Everything about combat so far looks so good. I can't find anything to complain about the game yet
I agree that people saying "this and this is Episode 3 or this and that is Episode 1" is a bit silly. None of what happens in the Xenoblade games lines up with Perfect Works layout at all. Reusing certain plot points doesn't mean it's meant to line up directly with Xenogears., but some story elements seem so obviously reused that it's fun to speculate and predict what will happen.
But stuff like Ethel you mentioned, I agree with. There's nothing KOS-MOS about her except some longer hair and blue eyes. She's probably going to be a minor story related antagonist we fight a few times early on, then she dies because her time is up (her marking is all black). But stuff like the Fog King is so obviously a Gnosis. It's a ghost like being using the same model as the Infernal Guldo, which is a mutated human. It can't be touched by normal physical attacks and requires a special ether wave. It comes through a dimensional portal like the Gnosis do, and most of all.....it has an attack called "Agnost Beam" lol.
The original Xenoblade is probably Takahashi's most complete and well balanced game he's ever done. That's why it's so successful. He actually took some steps back to
make a game. But you can also tell it's not one of his passion projects. Like Gears, Saga, or Xenoblade 2. X feels somewhere in the middle. That's why I like XC2 more than XC1, but I still absolutely love 1 and could replay it countless times.
I don't personally think XC1 is inferior to all his other games on it's own, but it's a little disappointing when you have such amazingly varied character writing/story/detailed lore in Xenogears/Xenosaga, then XC1 happens and most characters are just there to be support for Shulk and fade into the background. It's not bad, but it doesn't feel like something Takahashi was all in on. Even the party members in Soma Bringer felt like they stood out more than anyone in XC1. But in the end, I still believe XC1 is what needed to happen for Takahashi and Monolithsoft for them to be where they are now. And we see them getting back more and more into that ambitiousness again with each game.
My crackpot theory is that the new world
is called Aionios because it's the place where Artifice Aion is going to be revived by the Saviourites and all those fallen people the Offseers are sending off get to be fuel for it. And Malos might be the male version of Miang (Myyah) and Noah gets to be one of the hosts for him. Or maybe Pyra/Mythra get that role now