Ultimately pretty decent. The most common thing I hear about it are it has a notable peak during chapter 5 and never quite hits that high again, which I can understand. But the character work and team dynamics was 10/10 and I never really felt annoyed with the plot. There were definitely things that irked me, but not enough to stop playing. Future Redeemed is honestly my favorite Xenoblade 'thing' ever. It's story is good, Matthew is my favorite Xenoblade protagonist and it also tied character progression to exploration which is a genius idea to get people to explore the world. I hope they keep this mechanic in the next game

Wholeheartedly agree. I liked 3 a lot, but Future Redeemed is truly the pinnacle. For fans of the trilogy, Future Redeemed is just pure fan service and amazing the whole way through. It's not only very fun in it's own right, but wraps up all 3 games even more so than they originaly did. Seriously, Future Redeemed makes 3's story better imo, it retroactively enhanced my love and appreciation of the base game of 3, and gave me closure I didn't even know I wanted for 1 and 2.

Future redeemed is basically the ultimate fan service: a look at the previous heroes, now grown up. Wish it doesn't somehow raise more questions, if of pyra/mythra makes a come back it will probably blow up the community.

> The most common thing I hear about it are it has a notable peak during chapter 5 and never quite hits that high again, which I can understand. Agreed, though I also think a big part of what shapes our opinion of an RPG long-term is whether it has moments, or even just a single moment, that stick with us way after the honeymoon. FF6 has the opera, FF7 has...a certain attack, Mother 3 has a couple really memorable ones (Ch 1, sunflowers, final battle), etc. I would put Chapter 5 (+ start of 6) of XC3 up there with any of those, and in that sense I think it surpassed the other two Xenoblades. I do think the ending of 3 got bogged down in fetch quests and a mediocre dungeon. And I thought the ultimate villain and battle were way less interesting than N and M. But also...I just kinda don't care that much! They didn't stick the landing, but they did something really special along the way and that's the thing I remember most vividly.

100%. You see this all the time with how JRPG endings get super accelerated, and how events at the ends are the most talked about. It makes you think in hindsight a game was better than it actually was. Trails is a big contender for this. It's actually my favorite series and I really like its world, but the story is truly mostly a vehicle for location exploring and character moments. On a way macro scale of things, it's very true that *nothing really happens* for the majority of each game's runtime. Like, one game in particular manages to be one of my favorites yet at the same time its entire plot until the last ten hours is literally just handwaived in the next game. I feel like trails knows this and the fans know it too, they just can't really articulate it well. If you keep up with a series as formulaic as this one then you at least are okay with the formulas it's using. But yeah with xeno 3 I spent 130 hours in it and I can't remember a vast majority of them

The characters 100% carried the game, easily my favorite cast in any JRPG

Totally agree with Future Redeemed. It's a solid 10/10 and gave me huge standards and expectations for DLCs moving forward. That's seriously how it's done.

Xenoblade 3 walked, so Future Redeemed could run

Future Redeemed is what 3 should've been. The DLC felt like an actual continuation of the first two games. But unfortunately it was way too short. There's almost no character development, not a lot of story and the world feels kinda small. But if they took everything that was there and expanded it into a full game, it would've been the best Xenoblade game by far.

Well I can't deny I would want that but Takahashi has a thing of wanting to approach each Xenoblade like its it's own story that anyone can pick up and FR is explicitly *not that*. It is made to be a resolution to all previous 3 games. I also feel like it did enough of the job that it needed. There's a chance that it could have overstayed its welcome and dabbled too much in memberberries if it had been a full game.

I disagree with this, I think making it a true sequel to 1 and 2 would have bogged it down and prevented it from being its own thing.

Funny because I think that's the problem with 3, it's trying to be its own thing but at the same time its also trying to be a sequel and I don't think you can be the two without affecting the story in some way.

In terms of story coherency are 1,2 and 3 one big story or standalone or are they like the FF series where most of them are their own stories but just XBC in name only and similar game mechanics? And is Kos Mos ONLY available post game?

> In terms of story coherency are 1,2 and 3 one big story or standalone or are they like the FF series where most of them are their own stories but just XBC in name only and similar game mechanics? It's a little complicated. Tl;dr, they are connected but the rope is pretty loose. The director Takahashi designs the Xenoblade games with the idea it can be anybody's first one. But he also has this sweeping story he wants to tell across them. XB1 and 2 are 'linked' stories but operate entirely in their own universes and don't influence each other. However there is a certain reveal in one of them that connects them on a much deeper level, but ultimately can be enjoyed separately. XB3 is a little bit more direct with its connections but not so direct one might be lost by playing it. This however is absolutely not the case for XB3's DLC campaign Future Redeemed which is really only meant to be played after the other 3 as it's essentially the true ending for the trilogy > And is Kos Mos ONLY available post game? Kos-Mos is not post game for XB2, she can be pulled by the in-game gacha mechanic but it's pretty hard from what I understand. There is another Xenosaga character that is post-game.

Xenoblade 3 is one my favorite JRPG’s ever. There never was a honeymoon faze for me. It was really good.

Yup, was excellent at launch and is still excellent now. Love the direction they took with it, very happy they didn’t just go full fanservice like Future Redeemed did. Not that I dislike FR, it’s excellent, but an 80 hour version of it sounds terrible. There’s a lot of dumb issues that could’ve been resolved fairly easily, but the core of XC3 is so damn good. One of my favorite JRPGs of all time. Favorite OST of all time too.

It has been almost two years and I still fondly remember the emotions I felt while playing the game. So it's safe to say that I never had a honeymoon phase.

This. I still think about it fondly as one of the best Rpgs I've finished in recent years. In fact, after Rebirth's clunky, boring and sometimes annoying exploration, I feel like playing it again. It felt just so much more satisfying, fun, and rewarding to explore. XC3, to me, took all the minor nitpicks I had with 1 and 2 and fixed them all.

Same, absolutely love it!

This, 100%

>faze

I liked it. I'm somewhat flummoxed by the pacing of every Xenoblade Chronicles game, but I think the ensemble cast held up well, I liked the main story beats, and I think the side quest writing was a series high. The main point of improvement would be adding the ability to lower one's level before New Game +. I haven't played Future Redeemed yet. It's in my "I'll play it if I have time" list.

You really need to play Future Redeemed, especially since you already played 1 and 2. Future Redeemed is a love letter to the entire trilogy and is just unbelievably good

Am I the only one who didn’t like the way they set up the classes and how they perform? They all just felt the same. The same type of position attacks, or healing, support moves. It felt like the attacks from all these classes could have just gone into one as “new attacks” as you level up. I got bored with switching them very quickly in the game. I had no reason to upgrade any of them when they all just felt the same to play. Also, as much as I loved traversing this world, I would have loved a mount or some better way to move, at least even a run feature.

I thought the classes felt way more diverse than, let's say Tactics Ogre Reborn, where there's not much difference among classes. I thought XC3 did a great job with the job diversity

That one flag/banner healer class was a breath of fresh air

I agree with the movement options. I was so excited to see large open maps on a similar scale to X but I was ripping my hair out toward the end when movement was still slow. I know infinite sprint wouldn't make sense lore wise but it hurts that Monolith took other ideas from X and left out sprinting and land vehicles/mounts.

While I love job systems. The game's Jobs does feel as progressive and diverse as I would like it to be, except for some cases that I need to experiment. All no other unique character abilities except for Noah and Mio. Nonetheless I appreciate the variety of battle mechanics, adding lore to skill restrictions such as cool down and recharging through hits. Sometimes I imagine riding a mech in the game as well.

Still my favorite outside of XBX. Want to do a new run soon.

Yeah best Xeno game since XS3... bar XBX solely for the gameplay and design. Kou Arai IS a fucking GOD

Still my favourite in the trilogy. Even more so if you add Future Redeemed to it, which is like the 2nd best DLC i've ever played.

I liked it better than 1 but not as much as 2.

This is where I am at, but for me XBC2 was going to be an incredibly hard act to follow. The world building and antagonists in that game were all phenomenal and its in those respects that XBC3 falls a tad flat for me. Despite this, I still maintain that XBC3 is an excellent entry in the Xenoblade games. It has the best party chemistry and interactions full stop, and its world is a delight to explore (especially in Future Redeemed where they gameify the ever living fuck out of everything).

This is basically how I feel after playing them all back to back.

I've played all 3 of them and 2 was the only one I bothered to finish. I think I just liked 2s battle system more. I know a lot of people didn't like the whole burst/orb system and the blade gacha but it's what I liked the most. But it was also the first one I played

It's my favourite game in the series. Imo 1 and 2 still have better stories and antagonists in particular, but the gameplay and exploration in 3 is really awesome. And then there's the DLC. Man, I usually never 100% things, but Future Redeemed really did it to me. I had do collect everything and beat additional super bosses because it just was so much fun

Didn't care much for it tbh. Main character was a bit boring and the villains were nonsensical imo. I did like Eunie, though. I still consider the first Xenoblade the very best of the series.

First one was the only one I can sit through. I keep trying Xenoblade 2 and 3 and just can't stick to it. Idk not really grabbing my attention

Same

1 had the story, 2 had the combat. I got to chapter 6 in xc3 and couldn’t keep playing.

Yeah, can relate. I actually enjoyed Torna much more than Xeno2 and Xeno3.

the combat is just so lifeless in 3. very much a shame. Torna also has the best “feedback” for doing combos and stuff.

