right to do and I'm happy I had, the fight wouldn't feel the same way if I hadn't

[@ilavain]

@@hungryhippowdon7141 I never turned off hard mode and chain attacks usually ended fights as soon as the enemy was 50% or less and launched haha I was very guilty of doing all quests and putting too much thought into my team tho. The hardest fight was in Guardian Commander hero quest because I didn't understand how good war medic was for it

[@gamerzorro3508]

Man I adore pretty much everything about this game, it might even overtake 2 as my favourite game ever, but I’m going to wait for that judgement until the story dlc is out, but I just love this game so much. And yeah when I got this game, I didn’t play anything else for a while, though it took till the first of December for me to actually beat the game, I take a while with games.

[@BigKlingy]

Torna was so good that the XB3 DLC has a LOT to live up to. We'll just have to wait and see.

[@PurpleStar929]

1:35 And thankfully the fetchquests the game has are done through the collectipedia cards, making it very streamlined as opposed to having to seek out the questgiver NPC. 5:00 I find this an interesting contrast to how in Soul Hackers 2 that game has one of the best balanced money systems I've seen in a long time. It's not too hard to rack up hundreds of thousands of yen quickly, but between fusions, comp-upgrades, battle items, etc., which are all decently pricey, there's always something to use it for. But you also need to carefully consider what to spend it on and which purchases take priority. 5:28 I also feel that while the silver Nopon coins, which seem to be the real meaningful currency of the game, are decently well to come by, the gold coins seem to be a bit too rare IMO. 5:53 When I first played this game I wasn't really liking the music and I was worried I was being too hard on it after 2's amazing field themes. But yeah... this game's really just aren't that good. 9:19 This almost makes me wish being able to lower your character's levels wasn't just something you only unlocked in the postgame, because that alone could've easily solved this entire issue. 14:08 Will you be giving your reasons for disliking the stalker class in the next part? 15:12 I actually find her over the top accent brazenly endearing. And at least she doesn't make my ears bleed like a certain other hero... 19:00 lol that random suicidal Taion. 19:49 Will we be getting a My Thoughts On video for that game at some point? 22:21 A story that's flawless up until a certain point, after which it more or less becomes okay at best before going back to being amazing for the finale? Funny how that's also a perfect description for my thoughts on Season 2 of the Cuphead Show.

[@BigKlingy]

5:00 Tales of Arise also has money really mean something, it's pretty hard to get and healing and especially revival items are very expensive. 15:12 Which other Hero? 19:49 In the "thoughts on 2022 games" video at the end of this year maybe.

[@PurpleStar929]

15:12 Ino

[@BigKlingy]

@@PurpleStar929 Did she even talk in trailers? I can't remember.

[@PurpleStar929]

@@BigKlingy You could hear her speak in the September direct. My favourite description of her voice was "This voice can only be heard by bats."

[@kingsman5121]

This Game Blew me away I was pretty confident I was gonna love it because it’s a xenoblade chronicles game 1 and 2 are some of my favorite Games of all time but just WOW This game in a similar manner to Something like Devil May Cry 5 in that it not only met my expectations but absolutely shattered them An incredible cap off to possibly my favorite videogame trilogy

[@BigKlingy]

People weren't really hyping it all that much, not even Chugga. But I became VERY interested when Chugga tweeted that he liked it more than 1, which knowing how much of a Xenoblade 1 fanboy is, REALLY says something. To me, it lived up to that too.

[@danielm.5078]

3:22 In general tutorials should be opt in with a double confirm either way. 7:37 The best way I could describe the area themes is that they're completely lacking in bombast. Ones in 2 in particular were very forceful and meant to be pieces that wanted to keep hearing, whereas in 3 the area themes feel like they're designed to be mild accents that fade into the background. 9:54 And only the first phase! 13:28 In a way that really hammers in how 2 was the most actionized game in the series. 21:26 The more limited party composition I'd say encouraged that and gave it a very Tales-esque feel, whereas 3 rarely ever has more than two characters talking to eachother post-battle.

[@BigKlingy]

3:22 I guess, though having a prompt for all of them might have also been annoying. 7:37 I also realized recently that most of 2's, especially Gormott and Mor Ardain, actually go on for about 5 minutes without looping. 9:54 The theme only comes back in the last phase, and also... in gathering footage for the next part, I found out the hard way: don't use Chain Attacks on the final boss' last phase unless it's below half HP. The boss cannot fall below half until the scripted scene where [stuff happens]. I see why (they don't want you to miss [stuff], but it's also annoying to waste a Chain that way. 13:28 2's Attackers were so stupidly broken it was ridiculous how much better they were at everything. 21:26 2 has a TON of post-battle dialogue, including with Rare Blades and certain Drivers or Rare Blades with eachother. Even Chugga's LP couldn't show they all and had to leave many to the bonus video.

[@danielm.5078]

3:22 Which I think would also hammer in that you don't need to tutorialize basic menu-ing. 13:28 I remember doing a thought exercise a while after I beat 2 that was essentially "okay, what if they made it even more actionized the next time while keeping the core systems?" Conclusion: literally Ys 8. 21:26 That's another thing that made 2 feel like it had a bit more character.

[@xenoinazuma7631]

So I agree with most of your critiques. The only one I disagree on is the field music not being memorable. And it’s not because it isn’t memorable. It’s because it’s putting in leitmotifs of the last games into those themes so when you run around those areas, you faintly drift back to, Gormott or Gaur Plains. I still love the music. Though every other critique I agree with whole heartedly. I feel if they did the tutorials like 1 it would be better, I feel like if 1’s Arts could be upgraded to drastically lower the cool-down timer things would also be better or just use 2’s system. Of heck even make it so Kevesi classes can auto attack while moving to feel like I’m doing something. I think the only time Xenoblade 3 does do a ‘shows and points at thing in last game’ is in the ending and post game with Lifesage and Royal Summoner’s Quests which is honestly fine. My personal ranking of Xenoblades is personally. 3, 1, 2 and X. Don’t get me wrong I like 2 but I can’t say the Boss line up is something I replay the game for fresh, Chapter 4, bad tutorials, the gacha system, and oh good a certain dungeon and boss that I feel is worse than a certain Disciple from 1. I feel 1 has less issues I can see especially with Definitive Edition making item quests better. While 3 I feel like yes it does have problems but most I can forget about, which granted Monolith Soft is known to take critique really well which shows in this near masterpiece. Cause I will say it. It’s my favourite game of all time now. So I only have one question. Whose everyone’s favourite Hero and favourite Class, and whose their least favourite Class and Hero? My Favourite, not counting Lifesage and Royal Summoner, Hero definitely has to be Captain Triton and while his class is unique, seriously love the concept of Soul Hacker, I think my favourite class ended up being Lone Exile, mainly just felt it gave so much omph of an attack hit. My least favourite hero, probably Alexandria mostly because I don’t like her attitude though Fiona got close for her voice, however worst class has to be Stalker which is a shame since I really like Juniper, but Stalker just has this huge problem of not having that power, or utility the other Attacker Classes have. The only way I have gotten use of it, is not even from the class but from Noah’s Unique Talent Art. I honestly kind of hope they try to fix Juniper’s Class. Though I do hear people say Medic Gunner is bad and I don’t see why people say that like yeah it’s probably the worst out of the Healer Classes debatably I wouldn’t say bad. Just a nice okay compared to Stalker which is just sadly Bad.

[@BigKlingy]

A few of them I noticed, especially Elaice Highway, but I still find the songs a bit too subtle. Even XB1's softer themes like the Fallen Arm and Satorl March Night I found a lot more memorable. 1's tutorials are still really fun for being written in-character ("Wow, it's so cool you can do this, Dunban!" "Yes, but I must be mindful of..."), I wish more RPGs would do that. I miss XB2's auto-attacks being combos too. Being back to just one makes the wait time a bit more pronounced to me. "I think the only time Xenoblade 3 does do a ‘shows and points at thing in last game’ is in the ending and post game with Lifesage and Royal Summoner’s Quests which is honestly fine." Yep, pretty much. Those quests are meant to be fanservice anyway and they're optional postgame, plus they add to Ainios' world building too. Favourite Hero? It depends on whether you're talking for gameplay or story. Lone Exile is a given for how broken they are as a party member and I also like the class. Character-wise though, [looks at my tierlist] oh right my favourite Hero is Lost Vanguard but that's cheating since they're by far the most plot-important and are practically a main character. (But also Australia) Favourite class? For attackers, Incursor, for tanks, Guardian Commander, for healer, Signifer. Medic Gunner at least has Power Ring, which is kind of nice even if the AI sucks at placing it where your attackers actually want it.

[@xenoinazuma7631]

@@BigKlingy oh don’t get me started on the AI placing those Area of Effect rings. It is really bloody annoying when your trying to beat the strongest Superboss when it’s at level 200 and it can throw you around like a chew toy. Speaking of. I can assume you haven’t faced the SuperBosses?

