• 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!

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

Which side are you on?


  • Total voters
    219
Status
Not open for further replies.
I think the dynamics presented are actually really unique. This is a party where you have essentially two groups from different sides coming together (for maybe a rather functional reason?) where some will clearly be more friends with each other and some less. Lots of potential for conflict there.
They're gonna have to work hard to impress me. The group dynamic in XC2 wasn't the best. XC1 and XCX were way better in this regard
 
They're gonna have to work hard to impress me. The group dynamic in XC2 wasn't the best. XC1 and XCX were way better in this regard

Half of XC1 cast are best friends trio plus older bro Dunban. XCX main cast are friends and colleagues that know each other. Funny enough, only XC2 cast is composed of people who just banded together after a few encounters. So you're pretty much contradicting yourself.
 
People still love to find a way to hate XB2, I see

I know damn well you're referring to me and no, you're accusations of me hating are incorrect

Half of XC1 cast are best friends trio plus older bro Dunban. XCX main cast are friends and colleagues that know each other. Funny enough, only XC2 cast is composed of people who just banded together after a few encounters. So you're pretty much contradicting yourself.
No, I don't think I am.
 
0
I personally really like the group dynamic and chemistry of the XC2 squad and how it gradually develops over the course of the game. Its my favorite bunch of any Xeno game (with Xenosaga's squad being 2nd). That said, I can see how someone might prefer the more immediately interconnected group of XC1. Shulk, Reyn, Fiora, and Dunban immediately form a nice, balanced sqaud and a lot of the early story events really take advantage of that in a way that XC2 doesn't imo (XC2 is more of slow burn for me where group gradually develops into a family of sorts). The wrinkles that get added in by Sharla, Riki, and the Bird Lady also do a nice job of complimenting the pre-existing dynamic, even if I think some of those characters weren't properly developepd by themselves.
 
Put me in the camp that like XC2 cast the most and not by a small margin.

If anything having played 2 before 1 I was actually massively underwhelmed by the XC1 party after hearing so much hype about them. The only 2 characters I found to me anything more than a walking stereotype were Shulk and Melia. Others like Sharla and Fiora were aggressively bad. A pretty safe but competently written shonen is what I would compare them to.

X is in the middle because a good chunk of the recruitable party member were entirely forgettable.
 
0
Besides XCX which I have not played, I still like the chemistry between XC1 party member the most compared to other games. In XC2, the relationship between drivers and blades are put to the forefront, at the cost of chemistry between drivers or between blade themselves. This is also reflected in the affinity system in both games.

That said, character development in XC2 wins over XC1 for me by a wide mile. Under the anime tropes, there are genuily emotional stories about people desperating to die because of their power/their past or their situation until they find another stranger who agrees to share their burden and move on from the past (or they don't and succumb to their own demise). Torna also shares this motif, albeit with a not so happy ending ... Yet it provided a nice contrast to the main game and is truly the other half of the full XC2 experience imo.
 
0
XC1 and XCX characters bounces off each other well, though sometimes not as a whole group. you got Shulk/Reyn, Reyn/Sharla, Shulk/Melia, etc. it helps flesh out the characters even if I tend to question why x is even still here when they don't offer too much relevance to the story. I didn't feel that way with characters like Morag or Zeke or Tora. characters like Morag or Zeke didn't really grow outside of specific parts of the game outside their home area. Zeke was slightly better in that regard at least. Morag, given her status, I felt should have had more to do/say in the game but just sorta faded into the background. she didn't gel with anyone in particular. Zeke had some significance with Indol, but again, faded into the background. Sharla and Riki did the same, but I think their characters had more usage to fleshing out other characters like Reyn and Dunban.

tora is straight doo doo, not much else to say there. poppi was crippled by association

Rex is still a weed carrier to me. he's so milquetoast. I get his purpose, but he lacks an interesting drive that sparks conflict, whether it's with his companions or with his enemies. Shulk had that, Elma had that, Jin had that, Rex? not so much. Rex got by on the power of friendship too much, and that inherently puts him on the backfoot with me
 
0
Xenoblade 2 has my favourite cast. How they interact with each other, most of the interactions in the Heart-to-Hearts, it was all good (except Tora because he's eh)
With Xenoblade 1, the only ones I really liked were Shulk and Fiora. the rest felt like after their introduction chapters would just be put in the background until they were needed. Reyn and Dunban had some good moments, but not many
Xenoblade X has only Elma as a good characters. I struggle to remember the others
 
It's very cool of you to roleplay the factions in Xenoblade 3, makes the thread feel really soulful
 
I mean, people have already gone on about this at length but honestly after playing DE I was pretty confused as to why people liked the XC1 cast and story so much. Both are incredibly by the numbers and neither feel like they're explored as well as they should be. They're fine, don't get me wrong, but people really put them on too high of a pedestal
 
I found XC2’s cast way more memorable yeah. It’s one of the reasons I prefer it to 1, the other being the battle system. 1’s is pretty boring and simple comparatively while 2’s feels overwhelming but becomes SO rewarding once you master it.
 
