Xenoblade Chronicles 3: It's pretty good

[bork]

Xenoblade 3 is bad. I’m sorry.

But you said this, elsewhere, last night:

Ok I guess XB3 has been ok….maybe a 7 at this point. Maybe im just out of touch and old now but I just don’t get the high praise.

[Supermanisdead]

this game slays. u guys are crazy. i beat the main story last night, now i'm doing all the sidequests and unique monsters

[demi]

Like why do I have to make Lanz a healer type character when he is CLEARLY a fucking tank character? He is the ONLY one who can use the Sharla class ripoff. Why?

I fucking hate job systems and will go to the grave with this. Fuck job systems

[Rahxephon91]

I mean I was just giving a flippant response to Demi’s post.

Elsewhere aka discords comment isn’t even a ringing endorsement. I’m not even saying I’m enjoying it. That it’s ok. Which when I play it is ok. It still has the fun topple system even if it’s missing nuance. When I look at it through the lens of it being an offline FFXIV I see potential.

But also I’m already checked out on this story. It’s lame nonsense. I haven’t made it to the City yet so maybe that changes everything, but as is I don’t really see how people like this trash. The characters are cute and personable yes. In there one note archetype ways. But every time the game pauses for them to pontificate in their sad back story I just don’t care. A story does not seem to be being told to me. A story that cares about pacing or being interesting. “Is this way becoming old is” or whatever the line is was so lame and on the nose.

Maybe I’m just not paying attention, but nothing has grabbed me. It’s lame. The villains are lame. Talking all mysteriously and saying basically the same crap is lame.

The world is lame. I have no connection to it. It’s a bunch of muddy textures strung together to create nothing.

The job system has yet to reveal itself. The arts I mix and match at the end of the day don’t excite. I’d rather the classes just be stuck with thier specific arts. Have the 6 slots all be the shulk class abilities.

Honestly it’s just kind of a bland game. It’s the most stale XB game. Yeah it dosent have the loser anime shit of two, but maybe this series only has one good game.


And X.

I just don’t get it.

[Bebpo]

I'm mixed on if the job system here is any good.

Jobs are fun to have. It's adds variety in the character you are controlling since each job plays a bit different.
But the game suffers from the same issue as base FFXII where the characters are all identical and have no unique gameplay features. It's kinda even worse than FFXII because of how easy it is to have everyone max every job here, so you don't even have dedicated paths for each character your building. You just say "ok, here I want 3 healers, 1 tank, 3 attackers" and it doesn't matter who you make what.

Also the job system has these dumbass restrictions that just take away most of the fun of a job system in the first place. Not only do only certain arts/skills carry over, but the system where you only get to use HALF of them because each tribe Agnes/Keeves can only carry over master arts/skills from each other is insanely dumb fuck limiting.

It feels like a job system made by people who've never played games with good jobs systems before like FF5 or X-2.



There's also so many dumb ass decisions like if outside battle I'm controlling Noah running around and he's not the party's tank, then if I aggro everything as I run by I get killed sometimes because he has non-tank low HP and can't take hits. More annoyingly, every fucking time I start a battle as Noah if he's the non-tank he immediately aggros every enemy and loves to die in 5 seconds before the tanks can even take the aggro. Why does the controlling character who starts combat always take all the aggro? It's fucking stupid.

You can get around this by putting the gem on the tank to start the battle with aggro. However, this opens up another issue with the game design in that every time you switch jobs the game auto-equips random gems/arts/accessories on characters and with gems it ALWAYS equips the worst gems for the job. It loves to auto-equip auto-attack shorteners instead of like job specific tank/attacker/healer gems. So basically if you want to not have your party fuck up, you have to micro-manage the gems/accessories/arts every time you change jobs which is all the time in the game if you're leveling all the classes.

The AI is also just so fucking dumb. I am convinced XB3 has the worst party AI in an rpg because it doesn't even try to handle party synergy and the AI is just programmed separately for each job to do their one thing independent of the rest of the party make up. Basically the goal is to just be as overpowered as possible going into fights because otherwise you're running uphill trying to get around really stupid fucking AI in your party. Stuff like attackers without positionals hanging out away from the party and taking a healer with them away from the party to heal them so the party is down one less healer. Stuff like the tank not positioning enemy attacks away from the party. Stuff like the party just not being able to deal with multiple enemies at all.

