Xenoblade Chronicles 3: It's pretty good

[mormapope]

Military sci fi space opera child/teenage soldier setting and environment. Cast of characters have chemistry and the bonds they share are genuine. Main character isn't a meathead, is more quiet and thoughtful without being dull or angsty. Baller combat and music, gorgeous  environments, great voice acting.

[Nintex]

Mitsuda went absolutely ballistic with the music and so far they picked the best elements from each and every Xenoblade game. 

I thought Elden Ring was the GOTY and then this magical game drops.

[demi]

Eh, I'll play for 30 hours then stop

[Bebpo]

It's solid, but I want to know where the "gorgeous environments" and "ballistic music" come in? Is that a wait 50 hours and it'll show up kind of thing?

Game is one of the ugliest rpgs I've ever seen not even talking about the low framerate and resolution. Looks way worse than XB2 outside the resolution imo in terms of art direction. Music also doesn't seem as good. As of ch.3 the only good music is the battle theme, boss theme and night time colony theme. None of the fields have music that stand out yet.

[BIONIC]

I’m (re)playing a real JRPG right now instead

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Final Fantasy 13

spoiler (click to show/hide)

plz send help 

[close]

[close]

[Rahxephon91]

Honestly, not seeing all the praise so far.

The battle system seems even more overly complex and yet more brain dead. Things die so quickly and abilities spread out so much that I feel like I’m not doing anything. Just got off XB1DE where the battle system seems like a mad rush to knock an enemy down and keep them down, here I feel like the topple system is whatever.

And so far the world is so boring. Big environments with bland texture work copied and pasted over and over. Nothing my really interesting to see or be in. Nothing close to as cool as one and not feeling like a world like in XBX. These bland samey colonies are not towns and do nothing to add atmosphere or life.

The story is whatever. Nothing offensive, just kind of there. This cast is pretty unassuming. Not much to them so far and nothing about them stands out beyond if you want to really force some memes.

Music is great.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, the world is super boring so far through ch.3. Not sure what people are seeing in it. XB1, XB2 and XBX's biggest selling point was it's massive and interesting world to explore. This is just like bland and uninteresting, though the vertical layers of level design in Ribbit Flats is very good level design.

The combat is good but it has problems. I'm sick of spending 1-2 minutes watching chain events play out every major battle (sometimes multiple times in one battle). XB2's chain attacks were the same and dragged the battles. They didn't learn a goddamn thing there. Fights in XB3 still take a very long time in comparison to normal wrpgs/jrpgs for elites/uniques.

I think the story is alright, but I don't like how it cramps the setting into a boring desolate world of small colony camps. Also the antagonists are lame af. I actually miss Shin and stupid haircut guy from XB2 and the evil mechs from XB1 still the best. I don't even remember who the enemies were in XBX because the story there was really bad.

XB3's world reminds me more of XBX. Outside a jungle stage in like ch.2 of XBX, the world was pretty but bland. XB3 has that XBX blandness but without the pretty.

[Rahxephon91]

If Xenoblade 1 was a classic snes jrpg.

Xenoblade 3 is the teenager infused PS1 follow up.

[Bebpo]

I just miss that feeling of a party going off on an adventure.

It's sorta there in XB3 as you travel and the party starts to bond, but it just feels less a fun adventure across rolling green grass hills because of the setting/story. At least it's not angsty. Could've easily been an angsty cast in this setting.

[bork]

Honestly, not seeing all the praise so far.

The battle system seems even more overly complex and yet more brain dead. Things die so quickly and abilities spread out so much that I feel like I’m not doing anything. Just got off XB1DE where the battle system seems like a mad rush to knock an enemy down and keep them down, here I feel like the topple system is whatever.

And so far the world is so boring. Big environments with bland texture work copied and pasted over and over. Nothing my really interesting to see or be in. Nothing close to as cool as one and not feeling like a world like in XBX. These bland samey colonies are not towns and do nothing to add atmosphere or life.

The story is whatever. Nothing offensive, just kind of there. This cast is pretty unassuming. Not much to them so far and nothing about them stands out beyond if you want to really force some memes.

