Xenoblade Chronicles

You don't, actually, you can go straight to the correct spot and only have the correct item identified

Took some work, but I have maxed out all classes. My gems aren't maxed out, but who cares. I'm ready for challenge mode when that drops.

Weird feeling looking at the affinity chart and realizing Valdi and Alexandria are the same age.

(6th term, so about 15. He looks quite a bit younger and she looks quite a bit older.)

Song of the Sirens

Well, girls tend to shoot up in height earlier than boys, so perhaps Valdi is just a late bloomer. Also, there's the fact that Alexandria actively tries to look older with her hairdo and make-up. Mix those two factors, and Alex looks 17 while Valdi looks 13.

Sena is also very baby-faced despite being 18. The height doesn't help, but it's the big eyes that make me think she's like a year or two younger than the others.

I've finished the game. Played on Hard.

Won't bore you with a wall of text but my quick thoughts:

Gameplay-wise it's pretty good, fixes a lot of the problems with 1 and 2, though there's a few too many sub-systems in battle I feel.

The Hero system feels like 2's Blades done right, mixed with a little bit of X's party system. I really like it a lot, though I hate how hard it is to inherit classes if you're overlevelled.

Chain Attack music interrupting boss music is stupid and I hope they fix that in a patch, but this is the same company that released Xenoblade 1 three times without ever doing anything about Vision Reacts so I have low hopes.

The minor Consuls are entertaining and I like encountering new ones at the end of most Hero quests, but the head honchos are ultimately pretty weak antagonists. 2's villains were better in just about every way. Z is a total nothingburger and never becomes more interesting, I was legitimately expecting him to be a decoy for a more interesting villain, but no. Easily the most boring Xenoblade villain, even more boring than Luxaar.

The endgame was kind of weak. Origin was really cool for the first few rooms and then became a slog compared to Prison Island redux or the World Tree. There wasn't anything super exciting along the way like 2's meeting with the Architect either. Just... fights with X and Y that are unremarkable enough to not even get post-battle cutscenes, and the rematch with N which was interesting but nothing groundbreaking. As for Z, Xenoblade's final boss battles have never been particularly exciting but Z was just an absolute slog with too much health in every phase and no cool attacks. The interim fights with X and Y where your Heroes start showing up to help was really cool, as were Nia and Melia helping out in the final phase, but the boss itself was just uninteresting in every other regard.

As far as story themes go I was hoping for something more subtle and cosmic like the first two games but it kinda just devolves into cliche "keep moving forward" Captain Obvious moralizing, to the point that the villain is literally just an embodiment of humanity's chronophobia and won't stop talking about "the now" while the heroes keep repeating the same rebuttals.

I'll probably be flayed alive for this, but I think 2 is a better game overall, in spite of its gacha and sexuality. Maybe it just resonated better with me on a personal level, but I think it had a better story, setting, characters, thematic elements, and music once you look past the stupid jiggling anime boobs.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Sep 16th 2022 at 9:59:34 AM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

No, I agree. 2 has one bad chapter (4) that interrupts a slow escalation to primo worldbuilding and character drama. 3 has a very strong start but after its emotional peak it loses the tension, as well as the plot and character threads that made it so good.

Still like the game, but it flubbed the landing.

Edited by Watashiwa on Sep 16th 2022 at 7:29:45 AM

If nothing else it had more instances of its climax song "Counterattack" whereas you only hear "Weight of Life" in 3 twice. I feel like the story length in 3 is a bit too short for the game's benefit, and I don't just mean the amount of chapters. Alrest is also more lively while Aionios is depressingly barren.

Doesn't that just mean that Weight of Life is 3's Unfinished Battle?

Sadly it may be.

Quite possibly a deliberate choice, tbh. It would certainly fit with the themes.

Song of the Sirens

I think the main issue in that regard is that basically every non-City settlement in the game is a colony. Which makes sense, but I do wish they would've differentiated them a bit more, since each colony is very small and all of them share the same amenities. It would help if they gave each colony some sort of extra activity or function that was unique to it. Either that or make the world feel a bit more lived in by having a Nopon village somewhere.

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Colony Mu gets an armu farm eventually, but that's about it

Song of the Sirens

Yeah, if each colony had something kinda like that, it would've helped. Maybe colony 9 could have like a potato farming minigame or something.

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Over time each of the colonies should have developed unique permanent structures similar to 30's Levnis garage. Lambda should have fortified the ether mine (sorry Uraya), 9 should have expanded the fields and put walls up around them, etc.