In fact in XB3, an easy boss that has 2 enemies at once is going to be harder than a tougher boss that is solo like every time, even with multiple tanks in your party. For example. In ch.4

BIG SPOILER BOSS BATTLE

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The fight with Ethel and Cammurvi.

I had 2 tanks, 3 healers, 2 attackers and for the first part of that fight my party was getting the shit kicked out of them fighting both at once. Got near death many times that I scrapped through with revives and fusions and chain attacks just barely.

Once I killed one of them, the other was ez pz joke.

Then I fought the combined O+P boss after and again it was ez pz joke even though it was supposed to be the bigger tougher boss. But against solo enemies my team is invincible. But add a 2nd enemies and the AI breaks and everyone gets totally murdered.

[close]

Again, the solution is just if you're fighting multiple enemies to be as overpowered as possible and just kill the low HP ones ASAP before your team gets wrecked. I haven't used any party xp since early ch.2 so now I'm lvl.40 and the enemies are lvl.40 and I aggro and have to fight almost everything so I notice the combat flaws more and more.

I have enough party XP to jump to lvl.50 now, and I might just do it because I don't see much point in not being overleveled anymore to make up for the combat system issue.


Anyhow, still think it's a good game. Enjoying it tons. But it has some real dumb design issues.

[Bebpo]

Also, not being able to skip chain event cutscenes, especially Ouroboros orders is some grade A PS1 FF7 Knights of the Round bullshit that makes every unique/boss battle take 2x-3x as long just watching them play out.

This is like Trails of the Black not letting you skip S-crafts until it was patched in a year later. But it's even worse here because S-Crafts in Trails games are way shorter.

The thing is it's not like they didn't have five years of XB2 to build off of, where the biggest issue with that battle system were the chain events that dragged out the fight lengths, but somehow they decided it was good design to make chain events even longer in XB3. WTF.

This reeks of something if they were porting it to other systems a year later as a "director's cut" they'd add in a skip chain event cutscenes button.


At the end of the day, even if I end up loving the story and adventure of XB3 and game overall, there's no way I'd score this over an 8/10 because it's just got so many flaws. Which would still be better than XB2 which was like a 6/10 to me. And XBX was like a 6/10 or 7/10.

[Bebpo]

Which also reminds me that Monolith Soft has never been known for good gameplay.

Xenogears was Square and a lot of different staff. XenoSaga ep1 had kinda shitty and slow gameplay but got by on its story/music/gfx. Ep2 had even worse gameplay. Ep3 had fun gameplay. XB1 was a flash in a pan simple offline MMO gameplay that worked. XBX was mediocre gameplay. XB2 was mediocre gameplay. XB3 is batting just barely average gameplay.

MonolithSoft are story, music, scope, art design people. They are not AAA gameplay designers. So it's not that strange their systems have lots of flaws.

[Rahxephon91]

I think the art in these games has been awful.

[Nintex]

The first I suppose half of this game plays out very much like a set of anime episodes in terms of how it is structured.
You start exploring an area, eventually you run into some sort of episodic plot with a new 'hero' taking the stage with a different personality, in the end you beat the villain or help the colony to earn the trust of the hero and you rest up, ready for the next day of a new exciting episode of Xenoblade 3. Meanwhile there's the overarching plot lingering in the background that gets more prominent as the party makes progress towards their goal.

At the same time it also includes the open world gameplay of X of building up the colony but piecemeal on a smaller scale instead of 1 giant infinite city and world to discover, unlock and expand.

I like the pacing in XB3 myself as you can play for 2 or 3 hours to do a few side things and finish an 'episode' (hero quest) within a 'season' (chapter). The next day you can start a new adventure.
However, that is indeed different from Xenoblade 1 (which was just 1 overarching plot with very little side content apart from fetch quests) and Xenoblade 2 which was more akin to a movie or novel I suppose.

[Bebpo]

The amount of enemies in tight areas in ch.4's

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Keeves' castle

[close]

is kind of ridiculous and takes forever. Also the unique enemy that's the triad of 3 unique mechs that constantly spawn guards that lock everyone on the defender guard was an annoying fight. Would've been fine fighting the 3 of them if they weren't also spawning the guards on top of that.