Music is great.

 

I'm thinking about skipping Xenoblade 3. I really hate XB2 and I just don't get it and it's really becoming apparent that 3 is more of the same.

No, I already canceled my pre-order. I know I'm not going  to like this game so why waste anymore energy on it. 100+ hours to beat also sounds unappealing. I'll just continue to play Live A Live, a game that dosen't embarrass me.

Getting Digimon Survive instead.

Let it die.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rahx, I love ya, buddy.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Tbf, I don't even like Digimon but that new game looks pretty great.

[Supermanisdead]

I think it’s fucking sick. We love a job system with clothing changes!

[Rahxephon91]

I did get Digimon Survive.

[Joe Molotov]

It's not even an RPG, you date the Digimon.

[demi]

If you and a digimon went camping and you woke up with dirt on your knees and digmon cum oozing out of your ass, would you tell anybody?

[BIONIC]

 

[Tuckers Law]

Why wouldn't you?  Sounds like a standard camping trip to me.

[Supermanisdead]

Unlike the first 2 games, the story path doesn’t take you to like most of the world map. A lot of exploration is side content and that’s where you get all the heroes and find cool landmarks. If you played the first 2 games, you can recognize so much remixed levels. I think it is VERY COOL. Best Xenoblade game I think.

[Bebpo]

Remixed levels aka XB3 map is so big because it just re-uses the assets/areas from the earlier games. I think that's really lame personally. These are like the boring no character knock offs of the original areas that were actually interesting in their own games.

I don't give one shit about revisiting XB1/2. All the connections so far just make XB3 less interesting to me.

[Supermanisdead]

It's all new, but there will be like little nods like landmarks from Gaur Plain or some lighting effects from Satorl Marsh. I think the structure of 1 was cooler because you really felt like you were climbing up the titan, but this is better than 2 which I found very lame and disconnected.

[Bebpo]

There's just no rhyme or rhythm connecting the zones here. I get that is the point because it's like for some story reason the XB1 and XB2 worlds merged, but it just makes the world design a chaotic mess of completely separate zones that just border each other.

I'm just not a fan of this setting.

I still like the game a lot. Some of these sidequests are great. Maybe best sidequests in the series. I actually think the sidequests are my favorite part of the game so far. More than the main story, the map exploration and the combat.

[Rahxephon91]

These areas are from previous games?

Didn’t even notice since they seem to be drab landmasses of whatever.

[Rahxephon91]

But this battle theme is one of the best I’ve heard in a long while. Very youthful energy which is fitting for this game.

[Bebpo]

I think the music is good, but nothing is memorable or sticks out to me so far outside the boss battle theme with its vocal shouts. Like the battle music is solid, but there's like 1,000+ good jrpg battle themes at this point so it doesn't stand out. I can't remember the last time I could remember the tune of a jrpg battle theme when I'm not playing the game.

I do like the colony musics because they're simple piano stuff that's softer at night. But there's also a dime a dozen jrpg songs like that out there.

What I am looking forward to at some point in XB3 are the real standout tracks like in XB2's flying holy city.

Also in general I feel like ACE team, Mitsuda and the other composers are good, but it's all a large step down from Xenogears/Xenosaga ep1 Mitsuda. Kajiura was good too, but nothing tops XG/XS ep1 Mitsuda (throw in Chrono Cross too).

[Nintex]

20 hours in now, still having a great time.

The map and world design is actually pretty damn genius.
Usually when you just enter an area it almost feels like you're moving through corridors surrounded by mountains.
But then later on you're on a mountain thinking: "Wait, that's where I started 2 hours ago?!".
It's more linear than BOTW and I guess more linear than XBC2 as well but it works really well.

The only thing holding this game back from its full potential is the Switch hardware.
For example, the 'staged' battles where you have to pick a side and other map events could've been better integrated into a more livelier world with better hardware.
You could have interactions between colonies like wars and trade as opposed to colonies just acting as small villages and better animations on the characters outside of the motion captured cutscenes.
It's really a classic RPG in the sense that nothing happens until you come along and trigger it. Which is different from Elden Ring where things move, fight and exist and you are sort of a tourist in a world already in motion.

