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

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And people thought that character was going to die early. I'm wondering if that may actually be the first hero you get instead of Vandahm like a lot of people are thinking. It just doesn't make sense to hide Vandahm but I can understand blurring out that one.

I like how NoA keeps leaking stuff. First the with the close captioning and now this lol
On the one hand that would be very funny if Ethel was actually the first hero, on the other hand it would make the trailer scenes just a tad misleading. To make it work, the mech fight between her and Cammuravi would have to happen near the beginning of the game. The party getting shot at by Colony 4, fighting the Moebius, and then wrecking the flame clock would take place before anything with Valdi or Zeon because that's presumably where she'd be recruited. Then, by the time the party reaches Maktha Wildwood, someone else would have taken control of her mech in order to fight the Cammuravi mech and the party's Ouroboros.

If the redacted hero is Vandham, I kinda wonder if they weren't planning to redact him until they saw that everyone thought he died. My current theory is that there's an in-game fight against Wild Ride after getting the Ouroboros, and while you can hurt Wild Ride with Ouroboros you're mostly leaning on an overleveled Vandham to carry you. The off-seer ceremony after the fight is for the two guys who got moebed on, and Vandham leaves but his icon stays grayed out in your hero list until he comes back.
 
On the one hand that would be very funny if Ethel was actually the first hero, on the other hand it would make the trailer scenes just a tad misleading. To make it work, the mech fight between her and Cammuravi would have to happen near the beginning of the game. The party getting shot at by Colony 4, fighting the Moebius, and then wrecking the flame clock would take place before anything with Valdi or Zeon because that's presumably where she'd be recruited. Then, by the time the party reaches Maktha Wildwood, someone else would have taken control of her mech in order to fight the Cammuravi mech and the party's Ouroboros.

If the redacted hero is Vandham, I kinda wonder if they weren't planning to redact him until they saw that everyone thought he died. My current theory is that there's an in-game fight against Wild Ride after getting the Ouroboros, and while you can hurt Wild Ride with Ouroboros you're mostly leaning on an overleveled Vandham to carry you. The off-seer ceremony after the fight is for the two guys who got moebed on, and Vandham leaves but his icon stays grayed out in your hero list until he comes back.
Yeah there is the possibility that Vandham (or whoever Censored is) does show up, help you out, and then unceremoniously dip for a bit before rejoining later. Hell, since cloning seems like it might be a thing the Hero might even just straight up die at that point and get rezzed later (though leaving them on the Hero and Class menus would be kinda a giveaway that they'd be returning in that case). It would explain why Noah from the Direct hadn't unlocked that class despite it being literally the first Hero you get

Would be kinda weird to keep them in the Hero menu though despite him leaving but it's possible I suppose
 
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You both make good points and brought up something I forgot. I'm a little unclear on where we're at with spoilers. The original non-spoiler thread faded into obscurity and this sort of became the Xenoblade 3 general but then there's different levels of spoilers people want to avoid. Like some people don't want to know anything and then some people want to know what's officially shown but not leaked so I don't know. I'll stick with the tags I guess.

I completely forgot about the mech fights with Ethel and Cammuravi so that's a pretty good point against an early Ethel join. I do think the Colony 4 fight in Eagus takes place early on though. The way Lanz asks Taion and Sena to help out and the way Taion chuckles about it makes it sound like this is the first time they're helping each other fight and take orders from each other. I actually think this fight is the first time Lanz and Sena interlink.

But yea, the mech stuff with Ethel would go against the idea that she comes around that early. It's interesting that both Ethel and Cammuravi have the purple ouroboros on their mechs in that maktha scene. Maybe they really are a fourth ouroboros pair but still function like heroes gameplay-wise?
 
It depends on what particularly is catching your eye about 3, but I'd highly recommend it. It's my personal favorite game so I'm a little biased. The world isn't quite as expansive or open as what 3 is looking to be. The environments are broken up into smaller open zones a little more like Final Fantasy 12 (though not THAT restrictive). The story is well-loved and it has an endearing cast of characters.

Gameplay wise it's considered the "simplest" or at least easiest to understand. It doesn't have the class system or deep customization system we're seeing with 3 and you only have 3 characters in battle instead of 7. But I always thought it felt like a 3D version of Chrono Trigger. You have seven total characters each with their own weapon and role in combat, you pick three to take into combat, and there's a focus on lining up your attacks' AOEs. It also has more traditional towns.

