• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

Spoiler The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Postgame & Spoiler Discussion Thread

Aleh said:
My problems with XC3 could be summarized in 3 points:
  • the bummer ending
  • the lack of big lore revelations
  • the lack of meaningful crossovers with the past 2 games

And this DLC is already confirmed to fix 2 of them at least. (Probably)
If they can also fix the ending somehow, good job Monolith!
Click to expand...
I liked the ending very much, even if some of its implications were heart breaking. Wouldn't mind getting an epilogue for the whole trilogy, even if that carries the risk of diluting the ending of XC3.

What I really need for this DLC to do is to help explain Origin, because to this day I haven't been able to wrap my head around it.
 
Aleh said:
My problems with XC3 could be summarized in 3 points:
  • the bummer ending
  • the lack of big lore revelations
  • the lack of meaningful crossovers with the past 2 games

And this DLC is already confirmed to fix 2 of them at least. (Probably)
If they can also fix the ending somehow, good job Monolith!
Click to expand...
I have the same three problems except that my problem with the ending is the lack of big lore revelations. So the DLC might actually fix all my shit. 😅
 
My issue with the ending is the utter confusion that is Origin and the absolutely terrible buildup. I love the general direction they took though, they just didn’t do anywhere close to enough to support it.
 
The blog confirms Masha's field ring is Arts Heal so forget what I said last page lol.

DecoReturns said:
It’s
Shulk (Noah)
Bridgid (Sena)
Jin (Taion )
Reyn (Lanz
Fiora (Eunie)
Nia blade form (Mio)
Click to expand...
I think Eunie's is meant to be based on Melia's Future Connected outfit. It's got the color scheme, the puffy princess sleeves, silver wing things around the hip, and a collar.

It's interesting a few don't match up perfectly. The Shulk one has a power frame on the chest like the adult Shulk in the DLC, power frames on the shoes, and the jacket has sleeves.
 
Mr.Fletcher said:
I must say the internet-wide awakening after seeing big boy Rex is delightful to see. I knew he’d come good.
Click to expand...
I ran across some fanart on Twitter that was blurred out because it was marked "sensitive material" but when I clicked on it it was literally just a wholesome picture of big boy Rex hugging Nia and I love it ❤️
 
chocolate_supra said:
I ran across some fanart on Twitter that was blurred out because it was marked "sensitive material" but when I clicked on it it was literally just a wholesome picture of big boy Rex hugging Nia and I love it ❤️
Click to expand...
There’s a lot of love for Rex surging through social media. I’m just delighted to see all three boys back in the DLC - and hopefully some more familiar faces too.

I didn’t need an Avengers-style team up in XC3, but I felt the game missed those big lore bombs that linked it to a larger continuity. And where it did connect to previous games, it felt uncharacteristically reserved and slight.

Seeing Shulk and Rex in the new trailer feels like seeing old friends. Fingers crossed this story really delivers. XC3 didn’t feel like a conclusion to the larger story, it was more like a side mission. Hopefully this DLC weaves XC3 into the top level narrative more intimately.
 
Mr.Fletcher said:
I didn’t need an Avengers-style team up in XC3, but I felt the game missed those big lore bombs that linked it to a larger continuity. And where it did connect to previous games, it felt uncharacteristically reserved and slight.
Click to expand...
Same here, absolutely. Also the big lore reveals that were there felt front-loaded to me. It's why I got to the end of the game with this sort of "that's it?" feeling, because I had spent the whole game waiting and looking for this big Xeno-style near-endgame mindblow that didn't come. We went into the game basically already knowing the big lore connections (it an amalgamation of the two worlds, Melia and Nia are involved) from the marketing and the literal boxart, so I was kinda left feeling a bit empty when there was nothing really more to it.

So now they're gonna plug more into it, and I'm jazzed, and I hope it's everything I felt was missing because it sure as hell looks like it (seriously I was watching for Alvis the whole damn time I was playing), so even though it's a bit too bad that the main game didn't give me what I wanted I'm glad I'll get it in the side dish. 😁
 
It’s interesting to see so many people hooked on the lore connections. That’s never been something I’ve cared about much with these games. Seeing how XC2 connected to XC1 was really neat, but I was invested in and cared about the main party and Alrest so much more.