After I beat that I was just tired and so I went and used all my party xp and went from 44->54....and then I still aggro everything here that's lvl.38 but now everything dies quick like I'm playing on easy. Oh well, guess the combat will be meaningless for the next 30 hours since I'm so far above the story. Was kind of fun being on the same as the story and having a challenge with fights but aggroing everything was getting a bit tiring.

Also chain attacks are ridiculously OP. I fought this lvl.43 unique when I was lvl.41 and I started the chain attack when it still had like 60-70% HP left and I killed it by the end of the chain attack with regular orders and ouroboros orders. It's just ridiculous how much damage you can do during a full chain and you can fill the chain meter up pretty quickly. Basically just start off with some attacks and then interlink pretty soon after and then chain attack -> repeat.

[Bebpo]

I definitely regret having used my party xp in a moment of being in a bad mood and tired of aggroing everything. And then saving over my only save slot too :|

Guess I'll bump it to hard difficulty today and see if it makes the game more enjoyable. The combat only really works in an enjoyable way in this series if there's an actual challenge that you can die so you gotta play well. Otherwise it's like Rahx says where you just sit back and the game plays itself.

[demi]

How are you having so much xp? I literally just run past everything and do whatever quests crop up (which isnt much?) and I feel like I’m at level with things in the story.

Chapter 4, just did the colony quests after the big fight prior against J

Lvl 38

Also why does my chain die after 4 combos max? I literally can keep going but the game is like haha just kidding

[Bebpo]

How are you having so much xp? I literally just run past everything and do whatever quests crop up (which isnt much?) and I feel like I’m at level with things in the story.

Chapter 4, just did the colony quests after the big fight prior against J

Lvl 38

Also why does my chain die after 4 combos max? I literally can keep going but the game is like haha just kidding

If you do all the quests and use the party xp you end up severely overleveled in this game.
A lot of the quests are hidden though, if you're just running the main story route you're missing a lot of quests and colonies and heroes. All the ?s on the maps are quests.
You know about party xp that you use at camps, right? If you don't use party xp you generally stay around the same level as the story. But the party XP puts you over it.

You also get party XP from discovering landmarks. How many hours in are you? I'm 50 hours by this point.

[demi]

I'm not exploring, the world is uninteresting and doesn't really encourage it

I am using my Party XP as well

The hero system is "ok" but I hate that they essentially force you to make characters jobs that do not at all fit their "persona"

When they said "hey make Lanz a healer" I noped out

[Bebpo]

Fair enough. Yeah I'm mapping out each map 100% cause I enjoy it. Fight all the uniques for their drops/fast travel point, do all the quests, etc...

Chain attack ends because each time you use an order it eats from the chain meter which goes down. With Ouroboros order you can get a 4th turn.

[Supermanisdead]

I wish there was a way to skip chain attack animations. Like you wanna continue them for as long as possible to get the most exp, but like omg, especially the ouroboros finishers.

[Bebpo]

I wish there was a way to skip chain attack animations. Like you wanna continue them for as long as possible to get the most exp, but like omg, especially the ouroboros finishers.

Yeah, I said exactly that above 

It's kind of blatantly crazy they have no way to skip them, especially the ouroboros ones considering how often you see them and they take up half the time of the battle encounter.

Sometimes the battle system feels like a jrpg battle system and more a chess-like chain attack battle system since you spend so much of real fights in chain attack menu doing the chain attack mini-game.

[Bebpo]

Some of the cutscenes are kinda long. Especially when they're not giving new info and just the characters processing stuff the viewers already figured out.

These cutscenes at the end of ch.4 are fucking longggg.

[demi]

There's no way I'm hunting mushrooms and chickens almost 30 hours in

This game is trash

[Rahxephon91]

I do like the whole marked enemies thing. It’s like the game telling you “fight these at least so you don’t have to grind”. More JRPGs should do that.

[Nintex]

The forest area is awesome, also playing on hard makes the battles more interesting for sure.
Items, arts, buffs, debuffs, gems etc. actually all matter now and it's no longer an auto-win if you're just a higher level.

I got absolutely wrecked by lvl 34 goats being level 42 until I switched around some things.

[Bebpo]

Every chapter or so I go back to each colony I've liberated to see if there's anything new and I'm impressed by the amount of sidequests and table talks. At first I was kinda anti-colonies and wanted real bustling towns, but there's a ton of side content in each colony that really develops them and the characters out.