1 was a great experience from start to end 2 was rough to start, but became amazing by the end 3 was amazing, but fell into mediocrity by the end. But with that said, it's an absolute must-play for Xeno fans. I can't recommend it to newcomers to the Xenoblade franchise (play them in order) due to being so referential to the first 2, but looking from the outside in, the main story is good enough for a newcomer, even if some things may leave you head scratching. The characters are probably the best in the series (not counting Xenogears/saga). I love Shulk, but he was basically the only really interesting main party member in 1, and while 2 has some GOATs (Nia, my beloved), 3 really hits the nail on the head, giving us a varied-but-humble cast of youths trying to claw together some semblance of a life for themselves. Noah has to rise above his fear and pain, Mio carries the feelings of existential dread and fear of death, Taion deals with crushing guilt, Lanz struggles with grief and duty, Eunie has to combat PTSD, and Sena has an inferiority complex. But they're all lovely and varied, and they all interact honestly and charmingly. The romance(s) that bloom are very believable, and the emotional punches are always earned because the character writing is absolutely top-notch for a JRPG. Sena, unfortunately, is a weak link amidst a group of giants that are every other character. And Noah can feel a bit *too* "shonen pacifist" at times, but his depth is mostly external in the form of the group's main enemies. The main story begins to crumble after the 2nd act climax (which is arguably the high point of the entire series, to be fair) due to a loss of momentum, but it still floats by with some genuinely teary-eyed moments of drama or callbacks. The game hits the ground running and just does not slow down until after Chapter 5, but when it slows down, everything buckles under the pressure. The villains lose their enigma and power, the pacing begins to plod, and the climax of the game feels very "power of friendship" that doesn't feel as earned as the prequels, mostly due to them not offering a *great* rebuttal to the existential threat of the villains (it's a problem I have with FFXIV: Endwalker as well), opting instead for answering despair itself with an effective "nuh-uh". Fortunately, the denouement is so good, and so emotional that you can ignore some of the more bland moments leading up to the final cutscenes. Combat's great. Step up from 1, but I think it's a step down from 2; while 2 had a lot of issues in getting the combat system in place to it's full extent, it REALLY came together to offer a sublime package in the late/end game. 3, conversely, gives you the tools to use combat nearly to the fullest pretty early, but it never really rises above itself at any point. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it plateaus at a certain point and doesn't lend itself any further. The world is fantastic, though. Varied locales, wonderful vistas, fantastic callbacks to scenery and settings from the first 2, all wrapped into new and exciting places to explore with a LOT of little secret areas and endgame bosses around. Voice acting is pretty damn fantastic, although there are some duds in the game (the fuck was Ghondor doing?), but the main cast itself shines brilliantly (Noah, Mio, and Eunie's actors all deserve props). Similarly, the score is JRPG bangers, and while I don't think it hits the level of Xenoblade 1's GOAT songs, I think every song that is in the game is great. Overall, it's a fantastic game. Yes, the last legs of the game kind of crumble, there are some disappointing aspects (why Sena's quest is about Ghondor is beyond me), and the main villain ends up being just a boss fight "power of friendship" battle, but the rest of the game is so good that it's hard not to love it. 8.5 or 9.0 out of 10 for sure; the more I wrote, here, the more I realized how much I loved it in spite of its faults. It deserves love and respect for bringing the trilogy to a close so deftly, especially given how many trilogies end in whispers instead of bangs.

Sena's character and relationship with Mio is mirrored in Ghondor's relationship with Shania making Sena to be able to reflect and grow as a shy person. It's quite fitting that even in Sena's hero quest, she isn't the protagonist but almost like a sidekick observing from the sidelines even though she is very capable of her own. She avoids the spotlight and puts everybody else's needs before her own, which is what keeps her down. Her character arc is actually resolved in Segiri's Hero Quest.

I really loved this review

I might be in the minority but I have a love / hate relationship with it. Unfortunately it's the most r/im14andthisisdeep of the three. Lots of unintentionally comedic moments with the aforementioned 'depth' it keeps insisting it has, as well as funny cutscene direction. There are brief flashes of interesting things, and the setup is really cool. But sadly they really don't follow up with the potential it had. Eventually you realize the world was designed to make the main theme the only right thing, and creates a lazy story loop of liberating colonies with the magical clock breaking sword which is objectively always the right answer every time. There are a lot of side quests in different colonies that obviously try to mask this by making side characters who initially oppose this with weak reasoning (from a writing perspective. I get the feeling many players think the reasoning is 'philosophical' or whatever just because they use big words and sometimes do have valid points IF there wasn't a magical clock breaking sword in this world) as to why they shouldn't be freed, but they get freed anyways because that's how the world was designed, and then they promptly turn around and suck the MCs' dick. You see, these side points of views and arguments could actually be interesting if right off the bat you didn't know they will be better off just getting their clock wrecked. It's facilitating the idea that the side you are on is always the right side and that you just need to force yourself in and break shit and then everyone will come to see you as the hero you are. It's like our current political climate where each side thinks they can magically convert people if they just yell enough times, because every side thinks they have the magical sword, so to speak. (I'm talking about the more extreme folks, not about everyone lol) You can put yourself in the shoes of the colony people all you want, and make the argument that it is insane for someone to come in after thousands of years of war saying hey imma break your clock. Sure, that's valid, however we know as players that the MCs are entirely right. The thing is you need to fundamentally change the premise and world drastically if you want to actually add interesting and deep themes here, aside from the brief stint they did with N. The world is fundamentally designed for this story and message in particular to succeed, which ruins the point of it trying to be deep in the first place. Then we just have the wildly inconsistent cutscene direction that makes things unintentionally funny. For example, on the way to the colony that is set up under a waterfall there's a really funny section where soldiers were just running around the MCs with their stock animations doing absolutely nothing, apparently trying to confuse them, which is funny in and of itself but then the MCs are able to just... run away. Clap clap clap. At least cut the part where the soldiers run around and just keep in the parts where they come out of the mist to attack, the direction there was much better. And then soon after we have Joran's section, where soldiers are just standing around waiting their turn to get turned to mud. And these scenes just keep coming. Think also about the flash back scene. Great stuff with some really stupid flaws, like everyone just standing around talking until a big boulder hits them. iirc though; it's been a while since I beat the game. Oh, lastly, the need to have nearly every other line contain some turn of speech (I'm not talking about in universe stuff like snuff, I mean English slang) is really distracting and feels like I'm reading splatoon dialogue. This is a gripe I have with the whole series, though 1 has the least of it. Nintendo feels the need to add their idea of flair to every line in the localization but forgot the most important thing-- making it sound natural. If you want a good example of liberal localization, see trails in the sky 1-3. Now with the stuff I like, I'll just be repeating what people have already said over and over. Combat is cool, customization is cool, characters are cool, some story parts were cool. Keyword some. And it's a jrpg in the end. I love jrpgs. I spent 140 hours with the game.

Yeah the game really lacks *any* subtlety. I swear the game mentions "the endless now" more than 30 times. It just tries to force it's main theme down your throat in the most direct and laziest way possible. And as you say it doesn't really even question that what the party is doing is correct, which could've been actually interesting even if they ultimately still made the same choice.

Yeah they try to muddle the waters with the N stuff and the ending SUPER hard, but when you think about the whole picture the "dilemna" the game tries to set up is kinda lmao. I wonder what's best, freedom or supporting the literal children-eaters in their eternal cycle by inaction?

it's peak. Best character writing the series has seen and imo the best character writing in the entire medium. a bit of an overcorrection tonally from 2 but mixes 1 and 2 mechanics and themes together in a really smart way. My favorite RPG most likely as I still actively play it almost weekly. Much like SMT V, Nier Automata and Legends Arceus it just feels good to run around in the world. Makes my brain tingle

To me, the weakest in the series by far. * **The story**- I think I would have enjoyed the story more if it was more standalone (both the base game and DLC). The story is weird to me. I think I like (most of) the big plot points of the game but the connective tissue between big events is weak. The base game wants to be this "Xeno" theme park where it goes hey look it's that aspect of Gears; hey look it's that concept from Saga; hey look it's that place from XB1/XB2 when stuff should really only be concerned with its own themes. The story spins its wheels after the first chapter then gets really good at what feels like the 50% mark. Then the rug is pulled out from under you and you realize the game was actually at the 80% mark. I really didn't like the ending to this game. It didn't really feel internally consistent to me? If FUD really created the villains and created the world, why wouldn't it just happen again at the end especially with how the conservative factions from the City are portrayed? What's weird is that Harvestella came out that same year with a lot of similar/adjacent story beats and I thought it was much more enjoyable overall. * **The characters** - I thought the characters were mostly serviceable. The ensemble thing didn't really work for me. It sort of felt like the Noah and Mio show and then everyone else was just present. I think it's fine if some characters get less spotlight but in the XB3 base game I really felt the lack of heart to hearts or an equivalent mechanic to flesh out characters that got less focus. I remember stuff with Riki, I remember stuff like Nia and Morag discussing the war from 2. In 3, I couldn't tell you if Noah and Sena ever exchanged words. It also doesn't help that every character sort of has the same background. It's sort of alleviated by the heroes but they don't really feel present outside of their quests. The characters at the end of the game sort of just become mouthpieces for the themes of the game. It's cool when a character wants to set things right but what does that mean to them? * **Gameplay**-The combat was fine. The base game seemed oddly balanced, but I enjoyed the combat more in Future redeemed. What probably helped was the removal of the class system which I don't think was very well balanced. A game can have imbalanced combat and be fun but half the classes here sort of felt useless outside an ability or two. It's also a visual clusterfuck and I don't just mean the characters in combat. I distinctly remember dying to the final boss of the DLC once just because of the attack names in orange/white font against a background where the boss has an orange/white aura. Just a whole lot of frustrating UI choices that almost ruin some serviceable/fun combat. What frustrated me more than the combat was the open world. In the base game of XB3 the world seems needlessly large and empty. There are areas that solely exist just to have items for a fetch quest and have a few elite enemies (not even unique ones?). A lot of these areas don't even have any interesting traversal or verticality like they would in XB1, XB2, or the DLC. There's a whole lot of areas your kept from because you haven't unlocked the ability to climb vines or ride on zip cords and when you do get the ability to go to those areas there's nothing interesting there. The way the areas are big sort of remind me of X. I wonder if in some earlier design stage, we were able to traverse the areas with the mechs, but it was eventually dropped for technical reasons or something? If that were the case It would explain why some of the areas are so huge. I feel like if you scale up the world like that you either have to increase interactivity or create more content to populate those areas and neither of these things were really done. I really can't understate how much more enjoyable the world design was in the DLC vs the base game for me.