[@xenoinazuma7631]

@@BigKlingy oh right I also just remembered after rewatching this video right now. Thought I’d make it my own reply. I absolutely love that they group have their own version of swears like, Spark and Snuff which makes sense in universe especially compared to the City folk who while don’t use ‘Fuck’ they do use Shit and one definitely uses Bitch. But since the main cast is so militarised and also such contexts of ‘sex’ and ‘religion’ wouldn’t be a thing it makes so much more sense for them to have their own version. Plus when you wrap your head around it, it makes some scenes also have a bit more. I don’t know the best word for it. Better handled than most other games trying to make up swears

[@TheIvoryDingo]

Time for my very, very, VERY late comment on this! I blame it on me not playing Xenoblade 3 for over a month because I got distracted by other games (as is a Xenoblade tradition for me at this point) and by me getting invested in working on one of FF14’s Zodiac Relic weapons (the first and most infamous of its like) and finishing it. As of writing this comment, I am nearing the end of Chapter 6, got access to all the heroes/classes (including the new DLC one) and have about 120 hours in the game. 4:21 I would say that there is one Agnus class that would’ve actually PREFERRED having Keves art recharge: Stalker. Not only are the auto attacks quite slow, Stalker arts also take a while (meaning more time where you don’t charge your Arts). 7:50 I personally like the field themes decently enough in a vacuum (if there is one thing I hope Tears of the Kingdom learns from Xenoblade 3, it is the approach of having area themes that are neither too boisterous nor too atmospheric), but I won’t deny that they are a bit lacking for Xenoblade area themes. 10:06 Hopefully this is something that will be changed in a patch down the line (like, have the chain attack theme play against at most unique monsters). 11:25 Variety in classes other than Defenders which was a role that consisted of a grand total of 5 classes (including the 2 you start with) up until the first DLC class. 12:58 …I’d argue Stalker is. It’s field effect is not only next to useless on it due to slow attacks, but you wouldn’t even know it because it isn’t explained well in the actual game! 16:42 My stance on XC3’s sidequests is simple: It is the best set of sidequests in the series by virtue of there being no quests on the “Ursula’s New Groove”, “Colony 6 Reconstruction” or “Blood Lobster” tier of godawful. 21:39 I always love creative in-universe swears. Though my favourite example comes from Final Fantasy 14 where the head of the localisation team Koji Fox (note: that game’s localisation teams closely work alongside the original Japanese writing team) explained that one of the reasons why one of the game’s gods (Nald’Thal) became a set of twin gods (Nald and Thal) was so that the localisation could use the sweat “Thal’s balls”.

[@BigKlingy]

4:21 That's a good point. 12:58 I kept checking the tutorials for what "Arts Follow Up" actually meant, and it's nowhere in the game! Also, you get that field by default just by having Stalker, so there's no reason to level it up. 16:42 Yikes, I almost forgot about the Blood Lobster. But yeah, none of the quests here are NEARLY that bad.

[@PADRII]

Know how hyped I was for this game: I took a nearly 2 week vacation from work just to play it. Worth it.

[@BigKlingy]

I'm sort of "banking" vacation days in the hope of going overseas when "stuff" calms down, but I might've considered doing that too.

[@Delta_dragon.]

5:44 Even though I only watched an LP of this game that skipped optional content, the music was one major issue that I've had. It would bother me so much when the chain attack song would interrupt every other song, and while it sounded nice at first it got really grating really quickly. 16:10 Agreed on that. Took me a week to realize that quest was a thing, and it makes that story character slightly more sympathetic IMO.

[@BigKlingy]

5:44 I don't hugely mind it but I at least wish Mobius bosses got a different Chain Attack theme. 16:10 Sena's quest isn't even about Sena, it's more of a [Redacted] and [Redacted] Side Story. (see what I mean about hijacked screentime?) Weirdly, Noah's and Mio's are the forced ones and they're arguably LESS plot-relevant than hers is.

[@ShadowKnight394]

3:44 Yeah, that one is by far the worst in the game. They really just should have just had you set up Noah's and automatically do all the others, since they make you choose specific options. 7:40 I honestly disagree with this point. I think the more somber tracks are more fitting for the overall tone of the world and story. For me, the much greater problem was how, between enemies feeling even more aggressive and the menu music overwriting things, I never really got to get to listen to a lot of them for long periods of time. Especially some like Millick Meadows or Great Cotte Falls, which have very beautiful parts a couple minutes in that I didn't really hear until listening to the songs on KZbin. 15:18 I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about, and while I get why you some people find their voice grating, I did quite like them as a character. If I were to rank all of the characters in the series, I'm pretty sure I'd put every Hero above half the first game's main party. 19:04 I definitely prefer references that are either subtle like here or are used to elevate BOTH the original and the new one. I'll keep my more in-depth thoughts for the spoiler video, but I'd personally say that I overall like all 3 of the main trilogy's stories pretty much equally, with all of them having their own strengths. Specifically, I feel that: 1 has the best overall pacing and execution, as well as the most interesting world from a design standpoint. 2 has the best last 3rd or so, the best world building, and the best main antagonists. 3 has the best first 2/3s to 3/4s, the most interesting themes, and the best protagonists.

[@BigKlingy]

Hearting your comment because your summaries of the 3 games' stories are VERY similar to how I'd sum it up. Though I'd put 2's protagonists above 3's, but that's all. 3:44 It hurt because the art combinations they force you to select are NOT what I would've gone with for most of the classes. 7:40 I do like some of the somber ones, like Everblight Plain and I also just realized I really like Melnath's Shoulder. But there's others, like the Tableland and Sea where I just find their themes unmemorable and bland. 15:18 I think they're alright, their voice is just particularly painful for me personally for one big reason. 19:04 If I was being unsubtle, I would've flashed Star Wars, Pokemon and Disney's logos here.

[@ShadowKnight394]

2's protagonists are also great for the most part. I just prefer 3's interactions enough that it puts them over IMO. 19:04 Yep. That's the exact type of thing I find a bit annoying (though Pokemon can have some good ones)

[@BigKlingy]

The main thing with 2's party is it's carried by Rex, Pyra/Mythra and Nia, with Morag and Zeke being good in concept but not contributing as much. Poppi is a fantastic character, but she's also not really a party member. But the main trio are SO good to me it kind of makes up for it. I do REALLY like 3's party though, and how they get to build up a dynamic from very early on. One thing about 3's party too but it's kind of spoilers so I'll put it under a cut: I like how, of the 3 Ouroboros pairs, only Noah/Mio is explicitly romantic. Eunie/Taion is ambiguous leaning romantic, while Lanz/Sena is ambiguous leaning platonic. I like Lanz and Sena's relationship a lot because there's a lot of shipping cliches they could've done with it but in the end they're just kind of friends. There's a TINY bit of room to ship it but it definitely leans the most platonic of the trios.

[@Mattjazz47]

@@BigKlingy so you downplay xenoblade 2's cast even though each party member contribute more than you are letting on

[@BigKlingy]

@@Mattjazz47 I absolutely love 2's cast, I just feel like 3's has more balanced screentime and relationships.

[@somethin7020]

I personally loved the area themes in the game and think they're just as good as in the past games, just different. I won't go too deep into them, but I loved how experimental they were. They used a lot of unique instruments that aren't often used and I think they're atmospherically fantastic and have a huge amount of variety. The reason people might not like them as much, is that they don't really have a hook that repeats for most of the track. The area tracks tend to almost never repeat the same melodies and therefore become less memorable to some. Also because of the menu music, and the fact that skip travel restarts the music, means that you often don't even get to hear the best parts of the tracks. Also about your comment on millick meadows, I'm actually pretty confident that the track was composed by ACE who also did gormott and gaur plain. I also prefer millick meadows, because to me it feels more unique. Also I think the second half of the song hits just as hard as gormott and gaur plain.

[@Bulkynemesis4534]

0:34 Same i had just started Kuro 1 at that time and then literally stopped for like a week just to play this game 2:15 This is my favourite chain attack mechanics in the series. So intuitive. this is the first game where i actually figured out a mechanic on my own 9:51 I found someone made a cheat to disable that music, menu and camp music. It has a unintended side effect where if the enemy is below like 10% HP the music starts looping all dramatically 14:20 I wonder why its called Stalker and not Hunter 16:24 I did Eunie's but i am yet to do Sena's and Taoin's both of which i have activated but not continued 17:15 I did the same too except i binged the main story out of fear of accidentally getting spoiled since twitter was trending the chapter 5,6 and at some point even chapter 4 20:47 Almost all the cast is new talent which is what i find fascinating. Its as if they have done this for a long time. they absolutely killed 21:22 Okay regarding the post combat lines right, in one particular unique monster fight my team got wiped but Lanz clutched it for me and thats the only time where Noah actually thanks Lanz for clutching it. I dont exactly remember what he says because i never heard it again. The party might just be too strong to get into any sticky situations to hear any other lines Overall a really wonderful game, still going through the quests and stuff and preparing for the DLC coming in three weeks.

[@BigKlingy]

2:15 I agree that it's the most intuitive (1's could end for no reason other than bad luck, and 2's had a Full Burst mechanic that you'd never practically see), though 3's is very broken. 14:20 Not sure, maybe Stalker sounds cooler. 16:24 Eunie's actually has minor effects on the main story, which is interesting. 17:15 I generally avoid Twitter so I managed to dodge that. 20:47 That's amazing, given how good most of them are. A lot of the Hero VAs have experience in theatre and TV from what I've seen. 21:22 I've noticed there's a couple of lines for if you have a very close battle, but I usually don't hear them since I wasn't having much trouble with the game.

[@linkdude09]

I think that as far as the overleveling problem goes, Overkill boosts are part of it, but the real culprit in my mind is that the game tells you to use bonus exp at camps. Also I really like the way the quest menu works, XC2's quest menu inflated the page number if you accepted quests and then didnt do them, which bothered me, so im glad this one's quest menu didn't guilt me about not doing side-quests. I like the shotgun approch to physical references that XC3 took, There are so many references to the previous games in the skybox of various areas and area names and just in various landmarks. You wont catch them all but there are so many that players of the previous games, will find at least a few familar things, it is great. As for the music, I agree with the sentiment that the names are hard to recall, but in fairness, I've only played 3 once, whereas i've played the first game around 7 times now i think, and 2's area names are major parts of the story, ie the titans names, but I wish that the menu song didn't start from the begining every time you openned the menu. I agree that the chapter 5 ending / chapter 6 intro in the best part of the game, but for me at least, the only part of the back half of the game that dragged was the final area, not the story nessacarily, but the area itself felt like you could cut out a third or even half of it and the pacing of it would be better. I could elaborate further but then i'd be spoiling things so... I will wait untill the spoiler video to post those thoughts 😝

[@BigKlingy]

" the real culprit in my mind is that the game tells you to use bonus exp at camps" I never used camp bonus exp at all, and I still got overlevelled from overkilling in Chains and doing quests. The final dungeon WAS a bit long, but it was also more aesthetically interesting than 2's final dungeon, and I echo the sentiments of someone who also went through the game and say "it ended right when it was starting to overstay its welcome". So overall it wasn't the greatest final dungeon, but it was okay.