[Bebpo]

These starting regions are so huge. I keep finding new stuff. At some point will actually start ch.4 and move to the next region. Probably be like 35 hours by that point.

[Bebpo]

I guess the last thing they finished in the game before launch was sidequest boss death scenes? Because they feel really unfinished or missing.

spoilers for Valdi hero quest

spoiler (click to show/hide)

You beat the consul monster and then get a 2 second cutscene of him going "hahaha I am invincibl..." and then the mech behind him blows up and you just assume he got exploded. This was kind of funny though I'm not sure if it was on purpose.

[close]

spoilers for Teach hero quest

spoiler (click to show/hide)

You score the last hit in the fight and the screen instantly transitions to Teach talking to the crew and the consul just...isn't there. Feels like a scene was cut/missing where the consul was supposed to have died.

[close]

In general the whole copy & paste color swap consul bosses are the weakest part of the game so far. Kind of a bad mechanic. Story-wise they should have at least established early on that A-Z consuls were all just dumb no-name grunts and the group sitting above them are the real unique named antagonists of the game. Because outside of the intro ch.1 consul guy, the rest are all just dumb no-name grunts without even a unique boss 3d model.

[Rahxephon91]

They also all looking fucking dumb and lame.

[Nintex]

No one:

The Xenoblade 3 composers

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

The consuls remind me of Seele and the Noah/Mio Ouroboros of EVA Unit 01 

[Bebpo]

They definitely seem like going for that younger shounen audience with their goofy eyes and animal designs.
Also their attitudes don't make them scary masked bad guys like the Testaments from Xenosaga. They're all goofy caricatures of generic shounen villains.


I'm still in ch.3 so not far in the story but my guess on who they are at this point is

spoiler (click to show/hide)

That all the colonies people are clones and the consuls are the originals and the main badguy is original Noah[/spoilers]

[close]

[Nintex]

I think I ran into a Metal Gear Solid reference

How is this cast so likeable 
Not to mention all the new classes 

They definitely seem like going for that younger shounen audience with their goofy eyes and animal designs.
Also their attitudes don't make them scary masked bad guys like the Testaments from Xenosaga. They're all goofy caricatures of generic shounen villains.


I'm still in ch.3 so not far in the story but my guess on who they are at this point is

spoiler (click to show/hide)

That all the colonies people are clones and the consuls are the originals and the main badguy is original Noah[/spoilers]

[close]

Also in chapter 3 still, collecting heroes and liberation colonies. As it merges the XB1 and XB2 worlds my guess is this.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Consuls need to harvest life energy with the flame clocks to retain their power and stay alive. It's almost entirely the same as the Mechon/Homs plot from Xenoblade 1. Where the essence of the dead Homs returned to the world and the Mechon were merely harvesters intended to speed up that process. So my take is that the Consuls/Moebius fought the Ouroboros many decades ago and won the war but with their victory there was no more life to be harvested. In some sort of philosophical way they had consumed too much of the world. The consuls refer to the Agnus/Kevesi as 'drones' and their war as 'a game'.
 
So the Moebius either created the Agnus and Kevesi 'blades' as lifestock to consume or indeed cloned the few Ouroboros that were still left. It also possible that they simply corrupted the clone soldiers of their enemy. In any case an eternal conflict would mean an endless harvest of energy. Vandham used the device at the start of the game to free Noah and friends from this fate and to spark a revolution. The plot twist will be that Moebius used the energy for another purpose as well that Noah and friends don't yet know about, mainly preventing the black fog or whatever to take hold and consume the world. It turns out that not just the XB1 and XB2 worlds collided but also the shadow world.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Might finish up ch.3 tonight. Got all the side stuff and exploration under lvl.50 done in the first two areas. Nothing left to do but finish the story and move to ch.4's area for now. 30 hours in now. Lvl.32 party.

I kind of love the game, but I have so many issues with it at the same time. So far I think the critics giving it in the 8/10 range is about right. With some better design decisions & better switch hardware this could have been amazing, but it's still pretty impressive just with a ton of flaws. Definitely better than XB2 already.