I feel like to like XB3 you gotta get to the point where you enjoy the world. Enjoy exploring around and seeing how its all connected, enjoy all the NPCs and their sidequests, etc...

I'm in ch.5 but since I did that 10 level jump to lvl.54, I'm going back through each map again and clearing out the 40-55 areas I couldn't before. Plus checking on each colony again. At some point will start on the ch.5 area proper. Like 55 hours in now or something.

[Nintex]

Enjoy exploring around and seeing how its all connected, enjoy all the NPCs and their sidequests, etc...

One of the great things is the incredible vista's. When you end up at the end of a region and you can see the colony or field where you started.
Really giving you that sense of progression, thinking: "Wow, I traveled all that"

Even though it looks like you can't go to the areas in the background, that's where you eventually end up.


I think I'm about at the end of Chapter 4 or at least the woods area.
This Gundam fight was fucking epic 

[Bebpo]

The lvl.41ish area (optional?) in the upper left of Fornis through the cave at the beginning on the west side is massive. Been filling out the map there last night and this morning.

The secret area

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fingertip

[close]

Was cool.

[demi]

Started Chapter 5

Seriously when does this game start

Like nothing has STILL happened. My characters are STILL clueless. The "villains" are STILL being vague and dumb

Helloooooooooooooo

Where's my Zanza moment, where's my oh shit moment

I thought the whole Castle sequence would lead up to that, but literally NOTHING happens and I'm left holding the ball yet again

[Nintex]

I get the feeling that they changed a couple things during development.

The colonies probably expanded like the city in X in an earlier version of the game. The buildings all have this pre-built look and it feels like there was supposed to be more to it than just serving as somewhat bigger inns basically. There's also all this talk about growing food and colonies having different uses as well as competing with eachother. None of which is in the game. There's also the Flame clocks that serve no real purpose but are displayed for each colony in the UI before you destroy them. The money you collect also seems excessive for the things that are for sale (which as far as I can tell is the limited number of accessoires and items from the stores as well as activating the Fabricator to get a random item drop). So my theory is that you could maybe invest money in the colonies and they were supposed to actually fight eachother so their flame clock ratings would change. XB2 was very stingy with money but as it stands in XB3 I have a million plus in the bank and the most expensive item is 5000 credits.

As for the story, I'm about to enter the castle. Did a little detour to unlock another great character. However, again I get the feeling that they moved some things around to remove branching paths maybe?
There's a couple of moments where the characters decide on routes in cutscenes but also Nopon that say different things if you passed through certain areas.

In the game an alternative route to your objective is available in the early regions and those usually do lead to additional (Hero) quests or colonies.
However, at the end of what seemed to have been an alternative route to the next story area is usually a simple barricade like a cave in or giant door.

[Supermanisdead]

Yeah, it does feel like a lot was cut from the game. Torna was originally cut content from XB2 so maybe the DLC is going to be another big game like that.

I don't see the point of having colony affinity, or the colonies themselves. I wish there was half as many of them and 3 or 4 big cities instead. Or a city building quest like Colony 6 from the original game.

I'm now just working on building a superboss killing party and getting ready for the challenge battle DLC.

[Bebpo]

Well at least you get the Robo-building quest in Colony 30.

I disagree at least where I'm at that the game could've used fewer colonies. The colonies are the best part of the game imo. Having tons of them and having them be really varied is pretty important to making it work. The colony affiliation on the map is pointless though yeah. Some of the best characters in the game are NPCs in certain colonies.

[Bebpo]

I like some of the world building that's understated through the environment.

Like in the area where the ch.4 main boss battle is there's this optional bridge that's around lvl.48 and the bridge has Agnes and Keeves camps on each side as their squaring off with each other over the bridge. And each side has a giant unique boss. Pretty cool. Just wish big bosses paid out better xp/cp if you're overleveled for them. Lvl.55 now so the fights are pretty fun and intense but not getting much.

I've now 100% mapped out every area to the start of ch.5. I kinda wish it was like Star Ocean with a map % and rewards for map % clear. I'm OCD about uncovering every inch of the map for a clean map. Went back around every colony and picked up some more quests. Have about 10 new ones to do before I start on ch.5.

Found a couple of interesting things in the maps that seem like blocked off paths until later in the game. Hmmm...

*edit* actually scratch that. I haven't done lower Maktha since it's like lvl.76.

