There is an excellent game and story buried beneath 8000h of cut-scenes.
What draws me to the series is the exploration, and it remains excellent. Unfortunately every 200m you walk there will be a cutscene for the main quest that completely breaks most of the enjoyment. I was actively avoiding the main quest path as it completely breaks any immersion during exploration. Specially at the beginning all mechanics are introduced in these awkward cutscenes. I believe most of them could be left to the player to find by themselves.
Also, sometimes the side quests actively force to explore some hidden paths, and I'm not sure this is the best design decision. I think the best moments I had with any Xenoblade are when I just found out things by myself when exploring. In the end most of the side quests felt like filler content, where I was just completing a list of checkmarks without meaningful stories. I think maybe the best way here is to leave things open, especially for the simpler side quests. Instead of tracking the side quests in the menu and with waypoints, leave it open for the player. For example, when you talk to NPC, he will give a lead via dialogue, but the side quest is not tracked in the menu, and it is not pin pointed to you in the map. The removal of fetch quests was a step forward, but what remained is still not good enough mechanically or story-wise. I think maybe 95% of the side quests could be cut or simply left open without actively being tracked.
I was very surprised by the story and themes, but, it is simply filled with unnecessary exposition and an astronomical amount of cut-scenes that totally take away most of the good stuff. Throughout the game I was so disappointed by the amount of cut-scenes that I felt an editor should be hired for Monoliths next game.
The combat remains similar to the previous entries, which Im not very fond off... In XC3, due to the larger party I felt like enemies health's were given a boost and combined with the chain attacks, encounters with unique enemies and bosses take a long time. The chain attacks animations are so slow and get so repetitive that I ended up avoiding triggering them.
The music remains excellent and this time they took a more ambient approach I feel. But, i still think I prefer XC1 and 2 soundtracks.
In summary, it is more of the same where everything that was good before, remains good, and what was bad, got worse. Almost everything is too bloated. The amount of characters, cut-scenes, the combat, the party size, the enemies in the field. I think for the beautifully crafted world, the music and some parts of its story it deserves to be played, but hopefully for future sequels Monolith should shake the foundations the series a little more.
What draws me to the series is the exploration, and it remains excellent. Unfortunately every 200m you walk there will be a cutscene for the main quest that completely breaks most of the enjoyment. I was actively avoiding the main quest path as it completely breaks any immersion during exploration. Specially at the beginning all mechanics are introduced in these awkward cutscenes. I believe most of them could be left to the player to find by themselves.
Also, sometimes the side quests actively force to explore some hidden paths, and I'm not sure this is the best design decision. I think the best moments I had with any Xenoblade are when I just found out things by myself when exploring. In the end most of the side quests felt like filler content, where I was just completing a list of checkmarks without meaningful stories. I think maybe the best way here is to leave things open, especially for the simpler side quests. Instead of tracking the side quests in the menu and with waypoints, leave it open for the player. For example, when you talk to NPC, he will give a lead via dialogue, but the side quest is not tracked in the menu, and it is not pin pointed to you in the map. The removal of fetch quests was a step forward, but what remained is still not good enough mechanically or story-wise. I think maybe 95% of the side quests could be cut or simply left open without actively being tracked.
I was very surprised by the story and themes, but, it is simply filled with unnecessary exposition and an astronomical amount of cut-scenes that totally take away most of the good stuff. Throughout the game I was so disappointed by the amount of cut-scenes that I felt an editor should be hired for Monoliths next game.
The combat remains similar to the previous entries, which Im not very fond off... In XC3, due to the larger party I felt like enemies health's were given a boost and combined with the chain attacks, encounters with unique enemies and bosses take a long time. The chain attacks animations are so slow and get so repetitive that I ended up avoiding triggering them.
The music remains excellent and this time they took a more ambient approach I feel. But, i still think I prefer XC1 and 2 soundtracks.
In summary, it is more of the same where everything that was good before, remains good, and what was bad, got worse. Almost everything is too bloated. The amount of characters, cut-scenes, the combat, the party size, the enemies in the field. I think for the beautifully crafted world, the music and some parts of its story it deserves to be played, but hopefully for future sequels Monolith should shake the foundations the series a little more.