I wonder if that’s where the disconnect is between me and people who don’t care as much for XC3. Lore connections isn’t something I ever really wanted or needed, so I was more than satisfied with what we got, and would rather have the DLC focus on Aionios itself than making more connections elsewhere. But plenty of people seem to disagree with that. Quite interesting.
 
Thunder84 said:
It’s interesting to see so many people hooked on the lore connections. That’s never been something I’ve cared about much with these games. Seeing how XC2 connected to XC1 was really neat, but I was invested in and cared about the main party and Alrest so much more.

I wonder if that’s where the disconnect is between me and people who don’t care as much for XC3. Lore connections isn’t something I ever really wanted or needed, so I was more than satisfied with what we got, and would rather have the DLC focus on Aionios itself than making more connections elsewhere. But plenty of people seem to disagree with that. Quite interesting.
Click to expand...
See, if they had made XB3 a totally standalone thing without Aionios being built out of the previous worlds, without Nia and Melia, I woulda been fine without big lore connections. Before the leaks stated that the world would have returning characters from both games I was genuinely hoping for a fully separate new game (like XB2 appeared to be) that might have a surprise connection somewhere. I didn't want an Avengers-style teamup from 1+2 or anything, I wanted what XB3 was at it's core: a new story in a new world with new characters.

What got me was they led with big connections, from the very first trailer, which led me to expect something even bigger had to be buried as a surprise (otherwise why even set the world up this way) and.. there just wasn't. There wasn't even a satisfying reason for why the worlds came together when they did try to explain it.

I guess the long and short of it is: if they had left lore connections out and made a new standalone thing, great! If they made a game with big connections and lore rug-pulls a la XB2 (or hell, even the last few chapters of XB1 count as a lore rug-pull as far as I'm concerned, even without a connection to previous game) then great! But what it felt like they did was try to do both and in doing so didn't really commit to either. It feels like a half-measure.

So up until yesterday my preference looking back woulda been for a XB3 that didn't have the connections it did, to let it be its own thing since they didn't have a satisfying way to really hook it into the other games story-wise. But now that I see what they're doing in the DLC, I'm down. Like it might fill the gap I felt was left.

I just hope they stick this landing because if they do, they'll have the best of both worlds. XB3 can stand on its own as the story of Aionios and the main party (who are easily my favorite party in the series) and the DLC can stand separately as the big lore-dump chapter that might've put off new players who didn't try XB1 or 2 before buying 3.

Actually shit... I wonder if that's why they did it this way..? 🤔
 
chocolate_supra said:
I guess the long and short of it is: if they had left lore connections out and made a new standalone thing, great! If they made a game with big connections and lore rug-pulls a la XB2 (or hell, even the last few chapters of XB1 count as a lore rug-pull as far as I'm concerned, even without a connection to previous game) then great! But what it felt like they did was try to do both and in doing so didn't really commit to either. It feels like a half-measure.
Click to expand...
I guess my stance is that I just don't really agree with this. I don't feel like they tried to do both; the references to past games definitely made for some marketing bait, sure, but I've always seen it as the best way to represent Origin as effectively as possible: a world that has no identity of its own. The design of Aionios feels soulless, as if the developers threw as many references as they possibly could to hearken back to the glory days, but that's kinda the point, no? Aionios isn't intended to stand as its own world, at least not from a geographical perspective; it's a hodgepodge of the previous worlds taped together in an effort to perpetuate the desires of Moebius. It isn't intended to exist, and as a result its identity lives through those fragments of previous worlds.

Now, if XC3 had no references at all, this effect would be lost a bit, because we wouldn't have any point of reference for all of these things. Seeing the Urayan Titan holds meaning, because we've seen it before. We understand the world it used to foster, its place in Alrest, and its significance to the franchise as a whole. It's a piece of XC2 grafted into XC3, and we're meant to view it as such. If it's replaced with a new setpiece entirely unique to XC3, we lose that viewpoint. Even if we're told that it's from another world, we're still going to connect it as "the landmark from XC3". As a result, the magic is lost: even if the story says otherwise, we would always view Aionios as its own unique world, rather than the patchwork one that we got.