The Fornis region overall when you've fully mapped the whole thing out is ridiculously impressive in scope and design. The first region when fully mapped out is fine, but Fornis is really good. I wish the story actually took you through most of the map but at least they throw a sidequest or two in each sub-area. XB3 reminds me a lot of XBX where they make this giant world with tons of design but the main quest just beelines through it in a straight line and the rest of the world is just sorta there to walk around, fight some enemies, find some treasure and do a few subquests in but otherwise it's not really designated as a part of the story adventure scenario which is a shame.

Some of the views in Fornis are really nice, especially when you have good weather. The art direction has grown on me as I've spent time in areas and seen them in various times of day and weather. Sometimes when you're first in an area it's just an ugly time of day/weather, but can look nicer later.

But yeah, Fornis is impressive. If the rest of the game has more regions that compare to this quality, I think I'll like this game a lot when all is said and done.

[Nintex]

This is one of those games that gets better the more you play

[Nintex]

lmao Riku shitting on Lanz all the time 

Level 40 chapter 3, I'm quite overleveled for the story stuff where I'm at. The first 2 regions are just too good. Some classes are crazy good, especially the healer class with the staff and the attacker with two pistols 

[Bebpo]

Is it just me or does the combat totally break when you fight multiple enemies? Like your AI tank is too dumb to handle multiple aggros and there aren't any good circular AoE aggro grabbing fast cooldown moves to just tank a bunch yourself.

My solution to multi-enemy fights is just to avoid them at all costs but if I have to for a fight have like 3-4 tanks and 3-4 healers.

The worst is when you're fighting an elite or unique that is hard enough on their own that you can just barely survive/beat them and some dumb easy mob stumbles into your fight and then your entire AI team just breaks and dies horribly because they can't handle multiple enemies.

[Nintex]

The trick is to stick close together otherwise the healers and defenders can't cover the attackers. Sometimes you have to rally the group back to your position.
Once I figured that out the fights got much easier. If weaker enemies join, make sure to take them out first with Focus attacks.

I usually have 2 healers, 2 defenders and 2 attackers and finally a hero. Zeon blocks basically everything so he's a good default choice or Valdi as an additional medic.
I tried a bunch of combo's, overall defensive strategies are easier. So 3 healers, 3 defenders and just 1 attacker works well but 3 or 4 attackers doesn't.

With the right combo you can wreck level 40 enemies at level 33. Or at least that's what I did.
Don't forget about the Gems and Accessoires too, everything stacks basically. I got like a critical rate +40% and then another critical damage +20%.
Interlinking right at the start of the fight works well too, Noah and Mio have this Dragon Tail move that drops the attack power of an enemy by 30% if it hits.

[Bebpo]

No, I mean like when there's 5 enemies your AI two tanks can't keep them aggro'd and you'll see red lines and the healers will die.

The AI just seems to suck at managing aggro for more than 1 enemy per tank.

[Supermanisdead]

The further I get into more and more difficult areas, the more I add aggro management items and gems to my characters. It gets super important.

Btw, do NOT go into the hero roster menu  I got spoiled on a few heroes. It's like the blade album from 2, but even easier to guess who is behind the silhouette.

[Bebpo]

The further I get into more and more difficult areas, the more I add aggro management items and gems to my characters. It gets super important.

Yeah, I need to start checking a wiki on certain drops because my gems are still stuck at II/III mostly.

One problem with being overleveled is if you aren't fighting the greyed out low level mobs since there's no point, you're missing mob drops and you might need those later for things like gems. I skipped fighting a lot of normal enemies in the back half of ch.3 because I was way over their level.

I haven't used any bonus xp in like 20 hours since ch.2. Waiting for enemy xp to start catching back up.

[Nintex]

The end of Chapter 3

[Bebpo]

Still in Ch.4, digging it. Sidequesting at Colony Tau atm. It's more linear like XB1 at this point but that's fine. Some nice music.