Very excited to see the character interactions in XC3. I felt XC2 learned a lot of lessons from XC in that regard.

Characters were more fleshed out and remained more relevant to the story than those in XC.

I hope XC3 moves even further in that direction. Some of the hearts to hearts in XC2 were pure gold for giving the characters more depth and charm.

I hated how they were gated off in XC and while they made improvements to that in XC2, I’d like to see all heart to hearts available as soon as you find them in XC3.

And please keep the monster gravestone system from XC2 - and the timer. It was fun trying to beat your own times on the super bosses.
 
Alright everyone, calm down. You can settle your Xenoblade 1 vs. Xenoblade 2 debates as well.

In Xenoblade 3

Why are there Xenoblade 1 and 2 debates in this thread now too?

Why isn't it about how they relate to xB3 instead of each other?

Shouldn't there be a XbDE, and xB2 thread? Even better, a xb1 and xb2 discussion/war thread where people can nuke each other without making it impossible to find actual discussion about xb3?

I'm starting to get pretty irritated with finding everywhere I turn real discussion on this game is becoming increasingly harder to find, in its own threads, and when it's actually had there are no shortage of posts leaping in to try and chill it, and I literally don't understand why it's happening. Especially here.
 
Personally excited to learn more about vehicular exploration, and what options we have for that. Do we get a boat at certain points? Is it a major part of finding our way around the world? Or are different vehicles required at different times? secretly wishes for a flying mech

Still a huge amount to learn about what will be a very, very big game.
 
To contribute to the “does the open world impact the story” I think monolith can do a linear story in an open world, but I do hope to progress to story areas in other ways besides just… walking into them.

Like how in XC2 Ophion blasts you out of the sky and you land in Uraya or whatever

Idk if that makes sense but yeah
 
To contribute to the “does the open world impact the story” I think monolith can do a linear story in an open world, but I do hope to progress to story areas in other ways besides just… walking into them.

Like how in XC2 Ophion blasts you out of the sky and you land in Uraya or whatever

Idk if that makes sense but yeah
That part is amazing.
 
To contribute to the “does the open world impact the story” I think monolith can do a linear story in an open world, but I do hope to progress to story areas in other ways besides just… walking into them.

Like how in XC2 Ophion blasts you out of the sky and you land in Uraya or whatever

Idk if that makes sense but yeah

That Ophion comment makes perfect sense to me. It's an excellent event progression gate. You get a cool and exciting story event as a reward for completing a journey, with a simple and logical reason to be in and picking up in a new area. Can be done exactly the same with any world design, from open world to level based games.

What you are talking about in your first paragraph, wanting more than just one way to traverse areas than walking into them, is part of a concept called time space compression. Which is an absolutely massive subject.
 
0
I'm not opposed to full open world but I hope they manage to gatekeep certain locations to story progress.

Flying around Cauldros for 15 hours before the plot progressed to Blade discovering the Gangalion had their base there was extremely awkward.
 
I'm not opposed to full open world but I hope they manage to gatekeep certain locations to story progress.

Flying around Cauldros for 15 hours before the plot progressed to Blade discovering the Gangalion had their base there was extremely awkward.

As was finding several of the life pods or whatever the game says everyone is desperately looking for, not being able to interact with it at all, until 10 or so hours later when you meet the level to take the quest to find it, and everyone pretends they are surprised, like they are seeing it the first time.

Or even worse, getting your act together on equips and combat, and besting enemies well out of your range, only to be denied equipping the fruits of your labor, until you are a level where that equipment is no longer special, bit mundane.

I'd really love to get some interviews on the Xcx dev process some day down the line when maybe they can be more candid about it.

As much as I love X, it had a lot of really weird aspects to it that seem like the result of troubles with development, like rigging something together at the figurative last minute so it works, but not the way it was supposed to be, and you can tell.

That's how the entire game being attached to the level system feels.

In order to track whether and when a player has visited an area, and activate a change in related scenes in response for a large game like x, would take a pretty dang complicated finite state machine.