The way I see it, the design of Aionios is leveraging our experiences with past Xenoblade games to further propel its own identity as a world that's inherently incompatible and unsatisfying. If there were no past connections, it'd be quite a bit harder for us to view it as such; without that prior experience, our first interaction with the crossed worlds would be through Aionios, and as a result we'd view them as products of Aionios, rather than the converse. That relationship is what helps make the characters and writing so special: one of the main concepts of XC3 is how humanity will find purpose in their lives and form their own cultures and beliefs, no matter how harsh the circumstances. We're intended to remember Aionios for the people that resided in it, not for the geography of the world itself. Stripping Aionios of a unique identity really helps push that idea.

I guess another example that might be a bit easier to understand is the species we see in Aionios. We know that the High Entia and the Gormotti are from XC1 and XC2, respectively, with no point of origin within XC3. Now, imagine if the two initial worlds were entirely new, and as a result we get two entirely new species (for simplicity, let's say one of them has antlers and the other has dog ears). The game can tell us all they want that those two species are from two distinct worlds outside of Aionios, but we as players would always associate them with XC3. The intention is to strip XC3 of those unique identifying factors, and using elements from XC1 and XC2 is a brilliant way to do so.

That concept extends to Melia and Nia, as well. Yeah, it's awesome to see them interacting, but there's no deeper meaning to it. It's pure happenstance, and that's by design. It was never meant to happen, so as a result the crossover feels unsatisfying and empty. The meat of XC3 is in the characters that are forced to live within the confines of Aionios, not the characters that have lived outside of it. The queens are the only two characters in the game that have memories beyond Origin, so by making them returning characters rather than new ones, there's less reason to focus and get invested in them, because we've already done that. It's another way of leveraging our past experiences with the franchise to push our focus towards what the writers want us to pay attention to.

There's nothing wrong with disliking the general direction of XC3 and how it uses references to propel that, but I just don't agree that it's a half measure. Quite the opposite, actually. It feels incredibly purposeful to me, and I think it's a lot smarter than people give it credit for.
 
I'm a little doubtful we'll see any other past heroes beyond Shulk, Rex, Melia, Nia, and maybe Pyra+Mythra. But for fun, I made up movesets of what the other xc1 party members' classes could be like if they showed up as heroes in the DLC.

Reyn
Class: Colony Sentinel (Defender – Spongy and has high attack but low DEX and AGI, slow animations)
Weapon: Gunlance
TP: 15

Arts
Wild Down – (Physical) Topple
Hammer Beat – (Physical) AOE / High Aggro
Sword Drive – (Physical) Knockback
Aura Burst – (Ether) AOE / Attack Down
Engage – (Stance) Faster aggro / Front atk+
(T) Infuriating Taunt – AOE / Taunt / Target Lock

Skills
Berserk – Adds an AOE to Auto-Attacks while a stance is active.
Last Stand - Once per battle, auto-revive on incapacitation and charges Party Gauge on revival.
Magnum Charge – Grants Powercharge after using Talent Art.
Shoulder to Shoulder – Allies in a fixed radius recover 10% HP when they take damage. (Defender circle effect)

Notes: In xc1, you could build Reyn to be more offense-oriented and mighty glacier like or go for a stonewall defensive build. Heavy Guard already plays like the stonewall version of Reyn so it made more sense to go with an offensive tank here. Reyn also had a fair share of passive healing skills so that's the direction I took his defender circle skill.

Dunban
Class: Strife-born Hero (Defender – Squishy but with high attack and evasion)
Weapon: Katana
TP: 30

Arts
Steel Strike – (Physical) Aggroed↑
Electric Gutbuster – (Physical) Cancel Break
Worldly Slash – (Physical) Evade / Phys. Def. down
Thunder – (Ether) AOE / Daze
Heat Haze – (Stance) Crit rate up / Faster aggro
(T) Blossom Waltz – (Physical) High aggro / Pierce / Evade

Skills
Peerless – Grants Attack Up to self and nearby allies when a stance is activated.
Binding Blossom – Continually absorbs aggro from allies in a fixed radius. (Defender circle effect)
Serene Heart – Boosts accuracy and evasion when HP is under half.
Battle Eye – Slightly recharges Arts when evading.

