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Pre-Release Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Pre-release Discussion Thread (Spoilers from leaks/early copies NOT allowed)

Which side are you on?

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Momo said:
They completed the game
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That's about what I spent on XC1 with 100% side quests, not bad at all (I didn't do the super bosses, though). And I'm usually slower than most people. Still, 90 hours with all side quests done vs. 135 and 3/4 through the game (assuming he's correct about that?) is quite the big difference
 
SammyJ9 said:
That's about what I spent on XC1 with 100% side quests, not bad at all (I didn't do the super bosses, though). And I'm usually slower than most people. Still, 90 hours with all side quests done vs. 135 and 3/4 through the game (assuming he's correct about that?) is quite the big difference
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I misremembered and edited my post. They completed the game in 90 hours, nothing about side quests.
 
Lots of tweets today, maybe making up for the missed day yesterday



Time changing mechanic



The skirmish mechanic where you can choose sides



Unique Monster Tombstones



Ashera Hero tweets! Seems she's kinda a jerk, being pretty uncaring towards both their own life and that of allies. Presumably we'll have to deal with whatever caused that particular attitude

The Lone Exile class, meanwhile, seems to be a fairly offensively-geared Defender (I believe we saw in the Direct that the class had a pretty high rank in Attacking as well as Defending). Seems like it also has some ranged capabilities?



Ashera's cutscene. Supports the idea that they have some sort of ranged capabilities. Despite being a (apparently rather popular) Keves soldier though, she did look to be attacking a Keves mech. Wonder what's up with that, since this seems to be before she join up.
 
I'm glad not every hero is introduced by attacking the party lol. Given her class's name Lone Exile and the fact she attacks the Keves mechon, it seems possible she's no longer in the Keves army and is an exiled wonderer. I'm pretty sure that area you encounter her is the Hovering Reefs outside the mechanized Alcamoth castle which would presumably be pretty far in but still before Erythia and swordmarch I'm guessing.
 
EtherPenguin said:
I'm glad not every hero is introduced by attacking the party lol. Given her class's name Lone Exile and the fact she attacks the Keves mechon, it seems possible she's no longer in the Keves army and is an exiled wonderer. I'm pretty sure that area you encounter her is the Hovering Reefs outside the mechanized Alcamoth castle which would presumably be pretty far in but still before Erythia and swordmarch I'm guessing.
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Hm yeah fits with her placement on the Hero list, since she's between Juniper and Alexandria. So likely at least a bit before Swordmarch based on where we see those characters too
 
wait., what is she doing! we are on the battlefield, we are supposed to stay focused!

FYAvarAaIAA1wC4
 
sulysulk11 said:
Do you guys think that we will see Pyra/Mythra in any sort of way during the game?
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In any sort of way?

It's possible. Mythra is just a subroutine written by Pneuma, and pyra is just a sub routine written by Mythra. Pneuma is an ai running on one of the Trinity core processors, which handles the calculations and software side of the reality editing machine.

If the plot goes towards getting 'the power of Gods' back to save the world, the processor pyra, mythra, and pneuma actually exist on will need to come into play. (Unless the ending of xb2 actually removed (cut and paste) the subroutines from the Pneuma core onto fashioned carbon bodies. Then they dead, but the original processor they came from would still be out there.)

If this is the direction the story goes in, the Trinity processor is probably going to need it's shattered Logos core remade.
 
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sulysulk11 said:
Do you guys think that we will see Pyra/Mythra in any sort of way during the game?
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I do. That initial leak from last year emphasized that the story was about the long-lived characters who have long lost their human partners and I can't see that only applying to Melia and Nia. Everything else in that leak was true.