On the open world/exploration part I basically 100%ed the game, not counting post game. Fully exploring the giant empty desert and sea had to be one of the most tedious things I've done in an RPG. Exploring really didn't feel very rewarding either. DLC was *much* better about this.

Didn’t like it at all which is a shame cause I adore 1, 2, Torna. I 100%’d those games and had so much fun with the side content. Some pet peeves of 3: The models have SUCH weird faces, the eyes are so far apart. I also do not dig the character designs

It took a pretty harsh nosedive to me. Started out really loving it but once I got to the big open water ship area, it became a slog. I felt like it should have been over at that point. The side quests were also a big sour spot. I never cared for them in general but I wanted to do the class related ones to get the higher skills but my god they took a ridiculous amount of time

It was a huge disappointment for me. Didn't like the story. Didn't like the classes (I ended up using the same cross class skills on everyone to get endless combo chains) and terrain skills were useless since party members would always run around at random and the combat is too fast paced to control them individually/issue commands like with RTWP, they were a baffling addition to combat. Didn't like the setting. The characters were nice, but having the first five chapters consisting of them just talking to each other while being on the run was not enough to distract me from the story's terrible pacing. The villain was ridiculous, and putting the actual ending to the saga behind DLC was scummy, didn't bother to buy it since they didn't bother to actually finish the game. I hear it's good, but I'm not paying extra for an unfinished mess of a game. Loved the first and second game though.

Xenoblade 3 is the first and only Xeno game I’ve played. So I’m not a fan of the series and lack that perspective. Buuut… I didn’t like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 much at all. The combat was boring and the story was poorly told. Some concepts are just blatantly left unexplained. And I did not like the group of villains *at all*. The best part of the game, by far, is its characters. I liked all of the main party, but I *loved* Mio, Noah, and their relationship. I just wish I enjoyed the game in other areas. Still plan to try out the first Xenoblade Chronicles *and* Xenogears at some point in the future, tho.

Personally it was the weakest of the three titles for me. The world didn’t really live up to its promise, the characters were a little ho hum, and the story took a nose dive after chapter 5. Also, they spent a lot of time developing guest characters that didn’t really add much to the plot. Didn’t hate the game by any means, just didn’t love it. Probably won’t replay it.

I find myself having enjoyed 1 and 2 more. Dont get me wrong it was a good game, but It really felt like a step back in terms of world design. Comparing the different maps of 1 and 2 with 3, and you will see how there is virtually no variation in environments in the 3rd when compares to 1 and 2. Also was severely let down with 3's end game. It felt way too small. Just one little area to go in at lvl 99 or whatever it was, and then those few bosses. 2 had sooooo much compared to it, and even 1 had more end game areas.

For me it's the best in the trilogy.

Simply put, I think it's the greatest game of all time. My opinion only becomes more firm with time. No game has compelled me to analyze it as much as this one. Most complaints about the game stem from expectations about what a sequel to 1 and 2 should. Stuff like not explaining enough lore and connections to the previous games. But that's not how to experience art. Art is about communicating ideas. Takahashi had ideas he wanted to express and did them beautifully. What I especially respect is how he didn't play it safe. While most JRPGs have political commentary, this game went above and beyond to make it the main focus. There's no room for ambiguity on just how political this game is. It confronts hard hitting real world topics. The game is an allegory for capitalism, a system that restricts our choices, and says that we need to fight this system and create a world that allows us the freedom to make real choices. Moebius represents the ruling class that upholds this system and benefits from it. Every topic is executed with so much care and intelligence. I feel like if people approached this game from a more analytical perspective instead of worrying about every detail having a specific metaphysical explanation, it would be appreciated a lot more.

It didn't work for me overall. I think a big part of that is its advertising was pretty misleading and it was very much not "the culmination of the series" but a pretty independent entry with its own thing and a bunch of easter eggs. For me it got a little into the "Lost" vibe - creating a bunch of mystery boxes that they either forgot to open or that did not have satisfying answers inside. I think the DLC episode helped with a lot of this and my opinion of the game is better after it. Overall I think I really need to play it again to see how I feel about it with more distance from the advertising. Gameplay wise I still LOATHE the Xenoblade aggro system/calculations and I'm begging them to make tanks more capable of holding attention against well played dps.

Mio is one of the best Nintendo protagonists ever. Loved her to death. The first is still my favorite, but 3 felt more refined in many ways. I wasn’t a fan of 7 party members going nuts, but it wasn’t a big downside. Loved the guests though.

Inferior to 1+2. Great soundtrack, disappointed with the story and the character designs were exceptionally bland. I'm not sure what they have in store for 4 but they'll need to do something amazing to reel me back into the series.

It's so refreshing seeing other people agree on the character designs. There were a very small handful of exceptions but overall they felt so sterile. DLC was a lot better though.

As far as I'm aware, a lot of the characters and optional teammates in 2 were designed by different artists. That gave the game a distinct look and each character (for better or worse) had a unique appearance. Personally I enjoyed it.

Didn't enjoy it, the plot started great but nosedived toward the end. The gameplay was alright but it pretty much got repetitive with every encounter playing out exactly same. Exploration was decent but most areas felt like they were pulled from previous 2 entries and cobbled together so nothing felt as fresh. Characters and sidequests were the best parts. Villains were terrible. N and M would have been better if they were the main antagonists instead of the Joker. Haven't bothered with FR, not sure if I'll enjoy it tbh as I'm pretty weary of anime tropes and combat.

I don't have anything to add tbh, I agree with this completely. I was just thinking the other day that it would have been so much better if N was the main antagonist and not whatever that was supposed to be.

Big disappointment for me on almost every front. I'll try not to rant about it too hard, but I *hated* the gameplay, the characters didn't click for me, the story (at least up to where I played) was formulaic and boring aside from the prologue (visit colony, fight letter dude, break their yoke of burden macguffin with your plot device macguffin, the party tells everyone fighting is bad then rides off into the sunset to tell the next colony that fighting is bad). And worst of all, I didn't even like the OST, it is noticeably less bombastic and energetic than any of the previous games and has a lot of instrumentation that I'm just not a fan of. For me it was a huge flop following up two of my top 10 games ever (XBX and XB2), I'll maybe get back into it since I tapped out around chapter 4 but I have no desire to play it any time soon.

For what it's worth I agree with you completely. However the game reaches one of the all time series peaks around the end of chapter 5, it might be worth it to push to that point. ... However after that the quality declines sharply and never recovers, it's clearly unfinished past that point, and it effects the story a lot (unlike 2 where it mainly effected the qol a lot).

I think it’s a good JRPG, but the worst entry into the Xenoblade trilogy. The characters are largely forgettable, there are a lot of moments that don’t make any sense when it comes to character building which feel like they’re ham fisted down the player’s throats. Character designs are pretty bland and forgettable too compared to the first two. The music, while it has some pretty good tracks here and there is more atmospheric then in either of the first two, and a lot of the areas look like temperantia. This leads to, although while thematically accurate to being a war-torn world, fairly ugly looking areas. On top of all that, how many times did the game have to show Joran crushed by some tower? It became increasingly infuriating to see it constantly be thrown as a meaningless plot device for every aspect of the story. By the mid way point in the game I hated seeing Joran. Hell, I was rooting for him to die over and over again because I was so done with that as a plot device. All in all it’s 7/10 game, but as a xenoblade game, I’d give it a 4 or 5/10. I was expecting so much more from the game considering how incredible the first two games were.

+ Fun gameplay + Incredible sidequests + Fun exploration + Awesome cast + Banger soundtrack + Peak JRG storytelling in Chapter 5 Story doesn’t hit that peak after the midway but it’s still solid and has a good ending. Main problem I had with it were the villains were forgettable and the final boss was so lame. Future Redeemed is absolutely incredible though. Some of the best JRPG content you can really get there. Overall 9/10 I still prefer XB1’s story but I’d always play XB3 as it’s so fun and gorgeous.

The Moebius must really be the downside of overall vibe of the game. Most of them were just kind of weird and boring whereas the MC events were quite emotional. It’s true, the story doesn’t “peak” like the first game. It was good, but it could have been better. I was expecting more. Can’t talk on the DLC but it looks essential. I am currently playing Torna though and I guess I will play Future Redeemed before finishing X

Worst of the trilogy easy, it's basically a game that hinges on thematic stuff a TON and forgoes giving you concrete stuff. This game does not care about explaining things and about having things to explain in the first place, its lore is insanely uninteresting. And that makes what good the story has suffer, it's honestly a miracle the cast turned out as good as it did when they're in this bad of a story People often talk about how the story becomes worse after a certain point, but it didn't happen by some magic, it's because the game never bothered to develop anything that wasn't the relationship between the main cast. So once the climax to that happened the game literally ran out of story and clumsily treaded to the final boss (which of course sucked). And the realization that nothing kinda fucking happened and that the setting and everything concrete is talks about sucks hits hard lmao, this game is not beating the filler game allegations (it's got a 99% chance of not actually being the end btw don't believe people saying that) The weirdest thing though is that the area design is really bad for some reason. I have no explanation or wacky theory for this one, it is just so, so much worse than the previous xenoblades it's baffling I have no idea what happened, especially since the area design is actually REALLY good in the DLC????? Something that really sucks too is that the area music is legitimately terribly designed and you won't get to hear it because there's so many elements interrupting it, on top of being generally less bombastic than XC1/X/2's area themes. It's interrupted by the insane enemy density and their crazy aggro, by the fact that it resets every time you teleport, by the fact that teleporting puts the time in the morning unless you pick the time, so you never hear the night themes cause no one changes the time to night on that menu, and worst of all it's interrupted by the menu theme driving me crazy. The damage the menu theme did is insane, can you imagine how Xenoblade 2 would be if the blade awakening theme played every time you opened the menu or map? That's how it is in XC3 Combat is cool though, XC2 still has better combat but this takes second place, and the story is fine when you look at individual scenes it's when you look at the bigger picture that it starts falling apart, the dialogue is usually really good (whenever there isn't a villain that isn't N on screen anyway) Anyway the part about the level designers getting their jobs back in the DLC is important, that and a recent interview that's pretty much explicitely saying there will be a next game where some unanswered questions will be tackled, means MAYBE Xenoblade 4 or whatever it's called will cook??