[@linkdude09]

@@BigKlingy Ok fair point, if I am honest, I kinda wish that Chain Attack overkills only boosted CP Edit: Should've added this initially but, I was about 10 levels higher than the enemies in the final area, but I was consistently dying to them anyway and I'm still not completely sure why, admittedly, I missed signifer on the first pass and didn't have it but still. The area itself does look fantastic and the details are really cool

[@B_A-tr]

Glad to see that you enjoyed it. Ill probably try it some day. So today i played the kfc visual novel. Yeah you read that right. It was honestly pretty good, as long as you dont take it too seriously and also accept the fsct that this is an interactive ad essentially. This game also has a portal to the meat dimension funnily enough. So new pokemon, wiglett. I think its cute and a nice idea, but i think its too much like diglett. Yes, two animals can evolve into similar forms, but thats the real world, not the pokemon one, so with its name being wiglett and its appearence, it kinda feels like diglett got another regional version

[@BerserkerRohan]

After watching my brother play it, I think you will enjoy it too. When I get around to playing it, I probably consider it my second favourite game I played this year behind Persona 1 of course.

[@B_A-tr]

@@BerserkerRohan thats very high praise of p1.

[@BigKlingy]

Ah, so the Wiglett reveal pretty much solidifies a leak I saw a while ago, about "Divergent Species" which are kind of like regional forms except they're considered separate Pokemon. This likely means the rest of the leak is real, which means there'll be another new type of gimmick Pokemon too.

[@BerserkerRohan]

@@B_A-tr It is but the many great moments we shared talking about P1 caused it to become such a meaningful experience for me. Not sure what Wiglett is about yet but it looks like an Ice type to me which could fit well considering the Diglett's family stat spread.

[@B_A-tr]

@@BerserkerRohan thats nice of you to say

[@jaredfayette2567]

1:10- For the most part it does feel like that's the case, which has made me enjoy XC3 a great deal. 1:30- I feel like it was kind of the opposite where if you made mistakes mid to closing in on the end of the fight, you'd just frikin lose and die horribly. While having good tension early on never matter too much for most fights and you have to time build up momentum, BUT if you ever lose that momentum, you are going to lose in the previous games HARD and undo all the progress you did in a fight (especially when some bosses or randomly strong enemies had "eff your progress moves" that randomly came from out of nowhere, like Reckless Godwin's Crazy Dance or any move Fortress Units could use in XC1). 2:12- Except in distribution, but I'll see if you'll remark on that as well. 2:21- Not gonna lie, that never really bothered me in XC2 since it sold me on those titians being their own living beings besides just being the place we explore in that game. 2:26- I still want to know why XC2 tanks were banned from having good agro generating moves when that was never an issue in XC1 with Reyn's kit having plenty of said moves. 3:48- Yeah those earlier tutorials in XC3 were ludicrous. I appreciate them for trying to learn from their tutorial mistakes in 2, but they did go way too excessive with it. 4:56- I don't mind the system as much, but I have been noticing a lot more dead time waiting for those arts to charge when my Agnus arts aren't charged yet. For boss fights/longer, that can make it irritating. 5:22- It baffles me from how went go from XC1 where money had decent importance, then to XC2 where money was given SO many more uses and was incredibly helpful, and then being suddenly near-worthless in XC3. Only usually bought stuff from shops to either build up affinity points since you get like +10 after a few purchases or because since the game flooded me with way too many accessories I just buy stuff I can easily find thanks to the chronological order option in you menus. I'm halfway (I think) in XC3 and I'm sitting nearly on half a million money and it doesn't feel like I have anything of value from it. It speaks a lot about XC3's money where the one chapter where "money" is actually a thing in Live A Live is FAR more impactful than all the money XC3 could ever give you and that chapter's money in LAL isn't even "proper" money and more of a collectable you can trade in for special stuff to help you in said chapter. 7:50- Eh, I'm personally 50-50 on the matter. I do think some field themes are lacking, but only 50% of the time. When the other 50% lands, it lands nicely. I think a lot more of the somber and more melancholic songs made up the good 50% and were the ones that stood out compared to the ones that tried to "copy" stuff like you said. 8:52- And if you don't do, then just survive until you get your second one. I do dislike that aspect of XC3's combat a lot as well and gets a lot worst if you got over leveled (more on that later). I'm honestly at a point where unless my characters need urgent healing/or the boss/ Unique Monster does something that can easily screw me over (which to be fair the game still throws at me despite how over leveled I am surprisingly, though that ties into another issue I have, but we'll save it for later too) I feel fine using it. But even with that it still feels cheap at times. So much so that now I've noticed there's a "end chain attack early" button, I might make use of that more once I get my healing and maybe a topple in and end them prematurely to make harder fights matter more. 9:14- Hey give Immovable Gonzalez some credit; He's a staple in these games like Robart too (though why XC made it have two staple gorilla unique monsters when that slot probably could have been used for a cooler unique, that I can't answer). 9:37- There is? ... Well that honestly wouldn't help me too much since most of me becoming overpowered snowballed by me simply deciding to explore one optional area that then allowed me to do optional quests that are only maybe 4-5 levels higher than the main story stuff and yet made me 10-15ish levels higher than main story stuff. 9:56- Oh, the final boss theme is safe from that? That's nice. In other cases though... WHY THE HELL DOES IT OVERRIDE EVERY OTHER THEME?!?!?! Another reason I'm going to try and minimize my chain attacks is so I can hear the other battle music. I've heard people, including some big name XC fans, miss ENTIRE sections of battle music because the stupid chain attack music override it. When this game gets more patches, it NEEDS to include an option to turn off the chain attack music. 11:30- Eh, that I'm not so sure of. While some party members have some better stats in certain areas, it did feel like the classes were more so the character you were swapping out, not changing a character's class with how similar each character played. Also not helping this is how 90% of the time so far in my run whenever I want to edit character arts, it is almost ALWAYS whatever cool combination I wanted to try/ the obvious "best" combos, which robbed me a lot of experimentation with the class system. Kind of the same with accessories, but maybe only 50% of the time, and thankfully gems and the skills you can swap out never had this issue for me, so not all experimentation was killed but a large amount was and made characters feel very samey for me. 12:27- Meanwhile for me, whenever I have a class I love playing it feels like it almost maxes out or when I have someone in a class to fill out spots temporarily, it felt like forever for that class to level up. Probably a matter of my perspective, but that has caused me some annoyance. 13:40- I do love that as well, though I do have a gripe with that balance; It makes it feel like 2/3rds of your team feels like wet tissue paper since most attackers and healer classes have bad HP pools. In fights with one enemy/boss this isn't an issue, but in fights with multiple enemies it becomes a MASSIVE one since attackers and healers generate agro even against targets they're not attacking, that causes the rest of the enemies to gang up them and suddenly I'm down a third of my team. A similar dynamic has existed in previous XC games before where if healers and attackers generated too much agro they'd die horribly, but in XC3 I feel like it happens WAY too much and whenever it did happen in those earlier games, it was directly because of my mistakes of being to greedy with damage/poor planning unlike in XC3 where it feels like mobs ignore the tanks and go for the others if I'm not attacking them for five seconds. Even when I actively equip my attackers and healers with good agro-reduction gear, gems, AND skills, they still find a way to die since most of a mob of enemies focuses on them first since those guys aren't my party's main target Recently I found the best way to fix this is to constantly swap my targets when I'm playing as a tank and use the agro arts so everyone is focusing on my tanks (and has saved me a lot already), but whenever I decided to not play the tank, I become incredibly worried and wished they gave healers and attackers better HP stats. (14:03- I WAS TRYING TO PROTECT THEM ACTIVELY AND THEY STILL DIED UNTIL I FOUND THE NEW METHOD! Just give them better HP pools damnit!). 13:58- I do dislike like that a lot with the issue I listed above factored in, but it beats the party gauge system a lot more since reviving characters no longer heavily damages your DPS by delaying chain attacks and nor are you screwed if an enemy throws a random "EFF YOU!" Attack that kills your party leader right after a chain attack. 14:26- I somehow never got screwed over using this class and thought it was fine until I saw online how it was considered a bad class. Though admittedly given what that class is, I do feel like one class curse from a different series migrated into XC3 and it shows in a very twisted sense of irony. YT being a jerk about comment space again. Need to break this up...