I'm standing by my predictions I made back when the game was first announced over who is returning:
EtherPenguin said:
I don't think they'll go overboard with returns, they'll want the new cast to have the chance to stand on their own. Also, I don't think speculation of returning characters needs to be limited to long-lived characters, reincarnation could be a part of this tale and we've already seen Vandham reincarnated. But here's who I think is likely:

  • Tyrea: She'll still be around as Melia's right-hand woman, the one who is willing to do her dirty work, her faithful assassin.
  • Dromarch: Will be Nia's Tyrea as a right-hand man who will do whatever she asks though I can't see him being brutal like Tyrea. If for whatever reason our party has to fight Melia/Nia, then we'll have to go through Tyrea/Dromarch first.
  • Pyra and Mythra: Popular characters who we'll be on everyone's mind and are some of the most important people in this universe, I'll be shocked if they're not here. They likely won't show up until the final chapters.
  • Alvis: If this is the finale of the Klaus arc and there's dimensional merging craziness going on then he has good reason to be here. He shares the Aegis girls' importance to the lore of this world yet I don't think he's as likely as those two. If there is a Xenoblade 4 that starts a new arc in another universe/dimension, and they still want it to have some connection to what came before then I could see them saving Alvis for that (he could have gone to the same universe that the Conduit went to) but I think there are better odds of him showing up in 3.
  • Klaus and Galea: Klaus has been at the center of this arc so far. After he meets with Rex and company he says to himself something like "maybe I will get to see you again, Galea" so I'm thinking these two will be reincarnated. Wouldn't it be crazy if Noah and Mio were them? Noah would be the Fei to Klaus's Kim. (Klaus and Kim both experimented with nanomachines after all)
  • Shulk and Rex: These two I'm less sure about. As the stars of the previous game, Monolith knows that people will want to see them but it could feel fanservicey if there's not a great reason to have them. They could be reincarnated but they'll probably just be in flashbacks.
  • Poppi I'm on the fence about. I do think the artificial blade technology will be important. If they wanted to get dark, they could have a secret fight with an out-of-control evolved Poppi similar to Emil in Nier Automata.
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The only thing I've somewhat changed my mind about is Poppi and artificial blade technology being important. It looks like that technology is gone but the DLC hero being robotic is giving me 'descendant' of Poppi vibes.
 
I said it years before XC3 and I’ll say it now -

If a game serving as a sequel to both XC and XC2 doesn’t utilise the immortal characters from those games, they’ve missed a trick.

Alvis and Pyra/Mythra have got to be part of this story, surely? It kind of makes no sense if they aren’t at least referenced.

You could probably write the latter out by saying they passed away peacefully alongside Rex, making good on that conversation from XC2.

Not sure why they’d bring Melia and Nia back, but not Pyra/Mythra though. Of course the DLC could clear things up.

Still, it would be odd if XC2 somehow got Shulk, Fiora, Elma and KOS-MOS but in an actual crossover game, Monolith Soft showed restraint.

Now, I could see Rex and Shulk left on the table for DLC, but I’d be shocked if we didn’t see Pyra/Mythra.


Signed a Pyra/Mythra fanboy.
 
sulysulk11 said:
Do you guys think that we will see Pyra/Mythra in any sort of way during the game?
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I think so. Most popular characters in the franchise combined with the fact that storywise, they (alongside Alvis) are the characters that makes the most sense to actually appear. If Nia and Melia are in, I don't see how Pyra and Mythra wouldn't be.

But two things give me pause:

1) Nia and Melia might be a misdirection of some sort. If it's not actually them or that the plot/setting isn't what it seems to be, then it's possible not to have Pyra and Mythra.

2) Pyra's sword is in the dlc image. It's possible they'll keep them for the final dlc.

I'm still leaning toward them being in the main story but I'm not that confident about it.
 
Monolith said it is okay to play 3 without the experience on 1 and 2. That's the reason why I think there won't be a lot of characters from preivous games.
I don't want to see too many characters from previous games too. This should be a new story but not the extension of the previous story. Too many old characters will become a block for people who are interested in Xeno series, just like The Legend of Heroes series.
 
While MS have said you can play XC3 without playing the other games, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a dev trying to sell the third entry in their niche JRPG series.

They also said XC and XC2 weren’t connected, so...

I believe them to a point, which is to say, the game will stand on its own… but I think it will be greatly enhanced if you’ve played the others. I think we’ll see old characters, but I don’t think they will come at the expense of the new cast.

The only way it’s a problem is if this new crew don’t have the chops to hang with the old guard, but I trust Takahashi and co.
 
I'm interested to see which party member each Hero has the closest connection to (the one that gets their class automatically). Ethel -> Noah and Cammuravi -> Mio seem obvious, as does Isurd -> Taion if he ends up being a Hero. But a lot of the others seem like pretty big toss-ups, and it'll be neat to see what relationships form there. Seems like a nice way to expand on the main cast as well as the Heroes.
 
