Finally a Xenoblade DLC that I enjoyed thoroughly!

Very nice QoL features: You can pin items required for quests, gem crafting or even X-reader upgrades. And it will then show you if you find an enemy that drops the item you're looking for.
Finally having access to a bestiary is also very welcomed! Now we can find specific resources more efficiently.

The game does a great job at being an Openworld. Exploring & doing side quests is very rewarding, as Unlock Kits are what allow you to upgrade your characters and become stronger. And the X-reader helps you locate hidden treasures very easyly. It's just a joy to explore.

The battles flow quite well even without using chain attacks, I'm really happy about that.
Just cancelling your arts nonstop and doing Unity combos depletes the enemies HPs quickly enough.
Sometimes, I didn't even use chain attacks even though I could. It just feels better to not use those all the time.

I mostly focused on strengthening Shulk because he is my favorite character. When I found Unlock Kits, I would always use them on him first. I also had fun using Matthew, A and Glimmer.
Btw, it was really sweet seeing the father/son relationship between Shulk & Nikol and Rex & Glimmer. Seeing Nikol having the same passion for engineering than his father is so wholesome.

There are a lot of callbacks to the previous games: The moment the kids ask Na'el to sing them songs, and they name-drop famous tracks from previous Xenoblade games, it made me giggle. "Gaur Plain! Tomorrow with you! Bringer of Chaos, Ultimate!"
The original Colony 9 from Xenoblade 1 is back, along with its music and the battle theme "Time to fight".
More over, they continued to mix up environments from previous games just like they did in base game Xenoblade 3. Combining the three snowy areas from each Xeno game to create the Black Mountains was sick!
And making Prison Island the final area of the DLC was amazing. The developers really wanted to trigger a reaction in the player with all this nostalgia.

Even though he did that to serve his own purposes in the long run, seeing Z team up with Shulk & Rex to try and get rid of Alpha was kinda raw. He's the last person I would have expected to team up with our beloved Heroes.

I was quite invested in the cutscenes showing the Past of Na'el, her struggles with the war & endless killing. The voice actor did a good job portraying her emotions and making us understand why Alpha chose her as a vessel.

After defeating Alpha for good, Shulk, Rex & Alvis leave to become the new avatars of the Trinity processor. This ending really got me in the feels. I loved the story of Future Redeemed, this was a great way to wrap-up the trilogy.
Also, we learn that Matthew is part of the Vandham lineage 🤯

The end credits were so good, great music, and I love that we see a recap of all 3 Xeno games, with actual in-game footage. It was an amazing send-off.
Playing that DLC reinforced my love for those games and the Xenoblade series in general. This really is my favorite video game franchise, no doubt about it.
I can't wait to see what Xenoblade 4 is gonna be like. Because the producer said Future Redeemed put an end to this trilogy, and the next Xenoblade games are gonna be quite different, with an entirely different storyline. So I'm very curious!

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on April 7th & finished on April 26th 2024]
Playtime: 28 hours
100% Completion

I had such a great time with Tears of the Kingdom ❤

The new mechanics introduced in that game are so crazy that you feel like they're going to be game-breaking when you unlock them for the first time!
The Ultrahand added so much depth to the gameplay. I was already blown away by the different puzzles & game design in BOTW, especially inside the shrines. But this is on another level here.
You can do basically ANYTHING. So much freedom in the way you approach puzzles.
The way I was solving the shrines often made me laugh. For many of those, I could definitely tell I wasn't doing what the developers intended.

I tried as much as possible to take advantage of all the game mechanics offered by the game. I used Ultrahand and the Zonai devices everytime I saw an occasion to travel faster using vehicles. Surfing on my shield is also extremely satisfying, it never stopped being fun.
After I finished Breath of the Wild, I regretted not using the abilities at my disposal as much as I should have, so I'm glad I set things right in TOTK.

What I liked about the fuse ability is that it made beating stronger enemies really worthwhile, as you can use their materials to make stronger & more durable weapons.
I wasn't a fan of the weapon durability system in BOTW, but this new feature made me completely forget about it !

The game has so many movement features that it felt like I could go literally anywhere at anytime. I could always use the Travel Medallion, Paraglider, Tulin's vow, the rockets, the springs or the wings to reach far away places. If you thought BOTW had a lot of movement options, they went above and beyond with TOTK !
What's cool is that you don't even feel like doing all the shrines you see to unlock more teleporters, because you can already travel anywhere very quickly.

This time, I didn't make the mistake that I made in BOTW: trying to do as many side content as possible, trying to get all the Koroks, Shrines & Side quests at all costs.
Instead, I simply focused on the main story, and I only did a little bit of side content, but not too much. I got rid of that completionism itch 😅

I enjoyed the recurring missions, like the ones where I had to prevent the Hudson signs from falling off; escorting the musical troupe in front of the great fairies so they can perform their song; joining the monster-control-squad to defeat several Monster Forces; investigating with Penn at all the Stables, etc...