At this point, I mostly control whoever's tanking in the party. Tanking feels like the most fun since it's a challenging keeping aggro, facing the enemy away from the party, and keeping near a healer to get healed. Probably closest single player game I've played to get the feel of tanking in an MMO right.

[Bebpo]

I looked up how long the game is and it lined up with what I'm feeling at this point.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

That I'm basically halfway. Plus I kinda cheated looking at party affinity skills and Caravan Call aka lvl.2 for all Colonies you visit is at 45% before you get Tau to rank 2, so...that adds up to about 12 colony camps total and Tau being #6 that puts me smack midway. Plus like midway through the circular world map, and level-wise midway to 80-99 at ~lvl.38-48 now. So yeah, very midway feel here.

[close]

Pretty interested to see where it goes from here because while I like it a lot, I feel like there's been not much story so far, and Xenoblade games usually become pretty story heavy after a certain point. I'm guessing once I reach the sword city aka initial objective from the intro, that the story will kick off. I like the cast and the journey so far though.

[Rahxephon91]

I’m a bit into chapter 4 and I still find the game pretty boring. The high praise the game has received is confusing.

The battle system really plays it self. It’s like they dumbed down Xenoblade 1’s. XB1 is kick them on the ground gameplay. Since you can instantly refill the topple, break, and dazed gauges when you attack with a corresponding attack it becomes a mad dash to keep the enemies toppled. Because if they are in that state and you hit them with a break, a daze, whatever they stay in it.  Add in the all out attack thing and you have a very quickly burn them down system. It’s why using Dunban and no healer is great.

Here it’s like the game plays itself. Hell I’ve put the controller down during a few consul battles and the game literally plays itself.

Switching characters isn’t that intuitive to spice up the gameplay and all these jobs seem rather pointless when many of them don’t seem to have topple, launch, and break. The abilities you get from a class to mix with others also seem in the end pointless. It’s all clutter and yet adds nothing if you ask me. Combat seems thoughtless compared to XB1 were I have a clear goal. So far it just seems like press cooldowns and repeat.

The world feels like mud world. I have seen few cool things. I guess they will never match the sheer coolness of XB1’s setting. I know I haven’t made it to the “place”, but so far this is possibly the most boring world in these games. Not helped by the image quality, but everything just looks so bland.

I’m also still waiting for this story to do anything.

Also while I don’t see what’s exciting about the combat, it feels like the most mmo single player game ever.

[Bebpo]

I still think the world is kind of visually boring but I've made my peace with that and they're still well designed areas. When they make a XB4 hopefully they can make an interesting world again.

[Nintex]

6 party members + 1 hero indeed makes for battles that sometimes require little participation from the player.
But I don't really mind that actually.

I do think that the experienced Xenoblade players can level way too fast with the large ammount of side content and Exp bonuses.
It would've been better if the story content 'scaled' with the player level instead of applying a level to each area.
The Kevesi and Agnus squads sort of scale I suppose but those soldiers are weaksauce regardless of their level.
 
On the other hand it saves some backtracking later when you can clear out the areas and unique monsters during your first visit.
I do find that the game is still challenging despite fighting level 30 - 35 unique monsters at level 40. Sometimes they still wipe out my entire party when I underestimate them.

[Bebpo]

It would've been better if the story content 'scaled' with the player level instead of applying a level to each area.

No, level scaling in rpgs always sucks. Always.

Never feel like you're actually getting stronger.

[Nintex]

It would've been better if the story content 'scaled' with the player level instead of applying a level to each area.

No, level scaling in rpgs always sucks. Always.

Never feel like you're actually getting stronger.

Not necessarily in the fields but I think it would work for the bosses to a certain extend.

I'm probably going to switch to hard to see what changes on that setting.

[Nintex]

I just realized the cat girl is literally called Meow

[Bebpo]

Speaking of which, this is the first Xeno~ game I'm playing in English text. Played everything Xenogears -> XB2 in Japanese text/audio import versions. But no reason to now with worldwide releases and JP audio tracks.

I heard XB2's translation was crazy. People have called it "aggressive localization". Like they changed the names of every character in the game and terms and loose translations for everything. XB3 is supposedly A LOT better.