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Mr.Fletcher said:
I swear at some point, someone involved in that article, or someone backing it up at the time, said ’characters with names beginning with these letters will appear‘…
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Yea, that was a guy from Bloomberg I believe. He posted EMR then after the reveal trailer said e = entia and m = man-eater which is the Japanese name for flesh eaters. So just Melia and Nia. I can't remember if he said what the 'r' was for.
 
EtherPenguin said:
Yea, that was a guy from Bloomberg I believe. He posted EMR then after the reveal trailer said e = entia and m = man-eater which is the Japanese name for flesh eaters. So just Melia and Nia. I can't remember if he said what the 'r' was for.
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Entia, man eaters.... R....

Robot something? What's the Japanese name for the Machina race?
 
Mr.Fletcher said:
While MS have said you can play XC3 without playing the other games, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a dev trying to sell the third entry in their niche JRPG series.

They also said XC and XC2 weren’t connected, so...

I believe them to a point, which is to say, the game will stand on its own… but I think it will be greatly enhanced if you’ve played the others. I think we’ll see old characters, but I don’t think they will come at the expense of the new cast.

The only way it’s a problem is if this new crew don’t have the chops to hang with the old guard, but I trust Takahashi and co.
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I mean, they were right about XC2 for the most part. only the near the literal end is XC1 explicitly referenced. before that though, the parts that are shared is explained as if it was your first time seeing it.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I mean, they were right about XC2 for the most part. only the near the literal end is XC1 explicitly referenced. before that though, the parts that are shared is explained as if it was your first time seeing it.
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This is more what I would expect, maybe expanded a bit more given the more obvious connections we already have. Probably the game is mostly self-contained but I could see it doing a lot of wrap-up and crazy crossover crap right near the end. Besides it's not like they need to worry about newcomers being put off at the literal end of the game, much like in 2; plus they can do it in such a way that you don't really NEED to have played the earlier games, it just helps a lot.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I mean, they were right about XC2 for the most part. only the near the literal end is XC1 explicitly referenced. before that though, the parts that are shared is explained as if it was your first time seeing it.
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Yes, I think a story structure like XC2 fits Xeno series best. Independent story and a shared world and background.
 
I played 2 without having a shred of knowledge about 1 and I enjoyed the plot (and the overarching setting of the ending) immensely.

I would have shit bricks if I had played 1 beforehand though. That's some "I am your father" level stuff.
 
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The links were expertly done in 2.
There was a smaller jab in Chapter 7, that was also mind blowing given the casual nature of its reveal.

Harpoon said:
lmao

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Beyond the goofy premise of this strip...it's interesting that certain memories were of great value to Pyra (conversely, Malos rejected any sort of attachment), and that there was some sort of interface environment where the Aegises could go to access or delete them.
I wonder how the Ouroboros, and perhaps Moebius, are potentially an offshoot of this. The merging of the two worlds has led to several interesting developments, and a bunch of mere mortals have been granted some very specials powers...
 
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finally got around to playing Torna but I enjoyed it too much and finished it like a week sooner than I wanted to so there's still like a week and a half until this comes out
 


Erithyia Sea tweet. I think this may be the first time the boat is officially acknowledged outside of footage/screenshots. We see it here with its "wings" both open and closed. Wonder what that's about. Also, since one of the shots is facing the boat from offscreen, it seems like it's a physical object that exists outside of when you're in it. Or maybe that's just a different boat

Even if the boat is just limited to this area, I'm a big fan of ocean environments, and actually getting to boat around to different islands seems fun



Supply chests! These were mentioned in the Direct. Though, the way this is worded, I wonder if these will be actively dropped over time (like, say, Star Pieces in BoTW) rather than being static objects on the field. But could just be translation issues/flavor text

Also talks about the cylinders we've seen in previews and such. Pretty straightforward, seem to function like treasure chests. Not much to talk about here, honestly
 
ILikeFeet said:
I mean, they were right about XC2 for the most part. only the near the literal end is XC1 explicitly referenced. before that though, the parts that are shared is explained as if it was your first time seeing it.
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My push back against this is that the situation is quite different.