But this is also the company that made a ridiculously complex and involved finite state machine that tracked the evolving relationships between every character in the game world in a massively unwieldy spiderweb map, seemingly just to look at and admire for the most part.

X's character affinity map, was bizarrely simplistic in comparison. And I even remember it causing glitches.
 
Wow... 1 vs 2 talk... My icon makes it obvious which one I prefer but honestly I think 3 is going to bring the best of both worlds into the game so I'm happy :p
 
Wow... 1 vs 2 talk... My icon makes it obvious which one I prefer but honestly I think 3 is going to bring the best of both worlds into the game so I'm happy :p

I know I vented in an earlier post about making a 1 vs 2 containment thread where they just have at it so it stays out if here....

But seriously, can we have a 1 X 2 thread, because there is a LOT of discussion to be had about these concurrent games that are two sides of the same coin, that I have NEVER had because drama.
 
Funny thing is to me I think XC1 and 2 are both my favorite JRPGs of the past decade, yet I don’t think we’ve reached a Xenoblade game’s full potential yet.

1 is probably the jack of all trades and easier recommendation than 2, but 2 is way more bold and while that makes it have more faults than 1, I ended up preferring it.

I really hope 3 has the all around cleanliness and QOL that 1 had by the time of DE, but with 2’s more complex and ambitious combat and more in depth and lovable party. And of course keep what they both excelled at - beautiful massive worlds, stunning music, and awesome lore. I think that by how much monolith has grown, we’re in for something special.
 
Was lip-sync tied with the English voice lines/dynamically generated for each version's cutscenes?
with an animation bank, they would have an easier time lip syncing to two different voice tracks. that's probably what they did
 
0
Significant characters in XC that can come back

  • Melia
  • Alvis
  • Tyrea
  • Vanea
  • Miqol
  • Linada
  • Radzam

XC2
  • Pyra/Mythra
  • Nia
  • Brighid
  • Pandoria
  • Dromarch
  • Poppi
  • Zeke? (Don’t know how Blade Eaters work lifetime wise)
 
Significant characters in XC that can come back

  • Melia
  • Alvis
  • Tyrea
  • Vanea
  • Miqol
  • Linada
  • Radzam

XC2
  • Pyra/Mythra
  • Nia
  • Brighid
  • Pandoria
  • Dromarch
  • Poppi
  • Zeke? (Don’t know how Blade Eaters work lifetime wise)
Mikhail was also a blade Eater and we can say he was at least 500 years old.
 
I'm hoping they don't go too overboard with returning characters. I don't want this to be a Metal Gear Solid 4 situation where every single person comes back and they have all have to be shoehorned into some role to be of significance to the overall narrative. I'm fine with mostly just Nia and Melia with other characters making cameos or having a brief part of the main story.
 
Looking at the party members introduced I kind of like how they mirror the party dynamics from the first two games. Noah and his party are all childhood friends like Shulk and the majority of his group. Meanwhile Mio and her party members aren't described like that, instead they seem similar to Rex and his crew in that they're just a group banding together over a shared cause.
 
I'm hoping they don't go too overboard with returning characters. I don't want this to be a Metal Gear Solid 4 situation where every single person comes back and they have all have to be shoehorned into some role to be of significance to the overall narrative. I'm fine with mostly just Nia and Melia with other characters making cameos or having a brief part of the main story.

They don't even have to appear in the main story. Like Poppi could appear in a sidequest and that would be great.
 
If I had one hope it would be that the story is more character-driven like in Xenoblade 2 instead of the more plot-driven nature of Xenoblade 1.
 
The party member I'm most interested in ATM in definitely Lanz. For being such an important part of XB1 I feel like we didn't understand Machina enough as a people to my liking, I want more lore.
 
It seems Eunie will be a favorite in the game because she's crass lmao.

Also, her being 18 makes her defy High Entia aging rules, just like the other cast defying theirs.
While something is definitely going up with the ages, Eunie may be normal. Though that would depend on how far into the future we are in XC3. Since if we go by the Ancestor AI in the High Entia Tomb, Homs DNA integration is already at 80% by Melia's time and 8 generations away from leading to a "evolution". If we are far enough into the future, Eunie may be of that "evolved" High Entia. They are free from their Telethia shackles, but the Homs DNA integration may had also caused shorter life cycles with Homs aging rules.
 