The ascent of Wind Temple was pretty epic with the music and the jumps on the ships to reach the top of the cyclone.
Colgera was an amazing first Boss. I wish the fight wasn't so easy tho, because everything else about this Boss is great.
The fact that you fight him while being high up in the air, maneuvering with your Paraglider, surrounded by tornados, and having to hit its weak spots using the bow in slow-motion. Idk, it just felt freaking epic.

The reason that fight was so easy is because of Bullet time, this mechanic is absolutely broken. It slows time tremendously, and it lasts forever. This really trivialized this Boss fight... I used this mechanic as little as possible for the rest of the game.

Vow of Tulin proved to be very useful during the rest of the game, whether it's his wind power, or the fact that he was actively participating to all my battles. He has perfect aim and dealt good amount of damages to enemies. All the sages proved to be very useful in battle. The sage abilities aren't as fun as the Champions abilities in BOTW tho.

It was fulfilling to help every race while progressing in the main story. First, I helped the Ritos getting rid of the blizzard in their region; then I managed to free the Gorons from their spell; after that I stopped the sandstorm in Gerudo Town; and finally I got rid of the Black Sludge in Zora's Domain.

The mini Bosses were really exciting to fight. It felt rewarding to beat my first Battle Talus in early-game. Having to use the Ultrahand & Recall abilities to defeat the Flux Constructs was also hella fun. Same when defeating Master Kohga in the Depths, and other minor Bosses like Frox & Lynels.
It was also nice to rematch the major Bosses in the Depths (Colgera, Marbled Gohma, Mucktorok & Queen Gibdo)

About the side content, there are still those Korok seeds to find throughout all of Hyrule, and there are even more this time around: 1000 instead of 900 !
Even though I ignored them most of the time, I have to admit the few I did were really enjoyable to get. I precisely remember an instance where I had to build a boat and bring the Korok on the other side of a lake. This was extremely cool! And there were other instances where I could build devices to propel the Koroks directly towards their friend using rockets.
Building a vehicle and seeing it work as intended is one of the most satisfying aspects of TOTK !

Moragia was another freaking epic Boss. You have to fly a plane and shoot Yunobo directly at each one of the Bosses heads. The ingenuity with all those Bosses mechanics is just crazy.
The Boss of Fire Temple, Marbled Gohma, was just as good as Colgera. It's impressive how consistently great the Bosses are!
Same thing again with Lightning Temple, Queen Gibdo being extremely fun to fight, and one of the most challenging Bosses in the game.

I was very happy with the Temples overall. They don't have the huge scope of the dungeons in previous Zelda games, where it can take up to 2 or 3 hours to complete one single dungeon.
But the puzzles you'll find in those Temples are high quality regardless. It's just less stuffed with content, and shorter.
In games like BOTW and TOTK, having less time-consuming Temples doesn't bother me at all, considering the amount of content these games already have outside the dungeons.
And I have to say the Bosses of these dungeons were absolutely amazing, much MUCH better than the Blight Ganons inside BOTW's Divine Beasts.
I just wish some of the Bosses offered more challenge.

It felt so good teaming up with the 4 sages to beat up all the enemies on our path inside Hyrule Castle.
You feel so powerful at this stage of the game! I was able to fuse a shit ton of weapons with all the monster materials I got on my way. I was running out of weapons before exploring the castle, and after that, I had over a dozen of weapons with +60 or +70 attack damage.

The game-design never ceased to amaze me... The 5th dungeon where you have to fight the hordes of enemies & the Seized Construct Boss using Mineru's own Construct was fire.
The cutscene we see at the end of this dungeon has to be one of the best moments in the game: "Years from now, someone will appear with the sword that seals the darkness. A swordman with the power to defeat you, Link. Remember this name.." That was amazing!
And a few moments later, we are able to recover the Master Sword in a beautiful scene on the Light Dragon's head.

The Final fight was definitely a lot more fun than Dark Beast Ganon in BOTW. The swordfight was actually quite challenging, it took me a few tries to get the timing right on the parry & dodge.
The last face off between Demon Dragon Ganon and Light Dragon Zelda was majestic.

In the end, I'd say I had more fun with TOTK than BOTW. This time around, I was playing more comfortably overall. Looking back on the way I played BOTW, I can tell I wasn't as practiced with video games as I am right now. I wasn't taking advantage of all the features offered by the game, and it definitely played a part in my overall appreciation of the game.
Of course, it's not the only reason I prefered TOTK. I'd say the 2 best aspects of the game were the freedom in the exploration (mainly thanks to the Ultrahand & Zonai devices), and the Bosses were so much better.

----------Playtime & Completion---------

[Started on February 25th & finished on March 18th 2024]
Playtime: 75 hours
I finished the main quest, and I didn't do a lot of side content.
50 shrines completed, 40 Korok Seeds collected, all dragon's tears collected, and I only explored the Depths a little bit with 35 lightroots lit up.