[@BigKlingy]

1:30 That too, definitely. In any case once you lost Tension (which IMO should've been translated as "Morale", since Tension is one of those Japanese loanwords that doesn't mean what it means in English) it was VERY hard to get it back, and it ensured if you did badly in battle you'd continue to do badly while doing well would snowball into doing even better. I hate how missing made your characters depressed and caused them to miss more. 2:26 I think the real problem was that simply doing damage was the best way to get aggro and optimized attackers hit for millions so of course tanks can't hope to hold aggro. I think Tank Blades should've had at least a 1.5x multiplier to aggro generated from all sources, or something. In Xenoblade 3, the few Attackers that DO tend to grab aggro off tanks when they hit too hard, it's an intentional flaw of the class. (Flash Fencer and Incursor)

[@jaredfayette2567]

15:43- Agreed. I love how heroes work overall in this game. They're great to recruit, I enjoy practically all of them thus far, and I love how much they improved what XC2 tried to do with the blades (which was something I already loved barring the randomness and *HER* quest). One gripe is that I kind of wished we could also directly control/play as said "guest" party members after FF12:ZoA utterly spoiled me on that front, that I'm allowed to slide, what I won't allow to slide with this... (See 16:23). 16:19- Was already going to do all the quests regardless, but thanks for the heads up as I'll made sure that one is done before the story is finished. Heard a lot of whispers of "x stuff should have been in the main story" but I didn't know what it was and terrified I missed it, but thanks for clearing that up for me Klingy. 16:23- Since you never brought up this issue with the heroes and class system, then I will; One major gripe I have with both class and hero is its distribution (minor-mild spoilers warning); What do I mean by that? You HARDLY get any tanks classes compared to the attacker and healer classes the game showers you in. For maybe every tank class you get, you roughly get 2-3 attackers AND 2-3 healers per defender. Not only that, but excluding your starting defender classes, the earliest possible tank classes you can get are also optional and possibly missable for a good while if you follow the plot heavily while said plot throws more attacker and healer classes at you. I've YET to find a mandatory defender class the plot gives you so far. I'm sure that will change eventually (i.e in before the plot gives me one when I'm complaining about this), but the fact it hasn't happen yet is absurd. This distribution is so bad is that I've had multiple points in my run where I want my more tank oriented characters to get fancy new defender class skills and arts, I'd have to double up on the same defender class I just unlocked to have SOME variety with my tanks compared to my attackers and healers who are showered in new classes. They REALLY should have made tanks more common. 17:09- That is one complaint I have with XC3's leveling is how utterly easy it is. Besides overkill EXP (which I would have turned off at some point once I realized I could do so before) and doing more optional stuff versus story stuff, I was NEVER trying to become over leveled on purpose. I only ever used bonus exp once for the tutorial, Cooking was bugged for most of my run so I never got any of the EXP bonuses, and all it took for me to cause that spiral of me becoming over powered was visiting ONE optional area and not realizing how low the bar the main story was for levels when I wanted to do more optional stuff for a bit. 19:08- Taion no! KLINGY WHY?! Xp 19:58- Can't give any vague thoughts on the story as I've yet to finish, but I've been LOVING the main party dynamics in it so far. Not sure if XC3's party tops Bug Fable's party for me as my favorite party in any game, but I would probably die on a hill defending that those groups are in my top two and for XC3's Party to rival Bug Fable's Party is an INCREDIBLY sign of how amazing and well written the XC3 Party is. 20:40- Agreed, the voice cast is great for XC3. Were it not for me playing Triangle Strategy (where certain characters have utterly amazing performances and the best meme voice in the form of Lionel) and the Live A Live Remake (which probably is the game with some of my favorite voice acting in ANY game), XC3 would have easily taken the best voice acted game I've played both in 2022 and in general. 21:17- XC2 truly spoiled us with after battle quotes and we didn't realize we had until it was gone. The minuscule amount of post-battle talks is legitimately annoying, especially during Chapter 1 where that already shallow pool of quotes is practically hollow. I swear I'm *THIS* close to telling some to STFU if I hear "LANZ WANTZ SOMETHING A BIT MEATIER" another f^^^ing time. Thankfully this repetition hasn't reached the same levels of... *Demonic Ursula going "WE ARE URSULA'S NEW GROOVE AND WE'LL DO WHAT WE CAN!"* ... Trauma, but it's incredibly annoying. *Skipped Vague Story Summary to be safe and comparisons between XC1 and XC2, so no one say anything to me about it* 24:40- While I've found plenty of games this year that made me feel great gave me what I really wanted from the games I love, I hope we continue to get just as amazing games as XC3 as well. In other news, managed to "beat" Dragon Quest as I was watching this video. Air quotes used since DQ makes you need to travel back to the castle to see the credits, but I'm going away quickly across the map after seeing NPC dialogue does change during this sequence and it's a nice detail I want to see (and an impressive one if this was in the original version of the game as well for a very old game) before I cap it off. Thoughts on it will come on either the next P5R video or the update video; Whichever Klingy publishes first. Also the first half of the last Yugioh Cards I'll get for the year came in, just being two more of the Albaz Structure Deck to complete many great play sets this deck offers on a budget and some new card sleeves, the latter of which I botched since they're slightly the wrong size and I don't think I can return them. That said, I'll still use them for storing nice cards I get, but I will be pilfering the better card sleeves from the first batch I bought from less important cards I have so I'm using a deck that has the same size of card sleeves once I decide on ratios for the deck. Also to Klingy, but apologies again in advance for not being able to watch the second XC3 related video when it gets posted for a long while as I'll need to finish up XC3 and give it some time before I can give final thoughts on the game.

[@BigKlingy]

16:23 I was initially bothered by the lack of Defenders, but there's only so many ways you can do dodge tanking and face-tanking, and honestly I feel like what we got was enough. The main issue I have with Defenders is who inherits the classes. Of the 3 optional ones, Noah gets on and EUNIE (the one with the lowest HP) inherits both others. Lanz and Mio don't inherit either and in fact lean more towards Healer in terms of the classes they get, while Eunie gets mostly tanks and Taion gets a lot of Attackers. This meant the "builds" I ran on most of the party were very much not in line with the defaults for much of the game.

[@jaredfayette2567]

@@BigKlingy Wait really? Huh, never knew that about XC's "Tension." Admittedly I'm 50-50. One one hand, morale works so much better when your characters have low morale, but I think Tension works, at least in XC1 when you have high tensions and your character name tags have fire on them. But yeah, really hated how tension could snowball a lot in the earlier games. Also I don't like the missing lowering tension to since besides even more snowballing, it gives me bad flashbacks to Darkest Dungeons where some (or maybe all) characters missing would increase their stress and would lead to things getting so much worse and someone dying (for good btw). Oh that too as well. They should have gotten that multiplier as well AND agro generating arts like we see with Reyn's Arts and the ones we see in XC3. After playin Triangle Strategy with Eradaor's taunt skills, it feels WRONG having tanks that are supposed to draw enemy ire NOT have some sort of taunt moves to make them do their job better. Okay that part I'll concede on a bit since those are purposeful draw backs to balance those classes and not make DPS King as it was in XC2, but here's the problem I run into... "Oh time for a fight with multiple enemies! Okay we started and... AND WHY ARE ATTACKER X AND HEALER Y ALREADY DEAD?! The fight just started 15 seconds ago." THAT'S what keeps happening to me. The non-defender characters just nab too much agro for only a SPLITE second and suddenly they're already dead since all the enemies took that splite second to murder them. Also keep in mind I'm over leveled and it STILL keeps happening to me where there's 4+ enemies (or any boss fight with multiple foes). Granted perhaps we can contribute this to maybe AI stupidity on my AI controlled party members, but even with that factored it doesn't justify how fast they're dying over minor things like this.

[@jaredfayette2567]

@@BigKlingy Sorry, got pulled away for a bit. I'll finish up the second half now. Maybe once I see the other Defender Classes it'll be fine, but I still don't like the distribution so far. To be fair I supposed that is a good reason why we don't have enough of them with the more limited play styles, but I've seen some more creative ways to make tanks as of late. Especially since Triangle Strategy made me realize how many ways we can make tanks that aren't just face/dodge tanks (besides the standard tank in Erador, one unit is less about soaking up hits, but is supposed to be tanky enough on the frontlines so he can use his powerful status effects to distract or even turn off major threats for a good bit to give your main attackers opening to go in safely or how the last one you can get is not being a wall for the team, but rather about using their abilities to reduce the rest of the team receives while being a tank to soak up the hits to continue give that powerful damage reduction to keep others safe). Guess I'm spoiled by the ways one can make tanking classes unique, but hopefully what XC3 has enough like you said. Wait really? Of the optional ones Euine gets most of them? That is odd how none of the starting tanks get those optional ones. Besides that glaring matter, I'm not as bothered by those class distributions. Also admittedly, I do like to use Lanz as a healer on occasion since besides it just being really funny (basically imaging Lanz as the Muscle Medic from Yugioh is great), but I also try to keep some of the lower TP party members as healers as much as possible so I can make the higher TP ones attackers or defenders so they don't waste those points in a chain attack if they're stuck as healers. Though I can understand it being a bother not having characters closer to their canonical roles in the team.

[@Cyberspace318]

YES!!! Time to hear what you have to say about my Game of the Year! 0:27 Wow, that is really something! 1:09 I definitely agree with that statement. 1:34 Yep, art books were a pain in the ass to get. 1:45 To be fair, it's not hard to have a dedicated healer who's better than Sharla. 2:09 C'mon, the character designs weren't THAT dumb... okay, they were, but there were some pretty cool ones too. 2:25 Yep, from what I remember of Chugga's let's play, tanks were absolute garbage in 2. Or more accurately, Shield Hammers were absolute garbage, and the other Tank weapons were okay. 2:58 Yep... here's an idea for a fun drinking game: take a shot every time a tutorial shows up in this game (NOTE: DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS, YOU'LL BE DEAD WITHIN THE 1ST HOUR). 4:20 Yeah, Keves classes kind of suffer because of this, especially since some Agnus classes, like Signifer and Troubadour (two of the most broken classes in the game, mind you), can spam Arts like there's no tomorrow. 5:04 YES. ONE TRILLION TIMES, YES. 5:10 Technically, there are a few other ways money can be used, but most, if not all, of them are related to sidequests. 5:23 Wow, you ONLY have 1.9 million? 5:45 ...Go on. 5:52 Oh yes! Out of the 3, this one might have my favourite battle themes, which is really saying something! 7:50 I definitely agree; I can remember what most of 1 and 2's field themes sound like, but with 3, I honestly forget about them the moment I stop listening to them. 8:26 You can say that again. 9:06 Eh, not really. 9:11 This isn't Not Territorial Rotbart, this is Immovable Gonzalez... 9:18 Especially Mighty Beat as a Master Art when linked with Air Slash in the Swordfighter class, I was able to hit the damage cap with that against the game's strongest superboss. 9:56 Except for the very last phase, where the Chain Attack theme does override the final boss theme. 10:36 Yeah, I agree, it's amazing! 11:17 Albeit, some party members are slightly better in some classes than others, like how Taion is probably the best Full Metal Jaguar, since (if I remember correctly) he has the best Dexterity of the party, and FMJ is rewarded for constantly landing attacks. 12:45 *cough, cough* SIGNIFER!!! *cough, cough* 13:23 Yep, looking at you, Fiora and Crossette. 14:13 I had a feeling you were going to bring this up. 14:51 With the exception of the Martial Artist Hero, who joins automatically after a certain point. 15:25 Yep, I know who you're talking about... personality wise, I think they're pretty good, but their voice... oh the Queens, their voice! 16:01 As someone who's completed every Ascension Quest, they're all pretty good, with some being better than others. Though, I'm curious, how exactly did you not find every Hero's Ascension Quest? The Hero Roster states what the conditions for unlocking all of them are. 16:10 Yes, why that quest isn't required baffles me. 16:44 Yeah, the Affinity Chart's amazing, and I love it! 18:59 And with that one simple sentence, you have described one of the problems of modern Pokémon games. 19:54 Yep... I love CS4, but they really could have cut down some parts of the main story, mainly most of Act 2. 20:35 Yeah, that happened way more often than it really should have. 20:43 YES!!! I had not heard of Harry McEntire before this game, but I seriously hope he gets more work; he was absolutely phenomenal in this game! 21:09 "HEAR THAT NOAH? LANZ WANTS SOMETHING A BIT MEATIER!" Apparently, that line is also a meme in Japan, which is great! 21:48 Not to mention, all of the made-up swear words are things that are related to concepts that only exist in Aionios, like the Flame Clocks (snuff and spark), Colony ranks (mudder), and the Queens (too many to mention). 22:20 Yeah, the game peaked HARD at the end of Ch. 5/beginning of Ch. 6. So yeah, this game is f*cking amazing! I'll save the rest of my thoughts for the spoiler video, but seriously, if anyone watching this video hasn't played this game yet, do it! You will not regret it! In other news, I have started playing Trails from Zero, and I am loving it!