Thanks! Simpler is probably good. 3 looks complicated.
 
I'm still hoping we get some actual new party members during the story. Seems like it would be a lot of work to integrate them with all the systems though.
 
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Also I just spotted that the ferronis Sena smashes with her hammer at the end of the direct has a purple flame clock like Ethel's and Cammuravi's as well. That ferronis also looks similar to that mysterious raider enemy we saw earlier. I'm also thinking Lanz's "I refuse to believe your him" line might be referring to the evil looking Noah dude who is part of the Consul.
 
So the NA site's Heroes section confirmed another one that I think a lot of people won't be surprised at, but I'll spoiler tag it all the same.

CG4CxdX.png

iu
 
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Thanks! Simpler is probably good. 3 looks complicated.

XCDE is the perfect entry point. If you are able to learn all the battle and micromanagment systems in that game, you'll most likely be ready to eventually jump to the more complex XC2 and (by the looks of it) XC3 games, and freak out with the overarching lore (they can all be played and understood individually, but you'll definitely get the most out of them if you play them all in release order). Both XCDE and XC2 have their ups and downs but in the end both are amazing games with impressive worlds to explore, endearing characters, very hype stories, and engaging battle and micromanagment systems.
 
Many thoughts but I also feel like Noah uses his hidden sword to destroy the flame clocks of colonies but then uses his red gauntlet thing to seal them up to prevent the deaths of everyone tied to them. I think we can see him doing it to Colony Lambda (Isurds colony) in the trailer. ANOTHER thought, but the weird astral chain purple looking ouroboros/mobius creature Ouoroboros-Mio is fighting at 3:05 MIGHT be P (The creature has boobs and P sounds like a woman)
 
Anyone else fine the diegetic ui weird. I guess it has an explanation, but it feels random. Unless they pull a xenoblade X again and reveal the bodies are robots

The world is a simulation is my guess. We isekai in the Matrix.
 
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I played 5 hours of Xenoblade DE on my Switch today but I think I’ll get 3. I’m loving the character designs and the world. Nintendo even said that you don’t need to play the previous games so I should be fine. New characters, new story!
 
Another super tiny detail but the blue rings that the Keves characters have on their outfits actually flash purple a bit when the party changes clothes at around 15 minutes in the direct. I wonder if this is related to the purple on Ethel's and Cammuravi's Ferronis's
 
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I'm not saying it's not important to the story. I know there's going to be some big crucial thing or idea tied to "blade". I'm just saying I'm surprised that the marketing for this game hasn't really mentioned it at all which is surprising compared to 1 and 2 since that was the central focus of those games + advertising.
This time is probably a more spoilery reason or deeper to explain in a Direct or tweet
 
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The fist weapons of the girl with a big forehead and the weapon Noah uses to inflict Smash (which may belong to our blurred Hero) seem to have orange ether so I'm suspecting that will be the color of our third faction (the Lost Numbers?)
 
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 |OT| Infinity War
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 |OT| A flame flickers inside the rings of fire.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 |OT| "Cats and birds, living together...mass hysteria!"
 
I’ve not posted in here since the direct because I’ve been away for work and haven’t had time to jot my thoughts down proper, but here they are…

It’s more how the presentation made me feel about various parts of the game, than an analysis of the nitty gritty detail. I realise I’m late to the party, but why not throw a load of opinions at you all! Warning - it’s scattershot and probably riddled with errors, but I’m tired so heyho!

I adore the Agnus Ouroboros forms and was overjoyed see them revealed. They look rad and more visually appealing than the Keves ones to me. Being able to switch between the two, in conjunction with all the other combat mechanics is great. Combat in general looks rad. Classes, master arts, character switching, different ‘driver combos’, fusion forms, fusion arts, heroes, etc. And that’s on top of pretty much all the traditional XC stuff. I know we knew about a lot of this stuff, but to see it all come together and in action - wonderful. I particularly like how you can choose multiple flavours of the chain attack. There looks to be a lot of decision-making, which is very welcome. There seems to be so much customisation too. It looks like it should be the best XC combat system so far. Quick and packed with loads of options.

