@TheGavin I don't know if I'd quite agree, Future Redeemed really has a lot of emotional highs if you've played the prior games, it only lacks most of that punch if you haven't played/seen the core stories up to this point (aka 1, 2, 3, and Future Connected). Sure, I don't think it can get quite as emotional as say, base 3 which has the best character writing in the series, but I'd heavily argue FR's story and character writing surpasses 1 or 2's character writing by a large margin, as well as doing a great job of closing out returning character's arcs, while having pretty decent new characters.

Gameplay highs I personally think FR's is a lot more fun since it's not as overwhelming and has a pretty satisfying gameplay loop of exploration improving combat, as well as the enticement of exploration allowing you to appreciate the more overt returning areas from previous games. But I respect your opinion regardless.

Also, your reviews on Xenoblade 1/2/3 are based, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the rest of them, 1's story is good but there's nothing to do in the game, 2 has a million issues all around, and 3 is the only real mainline entry I can wholeheartedly recommend as a whole game package since it's much more well rounded than it's predecessors.

@spiderfreak1011
I appreciate you reading my other reviews. While we disagree on the emotional parts of FR's story, I can admit that I certainly WANTED to feel stronger about the story, but it is what it is.
And I definitely understand where you're coming from with the gameplay. I'm not huge on exploration in the Xenoblade series, so having the progression be tied to that rather than just battling was not for me, but I can see why someone would find it fun.

@TheGavin I can understand the sentiment, I know a good amount of people who felt similarly about FR's story but just couldn't bring themselves to.

That's fair, I more really enjoyed it in FR because it's a smaller scaled world to begin with, and it wasn't too overwhelming to look through every nook and cranny, on top of revisiting old places again. If you had that kind of system in a game as big as base Xenoblade 3 though, it'd be way too much and annoying after a point for me, since there's just way too much to explore, I'd definitely be much harder on it there.

And no problem on checking out your other reviews! You make a lot of good points and criticisms