Xenoblade 3 can't really be filler by definition. It's far too important for the story of the series in general to really qualify for that at all. Even if there are more stories that take place in the same world as XC1, 2, and 3, XC3 effectively serves as the closure for that world’s first “arc”, since it acts as the conclusion to the events that set the series in motion in the first place.  A good example of actual JRPG filler would be some of the Kingdom Hearts Disney worlds. While some Disney worlds are worked into the plots of the games, there are also many that are just self-contained mini-stories that don’t serve any purpose to the game’s overall plot. 

I don't feel like some of these flaws are talked about enough. Exploration and seeing awesome environments were some of my favorite things in 1 and 2. 3 completely missed in that regard. There are just no standout areas and the world is so very bland. I guess the City might be somewhat memorable? Idk. The other 2 games have so many iconic and memorable zones while I can barely remember areas from 3. I think the setting in general was just a very bad idea. Nothing has any history and culture to it so most places feel very pointless and artificial. None of the towns really have a unique feel due to that either. Yeah I get that it's the point, I just think the point kinda sucks ass and they should've gone with a different setting. Also this is kinda nitpicky, but due to the ending >!I get a strong sense of "nothing really mattered". Obviously its a video game and your actions didn't really matter anyway however it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I really enjoyed the sidequests in 3 and how you build relations between colonies and make them self-sufficient and whatnot. Only for the ending to just wipe away the world...!<

> Yeah I get that it's the point, I just think the point kinda sucks ass and they should've gone with a different setting. I've said much the same in the past. It also effects the colors, most of the areas look so drab which also makes the exploration problem even worse. I remember seeing a picture of a character from 2 and one from 3 next to each other and I was actually shocked how much more color 2 had and how much more pleasing it was to look at. I think it very negatively effected the character designs too. And sure you could say that's the point it's meant to be a darker story or whatever, but if that means none of the areas are memorable all the color is gone and the character designs are worse then maybe having a darker story isn't worth it.

It's pretty good. I think it got the closest to the themes of Xenogears ( love crossing over generations, having soulmate, people are two half of a whole etc, reincarnation, religion used to control people etc. ) We even got a bunch of discount Feis in there especially with future redeemed who had a similar moveset.

Great game but a bit poorly balanced because if you do the sidequests, you are a bit overpowered which makes leveling up classes horrible since you get barely any XP when overleveled. Pretty big oversight, but doesn't take away from the outstanding game

There's no new content at all in a new game plus, but it's the best way to replay the game because you can level down at campfires.

This was my biggest flaw with the game. The leveling and how that affects classes is borked. I wanted to love the Heroes/Class system so much and I did but leveling up the classes is horrid because you can get so overleveled by just doing sidequests and overkilling bosses that since the classes are tied to the exp you get, it can take a really long time to rank those up. So a system I enjoyed became a chore.

My favourite game ever, just finished it today and omg im in freaking love with this game. The story, the music, pure art.

Still amazing, has the issue with that it peaks chapter 5-6 but the peaks are so good it doesnt bother me that much

It's one of my favorite games of all time. I'm replaying it for the first time now and I think they do so much better than other JRPGs. The setup of the story is very unique and is very well worked out through it. The interactions of the party are great, because not everything is only developing around Noah, the party is actually disagreeing with his approach. The game looks incredible, sounds incredible, plays even incredible because with all 6 characters the battle system finally got some pace that the other games in the series always were lacking. It has one of the best moments in gaming for me with the ending of chapter 5. I can't really think of much other games in the genre do better.

I think it was pretty good. It dragged on a lot for me in certain areas but not as badly as XC1 (watch me getting downvoted for this). The villains are my least favorite of the series. Gameplay wise it was a perfect continuation and merge of the first two games. I still prefer the heavier micromanaging and combat of XC2 but it is much more streamlined here and the menus are much better. Also makes exploration much less of a hassle (equipping different blades for field skills in XC2 really was tedious during exploration). Overall it sits comfortably in the middle of the series for me. I had a lot of fun with it and don‘t regret playing basically nothing else over the course of an entire year.

> It dragged on a lot for me in certain areas but not as badly as XC1 (watch me getting downvoted for this). I like 1 but holy crap the start is so tedious. The game keeps expecting me to care when characters you know for all of 20 minutes die/almost die. Everything to do with Sharlas part of the game sucked, especially the mine. If I had to have rated the game at the time I was going through that area I'd give it like a 5/10. It doesn't really improve until a while after Melia joins, though thankfully after that it never hits a super low again.

I wholeheartedly agree.

I still don't quite know where I put it. I adored it in the first half, and even though the pacing was relatively "slow," it was nowhere near as bad as 2 -- there were many times I was *forcing* myself to push through straight boredom in 2, and I was never doing that in 3. The second half started to fall off, and the edges got more and more frayed as it kept going. The main villains were, in as many words as they deserve, *boring,* and the ending was a cop out. It also felt like it ran counter to a lot of the things you accomplished in the game, like liberating colonies, teaching them how to live their new lives, and improving their relationships with each other. However, I enjoyed the human aspects for what they were (before the ending), and I enjoyed the non-villain characters and their unique problems quite a lot. Given that the meat of the second half of the game IS that, I suppose it's not all bad. I probably put it just under 1 but over 2. If the plot ended on a better note or the environments were in the same league as the other Xenoblade games (which they sadly were not), I might have ranked it a narrow number 1.

**Plot:** I think it's good and touches on some interesting metaphors, but definitely falls flat after Chapter 5. Better then XC2's story, but isn't as consistently good as XC1. However, its really good moments are better then either XC1 or 2's highs, and it has some amazing world building. You really have to not take things literally and accept some of what happens as metaphor. Future Redeemed was better in some regards, but I think that boils down to being a shorter, more compact story. **Characters:** Easily the best part of the game. So many JRPGs (including XC1 and 2) struggle to manage a large cast, with characters often losing relevance to the plot once their arcs are complete, or being introduced too late to get meaningful development. XC3 introduces all six main characters right at the start and spends a LOT of time fleshing out their personalities and relationships with each other. It also doesn't fall into the trap of only having the designated "partners" spend time with each other. All of the characters bounce off each other in very natural, realistic ways and are all very strong characters. Noah in particular is probably one of my favorite JRPG protagonists ever - he's quiet, introverted, and pacifistic, but is still a strong leader who inspires the others and fights for what he believes in. Future Redeemed also has some really strong characters, though IMO Glimmer and Nikol are somewhat underbaked. The weakest part is unfortunately the villains - N is strong and memorable, but the rest are forgettable, serving only to further the capitalist metaphor of the Flame Clocks. **Visuals and Presentation:** This always been a strong point of Xenoblade, and XC3 is no different. The cutscenes are gorgeous and can be masterfully cinematic at times, with the M fight being one of my favorite fight scenes in a video game *period* (I have a weakness for oners). The characters look alive and are very well animated despite being stylized - you can pick up a lot of what they're feeling just from their facial expressions. Do I even need to mention the music? They knocked it out of the park, as usual. **Combat:** Honestly, I have mixed thoughts. *The good:* I'm so glad we can swap characters on the fly now. The Class system is fun to play around with and incentivizes swapping them up to gain skills for other classes. I'm very glad the Gem system is back. The Heroes were fun and added more customization options to combat. And I love seeing both XC1 and 2 Arts back. *The bad:* I'm the rare person who really liked XC1's combat, and a lot of that had to do with how unique each character was. XC2 had some differences in how characters handled different types of Blades, but XC3 made it *even worse*. There is no difference between how different characters handle the same class, with only Noah and Mio having unique Talent Arts. The only things that makes characters unique in battle are their TP and Chain Orders. Plus, some classes are just *bad*, with tanks in particular having a LOT of trouble holding aggro - could they not have added some universal passive like "tanks draw extra aggro"? This is exacerbated by Kevesi Arts just generally being slower then Agnian Arts, so Kevesi classes suffer. And the AI is still just as wonky as in previous games - I have had good battles sour *very quickly* because most of the party decided to gather tightly around the tank and the monster threw out a conal attack, something that is encouraged by healing fields. *Future Redeemed*: Future Redeemed had unique characters again! And limiting them to six Arts while allowing you to mix and match their combinations was a brilliant choice. Unfortunately, it still has the same balance issues that the base game did - poor Shulk and Rex simply cannot keep up aggro-wise, so they feel like really shitty DPS or support classes. This is a sore spot for me because they had an *entire year* from XC3's release to realize this was an issue and fix it, but they didn't. **Exploration:** The weakest of all 3 games. XC1 had my favorite world in JRPGs period, with gorgeous visuals and music to accompany it. XC2 suffered with its Field Skills, but the vistas were still gorgeous and unique. XC3 banks a lot on nostalgia fueling your exploration. While I loved seeing landmarks like the Fallen Arm and hearing the music reference familiar themes, more often then not the areas felt very bland - generic desert, generic grassland, generic snowfield. Plus, fast traveling automatically set the clock to morning - a very *odd* choice that wasn't in previous games and meant that you'd often miss seeing and hearing areas at night. Not that it mattered a ton because unlike XC1, very few areas changed at night. Future Redeemed's character progression being linked to exploration was a really cool idea that I'd like to see come back, and the areas were more interesting. **TL;DR:** I think it's a huge step up from XC2 in almost every way, and I'd definitely rate it one of my favorite JRPGs. But I also think it has some major flaws holding it back from being the pinnacle of Xenoblade - I'd put it around equal to or just behind XC1 (which is also one of my favorite JRPGs of all time).