I still need to get a feel for the characters - though I do feel really positive about them in general. I have to say I prefer the voice work of the Agnus side so far. They all sound excellent. Taion probably has my favourite male voice in the game, while Mio and Sena sound adorable. I loved their little ‘water scene’. That’s the kind of character stuff I really enjoyed in XC2 and am happy to see make their way into XC3. Noah is a tricky one, he’s very soft-spoken and I want to hear more from him before I form any real opinion. Howden made Shulk intelligent, but quite… for a lack of a better term, strong. Weaver’s distinct accent gave Rex a really unique sound. Noah sounds more in line with Shulk, but without that rough edge. It almost feels like he’s pitching his voice slightly higher… probably because he has to give ‘dark Noah’ (if it is him) a slightly harder sound. Eunie is also interesting, as she sounds a bit chavvy in some scenes, but a bit like an old-fashioned Eastenders character in others. Again, I need to hear more. Lanz is fine - I like his ‘shouty’ voice. Overall I’m really happy with their designs, their voices and can’t wait to get to know them. Sena is, by stealth, really growing on me. I probably liked her design the least initially (along with Lanz), but I’m really warming to her now. I think they’ve found a great balance, at least from the small interactions and designs we’ve seen, between the more grounded cast of the first game and the more flamboyant group from the second game. I think the designs are really sleek in a way we haven’t seen before in XC and XC2. Those games, irrespective of style had some (endearing) goofiness to them, but that’s not here in XC3.

The game itself looks really refined. It appears really assured and accomplished in what it’s trying to do. There’s lots of old ideas brought back with, seemingly, the rough edges shaven off. Heroes being a combination of a few ideas without the drawbacks, being the obvious example. The UI in general looks excellent to me. Super sleek and clean. I saw the game auto saving too, which is great. Torna was a really good refinement of XC2, DE was the next step and this feels like another step in the right direction. It’s not just in the menus and some of the returning systems, I love how monsters fight each other in the overworld, as well as the two factions. The worlds of Xenoblade have always felt alive thanks to monsters of all shapes, sizes and levels occupying the same space, but to see battles independent of your involvement playing out is the evolution of that and awesome. On a side note, I love that a prompt will flash up on the screen to draw your attention to something. I’m really curious to see how they use that across the game.

I thought the campsite was an excellent addition to Torna so to see it return and expanded is exciting. Intrigued to see if rolling a bunch of systems into this reduces the rolls of towns in any way. We did a see a glimpse of an industrial town in the initial reveal, but Colony 9 looked relatively simple (not that we could see everything). I wonder if with the world being huge and open, and more functionality added to the campsites, towns are going to be downsized as a result. I’m not against that, but I felt XC2 had some excellent towns, so it would be a shame to not see the evolution of that aspect of the series. Or more to the point, not to see the devs build on that complexity. I imagine we’ll spend more time out in the wilds of world this time… maybe a bit more like XC in that sense, still, I hope there’s some big towns to enjoy. The game has definitely got a bit of X about it, with what looks to be a giant open world so that probably is going to be the main draw, alongside the story and combat.

It looks really dark tonally, radically so compared to XC2, and a lot more grim than XC as well. I don’t mind that but I hope Monolith Soft can thread the needle of leaning into some older Xeno trappings, while servicing fans of XC and XC2 specifically. I expect that they can, but it won’t be easy. The music is excellent so far, as you’d expect and the story setup is really intriguing. I feel like they are hiding a lot of this game. Perhaps not mechanically, but in terms of story and locations, I think they’ve been really careful not to reveal too much. The theatre sequence and shots of people in pods allude to something bigger of course, but even then, I don’t think that’s the end of the rabbit hole. Swordmarch is shown to be relatively close in some areas, which makes me think that the journey is going to be a significant part of the journey, but only that, a part. The direct did a really good of giving you a hook to get you started, but not offering much more. I want to see how it all shakes out. I do think Monolith Soft have got a responsibility to deliver something in line expectations based on the previous games. I don’t want to see Melia and Nia used as pawns and eventually killed off in some misery-fest. I don’t think fans of either XC and XC2 would be happy with that given the tone and endings of those games. And to be fair, I think Monolith Soft know that. I’m thinking out loud and rambling, but I just really hope they can balance expectation, telling a new story with a fresh tone and using characters from previous games, while also respecting the legacy of those games and not undercutting already established characters and themes. I hope for and expect the best. I’m interested in the parallels being drawn between Gears and Saga, but this has got to be a satisfying conclusion to the Blade series above all else.