XC2 was a ’sequel’ to a game that came out seven years earlier, which few people had actually played on a machine two generations before. They presented the game as being completely standalone and as a result, it’s hard to lean heavily into XC. It’s not fair on people who bought the game with no knowledge of the first game to bake a lot of important references into XC2. As has been said many times, the link between both games was smartly done. They stand on their own, but work well together.

XC3 on the other hand has been advertised as a sequel to both of those games from the off. XC was ported to the Switch so people would have access to the full trilogy too. Many environments are a mash-up of areas from both games, some songs too, there’s important characters from both games already on show and even a season pass image referencing the heroes of both games - and that’s all before release.

Again, that’s not to say XC3 won’t stand on its own, but I think people are wrong to point to XC2 and say it’s all going to be backloaded into a late game chapter. What we’ve seen already suggests it may not be. Of course people will say Monolith Soft are saying you don’t need to play the other games - and to be clear, I believe them. But I don’t think you’re going to catch many developers telling consumers to go buy two, 100+ hour JRPGs just so they can enjoy the third one they’re actively trying to sell to a larger audience right now.

I’m quite relaxed about whatever they decide to do, I just think the situation here is totally different and as such, we should be open to the idea that the links here will be bigger than in XC2… particularly because before 2017, the series was a commercial failure so new games had no reason to link back to older ones.

We shall soon find out!
 
I never said XC3's connection to the rest of the game would be situated at the end of the game. Just that all the connections in XC2 lied there. Just by having Melia and Nia in the intro of 3 already removes that idea. I'm just expecting references to be "decapriopoint.jpg" rather than Falcom's Trails series.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I never said XC3's connection to the rest of the game would be situated at the end of the game. Just that all the connections in XC2 lied there. Just by having Melia and Nia in the intro of 3 already removes that idea. I'm just expecting references to be "decapriopoint.jpg" rather than Falcom's Trails series.
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And to be fair, I didn't mean to suggest you said that, so sorry if I did - it was more to push back against the sentiment I've seen that the references might be relatively minor and relegated to the end of the game.

I more used your post as a jumping off point to spout shit. :p
 
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I think the XC3 character group‘s point of view aligns well with a player who starts with XC3 as their first game. There‘s a lot of things these cloned soldiers don‘t know about their world and its backstory. So I could imagine, if the references aren‘t subtle this time around - any explanations to Noah & Co. will also serve to bring a new player to the series up to speed as well.
 
LamdaDai said:
Monolith said it is okay to play 3 without the experience on 1 and 2. That's the reason why I think there won't be a lot of characters from preivous games.
I don't want to see too many characters from previous games too. This should be a new story but not the extension of the previous story. Too many old characters will become a block for people who are interested in Xeno series, just like The Legend of Heroes series.
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Remember when NIS America said one of the Trails games they were localizing (I think it was Cold Steel 3) was an 'excellent jumping on point' or something like that? Good Times.

Mr.Fletcher said:
XC3 on the other hand has been advertised as a sequel to both of those games from the off. XC was ported to the Switch so people would have access to the full trilogy too. Many environments are a mash-up of areas from both games, some songs too, there’s important characters from both games already on show and even a season pass image referencing the heroes of both games - and that’s all before release.
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Yes! Aionios as a setting is really only interesting to me due to its direct references to XC1 and XC2. I think it's obviously by design. We are supposed to wonder how this world came to be from the endings of 1 and 2. For everyone else it's "look at this cool world to explore" for us it's "how the hell did this world get made?"

Just like XC2, it's a really cool way to make sequels.
 
BradenAndEggs said:
Remember when NIS America said one of the Trails games they were localizing (I think it was Cold Steel 3) was an 'excellent jumping on point' or something like that? Good Times.
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NISA was in a rock and a hard place with that. Falcon is on some next level shit with continuity (to their detriment)
 
BradenAndEggs said:
Remember when NIS America said one of the Trails games they were localizing (I think it was Cold Steel 3) was an 'excellent jumping on point' or something like that? Good Times.
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Man, Cold Steel 3 is trash, even as bad as cold steel 2. Too many old characters even have a bad effect on the characterization of Trails series. You can also check the sales of trails series, it is not a good choice for Xeno series to do the same thing as Trails series.
 
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