Notes: A little difficult to make Dunban meaningfully different than Lone Exile. Electric Gutbuster requires to be used as a cancel attack to attempt the Break referencing it being a combo art in the original game. His Talent Art's animation would reference Jin's spark waltz special from Xenosaga 3. And yea, Steel Strike doesn't topple, he just needed a damage art and LE took Gale Slash.

Sharla
Class: Field Medic (Healer)
Weapon: Ether Rifle
TP: 25

Arts
Heal Round – AOE / Heal
Thunder Bullet – (Ether) Damage Link
Metal Blast - (Physical) AOE / Break
Tranquilize – Field / Sleep
Shield Bullet – AOE / Armor Veil
(T) Cool Off – Heal party / Depletes Arts to boost healing

Skills
Headshot – Small chance to instantly kill dazed enemies when attacking.
Feather Touch – High chance not to wake sleeping enemies when attacking (affects all allies).
Rapid Healing – Reduces the recharge rate of healing arts.
Covert Stance - Arts have a chance of not generating aggro.

Notes: The sleep field effect would continually attempt to inflict sleep as long as an enemy is standing in it. So even if you wake them up, they can fall right back to sleep.

Riki
Class: Forest Dancer (Attacker – so-so attack power but healing is on par with actual healers)
Weapon: Biter
TP: 15

Arts
Lurgy – (Ether) AOE / Poison
Bitey Bitey – (Physical) Back Bleed
You Can Do It – AOE / Heal
Roly Poly – (Ether) Topple or Bind
Say Sorry – (Physical) Remove debuffs to boost damage
(T) Hero Time – One random buff (party) / Charges Party Gauge

Skills
Riki is Hungry! – Corrodes enemy debuff resistance each time a debuff is attempted. Resistance returns to normal when a debuff finally succeeds.
Riki is Angry! – Auto-Attacks always attempt to inflict Resistance Down when the user’s HP is full.
Happy Happy – Charges Party Gauge slightly when using Arts.
Yoink! – Boosts enemy drop rates.

And here's the Shulk one I made forever ago:
famiboards.com

The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Postgame & Spoiler Discussion Thread

bee You Will Know Our Names begins playing you turn around and see this on the horizon: wyd
famiboards.com famiboards.com
 
chocolate_supra said:
See, if they had made XB3 a totally standalone thing without Aionios being built out of the previous worlds, without Nia and Melia, I woulda been fine without big lore connections. Before the leaks stated that the world would have returning characters from both games I was genuinely hoping for a fully separate new game (like XB2 appeared to be) that might have a surprise connection somewhere. I didn't want an Avengers-style teamup from 1+2 or anything, I wanted what XB3 was at it's core: a new story in a new world with new characters.

What got me was they led with big connections, from the very first trailer, which led me to expect something even bigger had to be buried as a surprise (otherwise why even set the world up this way) and.. there just wasn't. There wasn't even a satisfying reason for why the worlds came together when they did try to explain it.

I guess the long and short of it is: if they had left lore connections out and made a new standalone thing, great! If they made a game with big connections and lore rug-pulls a la XB2 (or hell, even the last few chapters of XB1 count as a lore rug-pull as far as I'm concerned, even without a connection to previous game) then great! But what it felt like they did was try to do both and in doing so didn't really commit to either. It feels like a half-measure.

So up until yesterday my preference looking back woulda been for a XB3 that didn't have the connections it did, to let it be its own thing since they didn't have a satisfying way to really hook it into the other games story-wise. But now that I see what they're doing in the DLC, I'm down. Like it might fill the gap I felt was left.

I just hope they stick this landing because if they do, they'll have the best of both worlds. XB3 can stand on its own as the story of Aionios and the main party (who are easily my favorite party in the series) and the DLC can stand separately as the big lore-dump chapter that might've put off new players who didn't try XB1 or 2 before buying 3.