[@BigKlingy]

1:34 Definitive let you get them in the Sage challenges, which was easier. 9:11 This audio was recorded back when I was using footage of Jingoistic Gigantus, then I had to scrap all that because I had a spoiler not turned off. I didn't change the audio because, well, this is NOT Territorial Rothbart, so it's still accurate! 14:51 Why HER............. 16:01 I didn't know about the Hero Roster Ascension Quest hints until literally a few days ago. By that point I only had 5 left. 16:10 Meanwhile Noah's and Mio's are required and they're LESS plot-important! 16:44 3's Affinity Chart takes a while to really get going, but once it does it gets very involved. Especially once colony relations become a thing. 19:54 Rgh, CS4 Act 2.... don't remind me. 20:43 Agreed 100%. 21:09 I'm glad to hear Xenoblade party members are EXACTLY as much of a meme in Japan. (Apparently Shulk is) 21:48 Exactly. It works for the world building. A lot of people don't realize the origins of most English real-world swears wouldn't make sense in many fictional settings. (Even "bloody hell", well "hell" is obvious, but "bloody" I think derives from "Christ's blood")

[@minyoungjo3419]

Not a fan of the less bombastic area themes for sure. Odd, as it probably has my favorite battle themes in the entire series. Also felt that the scenary in area is less impressive to LOOK at (very fun to explore) and there are considerably less "wow" scenaries in 3. And when there are, They are usually secret area's / optional areas not needed for the main story. I dont know about how good the story is compared to 1 and 2. I LOVE 2's endgame, but chapter 4 is the worst section of a jrpg i have ever played. 3 slightly falls off after that incredible peak, and 1 is just kinda consistently good throughout.

[@BigKlingy]

2 takes a while to find its feet but after Chapter 4 it gets amazing and stays amazing until the end. I personally felt that XB1's story fell off a lot after the Mechonis Core, but until then I agree with you that it was consistently good.

[@megamanzero29]

Xenoblade 3 is...beyond amazing to me. It very quickly rose up to not only my top RPGs of all time but also my favorite games of all time. After having played both Xenoblade 1 + 2 and absolutely loving both games the moment Xenoblade 3 was announced I was unbelievably hyped about this game, and personally I think it lived up to that hype. I'll mostly discuss gameplay here as I think talking about the plot deserves to be completely separate. This game is very much Monolith taking a look at what worked in 1 + 2 and taking them into 3. It removes the bad aspects of earlier entries gameplay such as RNG blade, art manuals, affinity coins, among other things while also taking what did work such as 2's art system or combat, 1's affinity tree and gem system, and expanding/improving on it. The class system in this game is easily the most balanced I've ever seen a class system in and RPG be. All classes in the game have at least something worthwhile about them, whether it has very good healing, buffs, agro, high damage, or very good skills the gap between classes is not as severe as some other games that use classes such as Bravely Default. I will admit the field area's soundtrack is quite weak compared to the previous two but the battle themes, boss themes (especially moebius interlink) are fantastic. And I think the voice acting (with one exception) is also fantastic seriously Harry McEntire did NOT have to be this good. I would complain about chain attacks being too broken but to anyone out there agrees with that sentiment I'd recommend give Xenoblade 3 hard mode a try, chain attacks are HEAVILY nerfed to the point where damage output is nowhere near as ridiculous as normal mode (If you want an example I've had chain attack damage multipliers only go up to around 300-450% and the 400+ one were chain attacks that had at least 2 "bravo" or "Amazing"). Heroes I'd like to describe as "If Xenoblade 2's RNG blades were actually more like party members" while Xenoblade 2 did give rare blades their own sub-plots and personalities I feel like they were so disconnected from the main story that apart from a few exceptions which did give a bit of world building most of them I felt like didn't do much in terms of gameplay outside of filling in that segment of their affinity charts, Xenoblade 3's heroes felt a lot more like they were meant for you to stumble upon them while exploring become interested and feel rewarded once you got not only a new party member but also a new class to experiment with. Speaking of quests I ADORE the quality of life improvement that allows you to have a pathway that will point you in the direction of where to go and what to collect for quests compared to the previous two games i only had to look up a guide ONE TIME and it wasn't for a quest it was about why some unique monsters were not spawning. I was able to get 3-4 star affinities with almost every colony before the end of the main story just because I felt compelled to learn more about not only the heroes that typically ran the colonies but also the NPCs who live within them. As for combat, barring previously mention chain attacks I think this game has my favorite combat out of the three games it's just as engaging if not more so than the previous games, the Interlink mechanic feels powerful but not overly broken, YOU CAN FIGHT WHILE SWIMMING THANK YOU MONOLITH, and it's fun to experiment with how you can approach bosses, unique monsters or regular battles. When comparing this game to the previous 2 games I while I like it the most out of the three i still think objectively 1 is better as a game and I prefer the world and party of Xenoblade 2 (even if I think 3 has the easily the best party chemistry out of them if that makes sense). If you haven't tried this game yet I STRONGLY recommend it and if you end up loving Xenoblade 3 consider giving the other games a try, you won't regret it. And now time to wait for Chuggaaconroy's 300+ part let's play.

[@BigKlingy]

I was thinking of trying Hard at some point, so I'll see how good Chain Attacks are there. One sight gripe is, while they're VERY few in number, this game does have some really annoying item collection quests, even with the items being highlighted on the field. The one for medical supplies, I still haven't finished. Oh right, I forgot to mention fighting while swimming. LOOOOOOOOOVE that change.

[@megamanzero29]

@@BigKlingy True there are some quests like that though I don’t think its as bad as say doing collectapedia completion or item hunting in OG Xenoblade 1 which having a guide did help quite a bit and even in DE would help. After 2 games of awkwardly having to fight enemies and unique monsters heck even a few bosses near water only to just accidentally walk of a ledge or get knocked in either because of hitboxes or knockback arts and then effectively becoming a sitting duck this is a MASSIVE improvement compared to the previous two games. It’d make fights such as quite a few enemies found in eryth sea or makna forest in XC1 or especially enemies and unique monsters found in the lower half of Uraya (ESPECIALLY YOU AZURE REGINALD) much more bearable.

[@BigKlingy]

True, but it's a pain when one or two sidequests out of hundreds take forever. I like luring Azure Reginald up a cliff and then Smashing him for massive damage.

[@rofea7301]

@@BigKlingy You might want to wait before turning on hard mode, early game healing is garbage.

[@JustJohn816]

I pretty much agree! I don't feel as over all "good" as you did, but I'm not *not* enjoying myself, ya know? Also as SOON as you brought up the class balance I went "COUGH COUGH STALKER" and apparently so did you XD And I dunno! I'm nowhere near as huge on the gameplay in 3 as I am 2! I WAY prefer how complex 2s gameplay is I'm currently playing 3 on hard mode and yeah, it's still a breeze even with reduced chain attack damage I feel like there's way more from 2 that they should have brought over that they just flopped on

[@BigKlingy]

What is it with Archers in JRPGs and sucking?! Seriously... I probably prefer 2's gameplay as well, but I'd probably elevate 3's above 1's? This is still my favourite class system in any game though. And yeah, I feel like they abandoned a lot of 2 because of the backlash, which sucks.

[@JustJohn816]

@@BigKlingy I think the thing with archers is, and hear me out, that bows are becoming the new swords. Every JRPG has a funny sword, so the bow and arrow has become the new weapon to be expiramental with, and all of the expiraments just suck LMAO And yeah! Xb2 is absolutely in my top 5 games ever, I love the gameplay. It's so deep and complicated and even makes things outside of chain attacks feel important. I think that's my issue with 3. They took out all the cool stuff from 2 that was just complicated, but fun. So now, just like 1, everything that isn't a chain attack might as well not exist. But also I agree, I love the class system, and I would EASILY put 3s gameplay over 1s. 3s gameplay feels like a true sequel to 1s. It just sucks, imo, that 2s is still better than both of em

[@BigKlingy]

I also feel like it's pretty hard to depict archery in a realistic way in a turn-based (or pseudo turn based) system and have it be accurate to real archers' fighting style and also be fun.