But, while the translation is sorta fine-ish, and thankfully it doesn't seem like they changed the main party members names this time. They still changed like the name of half the Hero characters and NPC to make them less Japanese. Which is pretty jarring when the audio track says one name but the text says another. Also all the British slang is weird with the JP audio honestly. It's one thing to use an accent in translation when the Japanese text/audio is using an accent. You often see the Osaka dialect in games be translated as like a southern accent in English localizations. Or if you're going full Alexander O. Smith and just making the whole thing Shakespearean (which Matsuno was down with).

But here it's like normal text with random British slang thrown in from time to time. I get it makes more sense with the English dub being dubbed with UK actors, but with the JP audio it's very strange when they say something like "Queen's Knickers" or something.

Also the Nopon flavor text is exclusive to the English version. In the original Japanese they just use a goofy word at the end of each sentence like Moogles do with "blah blah blah Kupo". I'm ok with this because the weird grammar makes them goofier, but at the same time occasionally it's hard to parse and figure out what the fuck they are saying.

Still Manana is the best party member.

Anyhow, if they didn't change the names of characters I wouldn't mind the localization. But it's just like passable imo. Changing names in localizations just reeks of never leaving the 90s. You'd think we were past that.

[demi]

This game is fucking boring. Characters suck, story is not interesting. Battle music is awful, even the "unique monster" theme. Only good one has been when I fought the consul.

Job systems never work, they fucking suck

Takahashi fell off, time for new blood

[Nintex]

This game is fucking boring. Characters suck, story is not interesting. Battle music is awful, even the "unique monster" theme. Only good one has been when I fought the consul.

Job systems never work, they fucking suck

Takahashi fell off, time for new blood

Have you played Xenoblade 1 recently? Because this game is closer to 'Xenoblade 2' than Xenoblade 2 itself was.

[Bebpo]

This game is fucking boring. Characters suck, story is not interesting. Battle music is awful, even the "unique monster" theme. Only good one has been when I fought the consul.

Job systems never work, they fucking suck

Takahashi fell off, time for new blood

It’s a very slow burn game.
Takes until mid/late ch.3 to start clicking.


Also I wonder how involved Takahashi is with the series any more. He hasn’t directed the games in forever. Feels more like a Suda51 thing where he’s like semi-retired and Koh Kojima is heading the series now.

[Bebpo]

And yeah the game feels like a direct sequel to XB1 that’s thrown away most of XB2. Kinda weird since XB2 did have a few good things about it. But it is what it is.

[demi]

I've played all Xenoblade, this one is horrible at getting to the point. I already have that "ugh, gotta force myself through this one" feeling. I should have just waited for Soul Hackers instead

[Bebpo]

It's the Kirby Air Ride of jrpgs. It takes forever to get good, but then it just keeps getting better.
Locking the decent combat/tank/heal classes until 15-20 hours into the game was a decision.


Like I just did the Maktha Wildwoods and including the upper/lower that is a fucking good map. Plus some good cutscenes at the end of it too.

[demi]

"Is this what getting OLD is?"

How many cutscenes a bitch gotta watch for them to say AGAIN that yes EVERYONE wants to kill you

[Bebpo]

A lot more.

Game has the "watch cutscene" -> gameplay and you get to walk 100 steps -> "watch cutscene" pace a lot.

[demi]

"Hmmm should we go east or west." "The west is safer." "Hmmm ok" "But is it REALLY safer?"

Like dude these characters are dumb as shit.

Shulk: "I'll kill all you fuckers, chase you to the ends of the earth. Fuckers"

Rex: "I need to get to the tree! Whatever it takes!"

Noah: "Bubububu I dont want to hurt people"

BITCHMADE ass motherfuckin losers

[Bebpo]

Where I'm at I feel like Noah isn't much of a character and is more a Light Novel reader stand-in. He's pretty passive and has the least unique personality of the team.

But he's starting to have a little more personality, so maybe by the end he'll be more of a character. Shulk and Rex were more traditional strong personalities.

[Rahxephon91]

Xenoblade 3 is bad. I’m sorry.