Actually shit... I wonder if that's why they did it this way..? 🤔
Click to expand...
I actually feel like that’s probably the case. As someone who played XB2 but never finished XB1, I was honestly kind of grateful that XB3s story was such an enjoyable standalone narrative. But I’m thrilled for the hardcore series fans that the DLC appears to be answering their prayers. Hopefully everyone wins.
 
Thunder84 said:
I guess my stance is that I just don't really agree with this. I don't feel like they tried to do both; the references to past games definitely made for some marketing bait, sure, but I've always seen it as the best way to represent Origin as effectively as possible: a world that has no identity of its own. The design of Aionios feels soulless, as if the developers threw as many references as they possibly could to hearken back to the glory days, but that's kinda the point, no? Aionios isn't intended to stand as its own world, at least not from a geographical perspective; it's a hodgepodge of the previous worlds taped together in an effort to perpetuate the desires of Moebius. It isn't intended to exist, and as a result its identity lives through those fragments of previous worlds.

Now, if XC3 had no references at all, this effect would be lost a bit, because we wouldn't have any point of reference for all of these things. Seeing the Urayan Titan holds meaning, because we've seen it before. We understand the world it used to foster, its place in Alrest, and its significance to the franchise as a whole. It's a piece of XC2 grafted into XC3, and we're meant to view it as such. If it's replaced with a new setpiece entirely unique to XC3, we lose that viewpoint. Even if we're told that it's from another world, we're still going to connect it as "the landmark from XC3". As a result, the magic is lost: even if the story says otherwise, we would always view Aionios as its own unique world, rather than the patchwork one that we got.

The way I see it, the design of Aionios is leveraging our experiences with past Xenoblade games to further propel its own identity as a world that's inherently incompatible and unsatisfying. If there were no past connections, it'd be quite a bit harder for us to view it as such; without that prior experience, our first interaction with the crossed worlds would be through Aionios, and as a result we'd view them as products of Aionios, rather than the converse. That relationship is what helps make the characters and writing so special: one of the main concepts of XC3 is how humanity will find purpose in their lives and form their own cultures and beliefs, no matter how harsh the circumstances. We're intended to remember Aionios for the people that resided in it, not for the geography of the world itself. Stripping Aionios of a unique identity really helps push that idea.

I guess another example that might be a bit easier to understand is the species we see in Aionios. We know that the High Entia and the Gormotti are from XC1 and XC2, respectively, with no point of origin within XC3. Now, imagine if the two initial worlds were entirely new, and as a result we get two entirely new species (for simplicity, let's say one of them has antlers and the other has dog ears). The game can tell us all they want that those two species are from two distinct worlds outside of Aionios, but we as players would always associate them with XC3. The intention is to strip XC3 of those unique identifying factors, and using elements from XC1 and XC2 is a brilliant way to do so.

That concept extends to Melia and Nia, as well. Yeah, it's awesome to see them interacting, but there's no deeper meaning to it. It's pure happenstance, and that's by design. It was never meant to happen, so as a result the crossover feels unsatisfying and empty. The meat of XC3 is in the characters that are forced to live within the confines of Aionios, not the characters that have lived outside of it. The queens are the only two characters in the game that have memories beyond Origin, so by making them returning characters rather than new ones, there's less reason to focus and get invested in them, because we've already done that. It's another way of leveraging our past experiences with the franchise to push our focus towards what the writers want us to pay attention to.

There's nothing wrong with disliking the general direction of XC3 and how it uses references to propel that, but I just don't agree that it's a half measure. Quite the opposite, actually. It feels incredibly purposeful to me, and I think it's a lot smarter than people give it credit for.
Click to expand...
First of all, thanks for the thorough response. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a looooot of thoughts about this. 😅 And second, like.. okay actually wow. Yeah, I see what you mean. XB3's story and characters, even its setting, would lose something if the story was about these doomed worlds but then we didn't know the worlds beforehand. This point especially:
Thunder84 said:
I've always seen it as the best way to represent Origin as effectively as possible: a world that has no identity of its own.
Click to expand...
is a way I've never looked at it before.