[@StriderBlade7711]

I think Xenoblade 3 is great and possibly my GOTY but I feel the other games does things better personally I enjoy the combat and for the class system as you mentioned it's one of the best (the dash feature is perfect for Xenoblade) but I think 2 has the better battle system due to the blade combo system and how it ties to chain attacks making it more fun and rewarding, you echoed my problems with 3's chain attacks and I'm glad I didn't discover how broken they were til post game I also think the actual world of Aionios is boring when compared to the titans of 1 & 2 and Mira in X and I think the main reason is the field music and the environment in general, it felt generic but the sea section is a highlight For the story I feel that it falls in the "it's good and nothing else with the cast being great", kind of like Persona 5 vanilla to me however THAT moment is legit fantastic One last thing I played the game in the Japanese dub, and it's great (the English dub is great as well) but that character you don't like voice gave me whiplash when I heard her in English Sorry for the long post, I haven't had anywhere to vent out my thought. Looking forward to the spoiler discussion

[@BigKlingy]

I'd say this is my GOTY too but I might not like it as much as 2. I probably rank it above 1 though, but I still really like 1.

[@StriderBlade7711]

Same, 2 is one of my favourite games and I do enjoy 1 but it got hit with hype backlash for me especially the final act

[@BigKlingy]

That's me exactly. 1 is great and 70% of its story is fantastic but I feel it fell off hard in both story and gameplay after the Mechonis Core. If it'd ended there I'd consider its story the most solid of the 3. Xenoblade 2 gets a bad rap for the voice acting and the dumb fanservice designs, but it's one of the biggest examples of "don't judge a book by its cover" ever. I was NOT expecting the story to be as deep as it was. And then the DLC turned Mythra from an annoying Tsundere into one of my favourite JRPG characters of all time.

[@nachohangover5104]

@@BigKlingy In fairness, XC2's start is kinda bad to, which doesn't help. Most people I find are only invested in Nia in the earlygame.

[@JustJohn816]

Aaaah can't wait! I've been kinda iffy on the game so far! I've been dying to hear other opinions!

[@AlexT7916]

I can't help but wonder if the games release date being pushed 2 months ahead had any negative effects on the game itself .

[@BigKlingy]

I think the game was fully finished for a long time, they pushed it forward due to the BotW delay (and possibly the Advance Wars delay).

[@AlexT7916]

@@BigKlingy I thought it was due to the Splatoon 3 delay .

[@tjmax31fd]

I really enjoyed the story of Xenoblade 3. I get what you mean by the field music, I also can’t recall any of the names of the areas. Chapter 5 will stick with me for years, similar to Star Door 15, but for different reasons. Have you tried Xenogears?

[@BigKlingy]

I might try Xenogears someday, although I'm still worried about the infamous final act where they ran out of money so it's just cutscenes and boss fights.

[@LightbladeRiulo]

Living Pokedex Completion 713/905 ~79% of the way to complete Why does my pokedex completion have to do with anything Xenoblade 3 related? Cause I had to pry myself away from the game to finish I have started and its the ultimate motivator. Xenoblade 3 is so good I want to actively stop everything I am doing but I made a promise to myself. I had reached The City before I was like "you need to stop now. Right now. Play Xenoblade 3 when you're done." Cause I was at ~40% when Xenoblade 3 dropped. And honestly? Im still fighting that itch that Xenoblade 3 was fulfilling. Easily a contender of being my favorite game of all time.

[@BigKlingy]

I still haven't come back to the other two games I was playing, Tales of Arise and Devil Survivor, since I started playing XB3. I think I've got maybe 4 Ascension Quests to go. But then there's normal sidequests, and superbosses...

[@LightbladeRiulo]

@@BigKlingy So I'm not alone in this regard. Like Xenoblade knows how to get you hooked and keep you there. Thats a mark of a really great game there.

[@nerdycatlover8627]

Don't know if mentioning character names without context is a spoiler or not, so just in case: Spoilers(?) below I'm guessing the character whose voice you don't like is Ghondor? I personally don't mind her that much, but I definitely think she's the weakest among the cast.

[@BigKlingy]

Yep, it's them. You'll hear why in the next video.

[@nerdycatlover8627]

@@BigKlingy Spoiler(?) It's the bad fake accent, isn't it?

[@BigKlingy]

@@nerdycatlover8627 EEYEZ, OW DID EUWE KNOWL?!

[@christianvacchelli1953]

14:13 eh, I found it kinda funny how, when it comes to ranged dps, you get an earlier one that is better than that in every way xD (of course it's my opinion and it's probably wrong, but still)

[@BigKlingy]

You mean Full Metal Jaguar? It seems to be a widely used class on endgame teams, and with certain setups it can work as a tank as well as an attacker due to how many evasion arts it gets. From my experience, it did a ton of damage in Chain Attacks too. The main problem I had with Stalker was its animations are painfully slow, which meant its damage output was low due to its attacks being way less frequent. Especially the VERY ironically named Rapid Shot, which I think has the slowest animation in the game.

[@christianvacchelli1953]

@@BigKlingy yes, I didn't call it by it's name as not to make any spoiler, albeit it would be an incredibly minor one. And it's also my favourite class of the game. That said, on the topic of the stalker, my opinion is exactly the same as yours, to slow.

[@galladeforce]

This comment has very minor mentions of things that could be considered spoiler, entirely Class and some villain names out of context. This may be because I’m a bit more familiar with 2 than 1, I’ve played a lot more of the 2nd game, I tended to prefer the more explicit references to Xenoblade 2 areas rather than those from 1. I did overall like the areas in this game but I would very much say that my most liked areas in 2 stand out to me a bit more compared to this games areas. The Chapter 5 main area I have mixed feelings on, I like a lot if individual sections and exploring them, but it’s both very big and very very open so the aimlessness of open world games and no explicit paths really showed and meant I found it a bit annoying trying to find stuff, especially when I hunting the areas unique monsters. Which is something I can compare and compliment Insomniac Spider Man, one of the games that follows that formula that I really enjoy, that being a large city means that it’s not entirely open and there are hence a lot of paths I find the class system to have a lot of variety and something I do like is that although I don’t always like the skills and abilities they give to other classes the fact that the Arts and Skills you can use in over classes is a bit limited it means that if you want a classes full Arts load-out and abilities you have to use that class, hence meaning that you can completely invalidate a class because what they do is somewhat self contained, I do have my presences, mainly Seraph, Soul Hacker, Lone Exile, Signifier, Troubadour, Although a slight issue I have is that there are imbalance of Attackers compared to other classes, hence you get a lot of possible attacking play styles compared to healing and especially tanking, which I don’t think DLC will be that able to fix even if we get some more DLC Heroes outside of what the Expansion Pass provides. When it comes to Heroes, I find them quite enjoyable for the most part and some of them made a lot of their limited screen-time compared to the party. Which does make a lot of their stories weirdly memorable to me despite having their stories somewhat isolated from what happening in the main story at that point. I generally had more of preference for Tank and Healer Heroes in general when it came to who I brought to fights, and something I do feel that helps with the fact that their are more Attacker classes with only 1 Attacker class being very good at providing for other roles and that is because it’s very very customisable. So if want to class grind a lot of those classes are going to attackers, so having a Hero who can pick up the slack in other roles is quite helpful. Comparing them to Blades, it’s definitely way less over overwhelming to keep on top of them compared to Blades because their abilities are fixed and are only upgraded through Ascension Quests, since although I did like a lot of the Blades it could admittedly get overwhelming trying to upgrade a lot of them with their large amount of unique conditions. While here a grand majority of customisation is the parties and. And something interesting, I recently saw a movie trailer that had Pippa Bennet Warner in it in a supporting role, despite being British I don’t tend to have heard off any of the performers of Xenoblade characters before their appearance in the series, or at the very least I cannot remember the, Jenna Coleman being a notable exception, since this was a British movie I generally assumed that she’s British, which did surprise me a bit considering the Hero she plays, so looking it up it turns out that she was in a episode of Doctor Who alongside Jenna Coleman Character wise, of the main party I do admittedly have favourites , I generally preferred Lanz, Eunie and Taion over the rest of the party, with the others I do generally like them for the mist part and they have their moments, but those three when there wasn’t a story moment that showed them off I generally preferred their contributions to scenes. While with Noah and Mio, I tended to get most of my enjoyment of them from scenes and side quests that heavily focused on them either imdvdidualuy or as a pair. And Sena, her often being pushed into the background and not getting as much focus as the others does hurt my opinion of her a bit, As for general villains, il go into this a bit more in tomorrows spoiler video, and although this would arguably go against a lot of what many people would consider good villain writing, but I very much tended to prefer the villains with whom they didn’t try as much to make sympathetic and went with making them very much evil , not to say they failed entirely with sympathetic villains as I did like some of them but when I think of villains I really enjoyed I think more of villains like D, K and X, I will hence also go more into story in the story based video especially since I don’t think I can really go into it without going into a lot of detail.

[@TheJaredPunch]

We fight to live, and we live to fight. Also I have few things to say. Guernica is the MVP of this game and Riku is best Nopon! 0:28 I literally felt the same way. 16:23 I actually really liked Taion’s Side Story, it’s probably my favorite Side Story next to Mio’s.

[@BigKlingy]

I'm not that big on Riku and I feel there's a lot of unsolved mysteries with him. Guernica though is perfection. You'll hear me talk about why next time. 0:28 It seems to have had that effect on a lot of people. 16:23 It's also one of the longest and most elaborate. Though I didn't like how it semi-reversed a death in the backstory.

[@cartooncritic7045]

@@BigKlingy Whether or not death sticks in the backstories for this game's characters is kinda irrelevant considering where the main story goes, tbh.