[Nintex]

Yeah there's a lot to find in the world. They said there was about a 5 times more walkable land in XB3 than 2 and I'm starting to believe it. 

[Nintex]

Completed the castle.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Melia is a robot?! But her spirit is still out there? 

[close]

Demi has a point though, 50 hours in and you still don't know what the hell is going on in this game 

[Nintex]

Made it to the Sword and the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

City

The city is huge 

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Who wants to know how babies are made

[close]

Finally I know what is going on after 54 hours, somewhat.

[demi]

Nah, you dont, the game pulls a complete asspull move and then the story makes absolutely zero sense. I hate this game, its non canon.

[Bebpo]

hahaha, oh boy. Will be interesting.

I kind got bored of the game while questing before starting the ch.5 area. One of these days will get back in the mood and get back to it.

[demi]

My game has crashed at least 10 times now, this game is fucking indie level trash

[Bebpo]

I like this a lot, but I'm surprised the poll on Era for which XB is the best has 3 winning by an insane margin over 1/2/X. Figured 1 would be ahead. The story in XB3 would have to get amazingly good in the back half to beat XB1 for me.

Really seems like a lot of people jumped on with XB3 as their first Xeno~ game. Either that or XB2 and this is their 2nd and an improvement over that.


Anyhow, since this is good, but not amazing, and Soul Hackers 2 sounds weak, and there's no new FF/DQ/KH this year, I guess Elden Ring gonna be the best new rpg in 2022? Hope some of the 2023 rpgs like FF16, Baldur's Gate 3 will deliver more.

[Rahxephon91]

I don’t like this game at all and am very surprised it’s so praised. This is a very stale and mediocre game. But then again I’ve learned that weebs have terrible taste.

[Bebpo]

But then again I’ve learned that weebs have terrible taste.

Also the flavor of the month.
I remember when SMTV came out people wouldn't shut up for the first two months about how it's the best jrpg ever and Switch is the jrpg king, etc..etc...

Now after the initial hype, most people call SMTV disappointing.

I also remember that people fucking LOVED Xenoblade 2. I always felt like an outcast not liking that one. But then I think it was a lot of people's (who never own non-Nintendo platforms) first real big rpg and they were blown away. But yeah, now everyone talks shit on XB2.

I really think from the first half of XB3 that it'll be seen as an ok entry. Better than 2 and X, but not as good as XB1.


Hell, for the last 4 months we had nothing but ELDEN RING IS THE GREATEST RPG OF ALL TIME. And now finally people are starting to get more critical of it and see it as a really good game, but with its own flaws. People get so into the flavor of the month game online.

[Nintex]

XB3 has been consistently great for me.

XB1 has better pacing and maybe a better story (I won't know until I've finished XB3 though) but pretty much everything else is better in XB3.
The characters, the maps, the (side)quests etc. .

However, some of the games concepts are held back by the hardware limitations.
The "war" is just never as big as it should be and the interactivity in the world hasn't changed much since XB1.

[Bebpo]

I think XB1 has better combat, story, characters, consistent world progression and I prefer XB1's music though the XB3 tracks are very good (they just don't have as much impact since so much are just for optional areas you walk through vs parts of the story journey).

XB3 has better sidequests so far.

Also I kind of hate how it defaults to morning every time you fast travel. If you are always fast traveling around you don't see the night stuff or hear the night music much. The default should be not changing the time of day from where you are fast traveling from.

[Supermanisdead]

I think the only thing 1 does better than this game is the world and story. I think the gameplay, customization and progression systems are super good. I beat the main story ages ago and am enjoying just grinding and building up my characters for the tough enemies just as much.

2 was bad when it came out, bad today and will always be bad. I'm really glad they were able to course correct with 3.

[demi]

Finished the game! What an absolute waste of fucking time that was! Thank you for completely ruining the series, Takahashi! Based!

[bork]

Opinions are all over the place in here!  At this point all the Xenos are on the shelf for me- gonna try Soul Hackers 2 instead.

[Rahxephon91]

The class system in this game of obnoxiously grindy.

[Bebpo]

The class system in this game of obnoxiously grindy.

It's fucked in the leveling scaling.

For about 10-15 hours of the story where my levels had caught up to the area level enemies in the Makth Forest and the Hovering Reefs/Castle, I was unlocking classes with my other team members so fast because I'd fight most enemies I'd aggro on the way and get like 30 CP per fight.

