Xenoblade Chronicles 3 -Switch- 9

June 20, 2023

I just finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on the Switch, on normal mode. This is all I’ve been playing for the last three weeks, and I logged 88 1/2 hours. I did a good amount of optional quests, got all but one of the extra heroes, did all the ascension quests for the main party, and did a couple ascension quests for the extra heroes. Some of the those optional missions (particularly the ascension quests for the main party) added a lot to the main storyline, and I am glad I did them. Other side quests didn’t add too much to the overall plot, but were fun to play to level up my party anyway. The combat system was probably the best of the trilogy, as you have seven party members now instead of three. As for the storyline, it was about as good as the other two Xenoblade’s. I think I liked the main party of heroes here the best out of the three games. Mio’s voice actress gives a powerful performance. Her and Noah were excellent leads. And the character “N” was an outstanding villain. The other main party members were also very endearing, and the other villains also had good presence. There is a jaw dropping plot twist at the very end of chapter four. And the last hour of chapter five and first hour of chapter six were absolutely riveting. I will say that when it was all said and done in chapter seven, though, the overall plot wasn’t quite as epic as I was hoping for. And the connection to the first two games is very faint. Honestly, none of the three Xenoblade storylines come close to the epic scope of XenoGears or XenoSaga. I feel like Monolithsoft wanted to focus less heavily on story after XenoSaga and more on exploration and gameplay with the Xenoblade series. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. I prefer the plot-heavy XenoGears&XenoSaga, but the Xenoblade games are still great in their own right. Exploring their vast landscapes and experiencing their long quests engrossed me from start to finish. I am giving Xenoblade Chronicles 3 a 9 out of ten, which is the same score I gave Xenoblade 1&2. It’s close, but I would probably give this third entry the slight edge as the best of the trilogy.

June 27, 2023

I just finished the “Future Redeemed” DLC expansion for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. I played the first three chapters on normal, but switched to easy mode for chapters four and five due to a massive difficulty spike. It was still a challenge to get through, and I had to do a ton of sidequests in order to make it through. This took 24 1/2 hours. When combined with the base game, that’s a total of 113 hours! The original Xenoblade on Wii took me 70 hours (I never played the Switch version with “future connected”), Xenoblade Chronicles 2 took 60, and the Torna expansion took 20. That’s a grand total of 263 hours I have put into this series! Anyway, back to my review of the DLC… Much like Torna, this was a great little expansion that just enhanced the overall experience of the base game. Future Redeemed kicked things off with a heavy dose of fan service by bringing Rex and Shulk back with the new party, which was awesome. This story takes place 1000 years before the events in XbC3, so it’s kind of a footnote to what happens there, but makes certain past details a little more clear. All three base games work as stand alone titles, but this expansion connects them a little stronger than the ending of the base game did. However, I do wish they explained more about Zed’s origin. He was the main villain in XbC3, and he had a great presence and demeanor, but the explanation about where he came from was a bit weak in the base game. I was hoping they would go into that more in this expansion, but they didn’t. The main villain here was Alpha, who was connected to Alvis in the first game. I have to admit my memory of XbC1’s story is a little rusty, as I have not played it since 2012. But YouTube videos helped me get up to snuff with some of the story beats I had forgotten. Besides the story, this game also offered great exploration and battling, just like the base game. In conclusion, this expansion just strengthens the 9 that I gave the base game a week ago. I am very happy to finally be done with Xenoblade Chronicles 3! It was great, but it has eaten my life for the last four weeks! Time to move on!