Huh. I've got some pondering to do.
thinking-winnie-the-pooh.gif
 
chocolate_supra said:
First of all, thanks for the thorough response. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a looooot of thoughts about this. 😅 And second, like.. okay actually wow. Yeah, I see what you mean. XB3's story and characters, even its setting, would lose something if the story was about these doomed worlds but then we didn't know the worlds beforehand. This point especially:

is a way I've never looked at it before.

Huh. I've got some pondering to do.
thinking-winnie-the-pooh.gif
Click to expand...
I know, right? There's so much potential with the general setting and themes of XC3, it's kinda absurd. So much of it went completely untapped too, like how the final decision relates to the themes of legacy and purpose, or how the recycling nature of Origin is an absolutely fantastic vessel to explore characters from XC1 and XC2 in greater depth (which I'm hoping they do with Shulk and Rex).

The lack of commitment to this potential is one of my biggest gripes with XC3, but even then it's such an incredible concept that I still adore the game anyway.
 
I don't think the figures that Alvis are going against are "Shulk" and "Rex". Yeah, they look and sound like them but keep in mind that if we're still getting Xenogears references for Xenoblade then expect something like this.

xenosaga.fandom.com

Kim

Kim (キム, kimu), was a brilliant doctor and scientist in the field of nanotechnology and nanomachines. Kim was the first known reincarnation of Abel the Contact, and his wife Elly was the first known reincarnation of the original Elehayym. He is considered the creator of the nanotechnology later...
xenosaga.fandom.com xenosaga.fandom.com
 
King Kingo said:
I don't think the figures that Alvis are going against are "Shulk" and "Rex". Yeah, they look and sound like them but keep in mind that if we're still getting Xenogears references for Xenoblade then expect something like this.

xenosaga.fandom.com

Kim

Kim (キム, kimu), was a brilliant doctor and scientist in the field of nanotechnology and nanomachines. Kim was the first known reincarnation of Abel the Contact, and his wife Elly was the first known reincarnation of the original Elehayym. He is considered the creator of the nanotechnology later...
xenosaga.fandom.com xenosaga.fandom.com
Click to expand...
Ngl I was looking hard for references to Fei and Elly among the founders statues
 
chocolate_supra said:
Ngl I was looking hard for references to Fei and Elly among the founders statues
Click to expand...
In terms of direct references, the descendant of House Vandham is definitely a Noah design inspired by Fei Fong Wong.

My point was moreso the fact that reincarnation is a theme for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the characters we assume are Shulk and Rex fit that thematic consistency.
 
Last edited:
King Kingo said:
I don't think the figures that Alvis are going against are "Shulk" and "Rex". Yeah, they look and sound like them but keep in mind that if we're still getting Xenogears references for Xenoblade then expect something like this.

xenosaga.fandom.com

Kim

Kim (キム, kimu), was a brilliant doctor and scientist in the field of nanotechnology and nanomachines. Kim was the first known reincarnation of Abel the Contact, and his wife Elly was the first known reincarnation of the original Elehayym. He is considered the creator of the nanotechnology later...
xenosaga.fandom.com xenosaga.fandom.com
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on what you mean by "Shulk" and "Rex". I think there's a very real possibility that they have no memories of their previous lives and are victims of the Origin cycle like everyone else, which could be interpreted as them being different people. But that's the furthest I think they'll go, I doubt they go with a full reincarnation or anything.

Well maybe not actually. One batshit theory I just came up with is that Alvis reincarnated them to try and stop Z, which could maybe kinda work. Would help give the Founders DLC that Torna-esque hook too: without the Founders, there's no Ouroboros. Without Shulk and Rex, there's no Founders. And without Alvis, there's no Shulk and Rex. Would help give the story some weight in relation to the main story.
 
Thunder84 said:
I guess it depends on what you mean by "Shulk" and "Rex". I think there's a very real possibility that they have no memories of their previous lives and are victims of the Origin cycle like everyone else, which could be interpreted as them being different people. But that's the furthest I think they'll go, I doubt they go with a full reincarnation or anything.
Click to expand...
Didn't the founders statues imply Ortiz and Rhodes (goggle boy and ponytail girl) were the only founders part of the Keves/Agnus cycle? Shulk and Rex also seem older than 20.
 
