Xenoblade Chronicles

So I've finally finished Xenoblade 3!

I actually planned to finish it by the one year anniversary, but I overshot by an hour forty, as its 1:40AM now. Mostly because I miscounted and assumed I had both Saturday & Sunday to finish. Since I only noticed my mistake this morning, I've pretty much played it since lunch for the last 13 hours with a dinner break starting with Noah's Ascension quest.

...Plus I died due to losing my last Healer on the very last final final boss phase before I could hit the chain attack button to heal up. So that quite annoyingly added an extra hour.

Its mostly my fault I took so long. I actually got just past Chapter Six the death of M after playing it every day for the first month of release. Then I got busy and kept putting it off as I kept trying for the perfect conditions to play again when I probably should have just pushed though. I did about 30 hours of sidequesting back in February, mopping up the Chapter Six ones, and most of the Ascension quests. And then finally started again properly last week.

So I'm kind of grateful for the anniversary giving me a way to impose a deadline on myself.

But since I wanted to push to the end I mostly neglected the new areas like the Castles. I did do all the party member ascension quests though.

Ending spoilers

I recall people saying the ending was pretty weak. And I think I only agree partly.

Yes, the best parts of the main story are earlier, but aside from the start of the theater fight, everything after is really great! I forgot that I do also really like Xenoblade's way of ending a game being fairly light on the exposition. Not having too much wrap up once the final boss is down can be nice sometimes. The Noah Mio kiss was also very sweet.

Mio & Melia showing up with the Castle's & to fight were A++.

That said X & Y were very weak, it was weird they didn't get a cutscene like a normal Mobius when they died? I feel like parts of them were cut. They seemed like maybe aspects of Z? While I do like the ending and think its very cool thematically, compared to Xenoblade 1 where the entire build up is A+, that part wasn't great.

I did like Z though once I got to the reveal and he loses his human facade.

I liked the final dungeon. Even if it could have used something ala the Dickson fight from XBC 1.

I'm sitting at 106 hours now, but I do have a fair bit of sidequesting to do now. As well as the postgame content/party members I was spoiled on about 10 months back.

That should take me a while to work though, I'll likely just chip away a bit at it tomorrow given how much I played today.

Then I'll grab the DLC and do the new hero quests, then back to Future Connected before moving onto Future Redeemed for me!

Although, I think I'll probably try to finish Trails into Reverie once I wrap up the rest of vanilla XBC 3.

What was your favorite part?

Definitely the whole captured to execution sequence in Chapter 5.

As well as the Hero quests. While I don't think any quite hit the highs you see in the above - they're mostly excellent and supported with some great build up. Off the top of my head Ashera & Teach's were highlights so far.

Although with the party, looking at Sena and partially Eunie. I think the writers could have benefited from adding in some other type of yellow quest.

Something like a Mobius quest. It felt like they had some lore & character stuff they didn't want to tie into the main story. But also they wanted to be voiced and given more focus. Which sort of resulted in a few party members getting cheated out of focus.

Yeah, Sena definitely got short-changed on her ascension quest, which was basically Shania's. Meanwhile, Segiri's Hero quest was blatantly Sena's ascension quest, but without as many high-quality cutscenes.

Xenoblade sales have been updated for 2023.

The Trinity CD box set has arrived for me today.

Nice! I hope you enjoy it!

I was very close to ordering that.

But with shipping it ended up being 333 AUD, which is just too much for C Ds, no matter how cool (106 USD for shipping).

Honestly, I would have still got them, but they changed the shipping services the day prior to pre orders opening, which is why international cost so much.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Aug 4th 2023 at 1:20:45 AM

So I was re-watching Rex's intro in Future Redeemed, and it seems like his swords don't have the Aegis cores on their pommels. And then I realized that no one's Blades have cores where they normally would; for the soldiers, they have a Flame Clock symbol, while everyone else appears to have a more generic gem.

I'm not sure if that means anything, but I thought it was worth noting. If nothing else, it explains why Glimmer didn't immediately ask why his Blades have her core.

I mean, they're not the real deal. The fire one doesn't have the handguard and the light one only has one crossguard blade.

Also there is one example of a core crystal being on a weapon, and its literally just Nia's Catalyst Scimitar. And it gets replaced by a Flame Clock when her Lifesage class is used by the party members.

Edited by ThunderboltZekesAlt on Aug 3rd 2023 at 12:14:32 PM

Whoo.

Sena has mastered every class (except the DLC ones) and Noah is close as well. Everyone else has at least one to two left.

At least until I get that damned DLC, I'll be done with the game after this.

Which emphasizes that Nia is the only real Blade left, because in X2 every weapon had a copy of the Blade's core crystal. Still, the fact that there was no emphasis on it—either that Nia's Blade still has a core or that everyone else's doesn't—meant it was easy to miss.

Alright.

All classes mastered. You know, barring that DLC I still don’t have yet.

Guess now’s as good a time as any to take a break.

Okay, you've had time for a break, have you started the DLC yet?

No. Still lack the money, and a nearby place to get it.

All the close places I could go suddenly stopped having Nintendo E-Shop cards. And when I was able to reach places that did, I didn't have the cash.

As soon as both stars align, I'll have it.

And I take it you don't even have a debit card to use?

I have that.

Like I said, right now, it's just a matter of getting to a close enough place, and having the right amount of money. I think I'll be able to do it soon, but until then, I'll shift my focus back to SMT IV Apocalypse.

Yeah, not having a sufficient source of income is the worst. Too bad it's not as easy to make money IRL as it is in XC3.

Is there anything stopping you from using a debit card for those eShop funds? Aside from lacking the money to begin with, that is. There's no need to use those eShop cards if one has a debit card.

Just personal preference really.

Do you get anything for Mastering all the classes?

I was wondering if there would be something like that one skill in Bravely Default, but I didn't notice anything in any of the classes.

Nope. Closest is an accessory you get for finishing every challenge in the Land of Challenge.

I just thought of something. What happened to Xord after Shulk wished for a world with no gods (or better yet, after Origin fused the worlds together)? As far as we know, he's the only Faced Mechon remaining who isn't mass-produced, since Mumkhar, Gadolt, and Egil are all dead, and we know thanks to Word of God that it was him saving Juju from the Telethia. And it's not like he can be converted back to a Homs like Fiora was; he was an early-model Faced Mechon that only used Homs organs instead of their full bodies.

There’s nothing indicating that Xord couldn’t be turned back.

I mean, I was never clear on how Fiora could be turned back.

Supplementary material said they used an old High Enita machine to do it, if I remember correctly.

It took a half year, so Fiora in the ending just recently got out.