Xenoblade Chronicles – My expectations about Xenoblade 3 [POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE FIRST GAMES]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a game I’ve been waiting for even before it was officially announced on the last Nintendo Direct. And after the first trailer was revealed and we got more info about the characters and gameplay, my expectations went really high.

So, I just thought it might be interesting to analyze and imagine how good this game can be, because, I’ll return here to post a mandatory review after I beat it. When that time comes, we’ll see if it surpassed, matched my expectations, or just couldn’t live up to them.

As a huge Xenoblade fan, I have to admit there are big flaws on both Xeno DE and Xeno 2. So, the least they can do is learn from that flaws, enhance the gameplay, develop more serious and convincing plots. I’ll go into details here.

***************************************************************************

Xenoblade Chronicles 1

While this game was a huge success when it comes to storytelling, world building and character writing, some big issues still harm the overall outcome.
I mean, I believe Shulk should have killed both Mumkar and Egil without hesitation, because people like that doesn’t deserve second chances at all. But he didn’t, in the end he lacked the determination and I’ll always think they just ruined this part of the story.

And when it comes to gameplay, most of us players think it’s quite the challenge to understand and master even the very basic mechanics at first. This process has some learning curve and it goes complex after progressing. Besides, all the game is always about doing some huge grinding in order to defeat the next tough bosses.

The good news is that Xenoblade 2 learned from this last issue, and the game kept grinding to a minimum, which translates to more hours of fun and story progressing, and less time beating the same enemies time and again.
The bad news is that Xenoblade 2 has so much more plot problems….

***************************************************************************
Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I already said this game improved the gameplay, but not just because it critically reduced grinding, but it also improved all the UI, controls, combat system. However, even If we had some experience with the first game, this one is still difficult to learn and master, and the blade system is not intuitive at a first glance.
More gameplay issues include mechanics to unlock areas, because the blades need to develop some skills before they can open up a new terrain to explore. And this can be really time consuming.

And now let’s talk about the story. I’ll be fully honest: I wouldn’t dare to write about these games If I didn’t love them in the first place. So, in the next paragraphs I’m not actually attacking a game I love, I’m trying to analyze and be objective, because some specific instances are not fully convincing, and they do harm the plot quality.
And there are many cases, but I’ll point out these ones:

– The party succesfully beat a boss, but in the next cutscenes it’s actually just the other way around. And while this does happens on Xeno 1 too, it is more over used on this game. Examples include the last battle in Uraya and Tantal too.

-The game just loves the open interpretation style, to the point nothing makes sense, we have to guess everything or imagine everything. And this is repeated time and again and gets old quickly. From the very first moment Azurda dies and then he is just magically brought back to life as a little different being, this is not explained at all. We have to guess or imagine the how and why. Nonsense. But the game continues with this style: I truly hated all the Spirit Crucile Elpis quest, because it was all for nothing, the sword just gets destroyed. In the same place, Nia reveals she is actually a blade, but surprisingly, she is also the only Flesh Eater who freely transforms from driver-to-blade form and vicevesa, the game never explains how and why, and it’s just a contradiction. But the very fact she is a Flesh Eater breaks the game’s rules too: that technology was only known in Judicium, and she always lived in Gormot. Nonsense and open interpretation again.

-Plot devices, here, there and everywhere. From the very moment in Gormoth where Tora decides to help a completely unknown people, this is already a plot device.
More examples?
The last battle at Tantal, Malos and Jin had no real reason to let everyone alive, the just could have killed all of them and become unstopabble with their plans, which would undoudebtly guide us towards a game over for the heroes. But the plot device says they just couldn’t, nonsense.
Another quite good example: Rex and his team shouldn’t have saved Jin nor work with him on the Land Of Morytha. I mean, after all that had happend up until that point, it’s full nonsense to trust him, he is a real and dangerous enemy, and can’t be trusted at all. Enemies like him don’t care about honor or things like that, and he just could have backstabbed everyone.
But the worst plot device is actually the endgame itself: Pneuma dies because of the heavy explosion, but then she is just brought back to life for no reason at all. Open interpretation/rule breaking all over again.

–Plot armors: Pyra was effectively defeated and died after the Tantal encounter, but when Rex fights Jin and Malos and wins the battle on Cliffs of Morytha, she gets revived and at full power, she moves at light speed and counters Jin, just because Yes.
Another plot armor: Nia apparently defeats Malos on her blade form, using a power she never revealed before.

–Anime tropes/cliche: Mythra and Nia are actually tsunderes and the game shows some cutscenes influenced by the anime cliche. The most obvious example is at the Argentum Trade Guild, when Rex surprisingly sleeps with Mythra.

And I can go on and on, all day If I wanted to. But I won’t. I do said I love Xenoblade 2, its cast, story, world, gameplay, but I do admit it has a lot of big flaws that inflict serious damage on the final script.

***************************************************************************

All the previous analysis was necessary to explain which features I wouldn’t like to be included on Xenoblade 3. I expect they learned from all the flaws I mentioned on the previous paragraphs. I, concretely, have this expectations:

– The plot is actually better than both previous games. All the story makes sense, and there are no more plot armors/devices/cliches. I want that all the characters act reasonably, according to their backgrounds but also according to the situations, following logical flow of actions.

– The gameplay continues to keep grinding to a minimum.

– Improved mechanics to discover new areas.

-Better controls / UI / tutorials / than DE and 2, easy to learn, straightforward and yet with deep combat system.

-Amazing world design, like they did on the previous games.

-Excellent music like the previous games.

-Better VA than 2.

-Improvements and significative innovations to the gameplay, specially battle system, no one wants a rehash.

-Cool and nice looking cutscenes like before.

-Connections to the previous games is given near the endgame.