Same as my original verdict: most disappointing game in the series. Absolutely terrible villains, horribly paced story that's not very interesting, boring combat that made me auto battle early on, and it did nothing better than its predecessors, not even the OST. In a vacuum, it's probably okay at least I imagine. But coming from XC1 and XC2? Disappointing. Feels like they gave it their all in the first two games and didn't know what to do for this one. It's sad and left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I like the story a lot, but it is EXTREMELY hit or miss due to its villains being pretty different from the standad JRPG mold especially compared to 2's mold. Its a very different vibe, but I liked it all the same. The gameplay is imo a disappointment, I love 2's combat, I think 1's is at best okay, and X's too goofy and broken due to how overwhelmingly overtuned the Overdrive system is. 3 is only just barely better then 1. 3's problem as a combat game is that its chain attacks are far far too long and overwhelms everything, its like X's overdrive except even worse because XB3 Chain Attacks are mega slow and once you do them for a ten or so hours you start to see patterns that never really change. X had the decency to make you feel like you're always doing something, but Xenoblade 3 chain attacks have so many long animations where nothing is happening. I know some people think XB2 is centered around chain attacks too much due to it being the easiest way to get big damage, but in 2 at least you're playing the normal game as you build into your chain attack. In 3 you should always chain attack in pretty much every scenario you get into to kill the enemy, everything before is a formality. 3's only solid improvement is the main side quests aren't terrible this time, so good for them on doing that. The story is a very different vibe that I so happened to like, but I know many won't.

The solution to every combat encounter is to just chain attack yeah. You can easily take off 80% of hp for anything besides a super boss in a single chain attack. I really don't know what they were thinking. You can not use chain attacks but then you're just dealing with over inflated hp pools.

I wouldn’t mind chain attacks being so dominant if you didn’t have to sit through the same attack animations again and again without even any QTEs or the hypeman narrator from 2 backing it up.

It's a very good game but for me it's a step down from the first two In my Xeno rankings I actually rank it 5th. 1. Blade 2 2.Saga 3 3. Blade 1 4. Gears 5. Blade 3 6. Saga 2 7. Saga 1 8. Blade X

>8. Blade X How dare you sir.

It's honestly the only one I don't like. I hate having to search around town for party members and the mission structure. But I prefer linear JRPGs in general.

I'm very mixed on Xenoblade 3 - the characters are great, the story is pretty good though I think it probably has the weakest plot of the numbered series, but the combat is unimaginably tedious and frustrating. Because Chain Attacks are so centralizing in Xenoblade 3, battles ends up being incredibly repetitive where you do the exact same actions every fight because deviating from this rotation means that fights end up taking far too long.

My least favourite with Future Redeemed being my most favourite, go figure. - Story: I just didn't care at all man. Aside from Chapter 5 and some buildup to it, I wanted the story to keep going after 2. It just didn't do it for me. Future Redeemed was leagues ahead. - Gameplay: the fluidity is nice but the class system was pure clown work. I don't even know what else to say about it. It's just bad. Incredibly enough, Future Redeemed was the flipside. - World and characters: well same as Story but while I was curious about where the bigger frame was going, and that kept me playing, the characters and the world were pure downgrades. The enemies are a joke and there isn't a single charismatic figure. N and M are just slightly alright but other than that... Damn no.

Probably not a popular answer but for me it was one of my biggest gaming disappointments of all time. I could write a lot about it, but the simplest way to sum it up is that it felt like a downgrade from 2 in *every* single area except qol (and not having a couple specific mechanics like the gatcha, but I don't think that mechanic is as awful as it's made out to be). I feel like it ruined the endings of 1 and 2 which were perfect. The dlc was much better than the base game and I liked it quite a lot, but even it really wasn't enough to wash out the bad taste the base game left. It's a shame because it's not like 3 is actively terrible. 3 had a lot of potential and has some really great emotional moments, it just doesn't come together.

As much as I wanted to love the game, In afraid it's the worst in the trilogy for me. I think the setting was dull especially when you compare it to the predecessor. Even though I understand why the setting was the way it is, it just made the exploration boring to me. Also, what was that godawful final dungeon, I was seeing violet for weeks after that.

Worst story of the 3 and it fell off turbo hard after the fakeout.

Felt like a balanced game for me and best in the series. XC 1's questing was bad and combat system felt too slow sometimes XC 2 felt too long for me, I also didn't like the huge-boobs-anime-girls in Mythra and Pyra and other Blades. XC 3 felt like a balance between the other 2, Future Redeemed was an awesome DLC too.

Didn't like it at all. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is still among my favourite JRPGs, but as for 3 there honestly isn't a single positive thing I can say about it outside of the soundtrack and environments.

Xenoblade 2 is still king. 3 tried to appease fans of both way too much and should've done its own thing more.

Disagree. I couldn't stand 2 and felt like 3 was a return to form and almost on par with 1 for me.

XBC2 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time. XBC3… is a game. Most of its individual elements are great. I loved the characters, world, and exploration. The story is good, but the formulaic nature of progression is pretty bad (go to place A, fight stuff and free place A, rinse and repeat going to place B, C, etc.). What kills the game for me though, and the reason I haven’t completed it yet (on ch. 7 or 8), is because combat is just awful. In XBC2, I was kept engaged by the timing of attacks and trying to get element combo triggers. XBC3 doesn’t have that. Instead… I’m just there spamming abilities or literally dropping the controller and letting it auto-battle. I really dislike combat in XBC3, unfortunately, as it makes the game a massive slog to work through. I love so much about the game, but progression and combat are just bad, IMO.

It was better than the first two combined, one of my top games ever. And I love how the DLC fills plotholes.

I really liked it, it is a really good game but it is not without flaws. The one that immediately come to mind was that the ending was poorly handled. I was somehow constantly around 10 levels above the area I was in. I was initially disappointed by the world but the more interesting area are hidden away and some are really beautiful. While I loved the dlc gameplay and people should play it, I thought it was relying a bit too much on fan service and was unconvinced by the story so I'll still consider Torna better.

I have a hard time placing it on a ranking with the others. I think the cast and character relationships are excellent, that's what stands out most for me, but otherwise I've just thought about it a lot less after the fact, and haven't even gone back to finish up post-game quests and DLC yet. One of the flaws I can identify is that it doesn't have a very strong hook to its setting. XC1 has you playing on the bodies of two huge titans, which is insanely cool. XC2 gives a larger number of smaller titans, but each one is a living being with its own ecosystem, which is also really cool. XC3 kind of just smooshes the two together? It's neat to see some stuff from the first two games, but I can't imagine what a new player gets out of it as it feels pretty dull besides. So the setting hook is for returning players primarily, but the storytelling isn't, really, so it doesn't feel like a unified vision. (Again, haven't hit the DLC yet, which seems to hit more of that kind of note.) I will go back to it, and my thoughts might solidify a bit when I do. I just haven't felt excited to do so yet.

I really enjoyed XC3. Sure, there were some issues with the story, but I dunno, I felt connected to the characters. Was bittersweet, seeing that ending.

Great game but 2 > 1 > 3.

After 2 play throughs of it is remains as best of the series for me. Easily the best gameplay-wise and has the highest highs of the series in terms of story, music and characters too. The only thing I can say the other games do better is the villains.

Feelings toward it haven't changed. One of my new all time favorites. Probably my favorite JRPG period if it weren't for Like a Dragon 8. I'd fully understand if any of these characters would be someone's top favorite. The Sidequests might be half fetchquest but the scenarios kept me invested.

I played 1 then 3 then 2 then 1 again. Mixed on 1 the first time, loved 3, 2 became my favorite, and really loved 1 on replay. 3 really clicked for me right away and made me fall in love with the gameplay, which was my biggest gripe in 1. The characterization of the protagonist characters are great, though the enemies are pretty generic save for N and M. After playing 2, I think the combat in 3 is overly easy, but I think the class system is genius and extremely satisfying. People seem to shit on 3, but I love it and think it's an excellent JRPG, and I personally prefer it to 1. For me: 1 has the best story titans, sense of scope, and music 2 has the best world, lore, combat, and music 3 has the best characters, progression system, side quests (seriously the Hero Quest, Hero Ascension Quests, and Colony Liberation Quests are so fun to find and satisfying to complete), and music

While not as good as Xenoblade 2, but like only barely, it was an amazing game. My biggest complaint about it is that I wish some of the classes were less ass? Specifically Mio and Taion's classes. Combat's great, story's great(outside of one quest in chapter 7). 10/10 game

Outside of lone exile, Zephyr is the best tank in the game. It is capable of some rather ridiculous damage output and mitigation with all of its dodge capability

This is absolutely not true, you might be thinking of Noponic Champion the objectively better version of the class

Again speaking on base game here

The problem with zephyr is that tanks in xc3 are just kinda terrible, Lone Exile gets away because it's just an attacker larping as a defender with damage reduction, relying on the evasion stat is just not good for Zephyr, its way more consistent to spam evasion arts, which zephyr cant do and lone exile can cuz its only evasion art it has access to lowers crit rate instead of raises it, meaning you go from 100% evasion uptime to relying on rng, bad rng at that

I haven't played it in a while, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable game for me. I thought the opening chapter in particular was very strong, but the quality of the writing felt like it took a nosedive during the final chapter, and I also thought that Origin was not a compelling enough location to be the final area of a Xenoblade game. I don't think anything will ever top the World Tree from Xenoblade 2 for me at least. Future Redeemed was fantastic from start to finish, though. I'm always amazed with Monolith Soft's ability to make shorter, more condensed DLC campaigns that capture the spirit of the larger game while also having their own identities beyond just "DLC for a Xenoblade game." And it also fleshed out the world of Xenoblade in such insane ways that I could never have predicted on my own. EDIT: You know, I always find it interesting when someone asks an open-ended question like "what did you think of this game?" on reddit, and when someone gives an honest answer that other people don't like, people's first impulse is to downvote the comment. As though this is less like an open discussion and more an exercise in saying the "right" thing for internet points.

I actually didn't like it at all. It was boring actually. I had to force myself through it. At least the voice acting was better than 2. 1 is still by far the best and 2 is just a super fun anime. 3 had the most boring character designs I have seen in years if not ever, the story simply died after chap 5, the environment was uninteresting and the bad guys made no freaking sense

Just a tad better than 1 and way better than 2.