[@nachohangover5104]

@@BigKlingy Frankly after Tatsu and Tora I'm just happy to have Nopon characters I didn't wish would die or leave. Plus Riku does get some prettt good moments. His conversation with Lanz in the forest is great.

[@Wiljo_]

Gameplay wise I dont particularly like Oraboros cause everytime I activated it the game devolved into mashing arts til it runs out. Also I didn't find the soalhacker class until near post-game after I already kill most unique monsters🙃 (it started from scratch) Potencial story spoilers: One complaint I have about the story is that I feel the game didn't do a good explaining the consequences of defeating the final boss .I didn't understand what was going on til Eunie and Taion started talking.On that note I like the ending in the context of the main party (aside from them being reset and losing their memories thus deleting their development)but in the context of Aonios in general it sucks that most of the characters you meet their development and the world and culture you got to know over the cource of the game basically got reckoned out of existence. Also I haven't done every ascension quest so I could be wrong but Am I the only one who is surprised Noah's childhood bully didn't come back as morbius in the main story or something.

[@BigKlingy]

I admit Ouroboros were mostly mashing Arts for me too, but I primarily used them as an emergency character-saver or to finish off an enemy that barely didn't die to a Chain Attack, so I didn't mind much. I didn't mention that here because kinda spoilers but that's a BIG gripe I have: I WISH Soulhacker's UM kills counted retroactively. Not only do you have to go back and re-kill any UM you already beat, you have to do it with the Soul Hack skill on at least one party member, which can be easy to forget. It also forces you to waste one party member's skill slot on it for the rest of the game if you want to be fully efficient. I'll just say, Noah's childhood bully does get some addressing in an Ascension Quest. Imo, not in a hugely satisfying way, but it's something.

[@ilavain]

@@BigKlingy I think the satisfying part is how the party reacts to it. There are a lot of moments that show the maturity of the main characters which is usually a thing completely disregarded for dramatic or comedic purposes

[@ilavain]

OH BOY, as soon as I heard you disliking someone because of their voice acting my mind went straight to the martial artist hahaha.

[@BigKlingy]

Look forward to the next video where I... rant about that.

[@ilavain]

@@BigKlingy how do you like the philosophy nintendo of europe has about casting only British based voice actors to voice even american and australian accents? Do you think the idea behind all of them being local and relatively unknown is worth it for the occasional misfire?

[@BigKlingy]

I like 90% of their casting choices, I just feel like... there HAS to be genuine Australian actors living in the UK they could use. Fiona's VA is Scottish and Triton's VA is Irish, I'm sure they could find someone Australian.

[@nintenbone7934]

I feel like it would be cool if there was a fire emblem and xenoblade crossover

[@cartooncritic7045]

I'm not going to beat around the bush here: I think Xenoblade 3 is the weakest of the numbered trilogy, and it's by a pretty large margin. While I still like the game and think it's really good, it was a game that the further I got and the more I thought about it I found more things that annoyed me both in gameplay and especially in story. I won't get too into story stuff since this isn't the spoiler video, but to sum it all up it suffers IMO exactly the same issue that Fire Emblem: Fates - Conquest does where the first half of the game is solid but about halfway through a switch is flipped and suddenly the writing gets progressively worse (that's not to say that early Fates' writing is that great to begin with and early XC3 is still much better in that regard, but IMO the second half of both games are in the same realm of quality). I liked the dynamic the main six have with each other, and if we're going off vibes alone then I easily rank the Ouroboros cast higher than Shulk's party. My problem with the main party is that, due to the lack of Heart-to-Heart scenes and IMO the kinda poor way their Side Stories are handled, the main party don't feel as fleshed out as I think they should. I don't think it's a coincidence that the main pair I see fan art of in places like Twitter and the subreddit is Eunie/Taion, and that's because they have the most interesting character dynamic relative to how their characters are explored in both side quests and the main story. Noah/Mio is hard carried by their story interactions (which IMO there is way too little of considering how much focus they get in the final act) and Lanz/Sena just get *nothing.* Sena's already struggling for screentime even in her own Side Story and the chapter that is initially framed as being more about her is the part of the game that becomes "The Noah and Mio Show" by the end of it, and Lanz suffers the same problem as Reyn from XC1 where he gets plenty of screentime but not enough of it is spent developing his character, and the biggest moment he's supposed to have in the story (the end of Chapter 6) gives most of the focus to *freaking Noah and Eunie,* who at that point are the last characters in any need for screentime or characterization. Oh, and I hate the villains in XC3. Absolutely hate them. Again, I'll save my thoughts more for the spoiler video, but I was severely disappointed in the antagonists for this game, especially considering how well-done the three main antagonists of XC2 were. I think the best non-spoiler way to describe how I feel about Moebius is if they all had the personality of Lorithia from XC1 but the charisma of Gort from Torna: TGC. There is exactly one villain in this game that I genuinely think works and one other that I think could have been amazing if the direction of the story went a little differently.

[@BigKlingy]

I can see having those issues, and perhaps what carried it for me is that I'm generally not a huge fan of 1. I've seen a few opinions like yours and even though I don't dislike this game, I am relieved that views like this exist because it means maybe Xenoblade 2 will finally stop getting hated. (In general, 3's kind of triggering "Final Fantasy Syndrome" in that its existence is causing the fanbase to realize the previous installment was actually good)

[@cartooncritic7045]

@@BigKlingy If anything I’ve seen nothing but unilateral praise for this game and an increase in XC2 slander. Nobody on Twitter, the subreddit, and the JRPG circle of KZbin seems interested in analyzing this game more critically than just “game good” outside the bad faith actors that dislike JRPGs on principle. XC1 is a personal favorite of mine that I hold in pretty high regard alongside 2, especially after the improvements of Definitive Edition. I don’t hold XC1 on nearly as high a pedestal as the rest of the fandom, but I do think the game’s great and deserves *most* of the praise it gets. And I want to make it clear that I still think XC3 is at minimum an 8/10 game. It’s a really solid JRPG that I’d heartily recommend alongside the other numbered games. When I say I was disappointed in this game’s story, it comes from a place of genuine love for both Xenoblade and also Xenogears (I haven’t played Xenosaga or X for that matter) and the game simply didn’t meet my expectations.

[@BigKlingy]

We must observe different circles then. Most things I've seen are starting to re-evaluate 2. I get how frustrating it is to feel like the only one who dislikes a game that 99% of people blindly praise, though, I'm like that with Breath of the Wild. I really like 1 as well, it's one of the closest games to being a masterpiece I feel and a game I think all videogame fans should play. I don't put it on a pedestal but I still think it's very good.

[@linkdude09]

9:55 No it still override the final boss's theme, Only the forced scripted Chain Attacks don't override the music

[@BigKlingy]

It only overrides in when the final phase it on half HP or less, so it not overriding is the rule rather than the exception there.

[@heroicvileplume7184]

Really enjoyed the video, and I eagerly await the follow up. I put about 30-40 hours into the game and dropped it after the big moment in chapter 6. To be brief, I thought XC3 was one of the most rushed, poorly designed, and generally unfun games I've ever played, and I am both a JRPG fan and a Xenoblade fan. I have been trying my best to wrap my head around what people see in this game, as I have a friend that also praised the game as highly as this video does, so that hopefully at some point I can go back into it with a fresh perspective. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it though

[@BigKlingy]

While I definitely don't agree with you on this game, how you felt about it is exactly how I felt about Breath of the Wild, so I know the feeling of disliking a normally hyped and popular game.

[@jaym9678]

Are you gonna do a playthrough? Because it might be worth it for me to wait for that than go watch a full playthrough

[@BigKlingy]

I doubt I'll be doing one any time soon, so you probably shouldn't wait. There's a chance I might do something with a Hard "no optional Heroes" challenge but that's all I'm considering how now.

[@firecraft7032]

Falcom fanbase is on fire help

[@BigKlingy]

Not relevant to this video (actually maybe it is, since Enel is into Trails), buy why?

[@firecraft7032]

@@BigKlingy To give a condensed summary that doesn't give the full picture, Nisa shot down the fan translation for Kuro 1, and some plot points of Kuro 2 that older fans dislike have been revealed, causing everyone to lose their minds.

[@nachohangover5104]

@@BigKlingy Kuro 2 Spoilers: Harem and The Curse are back.

[@BigKlingy]

So I've been talking with someone who's spoiling Kuro 2 for me, and... I had extremely low expectations for it anyway so everything is still much tamer than what I built up in my head. It also feels like: It's not quite harem, just a choice of Elaine or Agnes. Which I kind of saw coming and... you can just pick Elaine.

[@firecraft7032]

@@BigKlingy I dont know much about how the curse is involved(Although seeing how demons are seemingly getting involved and how Ishmelga was like a demon...), so I cant say anything on how its being executed there. As for the choice... there is actually a decent amount of Van x Agnes shippers in Japan, so I'm actually sorta fine with letting a choice cuz I dont like sinking ships. As long as harem doesnt reach CS4 levels, its fine.

[@Zegaexiron]

I absolutely love this game. A wonderful way to end the series

[@BigKlingy]

I think Takahasi has confirmed it's not over.

[@megamanzero29]

@@BigKlingy Takahasi treats Xenoblade 3 as the ending to the series original plot, this story is supposed to be like Metroid dread story as in the original storyline is over but that doesn’t mean its the end of Xenoblade, I imagine of there ever is a XC4 it’s going to be a the start of a new storyline while also keeping aspects of XC 1,2, and 3’s combat and gameplay

[@BigKlingy]

Okay, in that case I'm okay with that. I'd like to see a new game try a completely new setting with no prior connections. Except maybe to X, X's ending still hasn't been explained.