The thought is that Shulk and Rex don't become Ouroboros and are separate from the new (old?) main 6, right? I keep forgetting they're not actually founders themselves. If that's the case, it'd be nice if heroes are directly controllable outside of chain attacks this time.

The timeline of everything is also interesting; as some have pointed out, Shulk and Rex don't have the injuries described by their statues when we see them in the trailer. I immediately figured that scene was extremely early on in the collision - maybe even as it's happening - but I'm wondering if there's a time skip between that and most of the game.

I'm also curious as to why Reid and Cassini in particular are closely linked to Shulk/Rex respectively, especially when Ortiz and Rhodes resemble Shulk and Mythra enough to imply a familial connection. Those four are honestly more interesting to me than Vandham and Doyle. I hope we get to see what was up with Ortiz and Rhodes escaping the 10 term cycle, as well as how the Monado REX+ ended up with Melia (or at least Keves Castle; my understanding of events leaves Melia stuck in Origin even before the Founders' time).

And finally, I very regularly forget there's a seventh founder. I would assume it's someone we'll recognize - why else hide them from us in 3? - but it's still strange. I personally think it'd be boring if it was just Nia, but I'm not sure who else they'd hide like that.
 
0
EtherPenguin said:
Didn't the founders statues imply Ortiz and Rhodes (goggle boy and ponytail girl) were the only founders part of the Keves/Agnus cycle? Shulk and Rex also seem older than 20.
Click to expand...
Shulk and Rex aren't Founders though, they're just mentors. I don't think it's ever specified whether they in particular are part of the cycle or not. Would be a bit strange for sure, but it's not off the table.

Given how age is handled, I don't think it's possible to guesstimate ages either. If someone like Cammuravi can be 19, then Rex and Shulk could easily be too.
 
The dialogue in the teaser suggests to me that the Shulk and Rex facing Alvis know who and what he is, respectively. Maybe they get cradled and reborn, but it's not apparent from what we know.
 
Thunder84 said:
Shulk and Rex aren't Founders though, they're just mentors. I don't think it's ever specified whether they in particular are part of the cycle or not. Would be a bit strange for sure, but it's not off the table.

Given how age is handled, I don't think it's possible to guesstimate ages either. If someone like Cammuravi can be 19, then Rex and Shulk could easily be too.
Click to expand...
Right, it just seems kind of silly if Reid and Cassini's mentors aren't all that much older or more knowledgeable than them. I'm assuming Reid and Cassini will probably be the usual protagonist age of 18-ish and not kids.

And I was just guessing Shulk's age based on how he looked and sounded at 19 in FC. We didn't have a comparison point with Cammuravi or Isurd.
 
0
Rex, Shulk, and Alvis in the teaser is hype. Hoping this is set in the unmerged worlds. Really want to see how things are panning out in the New Alrest and Bionis/Mechonis.
 
EtherPenguin said:
Didn't the founders statues imply Ortiz and Rhodes (goggle boy and ponytail girl) were the only founders part of the Keves/Agnus cycle? Shulk and Rex also seem older than 20.
Click to expand...
The opening in the Japanese version states the Silver Jubliee of Melia's rule is what is being celebrated, so we can assume the crashing of the two universes happens 26 years after both games ended, making Shulk and Rex 44 and 41 respectively.
 
0
The ending is great in XC3. A happy ending would be extremely formulaic and same sh*t as the past two games. I’m super happy it went the way it did.

Apopheniac said:
The dialogue in the teaser suggests to me that the Shulk and Rex facing Alvis know who and what he is, respectively. Maybe they get cradled and reborn, but it's not apparent from what we know.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind the dialogue is not from the scene. They do this in all the Xeno trailers (and well story heavy games) to avoid spoilers. The line is from a different scene probably spoken to a completely different character.
 
0
chocolate_supra said:
See, if they had made XB3 a totally standalone thing without Aionios being built out of the previous worlds, without Nia and Melia, I woulda been fine without big lore connections. Before the leaks stated that the world would have returning characters from both games I was genuinely hoping for a fully separate new game (like XB2 appeared to be) that might have a surprise connection somewhere. I didn't want an Avengers-style teamup from 1+2 or anything, I wanted what XB3 was at it's core: a new story in a new world with new characters.

