Future Redeemed is honestly what I expected the main story of Xenoblade 3 to be when it was first revealed. I do have issues with the core game's narrative, but none of them have to do with the setup, and in time I've come better appreciate what they crafted with that game. You need the game, its characters, and its story to stand on their own, and not be overshadowed by what came before. It picks the right moments to tug on the heartstrings with its callbacks, and it never becomes gratuitous to the point where it takes away from what they were building.
That said, this DLC was their chance to run wild and finally give us some closure to Xenoblade 1 and 2, and I'm happy to report that it absolutely does. It doesn't answer every question you might have and even leaves a bit of a tease toward future stories in this universe, but given I enjoyed the world and characters of the first two games just a tad more than 3, I unabashedly wanted more. I wanted the DLC to gesture and go "Here's the thing you like from those games!" so I could point and clap and exclaim "Thank you Takahashi!" And, you know what? Future Redeemed was more than happy to oblige. I'm paying for extra content, so give me my money's worth.
Speaking of which, Future Redeemed continues to trend established by past titles in just giving you an entirely new game to the point where it barely even feels like DLC. It's not nearly as expansive as the base game naturally, but this new area of Aionios is still far more vast than you'd expect and filled with plenty of new characters, side quests and places to explore. Some of your upgrades have now been delegated to items you find in the overworld, even futher rewarding exploration, and the new Ouroboros powers streamline combat a bit more, which I liked. Since the technology hasn't been perfected yet, you don't get the full combined transformations that Noah and his group have, but given that power often trivialized battles with how, well, overpowered it was, there's a bit more challenge to the combat in the DLC.
I liked the cast of Future Redeemed a lot, even if they aren't given quite as much time to develop as the main six from Xenoblade 3. Matthew establishes himself quite quickly as a worthy main character, and he plays off well with his companion A. Shulk and Rex, of course, are as fantastic as ever, and seeing how much they've grown since their respective games only furthered my love for both (but hey, let's be honest, Rex steals the show here). Nikol and Glimmer, unfortunately, aren't quite given the same amount of time to shine. They do get somewhat there by the end, but they face the problem of having their backstories tread the same ground of those already covered in the main game, so a fair bit of their development is glossed over. As a whole, though, this game's party holds up extremely well with past games and I'm exceedingly happy with where they left things off with Shulk and Rex. The entire last chapter was kino as hell.
I'm truly overjoyed that Takahashi and the entire team at Monolith Soft were able to fully realize their dreams and ambitions with the Xenoblade series. They've become Nintendo's new golden child developers in my eyes and I'm incredibly excited about what they have in store going forward, whether it's a continuation of this series or something entirely new. I will be there day one either way.
That said, this DLC was their chance to run wild and finally give us some closure to Xenoblade 1 and 2, and I'm happy to report that it absolutely does. It doesn't answer every question you might have and even leaves a bit of a tease toward future stories in this universe, but given I enjoyed the world and characters of the first two games just a tad more than 3, I unabashedly wanted more. I wanted the DLC to gesture and go "Here's the thing you like from those games!" so I could point and clap and exclaim "Thank you Takahashi!" And, you know what? Future Redeemed was more than happy to oblige. I'm paying for extra content, so give me my money's worth.
Speaking of which, Future Redeemed continues to trend established by past titles in just giving you an entirely new game to the point where it barely even feels like DLC. It's not nearly as expansive as the base game naturally, but this new area of Aionios is still far more vast than you'd expect and filled with plenty of new characters, side quests and places to explore. Some of your upgrades have now been delegated to items you find in the overworld, even futher rewarding exploration, and the new Ouroboros powers streamline combat a bit more, which I liked. Since the technology hasn't been perfected yet, you don't get the full combined transformations that Noah and his group have, but given that power often trivialized battles with how, well, overpowered it was, there's a bit more challenge to the combat in the DLC.
I liked the cast of Future Redeemed a lot, even if they aren't given quite as much time to develop as the main six from Xenoblade 3. Matthew establishes himself quite quickly as a worthy main character, and he plays off well with his companion A. Shulk and Rex, of course, are as fantastic as ever, and seeing how much they've grown since their respective games only furthered my love for both (but hey, let's be honest, Rex steals the show here). Nikol and Glimmer, unfortunately, aren't quite given the same amount of time to shine. They do get somewhat there by the end, but they face the problem of having their backstories tread the same ground of those already covered in the main game, so a fair bit of their development is glossed over. As a whole, though, this game's party holds up extremely well with past games and I'm exceedingly happy with where they left things off with Shulk and Rex. The entire last chapter was kino as hell.
I'm truly overjoyed that Takahashi and the entire team at Monolith Soft were able to fully realize their dreams and ambitions with the Xenoblade series. They've become Nintendo's new golden child developers in my eyes and I'm incredibly excited about what they have in store going forward, whether it's a continuation of this series or something entirely new. I will be there day one either way.