I finished this last night and while I think it’s an excellent game with some truly unforgettable moments, I was left unsatisfied.
I think the game loses its way towards the end and as a sequel to XC and XC2, I think it doesn’t quite manage to justify itself.
It’s difficult to know where to start because I’ve got so much to say, but I will start by saying that I really enjoyed the main cast, the story setup and the drama.
Mio is arguably the best character in the series, let alone this game. She confronts her mortality and chooses to push on in hopes of creating a better future for the people she leaves behind. She had some badass moments, good banter, lots of heart-rending scenes and generally carried the emotion of the game for the majority of its runtime. In fact, once the game resolves her personal plight, it becomes far too focused on ideas, rather than people. She is the character who ultimately allows for the world to begin a new, thanks to M’s sacrifice setting in motion the events that would finally allow time to begin moving once more. Noah is fine in this game, nothing special and a bit too flat for me, but Mio is the star.
The fact that’s she’s thought to be, based on a certain picture and some post game content, the daughter of Rex and Nia is cool, but I’ll get to all that later.
As I said, I enjoyed the story setup and drama too. Aionios is a cruel world and from the opening scenes through to the final confrontation with Z, Monolith Soft does a great job of creating an oppressive world full of heartache and struggle. It’s a completely different tone to that found in XC and in XC2. It‘s the perfect backdrop to explore some really poignant human emotions. The never-ending cycle of violence, what it does to us, the world it creates and how we should to try to move past it - with hope. From the comfrontation with N and M at the end of the prison escape sequence, to the tear-jerking homecoming and eventual twist, XC3 is peak Xenoblade in that period. It’s got everything. Seeing the cast marvel at the sight of a baby as the true nature of humanity is revealed to them was a super special moment too (and of course Mio takes the lead in that scene as well, as she does in most of them).
I think the game does a good job of balancing its cast and everyone is likeable to a degree. I think Noah is a weaker leading man than Shulk and Rex, but he’s alright. He’s more of an ideal, a mouthpiece for Takahashi’s musings than a character for large chunks of the game, but that’s okay. Taion and Eunie are great, and Lanz and Sena fulfil their role, even if the latter feels a little left behind.
I said in the other thread that it’s the best Xenoblade - as a game. The UI, the sorting options, the environmental traversal, the beefed up mini map, the polished game feel and…for the lack of a better term, the modernisation of the series. The banter while out in the wilds, the refinement of many ideas from previous games and smart design choices - it feels like the ultimate Xenoblade game. A real evolution of the format.
But despite the quality of the game, the fantastic realisation of its world and some of the best characters in the franchise… the narrative is just such a mixed bag. And those problems come into sharp focus at the end, which is unfortunate.
Forgettable villains, a loss of narrative drive after the prison escape sequence, flashbacks to characters no one cares about, too much philosophical weight given to the narrative at the expense of its characters and a haphazard bittersweet ending, which calls into question what was the point of making it a sequel to XC and XC2 at all.
XC has always toyed around with and reinterpreted bits and pieces from Gears and Saga - but a balance has always been maintained. I think it was lost here and as a huge fan of the XC series, I think this game in particular was used as a vehicle to explore ideas from those games, rather than deliver what I think many would want and expect from a sequel to XC and XC2.
I look back at the likes of Jin, Malos, Amalthus and Egil… even Zanza, and I compare them to the assortment of nondescript power rangers we face off against here and I can’t help but be disappointed. They’re just, mostly, faceless goons with no real personality. Wild Ride had his moments but generally speaking, they’re all just so forgettable. Z as an endgame boss just felt so hollow. Him representing the fear of humanity is fine, but he’s not a character in and of himself. He just exists, which I know is the point, but it’s unsatisfying. N is the exception here (I don’t consider M a villain). And while his best moments are great, it’s just not enough for me. The villains just lack character.