What got me was they led with big connections, from the very first trailer, which led me to expect something even bigger had to be buried as a surprise (otherwise why even set the world up this way) and.. there just wasn't. There wasn't even a satisfying reason for why the worlds came together when they did try to explain it.

I guess the long and short of it is: if they had left lore connections out and made a new standalone thing, great! If they made a game with big connections and lore rug-pulls a la XB2 (or hell, even the last few chapters of XB1 count as a lore rug-pull as far as I'm concerned, even without a connection to previous game) then great! But what it felt like they did was try to do both and in doing so didn't really commit to either. It feels like a half-measure.

So up until yesterday my preference looking back woulda been for a XB3 that didn't have the connections it did, to let it be its own thing since they didn't have a satisfying way to really hook it into the other games story-wise. But now that I see what they're doing in the DLC, I'm down. Like it might fill the gap I felt was left.

I just hope they stick this landing because if they do, they'll have the best of both worlds. XB3 can stand on its own as the story of Aionios and the main party (who are easily my favorite party in the series) and the DLC can stand separately as the big lore-dump chapter that might've put off new players who didn't try XB1 or 2 before buying 3.

Actually shit... I wonder if that's why they did it this way..? 🤔
Click to expand...

All of this, plus Takahashi's statement just a few days before the game was released:

Greetings to everyone who purchased Xenoblade Chronicles 3. This is Takahashi from Monolith Soft.

Thanks to your support, we’ve released the third Xenoblade title, twelve years after the original Xenoblade was released for the Wii in 2010. Xenoblade 3 has been called the culmination of the whole series up until now, and it truly is the culmination. We at Monolith have put everything we have cultivated over the past twelve years into it.

It is also a stopping point to me. This title depicts the conclusion of the Xenoblade story that began with Klaus’s experiment.

While it is a conclusion, that does not mean it is the end of the Xenoblade series. It is just a stopping point in my mind. I think that everyone who played this title and the additional stories in the Expansion Pass can imagine what lies in the future for Xenoblade.

I have one recommendation for how to play Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Some things are marked by a ? on the game map. Even if you are in the middle of progressing the main story after finding the ? marks, try taking a detour. There are many encounters waiting there.

Thank you for your continued support of Xenoblade Chronicles 3!
Click to expand...
 
I need everyone here to know that I, an adult human of roughly average intelligence, played through the entirety of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 without realizing that you could select different party members during chain attacks.

Instead, I assumed it was a fixed order, and I built entire team compositions around that.

I do not know how I played the game for 120 hours and never even discovered this by accident.
 
kvetcha said:
I need everyone here to know that I, an adult human of roughly average intelligence, played through the entirety of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 without realizing that you could select different party members during chain attacks.

Instead, I assumed it was a fixed order, and I built entire team compositions around that.

I do not know how I played the game for 120 hours and never even discovered this by accident.
Click to expand...

If it helps, I don't think you were the only one.

If I remember right, the game does explain that you can manually pick the order in the initial tutorial.
 
kvetcha said:
I need everyone here to know that I, an adult human of roughly average intelligence, played through the entirety of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 without realizing that you could select different party members during chain attacks.

Instead, I assumed it was a fixed order, and I built entire team compositions around that.

I do not know how I played the game for 120 hours and never even discovered this by accident.
Click to expand...
I didn't know until probably around Keves Castle
 
BradenAndEggs said:
If it helps, I don't think you were the only one.

If I remember right, the game does explain that you can manually pick the order in the initial tutorial.
Click to expand...
chocolate_supra said:
I didn't know until probably around Keves Castle
Click to expand...
I loaned my copy to a friend and he was like 'So, I had some questions about Chain Attacks. How do you determine in which order to select your attacks?' and I was like 'what do you mean, which order.'

I felt very stupid.

I'm mostly just baffled that I never at any point hit 'left' or 'right' on the joystick during one of the fifteen thousand chain attacks I performed during my playtime.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Please read the threadmarked staff post before posting.
Last edited by a moderator:


Back
Top Bottom