Perhaps, but in-universe they state that Colony 0 went out and made sure none of the colonies would have the chance to develop any meaningful culture beyond their miscellaneous Planet of Hats. Unless you mean after colony liberation.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 16th 2022 at 12:50:17 PM

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's post-liberation. Like each colony could have a sidequest chain that ends by rewarding you with some sort of new, unique facility. It would be easy to tie it in with the overall plotline and theme (the individual colonies can't be fully self-sufficient, but they each have unique benefits that allow them to mutually support each other), and there's already some plot basis for it. Lambda gets some sort of ether mining facility, 30 gets a levnis maintenance garage, Mu has the Armu ranch, 9 has a potato farm, Iota functions as a depot and distribution center, etc.

You could easily give each colony some sort of minigame that gives you certain types of materials. E.g. helping with ether mining gets you gem crafting stuff, helping at the potato farm gives you vegetables for cooking, Gamma could have a training camp that lets you battle specifically for CP and class mastery, etc.

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I dunno if I'd want minigames in Xenoblade, but collectopedia cards and some conversational material? Yeah.

And oh yes, post-liberation by necessity. Except 30, they had all that already. Interesting detail, that.

EDIT: The mock-battling colonies is a great idea though, they all should have something like that.

Edited by Watashiwa on Sep 17th 2022 at 12:54:14 PM

I honestly never see the appeal of 2's story. It looks like the Lowest Common Denominator-pandering to me.

Where there's life, there's hope.

Once you get out of the Cliché Storm first half of the game the story and character writing is fine, even if the darker tone of the second half clashes with the first. It's especially strong whenever it touches upon the themes of existentialism, memory, and trauma, and the post-Morytha chapters have consistently good writing, but a lot of it is better shown off in Torna TGC than the main game. Another issue is that a lot of 2's story is spent on developing the Rex/Pyra romance but it never landed for me at all. Likewise Nia's affection for Rex felt a bit too much like them Shilling the Escapist Character rather than giving Nia a believable reason to fall in love with him. Her internalized shame at being a Flesh Eater and Rex accepting her for what she was (leaving it at that would've been fine) is the more compelling arc of hers.

3's story definitely fell off after chapter 5, and it's a lot more blunt about its message, but the anti-establishment themes resonated a lot more strongly with me as a disaffected worn-down millennial in an increasingly dystopic world. I can't say that I was particularly affected by Noah and Mio's romance but it was both more believable and plot-relevant to me at least, given that Rex and Pyra could've achieved the same character development without there being a romance to it. And well, I forget if I've mentioned already that Taion's arc can make him come off as an Author's Saving Throw version of Mythra (who is one of the best parts of Torna) in the same way Amalthus was for Krelian, keeping a lot of the good while filing off or deconstructing the more odious elements.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 17th 2022 at 4:34:47 AM

I think Torna does a good enough job salvaging Mythra's character, mostly because no one puts up with her BS and she doesn't have the "I'm a Jerkass but I have long legs so that's okay" privilege.

Torna's story and characters are really amazing (except for Aegeon and Minoth who barely exist). It makes basegame 2 feels like a Sophomore Slump misstep that they won't repeat again.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Sep 17th 2022 at 1:24:04 AM

Where there's life, there's hope.

I'm not done with 3 yet, but to me its currently 1 > 3 > 2 for the story, including Torna with 2.

I'm not sure how much that's nostalgia for 1 though.

But I'm pretty sure I like the story better in 3 than 2 unless it takes a shocking swerve in quality.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Sep 17th 2022 at 10:30:11 PM

"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob

I felt ambivalent about Torna: The Golden Country's story given that it was a bit of a foregone conclusion. I agree that the interactions between Mythra and the rest of the party felt like a bit of retribution for her constant abuse of Rex, although as a prequel it was only retroactive. But I was more or less indifferent to the main cast.

The problem there is, as you said, the first half.

If half a work has to go by before the story and character writing becomes fine, that’s just plain bad writing. And I don’t say that to diminish the genuinely good quality of the second half on its own, but the second half does not exist on its own.

Edited by TheAirman on Sep 17th 2022 at 9:10:34 AM

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

I'd say Chapter 3 is a highlight that truly gets the viewer invested (or at least, it did that for me); it explains that the party's initial goal isn't as clear-cut as it seems, a new party member is introduced (albeit temporarily) who helps out with giving the viewer some worldbuilding, the sacred Break-Topple combo is introduced (although available sooner, it unlocks Anchor Shot's ability to Topple), and expands upon the story's villains. Chapter 4, while a real sideshow in the story department, expands the gameplay's potential and gives the player more to do and explore on the side. I'd say only the first two chapters are a bit slow to get through.

That's how I felt at first because 3 starts off really strong, but it really starts to deflate by the lategame and made me really miss 2's lategame.

One thing I really like about 2's story as a whole is that it isn't directly driven by the antagonists; the heroes have their own, more spiritual reason for going on their adventure that isn't just "let's go on a roadtrip to defeat the villains" like 1's and 3's are. You don't see a lot of that in JRPGs.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!