The game does a good job of setting up a clear goal early on and then as the group grow closer it very much becomes a story about Mio, with the crew doing what they can to ensure her final wishes are fulfilled. Her imminent fate gives the narrative a tension that the game never really manages to replace once the issue is resolved. It also doesn’t help that you piece everything together very quickly. There’s no late game twist that shifts your perspective or recontextualises the journey. The notion that humanity is being used as fuel in a never ending cycle of death and despair is established early on, as is the idea of people being grown in tubes to facilitate this. Origin is a cool idea, but that’s explained in a five-minute cutscene that essentially just directs the team to the end of the game. That’s your big, this is how it all went down moment, and it just feels like not enough. The City does house some cool lore titbits, as does some postgame content… but this game feels so tonally divorced from XC and XC2, it might as well not be a sequel to those games at all. The connections feel forced and while some of the themes explored in XC3 are extensions of those in previous games, they’re delivered in such a different way, it’s hard to reconcile XC3 as a follow-up. There’s no reverence given to past locations and few hints to even suggest this world has anything to do with the old ones.
Though I will say, ascending to Cloudkeep to be met by a rearranged version of Drifting Soul brought a tear to my eye. It felt like the first time in the game Monolith Soft put a hand on my shoulder and said ‘thanks for playing those earlier games, this is for you‘ in a meaningful way,
Joran, Crys… does anyone care about these characters? When the former was revealed to be a consul, I couldn’t decide whether I thought that it was so silly it was brilliant, or so silly it was the most ridiculous thing in the game. We are told these characters are meaningful and important, but they get so little development and screen time, I couldn’t care less about them. The fact that the former was incorporated into the main story in some big moments left me bemused, while the latter getting a mandatory hero quest slot right at the end game felt contrived.
I can easily understand people arguing this cast - the party - is the best we’ve had. But everything surrounding them is just… well, it exists.
I also spoke about philosophical musings overriding the characters and the plot, and I think that’s because in the end, the game becomes largely built on ideas at the expense of those involved. Cast members fade into the background to facilitate this. The prison escape sequence I mentioned earlier is pretty much the crescendo of the entire game because it masterfully combines the themes of the game with character drama the game has built up for 30/40 hours. And it does all of that while giving us a really cool twist, a bunch of meaningful flashbacks, a new power for Noah and so on.
The game’s ending pivots back to this a little bit and I was delighted to see Mio and Noah kiss, but even this conclusion is subservient to the themes of the game, refusing to offer up a plainly satisfying ending. It’s essentially the ending of XC2 if Takahashi had decided the glow of the core crystal was enough and had decided not to make a more outrightly positive ending because he felt like players deserved it.
And speaking of XC2, well… where do I start. The rearranged Drifting Soul track got me and it was great to see Nia and Poppi. There’s some good lore in there if you look for it and overall, I think the cast from that game was given a little bit more love than the XC cast. And then there’s that picture. I don’t, on a surface level, have an issue with it and don’t share some of the gripes I’ve seen expressed. That said, I want to know how it happened and why. To finish XC2, then play all of XC3 to get to the final cutscene and see that image… it’s a bit of a curveball. Pyra and Mythra, fair enough - but Nia too? Is it too much to expect the DLC to actually explain some of this? It’s so casually thrown in there too. You wait all game for something truly meaningful to show what happened to our old heroes, then the team just hand you that picture after five years of hoping for an answer, then they end the game. See you in a year for the DLC, maybe?
Nia fights with the ghostly remnants of Pyra’s sword behind her too, what’s that about?
From what I understand, Shulk and Rex fought as the original ouroboros and eventually helped create The City… or at least, that’s the suggestion. But you’re left scratching around for a bit more.
All of these questions just also highlight one of the big issues I have with the game - there’s just so much not explained. So many story threads or ideas that are introduced or teased, but ultimately go unexplored. Or if they are explored, they feel underdeveloped and unsatisfying. I could list them, but I’d be here for another hour.
And I’ll throw in one more grenade while I’m at it - the world itself is nowhere near as interesting as the ones in the previous game, XC2 in particular. I think of Argentum, a trade guild, floating on a sea of clouds and attached to a giant living being, I think of the dream-like environment of Leftheria, it’s islands suspended in the air, or looking up in Gormott to see the head of the titan moving around. XC3 has scale and smart design, but no wow factor to me.
The towns, with one exception, are a massive step back too.
Ultimately, I really enjoyed the game. I still have a lot to do and I think it’s excellent. But I feel very conflicted over parts of it. There‘s no anger, no bitterness and I have a lot of respect for Monolith Soft for this game. It’s their best game in many ways…
… but I think they sacrificed a bit of Xenoblade’s soul to get there.