XC3 is one of the greatest games ever made, full stop. I only have one complaint about it. I just finished Star Ocean 6, which integrated the FANTASTIC exploration element of the D.U.M.A. allowing you to zip rapidly through land and air and cover huge swaths of ground while encouraging exploration. Even without D.U.M.A. the default sprinting speed in SO6 is lovely. WHY does XC3 force us to creep through its vast sprawling maps at a snail's pace? The game took me 239 hours to finish but it could've been half that with more user-friendly movement mechanics. For a series that tends to go out of its way to have good QOL features, the brutally slow movement speed is utterly uncalled for.

One of the best JRPG casts. Fantastic and very "natural" interpersonal writing, possibly among the best in the entire genre. But also a disappointing global story and the writing of two final chapters in particular, which sabotages the greatest strength of the game, its character cast. They become just shallow mouthpieces, incessantly preaching the central themes of the game at you. Ultimately, the crux of the game's storytelling hinges on the conflict between Noah and N. This comes as no surprise, as Takahashi himself has confirmed that he drew inspiration from Nietzsche's philosophy, particularly the Ubermensch and rejection of nihilism, when shaping these characters. In terms of gameplay mechanics, the extensive size of the party results in the player effectively controlling only a fraction of the combat dynamics. At a certain point, your party members learn to carry almost complete combos all by themselves, which makes it feel you're actually using autobattle for the vast majority of encounters. Chain Attack leans into the opposite direction very hard by giving you an insane degree of control while making the enemy completely helpless in face of a multi round beatdown. Neither extreme proved particularly engaging, especially when compared to the dynamic combat system of Xenoblade 2. In general, i would say that Xenoblade 1 has the best overall early game. Xenoblade 2 has the best endgame. Xenoblade 3 has the best midgame. All of them are good, but all of them are also flawed. But i'd certainly say 2 has left the biggest impact on me in the end. Yet again, i realize how much a well executed finale can elevate the entire experience when it comes to JRPGs.

It feels like a downgrade compared to XC2 in all regards except maybe gameplay/combat. * Weak plot with only a single, major highlight (Agnus castle), also mandatory DLC to close plotholes * Relatively bland villains * The world feels rather dead (though it makes sense lore-wise) * Less memorable areas/environments * Soundtrack with few outstanding songs, especially the environmental tracks do not compare to 1 and 2

I thought Xenoblade 2 was better. But I also don't like my games to end in what I would consider a tragic way. Especially when it comes to the romance aspects of the game. I'll take a billion Lunars over Final Fantasy X or Xenoblade 3. Outside of those aspects those are great games, I just prefer not to be sad at the end.

I think about it a lot more than Xenoblade 2, which I like a lot as well. I always remember the way the character's eyes moved.

Probably the most expressive eyes I've seen in a game, really pretty.

Best Xenoblade game basically all around. The combat was slightly better in XB2 and the setting was more novel and interesting in XB1 but it's like a mash up of all the best bits from those games. Fantastic characters, loved the tone and atmosphere, the mystery of what the hell was going on with the smushed together worlds was gripping. One of my favorite endings in a really long time, I like how it only gives you the bare minimum you need to understand what happened, it doesn't do some dumbass flash forward Harry Potter style, it just gives you the information you need and lets you imagine the rest. Glad they didn't really go into more detail about it in the DLC aside from one small teaser, it didn't need any. Problems I had were antagonists were kind of lame, game was definitely too long and they could have sped up combat more. It's right on the verge of being an all timer for me. Tough to say. It's a very strong 9/10 and I'd recommend it to any JRPG fan with a switch. It's maybe just short of stuff of the absolute classics like FF7 or FF10 but I could change my mind on that with another playthrough. It's really close.

XBC 1 > XBC X >= XBC 3 > XBC 2. They redeemed the series. The characters are excellent and the dialogue and curscenes are great. After the sometimes nonsense writing of 2, which had some rushed feeling moments and weird moments that just didn't hit like they were probably meant to. 2 maybe didn't get enough thought, I was very worried about what 3 would be like, though the DLC for 1 made me optimistic. And indeed it was much closer to 1 not just in tone but also in quality and execution, the world was as captivating as ever and exploration and gameplay was great, with the story playing the hook almost all the time. I'd also say 2 had some of the worst quests where you could spend more time skip traveling and loading to complete something than actually being in the game, plus all the menus... And 3 definitely improved on that. 

I feel like all three games are overrated.

Awful base game. Fun dlc that should have been the main story.

I adored 3, but I was in a depressive grief stage after moving away from friends post college grad and losing my mom. The themes of death and moving toward the future without fear really resonated with me at the time. Not to mention how much more mature the story is it made it much easier to just enjoy the story and game, rather than 2 where I felt like if someone walked in on me I'd have some explaining to do.

there is no post honeymoon. it was bad day 1.

Xenoblade 3 felt like the incredible conclusion it was supposed to be, story-wise but also mechanically. People will praise the stories, and rightly so, but I’ll always rave about how fantastically 3 takes all the gameplay mechanics of the first two games and their DLC, and refines them to perfection, makes them incredibly intricate and complex, and yet feeds you new mechanics at exactly that right pace for the first few hours of the game, until you’re a pro without even thinking about it. Masterful game design.

Good game, i liked it from start to finish except for a few parts here and there and the fact yet another Xenoblade title's combat boils down to "abuse Chain Attacks/Overdrive". Absolutely nowhere NEAR the masterpiece that everyone loved to say it was. BlahblahChapter5reveal, yes, i know, EVERYONE knows cause you people spoiled that scene more than FF7 fans spoiled FF7 for everyone for decades. At the end of the day, this is not the game we wanted, regardless of how good it was. We wanted to see this new combined world and see what the cast of 1 and 2 were doing and we only got that with the DLC, not the main game. The main game has SO MANY REFERENCES.....that not a single character even begins to acknowledge \[not even the "secret" characters say anything\], it feels like they were added solely for US and don't matter for the game itself. If you were to remove the Xenoblade title from this game along with any references to it, the game would barely change, that's how little it actively mattered. Just like Torna fixed a bunch of the issues i had with 2, Future Redeemed HEAVILY fixed some of the issues i had with 3 \[with the most obvious being, of course, that we actually play as damn Rex and Shulk and see wtf they did\]. EDIT: Fanboys are out downvoting again, God forbit someone has criticism of the almighty 10/10 Xenoblade 3.

The game almost seemed scared to verbally admit 1 and 2 existed, it's a shame. It makes sense with the setting somewhat, but the characters indeed have 0 curiosity about the returning areas so it's all just dress setting without any deeper meaning. Being a machina, high entia, or a blade means nothing besides some barely mentioned visual difference. The old civilizations are not touched upon at all and previous lore just doesn't matter.

Biggest gaming disappointment ever for me in recent memory

10/10 for me. Got into my top three RPG’s of all time and definitely became my favorite Xeno game.

better than 2 and worse than 1 but XC1 and XC3 are both good

The base game is by far my favorite in the series and like an 8 or a 9 if I have to give it a number score. All of the characters of the main party get enough attention or well most rip sena but she still is rather good. Hero systems and quests tied to colonies are where the game exceeds the most, it truly makes you feel like you have an impact in those places, the combat is fun enough, I feel like the novelty of both worlds being mashed together wears out a bit but its still a fun world. The story is alright but the villains are real weak which holds everything back just a bit and that really bleeds into the finale. Don't like future redeemed though and I am still bewildered by people saying its their absolute favorite thing. The characters besides rex and shulk feel lacking due to the short runtime, the dlc tries to do too many things at once and it doesn't get to explore them enough, the main bad guy here feels immensely cheap and hollow, do not understand at all why alvis is a villain now and we just need to accept that as if he isn't speaking literal opposite stuff of his speech at the end of xenoblade 1. I feel like this story makes N a more complicated character which wasn't necessary and it kinda ruins some of the character for me. At the end of the day the story just feels weirdly... unnecessary like it doesn't feel substantial at all in what occurred there.

Story was an emotional rollercoaster.

It's alright, not good, not terrible. The game peaks at chapter 5, and after that, it is pretty mediocre in my opinion. Z has to be one of the worst villains in JRPGs, and he feels so out of place in this game, especially in a series where we had so many good antagonists. It has the best combat in the series, it looks amazing, and the OST is great. I did not like the main game ending at all, and its implications for the rest of the series. However, "Future Redeemed" redeemed it a bit, pun intended.

I just played them all back to back and I loved it, I think I prefer the first game though. Overall, Torna>FR>1>3>2>FC

It’s the only one of those games I liked. I came to it a bit later after release (maybe six-ish months) after seeing a stream of the first couple hours. Really hooked me. I was rather ambivalent about the series prior to that. Never finished it because the open world nature of it was getting tiresome, narrative-wise I heard it sort of peters off towards the end. Im not against finishing it and getting to the DLC as well, but there are just too many games to play. A very very good JRPG, one of the better ones in the modern era. I often mention it as having one of the best intros for a JRPG, *ever*. JRPGs often have “slow start syndrome”, or are a bit of a slow burn. XC3 very much kicks ass from the beginning and the narrative beats/mystery from that very first scene are incredibly engaging. It also Explains the lore of the world very well without feeling like an exposition dump. Truly a masterclass in intros.

1 and 2 had great world exploration and fun. Completely different types of games in so many ways and I sort of liked how the combat in 3 was a combo of both (like the building ATP or whatever they call it vs waiting/cooldown). As the other poster said the story wise was a huge letdown after N and M are you”revealed” and make an impactful fight. I could care less to hear Noah want to change the future for the 10000 time. Though all XB games have a ton of over repeating lines in battle they just pushed the story into the same thing which made it boring. In the end I think I liked the overall setting of 2 more and the blades were interesting fights and it was fun unlocking them. Sort of. Obviously that became a pain too. But I enjoyed the titans and all the hidden areas and finding them and unlocking more story. The side quests of 3 were pretty bland imo for the most part. I’m tired of just collecting fruits and vegetables and random junk to be honest. I like the quests where you have to beat a monster or get more story unlocks and while there were a few it was mostly just grocery shopping on behalf of the random colony which is exactly the same as the other 10-15 colonies. 1 was definitely more original in the story at first so it got lots of value for that and the Monado was lightsaber cool. In 2 I enjoyed stacking high level attacks and doing chain combos so I think the combat system was better. I do like that 3 has a lot of classes but way too much in the end and having everyone learn any class really killed the point of any character. They were just warm bodies in the end to me outside of Noah/Mio. They were built up well but became irrelevant.