And talking about keeping their cards close to their chest, I think they did that with the environments. We’d already seen most of them and the new ones we did see, we didn’t see a lot of. It feels harsh to that because what we’ve seen so far looks massive in scope, but you feel like there’s got to be more, with some more sci-if heavy stuff towards the end. Not sure we’ll end up in a space station again (but who knows), however I hope we get something as equally crazy. We didn’t get much more on the boat either. Surely you wouldn’t go to the effort of building boat mechanic for the one lake we’ve seen it in?

In the end, I felt incredibly satisfied, but left wanting more - perfect!
 
Anyone else fine the diegetic ui weird. I guess it has an explanation, but it feels random. Unless they pull a xenoblade X again and reveal the bodies are robots
I love it. Previous games had mechanics tied to the story like the visions, blades, core crystals, gacha, etc. But certain elements still feels detached. Like the pouch items was just a menu/text as well as the cooking. The whole UI feels out of the game esp in 2 because of the black fade. DE did a it bit nicer due to the transparent overlay.

This game feels so much more whole. I don’t know how to explain it. It feels more connected. I love that cooking is a visual thing now. That’s actually major. And even the quest tracker is canon in the game. I think Taion has it.


They all can summon their weapon at will. I’m pretty sure they did that to make combat faster because Rex slows down when he takes his weapon out. It’s cool that a QOL update somehow also tied to the lore.

Now back to the UI thing, well I think they are genetically engineered (lab grown hence the ten year life span) and probably not entirely biological. I’m getting Promised Neverland vibes but more sci-fi less fantasy which I prefer tbh. They are both technically food…to each other but there’s gotta be something more to the story. I hope Monolith does this story better than whatever the heck Promised Neverland did because that series had potential but ended being really wack.
 
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Also I just spotted that the ferronis Sena smashes with her hammer at the end of the direct has a purple flame clock like Ethel's and Cammuravi's as well. That ferronis also looks similar to that mysterious raider enemy we saw earlier. I'm also thinking Lanz's "I refuse to believe your him" line might be referring to the evil looking Noah dude who is part of the Consul.

Speaking of that “mysterious raider,” does anyone else think it might actually be that last silhouette on the class menu? I’m looking at them together, and they actually look preeeeetty similar.
 
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Anyone else fine the diegetic ui weird. I guess it has an explanation, but it feels random. Unless they pull a xenoblade X again and reveal the bodies are robots
It's probably diagetic for a reason we just don't know yet. I guess I wouldn't jump straight to thinking it's weird or random if I clearly don't understand why yet
 
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Also, on the subject of exactly how many Moebius characters we saw in the new footage, there's this handy-dandy visual guide. There was actually quite a lot shown in here!

idLwd1V.png
Looks like we have the Xenoblade equivalent of The Gazel Ministry/The Testament. It looks to me like the pairing includes a Keves and Agnus Consul to form their Ouruboros.

All of the other Heroes are looking really great too:



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This is the Rare Blade system in Xenoblade 2 perfected.
 
Feel like I've been seeing a lot more Let's Plays of 2 lately--guess that's largely due to 3 being announced.
 
Mio is my XC3 queen! Wonder if we’ll get more in the coming weeks.
I can't help to feel some gameplay showcase is still coming whether it be an actual treehouse or something a little smaller. It just feels like there's enough left to show that twitter updates aren't the only thing left before release (especially as the next couple weeks of twitter updates will be recapping the direct).

Xenoblade 2 got a LOT more showcases before launch:
  • 40 minute E3 treehouse showcase
  • 40 minute Gamescom gameplay showcase
  • 8 minute spotlight in the September direct
  • 16 minute game specific direct (Japanese version was longer)
  • 40 minute treehouse collaboration with gamexplain

I guess you could argue that it was the first year of the switch so every game was getting more coverage than normal. But the direct glossed over a lot of the more nitty gritty mechanics like equipment, gem slots, and passive skills - things that 2's direct covered. They also still refuse to explain chain attacks. We got a good deep dive on classes and heroes, but other than recapping what's been tweeted about the combat, it was very story focused. Then they teased entirely new mechanics without actually mentioning them like the flames clocks getting added to the UI while in colonies. A treehouse seems like the perfect place to cover a lot of the other mechanics and features. Maybe an actual direct with treehouses is still possible for the first half of July or they could do another collaboration with a youtube channel - probably not gamexplain this time around though.