Hi, I'm new. Xenoblade's my favorite series and I wanted to join a community to discuss 3 now that it's been announced and I'm incredibly excited. I've been lurking the Nintendo threads since the pandemic started but always felt intimidated to join just because of how big Era is. When I saw a lot of the people from the Nintendo threads broke off and made a smaller and cozier place I finally decided to jump in. Really looking forward to joining all of you in sharing the hype for Xenoblade 3!

What we've seen of the game looks incredible. I'm impressed Monolith really listened to criticisms of 2's designs and that they toned the more problematic stuff down while still making the designs fun and stylish. Am I crazy for thinking this is the best looking Xeno party? Taion's my favorite so far, can't wait to see how his origami weapon actually works in combat, although if Mio's the evasion character then I'll probably end up maining her.

Even the new enemies are some of the best designs in the series. I always thought 1's enemies were very plain for a jrpg, 2 had a little more fun with enemy designs, but the few new ones we see like that big yellow guy are on another level. It looks like an Ultraman kaiju! I hope some of the older enemies get some more creative redesigns. I know we saw a number of returning ones in the trailer and they looked the same, but that yellow tropical Igna gives me hope.

Everything looks great. That huge environment in the background from the shot of Noah running on the Distant Fingertip looks like Xenoblade X's level of map design excellence. Then there's a boat! I really think this could be the best one yet. Sorry if my first post was just gushing lol, can't wait to share in the excitement with this community!
 
Significant characters in XC that can come back

  • Melia
  • Alvis
  • Tyrea
  • Vanea
  • Miqol
  • Linada
  • Radzam

XC2
  • Pyra/Mythra
  • Nia
  • Brighid
  • Pandoria
  • Dromarch
  • Poppi
  • Zeke? (Don’t know how Blade Eaters work lifetime wise)

If several characters are returning in secondary roles, I think we'll also see Teelan, who received nice development in FC, and possibly Gael'gar. Depending on how many years have passed since, I could also see Riki's kids being in as old grampypons. Oh and that reminds me... We could also see Azurda from the XC2 side, and hopefully a grown-up Turters.
 
If the theme of the game really is about death and rebirth with Ouroboros symbolism everywhere, I really don’t think the list of potential returning characters will be limited to those who not only have prolonged lifespans, but who also survived to the end of their respective games.

I mean the most iconic image of the game we have so far includes the sword of the Mechonis, which last we saw was utterly destroyed.
 

Xenoblade 3" is set in the world of "Aionion," which consists of two nations. In this large, expansive field, we saw oceans and giant creatures. In addition to swimming, it looks like there's also some kind of boat-like vehicle. But tightrope walking is dangerous!


The armies of Kheves and Agnus are based on huge mobile weapons called "Iron Giant Gods". There are dozens of Iron Gods in Kheveth and Agnus, and each of them is an independent army and living place. I can't wait to go there!


The iron giant gods where the soldiers live are called "colonies". The colonies are numbered, and it seems that some of them have various roles, such as producing weapons instead of fighting.
 
Was lip-sync tied with the English voice lines/dynamically generated for each version's cutscenes?
As far as I’m aware, XC, X and XC2 are all dubbed in the typical way, as in EN actors had to try and match the lip flaps in JP the best they could.

But in DE the lip sync was readjusted for EN. I’ve just googled it and I’m sure it was just Future Connected that got EN specific cutscenes, but I can’t see that info.

I may be misremembering or making it up entirely!



Also, how cool - mini ‘titans‘ where people live like in XC2, but numbered like in XC. Awesome!
 
It does make me wonder if at the start of the game you control Noah, Lanz, and Eunie on the Keves side of the world. Then at points in the story you switch back and forth to Mio, Sena, and Taion until all 6 meet up.
 
Last edited:
It does make me wonder if at the start of the game you control Noah, Lanz, and Eunie on the Keves side of the world. Then at points in the story you switch back and forth to Mio, Sena, and Taion until all 6 meet up.

Going by what Monolith shows in their trailers leading up to release, them getting together happens at a similar time in the story as Rex meeting Pyra. So I don't think that will be a notable part of the game.
 
As far as I’m aware, XC, X and XC2 are all dubbed in the typical way, as in EN actors had to try and match the lip flaps in JP the best they could.

But in DE the lip sync was readjusted for EN. I’ve just googled it and I’m sure it was just Future Connected that got EN specific cutscenes, but I can’t see that info.

I may be misremembering or making it up entirely!
These were all done by different dubbing studios, so entirely different teams still worked on them. Only 2, Torna, and FC were done by the same studio.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Back
Top Bottom