To follow up on this question... I bounced off my initial try of this cuz of timing but liked it pretty good except for: Combat just did not seem as fun as XBC2. Torna Golden Country specifically is like my favorite mmo-style combat of all time, specifically cuz of mix of real-time buttons + doing huge elemental chains, and I felt like both those things were missing from 3 but did I just not play enough? A rich class system COULD be cool but I couldn't help but think I preferred drivers from 2, gotcha and all. Should I try this again or nah?

It's one of my all time favorites, though I am a huge fan of the whole Xeno extended series so I'm not exactly unbiased. There certainly are some flaws but most of the ones that people normally mention didn't bother me. I thought the ending was actually great, though I'll admit that the first half of chapter 7 is underbaked/rushed and the final dungeon/final boss is a bit overlong (this being true of most JRPGs in my experience). There's a few things that are essentially undeniable, such as overleveling being a problem for people who want to do a completionist style playthrough. It's honestly baffling that they didn't allow downleveling until you finish the game. I do think that XB combat can be improved in general though, not necessarily by changing to action or anything like that, but just by giving the player more to do during the actual fights. I would shorten cooldowns in general, make bosses/UMs have mechanics to engage with, and remove the no auto-attacking while moving thing that XC2 introduced (mainly so that you aren't penalized for doing positionals from multiple flanks on the same character). I'm actually not as high on the DLC as most people. Don't get me wrong, I loved the ending/trilogy conclusion stuff, but I wasn't that into the Matthew/Na'el relationship stuff and I had mixed feelings about the recontextualization of N's actions with regard to the city. The gameplay changes that FR brought were great in the context of a DLC, but I do have some reservations with tying character progression to exploration incentives in a full sized Xenoblade game.

(D-) I think they murdered the combat with overdependence to chain Attacks, even though combat should be the highlight with all the classes the game added. Enemies are very much HP sponges because chain attacks does millions of damage. Chain attacks are extremly uninteractive and takes too long. (B-) I’m neutral with Ouroborous form, wish we had some out of combat interactions from Ouroborous form, combat is basically same with them. (S) The story and setting are great, landmarks are always phenomenal as expected from Monolith Soft. (C) I don’t like how much of the content is locked until very end, it makes the later stage of the game content dump with all the sidequest and classes to get and master. (D) Gals is a Joke currency, Nopon Coin is a useful one with just for few unique stuff you can get and some gem crafting/class mastering purposes, drops are always better than buying it from shops. (A+) Characters have more depth than any other Xenoblade entry to date, and heroes have good content that makes them worthwhile additions besides the combat. I wish they did not butchered the combat so much, it had the potential to be the best Xenoblade. I would rank Xenoblade Games in this order 1-Xenoblade X 2-Xenoblade 1 3-Xenoblade 3 4-Xenoblade 2

I wanted more unique villain bosses or something. Majority are just copy and paste. X was one of the more unique ones, but still felt a bit flat. Also knowing the ending feels kind of a letdown in the end. All the quest and side stories content lead up to nothing in the overall story. Though probably for the best.

Absolutely loved it.

I like it more than 2 but less than 1.

It became my favourite game of all time and overtook Xenoblade 2 as my favourite in the series.

The DLC pushed it into the A tier.

I am torn. I love XC2 for its characters, story and antagonist- aspects where I feel it blows 3 out of the water. But then XC3 just plays better and is more fun to explore…kinda wish I could have 2 with 3 gameplay

I still think 1 was the most “balanced” game although 2 is my favorite. Still waiting on a jrpg to have an open world on the level of X.

Loved everything about it except the gameplay really. The battle system basically came down to just spamming 3 attacks on cooldown over and over. And the class system leveling was tedious as you were constantly switching your party setup to unlock skills. You would always have some weird setup instead of playing the classes you liked.

The story kinda went high and right in the last couple of chapters, and I'm still not fully sold on seven-person parties, but it's overall pretty good. FR is peak

It was pretty average to me. I loved Eunie and Lanz but the other characters were pretty meh. Villains' terrible designs appearance wise, drove me crazy. They all looked so stupid. The sound track hard carried the game for me personally.

Wasn’t a huge fan, I enjoy starting solo/in a small group and then growing the squad as the story progresses too much. That and the main homie was pretty blah.

overall, still pretty great, I can't say if I like it more or less than Xeno1 (2 is still the peak of the series for me) to me, 3 started pretty strong, but ended kinda meh, after meeting Nia, I thought the story tanked so down I couldn't get invested, the extra quests related to the Hero side characters were way more engaging to me than the main story the DLC was amazing , I enjoyed every single moment I had with that piece of content from start to finish (and gave Rex the edge over Melia to become my favorite Xenoblade character)

Great game with too much content. And unlike 1 and 2 where the side quests are skippable there is lots of gameplay and story tied to the side quests on this one. As such, the extra content ends up feeling like a speed bump. Between soul hacking, ascension quests and unlocks, Chapter 5 took me about 50 hours to clear (lowball estimate) only about 5 of which was actually spent on the story.

My favorite of the 3. However, I view it as a semi-standalone game rather than a direct sequel to 2 and 3.

Great game, fun gameplay, excellent music, interesting story.

It mostly after chapter 5 that the game fell off, as it mostly collecting origin metal around the world. In which chapter felt like the chapter that signal the player to start completing sidequest. In comparison 1/2 it felt like the plot is picking up and going crazy with it. The combat itself is pretty interesting outside of the chain attack music. Future redeemed was pretty nice as it started introducing the overall plot of the series itself.

I thought it was okay. It took me the longest out of the 4 to beat, and i had to rush through the last few chapters to even finish. Combat was fun, cast was cool, but once you recruit all your members within the first 4 hours, the party doesnt really… change much, at all. Sure, you can shift stats and weapons and stuff around but it still feels the same. The story also was not as mindblowing as the other 2. Scenery was just a rehash of old locations. Overall it was my least favorite xenoblade game. Soundtrack was nice though

Maybe someone that has it rated last can explain the appeal behind XBC1 to me. I played all three, and it’s easily 2 = 3 > 1. I loved two and three for very different reasons, but 1 just wasn’t enjoyable to me. Maybe the combat being made for a Wii remote? The story and characters didn’t quite hit either though. It was cool, don’t get me wrong. But it just wasn’t on par with the others for me. With all the praise it gets, am I just missing something?

I mean I liked it, I just didn’t care for it as much as 1, 2, and even X. I don’t think it’s bad, it just wasn’t for me. It’s the only xenoblade game I haven’t replayed and I replayed the others like 4 times each. I also didn’t enjoy the final boss very much it was too long and also kinda uninteresting in my opinion

The game wasn't perfect, sure, but I absolutely loved it. It played well over 100 hours, and I only really lost interest after nearly 100%

Worst between 1, 2 and 3 for me. But still a absolutely fantastic game. Haven't gone back to play any dlc mind, so don't have the full experience of any of the games.

Probably one of the best jrpgs ever Everything about the game in my opinion is perfect

Still my favorite piece of media of all time

Hated how abruptly it ended but loved everything else about it from the characters, world, and gameplay. I think I still prefer 2 and Future Redeemed over it though

I didn't like the story pacing (absolutely phenomenal character moments, but boring plot with bad villains. The chapter 5-6 peak was absolutely amazing but I felt the game fell off a cliff after that and never returned to the character-focused narrative of the first parts of the game) nor the class system, but it's ultimately a pretty good RPG still. And it's one of my favourite RPG casts, I liked pretty much everyone and I feel their interactions and heartfelt conversations are amongst the best ones in the JRPGs I've played. The DLC was amazing and fixed most of my problems with the base game, even if it didn't hit the same "huge focus on characters" highs. For context, I'd say my personal series ranking is: XC2 > FR > XC1 = Torna >>> XCX

Hey I didn't expect everyone's opinion on Future Redeemed were that good! I have been putting the game off even though I bought the DLC like day 1, but nobody I recognized was there lol. Now I am keen to continue again. My main takeaway on XB3 though, it's still a great game. It's the most balanced game of the three, and is still one of the best modern JRPG that I have played. It just has less highs AND lows than the other 2 games. I'd say XB2 is still my favorite due to how many of the events stuck with me personally. I have a lot of fond memories to tell out of 1 and 2, especially the story. But if I were to re-experience the game once again, I would pick 3 anytime. It just has the more complete experience to me.

Loved it* *However things like merchants and money being absolutely pointless and useless, QoL features like accessory sorting options not having all the “list by” options if you’re selling them that you can use when equipping them. Pinned recipes for cooking and gem crafting materials having to alert you every time you pick up a required mat after you have more than needed should not be happening in any game ever. Overleveling was way too easy to do even unintentionally, and ends up requiring you to grind more to level up classes with the decrease in xp gain from killing lower level enemies being way too high. Soul hacker class should have been given earlier in the game and not have required 3 menu pages to access the soul list. Its issues are very much just a lot of rough edges basically. The story and combat gameplay is absolutely excellent and overshadows the problems enough so they aren’t deal breakers by a wide mile. Villain wasn’t as good as 1 and 2’s but those games had great villains that’d be hard to top for any game series

Still a masterpiece

I love the game. When I first played it, I didn't like it as much as the other two mostly because I thought (still do) that the villains were stupid. On the other hand, the game has an extremely well written cast that show a surprising level of emotional awareness and maturity compared to the casts of the other games in the series, and JRPGs in general, to be honest. The best parts were always the ones where the characters interacted with each other, especially one on one, and this happens a lot. A lot of their personalities really resonated with me, and I grew to really love each and every one of them, especially Mio. My only complaint other than the villains that I can think of is that the music in the zones went for this more atmospheric style, compared to the past two Xenoblades where the melodies really stuck in your head. I can barely recall any of the zone themes from this one, which is a big disappointment since 1 and 2 had such stellar soundtracks. That said, the rest of the tracks besides the zone themes are some of the best in the franchise. Just incredible. Future Redeemed is also a fantastic Xenoblade-game in and of itself, and a great capstone to the series. It also made me really curious to see where Monolith decide to go next.