And yes, Mio's adorable lol
 
But the direct glossed over a lot of the more nitty gritty mechanics like equipment, gem slots, and passive skills - things that 2's direct covered.
This was intentional, the Xc2 Direct was not that great IMO and they opted to do a well-paced presentation this time, covering everything without going into much detail, which is the best way to do a game-specific Direct instead of boring the people with too much info. And the way they introduced any of the segments with a context-relevant cutscene was genius, this was the best game-specific Direct to date and I wonder if it was MS and not Nintendo who put it together this time.

Of course a Threehouse stream could help better understand some of the details, but IMO the best way to understand them is to play the game.

Also considering Xc2 had both a battle explanation during a regular Direct, a battle explanation during the specific Xc2 Direct, and then surely some other during the ThreeHouse streams, I trust that the lack of a lengthy explanation for Xc3 means that the ingame tutorials are useful this time.

The only thing I wanted to confirm is if the world will be truly open or not, AFAIK it will be (vehicles, the way draw distance works compared to Xc1 or Xc2 allowing you to see areas that are far...) but I don't know if it has been confirmed in some way (they used the "boundless" adjective, but this is not enough to confirm anything).
 
Gray's got to be my favourite Hero so far, his "ninja cowboy" schtick is giving me major Minoth vibes. Also interesting that, unlike weapons from either Keves or Agnus, his guns use orange ether and seem to have no clock on them... hmm.

All of the other Heroes are looking really great too:



FV3wj-XXkAE_gIH

Why are the Nopons not in this pic, such disrespect smh
 
I just want to see how Skills work dammit. Everything else can probably wait

My guess is we probably have some number of slots (5 maybe?) that we can pick and choose skills for from any class we have. Or maybe it'll be more like Arts and you have some slots fixed for Skills of your main class and another set of slots for Master Skills. Actually, wait, that one sounds more likely since Master Skills are distinguished the same way as Master Arts
 
Talking about the heroes, I suppose that a good % of them will be mandatory.

The Nopon of course are part of the main story, and the Zeon guy was fighting against one of the masked pink bad guys during one cinematic. The Yuzuriha intro cinematic also seems to indicate that she has the "rope gliding" skill initially.

And of course Ethel and Cammuravi will be late game mandatory heroes.

Either way this is the perfected version of Rare blades, that was already theorized by half the Xc2 fanbase: instead of relying on drop rates you obtain them from sidequests and the art style between them is more cohesive.
 
but IMO the best way to understand them is to play the game.
Sure, but it's not so much about wanting to understand as much as it is getting excited for options available. If it's just two accessory slots and two gem slots then that's a band-aid I'd rather rip off now ahead of time.
 
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A couple of years back, I played through DE, FC, XC2 and Torna back-to-back with my better half.

I documented our little journey in the XC2 OT with a couple of posts, so I felt compelled to show her XC3 tonight to get her thoughts.

In a nutshell -
  • She was surprised by the tone, saying she didn’t expect a sequel to XC and XC2 to look anything like this.
  • She thought Noah was a girl for a big chunk of the trailer. lol
  • She thinks someone/people from the previous game will have a big impact on the story at some point.
  • She wants to know who’s alive.
  • She liked the music… she didn’t say this but I saw her bobbing her head to the music.
There were also a lot of questions (is that Nia?).

We play games together on and off, but she’s a watcher more than anything. She enjoyed watching Xenoblade a lot more than she expected though.

I still remember finishing XC and telling her, XC2 is a lot like this one, but with bigger boobs. Good times.
 
Do we know if character will have certain affinities towards different classes (i.e. bonuses for when using certain classes) or is everyone just a blank slate?
 
Do we know if character will have certain affinities towards different classes (i.e. bonuses for when using certain classes) or is everyone just a blank slate?
On the class screen in the upper right of the class description box you can see what may be a ranking for each class, which may indicate that characters do have preferred classes (for example, Noah had a B rating for War Medic but A for Guardian Defender. Both were at the same rank so I don't think it was related to that)

We don't know for sure though since it's never been directly stated.
 
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