[@carolbrokethewallagain]

Hoo boy… I’m definitely going to go against the grain, since this is my least favorite Xenoblade game. Since this is spoiler-free, I’ll limit it to gameplay stuff here(limit is a funny way of putting it. This is longer than a full review). Combat-wise, everything other than the ground combat I’m positive on. Chain attacks, classes, item customization is all great. But Imo, this is the worst grounded combat by a large margin and it’s really boring and mindless to me. The first issue is that character power is really weak. It takes two of each class to match any one character previously, but you only ever control one at a time so you always feel pretty weak. Nevermind that Keves arts and 90% of talent arts being really underpowered is a problem. Building on that, I think all the classes feel too similar to play as within a role. It really does come down to use arts against the enemy and that doesn’t really change(barring stuff like Raging Charge or art-spam builds). Hell, defenders and healers play the same except for healers having to revive an defensers running evades more, and I don’t think positionals and charges do enough for attackers. It doesn’t help that most classes are good in the same way. This makes class balance a little moot when every class does everything every other one needs to do(exacerbated by master arts and skills. Each class only has 4 arts that are theirs and they’re usually not that unique), just sometimes better. If it was that you had to use them for master stuff, or availability, id never use half of these classes. Ouroboroses feel way too underpowered, both as offensive options and defensive options. These are supposed to be the real points you have agency and playmaking(especially if you have the option to control all transformations on), but it rarely feels like that? Early on, no Art canceling make all but the highest link levels feel weak, which takes a while to get to. Later on, they’re outshined or unneeded. As defensive options, they have the offense vs defense issue most of 2’s s did where using it one way wasted it for the other. And they also have the issue of being good in the ways classes are, rather than doing anything new, so apart from infinite canceling and not taking damage, they also feel similar. I think the biggest mistake of the combat is only healers being able to revive though. On top of being unnecessary for balance, revives are nearly instant with gems and having two healers on one downed member, making death a slap on the wrist for no resources. The “defending your healers” in this game comes down only to keeping aggro on the tank, which happens as a by-product of playing a tank normally. Worst of all is that game is balanced around this, having attacks you can’t survive or having attacks that hit characters without aggro just for them to be revived like nothing happened. And it’s so frequent that even in “Hard Mode”, it’s hard to wipe out. Put Memory Locket on a tank, and it’s nearly impossible. When you do, it barely feels like your fault. This is made worse by 3 being the worst at having agency over enemy attacks because defensive options are too limited. Break doesn’t work oftentimes because everything you want to interrupt gets No Effected, all but one evade art can’t be done over the whole party(Ai is bad at using them and many enemies just hit you with devastating arts repeatedly too), moving out of an attack’s range is rarely an option since you can’t get the other party members to do the same. The only decent options are longer evade or absorb arts, which is used badly by the AI and not always things you want to run, and burst cleansing rage, which is done mostly passively by the party. 99% of the time you just take attacks on the chin and there’s little you can do. When you do, you just heal it off like nothing happened. Honestly, too much is passive here. Combined, you’re smacking your face against the boss with arts with no higher macro or agency. You survive with such little thought and minuscule playmaking potential until you chain-attack, and it kind of sucks. It’s fundamental to having such a big party that you can’t hope to fully control, even when you can switch in-battle(nevermind the disorientation and how you’ll usually never have their arts up when you switch). Difficulty really suffers since there’s so little you can do, I wish there was a way of pushing the system to its limit and making it better, like 1 and really nerfing yourself to where devastating visions are constant(try it, it’s awesome), but weakening yourself just makes things even worse. 2 would’ve had a lot of the same issues if it’s system mechanics weren’t so good, and 3’s attempt falls kind of flat with ouroboroses, or chain attacks that are blatantly overpowered(at least it’s fun). That was a lot, so I’ll run through the other things quick. Aionios is way too big. Like dear god, exploring is 90% walking flat areas. Needed to be toned down by a scale factor of 1/2. The wideness also makes a lot of areas feel the same, though being less lived in is a big issue with sameyness too. Maktha wildwood’s city part was awesome, and so was Keves Castle, but so few locations deviate from natural, wide open land that doesn’t add much. Definitely my least favorite Xenoblade world to explore and I soon couldn’t be bothered. Hard mode is awful. Who thought nerfing every single thing in the game, then DOUBLING enemy HP was a good idea? The combat issues I’ve covered make hard mode not difficult, just boring and cheap. I didn’t think it could get worse than 2 in this regard, but 3 takes forever to give you every combat mechanic. Chain attacks, everyone’s ouroboroses, ouroboros orders, Art canceling, having a full party, fusion arts(the mechanics and all the slots), most combo arts… In 1, you had every relevant mechanics by the middle of Bionis leg, and I miss that. Lots of things involving materials for quests and crafting suck, mainly the required number of them(lvl 10 gens did not need 99 of a material) and item rarities. The latter was completely useless and just made those “get to 100%” quests really annoying. That’s about it. I actually have more issues with the story than I have gameplay issues, so I can’t wait for that.

[@BigKlingy]

I can understand most of your issues, although I don't agree with a lot of them. I'm fine with individual character power being weaker, because Xenoblade 2's best characters could rack up utterly stupid damage numbers alone, like destroying millions-HP superbosses in a few seconds, to the point where teamwork and any classes besides attackers felt redundant when fully optimized. It also ruined the aggro system, because simply doing damage was worth more aggro than any tank could hope to grab and optimized attacker Blades do millions of damage in seconds. Ouroboros I mainly felt was a last-ditch panic button or a way to finish off very weakened enemies. I never found myself using it a ton (though apparently Eunie's can be extremely good with the right setup, since it gets boosted damage for every buff on the party) but I didn't mind since everything else gave me enough options. I actually love that only healers can revive and feel that alone drastically improved things from 1 and 2, where dedicated healers sucked at high-levels of play. (It says something that this game's War Medic class is pretty much Sharla, except it's actually solid here) I kind of agree on the lack of enemy attack agency, although this game is VERY generous with perfect evasion Arts. I though many of the areas were too small, honestly. I think 2's areas were just the right size. I think the main issue with Hard is that debuff classes are only bad because anything worthwhile heavily resists debuffs and Hard raises debuff resistance even further. Eh, I felt like you had most of the combat mechanics in 3 pretty early, though having to wait to unlock Arts Cancelling until mid-Chapter 4 is a huge pain on replays. I haven't even bothered with Gems above Lv 6 or so, and I haven't had much trouble. I feel like Level X gems are overkill, though they might be needed for the Challenge Mode DLC.

[@carolbrokethewallagain]

@@BigKlingy I feel like the individual character power didn’t need to be so low though. Maybe it’s a hard mode thing with the weakening of everything and doubling of Hp? I guess my issue is also that they’re weak during the ground combat only, which I find pretty mindnumbing(I love dragging out fights by underpowering myself in 1, which makes those much more stimulating). I think the revival changes were needless for improving healers though. It’s mainly the longer fights and lack of other healing sources like crit healing, inability to chain attack from battle start, along with having stronger effects that makes healers good. You can’t tell me signifier or troubadour would be bad if revives were available across the board like previously. It’s really the design implications, the mindlessness of it, and lack of defensive options that get me. A lot of fights (hard mode especially) just kill you with little you can do, and then you’re just revived with no incentive to avoid death(arts becoming unrecharged is pretty minor). And protecting your healers is just keeping aggro off of them thanks the lack of defensive options(and pretty frequent AoE sometimes). It’s pretty polarized since healers all dying means you can’t revive at all, which can also happen outside of your control. I think my hangups with hard originate from playing the game on hard the whole way. And I skipped a ton of the better classes like incursor, signifier, and so on, which made fights pretty long. Combine it with my previous issues and... ugh. I still think it was the wrong way to make a harder difficulty too. I don’t think much is gained from making the areas as big as they are. Some are small, but many just get unnecessarily big and some are really empty. Like I thought Millick Meadows was unfinished when I got there. Feels like big for the sake of it, when 1 and 2 were more than fine. It did surprise me to hear it didn’t bother you considering your usual dislike of open-world games for those reasons.

[@nachohangover5104]

@@carolbrokethewallagain The problem with not making healers the only ones that can revive is that then everyone would just try to get by with healing master arts on tanks and attackers. Making the healers the only ones that can revive means you basically either have to play perfect or run healers. Signifer and Troubador are amazing but not for their healing. Their healing abilities are pretty middling. They're amazing for their overall support and buffing abilities. Dedicated healer classes like War Medic and Medic Gunner stand out more with the revival.

[@nachohangover5104]

@@BigKlingy I don't think I've ever seen a character more antithetical to their game's combat system than Sharla. I remember seeing people say that whenever people think XC1 combat is clunky or slow, it's almost always due to using Sharla. Rough quote: "My brother in christ, stop using Sharla! 'But I need a healer to win', no you don't. 'But I want a safety net', enemies can't kill you if you kill them first! Sharla slows combat down to a crawl in so many ways. Her damage sucks, her heat mechanic slows her down further, she doesn't have a talent art so she fucks up Chain Attacks, healing generates aggro so most often the case is she keeps healing herself as the enemies slowly beat her to death while the other party members also don't get healed as Sharla prioritizes herself. Sharla exists to solve a problem almost entirely of her own making. If you must have a healer, you get another one later who can also actually do damage and provide other support, and best of all won't ruin your Chain Attacks."

[@carolbrokethewallagain]

@@nachohangover5104 That could be avoided by making lifting the “master arts come from that classes’ stats” for healing arts and make it based on the attacker/defender healing stat, which is almost always terrible. Besides, aren’t most healing master skills pretty bad? I don’t think there are even that many. And I did say that about signifier and troubadour. I said their effects would make them good even without exclusive revivals, which is true. If the concern is making healers redundant because you can do what they do with attackers and defenders, just make it so stuff like aureole + resonant flag, or ring of roses(ie the major things each of the healers bring) aren’t master arts. We didn’t need this revival change plain and simple. And if you had to attach it to healers, why not add a resource? It gets to be so mindless with reviving from literally everything so easily. The design implications of adding a resource like implementing less attacks that destroy you(more like 2’s gradual reduction over multiple that you have to act on), would be much better than the oneshotting with impunity we have now.