But the last week or so while I've been running around doing side stuff before starting ch.5 and being way overleveled (57 party right now and these quests are all 30-48), I get like 3CP a fight and I've been running with two characters as the latest Iota commander attacker job for like 10 hours and everyone else is maybe 5%-10% towards unlocking it.

Basically feels like I'm not gonna be able to unlock any more jobs for the non-inherited character until I get to endgame.

What's extremely stupid is if they didn't lock the classes with the other characters then you could at least get around this by using silver nopon coins to level the jobs. But you have to unlock them first and that requires a good chunk of CP while someone in your party is running that and/or the hero is in your party as well and if you're overleveled that takes forever.

Otherwise there's no downside to being overleveled besides just lack of challenge which you can adjust slightly by changing the difficulty to hard. Hard should payout better CP or something.

[Bebpo]

Opinions are all over the place in here!  At this point all the Xenos are on the shelf for me- gonna try Soul Hackers 2 instead.

 

[Bebpo]

Like to show how non-balanced the class learning is.

Can go 10 hours and not unlock a class at 3CP per fight.
Then turn difficulty to easy and go fight a blue enemy 3-5 levels above you and finish with a chain attack overkill for +500% XP/CP bonus (on top of the 300% for blue, so 800% total) and get 1,000 CP in a 4 min fight and unlock the class on every character as well as every character gaining like 5 job rank levels from that one battle.

Like it's easy to do the latter, but it's just a dumb design.


Anyhow, finished up all the pre-ch.5 subquests finally. Gonna start on that new area now.

[bork]

Opinions are all over the place in here!  At this point all the Xenos are on the shelf for me- gonna try Soul Hackers 2 instead.

 

It's pretty much because I'm spending any gaming time I have on the Steam Deck right now- I haven't played XBC3 at all yet.  I'll come back to this series later on.

[demi]

Xeno games have been out well before Steam Deck, not much of an excuse

[bork]

Xeno games have been out well before Steam Deck, not much of an excuse

I put some time into XBC1- just don't know if I want to continue on with it or just jump to 2 or 3.  Not big on the battle system in the first game.

[mormapope]

I'm about 13 hours in, taking my time, I'm around the end of chapter 2. The cast of characters and setting/lore in general is getting me erect and emotional. Combat is very satisfying mechanically.

If this game clicks for you, its a super banger. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 did not click for me, the cast and plot felt really really plain. Haven't played 2 yet.

Spoilers in this video


This sequence was incredibly dope. 

[Nintex]

You're in for a treat, I'm in chapter 5 now and the game goes that hard at least once every chapter.
I often wonder how they keep up the pace but then they throw in another cool character, existential crisis, mecha's, animu nonsense, epic music and bigger and bigger explosions.
They went balls out with all these cutscenes.

[Rahxephon91]

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I read the praise for this game.

[demi]

Without going too hard into spoilers, this game should not be called "Xenoblade Chronicles 3"

Call it literally anything else, idk

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I'm just treating it as an original IP jrpg with its own world and cast.

Doesn't seem like much connection to XB1/2/X.

[Rahxephon91]

Does it need connections?

I mean before 2 came out and revealed it did have a connection, I figured Xenoblade would just be the title for this style of Monolith game. Either way the connections are pretty pointless if you ask me.

[demi]

You're right - which is why Xenoblade 3 story is dogshit for it. Xenoblade X-3 complete with Tidus Blitzball

[Bebpo]

But...I like FFX-2 a lot?

[demi]

That's a different game/story, not sure what that has to do with this

You're still on Chapter 5 you haven't even got to the dumb asspull shit  yet lol

[Bebpo]

At the city.

I don't remember if XB1/2 had the weird distancing jumping where instead of one environment leading directly to the next, you step through the end of one environment and suddenly skip like 50 miles of environment to the next area. It's a bit jarring.

Like when you leave Maktha and the castle is in the distance and then suddenly you're like 50 feet from it at Hovering Reefs entrance.

Also the game has been bizarrely linear after Fornis region. It's like FF13 in reverse where the game opened with this giant epic open area in Fornis with all these sub-areas and all these incredible views seeing across it and then it's all focused linear maps. Is Fornis the only big open region in the entire game? If so they kind of blow their wad real early there.