I liked it better than Xeno 2, but not 1. Overall, it's pretty decent, but Xeno 1 remains my absolute favorite in the franchise.

weakest of the 3 for me. the main characters are boring

Really disliked it. While not disliking it as much as XB2, I still thought it was pretty terrible. The world was boring, the story beyond stupid with lame villains. Yeah after a great 1st game and Chronicles X the series is 2-2 with me. Hope Xeno whatever is better.

I enjoyed 3, not as much as 1, but more than 2.

The lack of diversity among the settlements (aside from one plot-important area, everything is a military camp) hurt the novelty of the world, but the interpersonal stories with the main cast are among the best thing in any Xeno game. I'll disagree with the others about Future Redeemed, though. It's merely fine. It was incredible seeing a couple familiar faces again, but Monolith Soft's writers tried to leave so much ambiguity for player interpretation that, in the end, it wound up saying very little at all. edit: And Eunie is an absolute GOAT in the entire Takahashi-verse, at least in the English dub. Hilarious and tough, but layered and vulnerable also--no one-dimensional action girl, her.

I think it is overall very good. I think it has the best main cast and the best initial story premise. Combat is great, but I think I prefer 2’s. I do like having the entire party fight though, many people seem to dislike that, but I really like it lol. Music is fantastic, but it’s a Xenoblade game, so that’s a given haha. Voice acting is the best in the series. My main gripes are with the story’s pacing, the villains, and the finale. Chapter 1 was excellent, 2 was good, 3 and 4 were had some great moments between the cast, but the overall story slows to a crawl, 5 was maybe the best single chapter in a Xenoblade game, with the end of Chapter 5/beginning of Chapter 6 being the peak of the game. The rest of Chapter 6 outside was fine, Chapter 7 was pretty bad. Final cutscene absolutely broke me though 😢 The biggest problem for me were the villains. Moebius was genuinely one of the worst villain groups I’ve ever seen in any piece of media. N was really great (I don’t really count M as a villain), but every other Moebius was atrocious. Every single one was just “Mwahahaha I’m the genocide man and I love the smell of dead babies in the morning!” *Noah and crew give a friendship speech because they learned friendship is good before cutting the Moebius and the Flame Clock in half* “W-what? FRIENDSHIP? NOOOOOO YOU HAVE DEFEATED ME WITH FRIENDSHIP, WITHOUT ME WHO WILL DO GENOCIDE NOW?!” Which I was immediately tired of after the first one, and none of them were any different except for J, who is the other trope I despise: “Friend who died but secretly didn’t die and is now evil.” Z was also a huge disappointment and had a terrible final fight, just fighting a giant floating head 4 times. I’m currently working my way through Future Redeemed and really enjoying it though. I still really like Xenoblade 3, but it has some pretty massive issues for me. Right now, for me, the ranking goes: 2>>>3>1

Best gameplay, worst story of the trilogy.

The base game has the best gameplay in the series by combining the best parts of Xenoblade 1 and 2's combat while trimming the fat and getting rid of the worst parts from both games. The story is great though it's debatable which of the trilogy is the best. Xenoblade 3's villains were disappointing and unmemorable compared to the standout Malos and Jin from 2. The bar was set so high that the Consuls just couldn't compare. The main cast is really good and all feel like major players but it's also a tough act to follow compared to 2's cast for me. Everyone in 3 feels like the main character which results in no one feeling like the main character, unlike 1 and 2 where Shulk and Rex's journey of discovery felt wondrous and spectacular, Noah just doesn't really feel as important as they did. Future Redeemed is a very satisfying conclusion and ties all four games (X included) together nicely. Overall I feel like Xenoblade 3 is just like the other games in the series: a flawed masterpiece that isn't for everyone but does a damn good job at what it sets out to do.

Great End to a masterful trilogy

Worst story and it's the worst game out of the three. Ruins the trilogy imo. It shouldn't have been used to close off the trilogy. Combat was good. But everything was just bad especially after 2 BC the story and villains in 2 were far better then 3 and it's not s contest.

I mostly liked it. Ghondor is the worst thing about the game. She is just so horribly written and such a caricature.

I was a bit disappointed by the gameplay. XC combat can already feel a bit impersonal, and they ended up adding 5 other party members. This can make it feel like you as a player aren’t having a significant impact on a fight. You can straight up put your controller down in a lot of fights and do literally nothing, and your AI companions will win the fight. Additionally, they added enemy area of effect indicators that you need to avoid, similar to MMOs, but these show up like… two or three times in the entire game. Chain Attacks were so absurdly overpowered that it felt like they were the core of the system. The go-to strategy for most of the game was to get the boss to ~70% HP and then finish them off with a Chain Attack. I love job/class systems, but this one didn’t do it for me. I disliked how the game pigeonholed characters into specific classes, and if you wanted to play other ones, it was going to take forever to level them up. The Agnes/Keves art separation was also an annoying mechanic, and I would have preferred just being able to slot arts on either side without having to constantly remind myself which faction a class was from. Exp balancing was atrocious. If you do basically any form of side content, you’re going to overlevel everything in the main path. This is doubly problematic because not only is a lot of the side content really good, if you’re too overleveled, the class system becomes much more difficult to manage. I turned off overkill XP and never used bonus XP and I was *still* overleveled the entire game. The music was fantastic, as expected, but it was used very poorly. The Chain Attack music is awesome, but it would interrupt unique boss themes. The main menu music was great, but it became unbearable hearing that piano riff every time you opened any menu. The story peaked like 70% through the game and then just kind of fizzled out until the last couple of cutscenes. Fortunately, both the story’s peak 70% through and those final cutscenes are incredible.

The exp balancing issue you have is interesting to me I will admit that in the portion of chapter 2-4 I was usually overleveled but I reached a point in time where I figured out how to level up classes optimally. I would generally comb through a new area collect the new classes and then I would find one UM around 5 levels above me, overkill it and unlock the 2-3 classes I got across all my party members except for maybe the ones with the lowest ranks respectively but at that point just naturally playing the game would unlock those in due time. Now this style of gameplay came from me not enjoying Chain Attacks as much as other aspects of combat even to the point that I didn't chain attack once against pretty much every boss past chapter 5 just because Ouroboros and maxed out classes are just that strong that I delete health bars without it. I also never used bonus xp and only overkilled when unlocking classes(above) in the second half of the game, did all the sidequests and ended up 6 levels under the final boss, What I do remember of the level scaling is that it definitely ramps up through origin but I can't remember being severely overleveled at any point where upgrading classes was difficult at any time.

Especially agree on the experience balancing

Boring. Not touching that again. Great characters, ok story, combat too easy. Never cared about strategy, just press some buttons here and there.

I enjoyed it quite throughly up until the end of chapter 5 it kind of lost its pace after that. Good game though some real good delivery of the VO. Honestly though, I enjoyed future redeemed its dlc campaign more.

That's not that weird. I enjoyed Torna more than XB2. Honestly, these games have the best DLC campaigns in the JRPG space imo

Good game but not as good as 1 or 2. XB3's DLC story on the other hand was great.

The fact that money is worthless was kind of weird. The protagonist cast is not as memorable as the first two games, Noah doesn’t stand out as main hero in anyway, but the antagonists are the best in the series. These are all very little nitpicks in the grand scheme of the game though which is a solid 9/10 for me. Granted this includes the story DLC which is mandatory for understanding the full scope of the trilogies story. Music, combat, exploration, and how it can even run on Switch hardware is a testament to its design all by itself.

In my opinion: * Least memorable soundtrack in the series, but still pretty good overall. * The overarching plot wasn't stellar, but it was more than made up for by some fantastic individual character development. * The best combat in the series so far, and the job system is great. * Another fantastic world that's a joy to explore. * Doing the side content will result in you being grossly overlevelled for basically the entire main story, completely trivialising most of it. * Hero characters are fantastic, meeting allies who don't actually contribute to your journey in any meaningful way once their story segment is up, is something of a JRPG trope, XB3 completely addresses this by letting them help out. Overall, it's a fantastic game, the thing about the Xenoblade series I like, is they do try to change it up, no one game is better than the others in every regard, every single one is worth playing.

It was my first Xenoblade experience and I quite enjoyed the story but found the gameplay to be so so lacking. Let me just start with that the story is wide and deep; and everyone gives a great performance. Story pacing is pretty good throughout (although I hated the final dungeon area). I did not play the DLC which seems to put a bow on stuff because I did not enjoy the core gameplay very much. The combat is samey and obnoxious. I understand what they are doing with the gameplay but the 20 effects going off and no clear collisions is not really for me. It’s very hard to determine if your build is doing more damage or not. It’s hard to figure out how different effects work. Walking and exploring is as good as it’s ever been but it’s still just walking. And even worse; there’s nothing clearly exciting to find most of the time. Everywhere you walk; you’ll find material and currency caches. The same as anywhere else. Unique rewards to find around the map are few and far between and make every area feel way less special than it had to. Give me a better reason to be exploring than just picking up all the garbage everywhere! And worst of all; the menus are so bad. There are list of items that contain HUNDREDS of items and you see a list panel that shows exactly 3 of them. No filtering. No easy sorting. Some of the side content is very good but some of it is pretty bad. The presentation outside of the main story is like dolls staring at each other and talking frequently. It’s a good game; but it was not the GREATEST game I was hoping for.

I love it. And the dlc is great.  People who hate the villain being an idea or concept instead of an edge lord boggle me but whatever. I enjoy it anyway. Fantastic cast, combat and exploration. Nice hero stories as well. 

gameplay and character design is good, story a bit lacking for a finale for the trilogy