Decided to write an entire essay since I have a lot of thoughts regarding this game.
I think this game is awesome, full stop. The gameplay, story, visuals, it all comes together to form a nigh seamless experience that I really enjoyed. Maybe it’s just me having played the previous games in the trilogy leading up to this game, but there’s a lot to unpack but when it all clicked I felt like the experience was amazing.
I’ll start with the gameplay. I think the gameplay here is at its absolute best. At first I thought having seven party members (your main six + whatever Hero character you have in your party) was going to be a bit much to manage compared to the three party system found in the previous Xenoblade games, however the game managed to prove me wrong and then some. I think the seven party member system is one of the best things about this game, coupled with the myriad of customization options that are available to you and become available to you as the game progresses. There’s a lot of flexibility present in this game that I felt like combat never really got stale or boring, since throughout the game I was constantly experimenting with party formations and changing my classes and arts around even before big story fights. Arts in this game are so cool, and I love how both gameplay styles for the arts are present in this game, with Kevesi classes having arts that charge over time while the Agnian classes use arts that charge on-hit. Additionally, I love the idea of Fusion Arts so much. The fact that you’re allowed to equip three Arts from classes that are opposite to the class you have equipped on your character currently (If you are in an Agnian class you can equip three Kevesi arts and vice versa) and how it’s tied to Ouroboros from a gameplay standpoint is awesome. It encourages the player to really experiment with the classes available to them and even the classes they obtain as the story progresses, because it allows the player to then be able to perform stronger Arts with combined effects. It also serves as a great storytelling device showing just how the worlds and styles of the previous two Xenoblade games have merged together. Performing Fusion Arts in combat also ties to Ouroboros as it allows you to reach the higher levels of the Ouroboros and deal large amounts of damage which comes in handy especially against bosses. Moving into the class system briefly, I love how it takes a page out of other RPG’s like the Bravely games and Octopath, allowing for any character to use the class once you fill up the icon in the menu. It’s a very nice system and a lot of my enjoyment and fun came from experimenting with party formations, classes, and the arts palette. I really do believe that the class system is and the way its handled here is awesome and I really do enjoy it quite a lot. While I can gush about the class system forever, I also want to talk about sidequests and how this game handled them because they did an excellent job making the sidequests feel great in this game. Sidequests being broken up into regular sidequests and then Hero/Ascension quests is a neat way to break up the monotony of sidequests as a whole, and while I’m sure some might not like that in order to get to Ascension Quests you have to complete some sidequests as a prerequisite, I think it serves to strengthen the worldbuilding of the game and the greater experience as a whole. I know I spent whole sessions just sidequesting and it was a really chill experience just being able to not worry about the main story and see how the main party bounces off of both the seventh party members and side characters that you’ve met across Aionios.
Now for the story. Man. While I will say it’s not a perfect story, I enjoyed what was on offer and yes, like lots of other people, I was emotionally destroyed at key moments. I will not go into detail on those moments or too much into the story itself so as to keep things as spoiler free as possible, but again I thought the story was solid and overall a good time. I love the main six party members so much, all of them bounce off of each other and off of the rest of the greater cast so well and there was never really a dull moment with any of them. I appreciate and love just how much they grow as characters, starting out as enemies only to grow into a really tight-knit group despite being forced together at the start of the game. I want to move into a slight tangent and say that all of the VA’s did such an excellent job for the characters in general. Harry McEntire as Noah especially killed it and I don’t think I could imagine anyone else playing the character. The voicework on this game overall is exceptional and I think really served to elevate the story that Monolith and Takahashi really wanted to tell. Further, I adore the subtleties within the storytelling, especially as you progress. There’s a lot of little details in the visuals and music that feel like “blink and you’ll miss it” moments (I know I missed a bit of these while playing), but if you know or when you learn about them and how things all tie together it elevates the story so much more in my opinion. I think my biggest gripe with the story as a whole is Moebius. They’re cool villains don’t get me wrong, I like their battle theme and their suits look cool as hell, but also I feel like they could’ve…gotten more development or lore or something (I haven’t played Future Redeemed at the time of writing this so I don’t know if they do get more lore or backstory). I will also say that the pacing of the game felt a tad weird to me as well, where things felt like they were going a bit fast until about Chapter 5, then the game hits you with a LOT to do in terms of sidequesting (which is optional, you don’t have to do it, but there’s a lot of good stuff in the sidequests in this section of the game including like two to three Hero quests), and while I enjoyed the game as a whole I wanted to make a note of this since it did feel a bit jarring to me while I was playing.
I'll talk about the music briefly since I don't want to drag this out any longer than it should be but I love this game's OST. Also I get why people do not particularly like the Chain Attack theme overriding a lot of the music at pivotal story bosses, since the music that plays during said bosses is awesome, but you won't be able to hear it while doing big damage. At the end of the day tho, it's just a minor critique.
All in all, I loved playing this game. There’s so much love and passion put into this game by Monolith and Tetsuya Takahashi that I found myself a lot of the time (when I wasn’t being emotionally destroyed) with a stupid smile on my face because I was having so much fun with this game. Even so, all good things have to come to an end.
Anyway thanks for reading my long stupid essay on this game if you made it this far. I still need to play Future Redeemed but I’m giving myself a week or two to decompress but I am very excited to see what’s on offer in that expansion.
TL;DR: this game is peak and I liked it a lot thanks for reading
I think this game is awesome, full stop. The gameplay, story, visuals, it all comes together to form a nigh seamless experience that I really enjoyed. Maybe it’s just me having played the previous games in the trilogy leading up to this game, but there’s a lot to unpack but when it all clicked I felt like the experience was amazing.
I’ll start with the gameplay. I think the gameplay here is at its absolute best. At first I thought having seven party members (your main six + whatever Hero character you have in your party) was going to be a bit much to manage compared to the three party system found in the previous Xenoblade games, however the game managed to prove me wrong and then some. I think the seven party member system is one of the best things about this game, coupled with the myriad of customization options that are available to you and become available to you as the game progresses. There’s a lot of flexibility present in this game that I felt like combat never really got stale or boring, since throughout the game I was constantly experimenting with party formations and changing my classes and arts around even before big story fights. Arts in this game are so cool, and I love how both gameplay styles for the arts are present in this game, with Kevesi classes having arts that charge over time while the Agnian classes use arts that charge on-hit. Additionally, I love the idea of Fusion Arts so much. The fact that you’re allowed to equip three Arts from classes that are opposite to the class you have equipped on your character currently (If you are in an Agnian class you can equip three Kevesi arts and vice versa) and how it’s tied to Ouroboros from a gameplay standpoint is awesome. It encourages the player to really experiment with the classes available to them and even the classes they obtain as the story progresses, because it allows the player to then be able to perform stronger Arts with combined effects. It also serves as a great storytelling device showing just how the worlds and styles of the previous two Xenoblade games have merged together. Performing Fusion Arts in combat also ties to Ouroboros as it allows you to reach the higher levels of the Ouroboros and deal large amounts of damage which comes in handy especially against bosses. Moving into the class system briefly, I love how it takes a page out of other RPG’s like the Bravely games and Octopath, allowing for any character to use the class once you fill up the icon in the menu. It’s a very nice system and a lot of my enjoyment and fun came from experimenting with party formations, classes, and the arts palette. I really do believe that the class system is and the way its handled here is awesome and I really do enjoy it quite a lot. While I can gush about the class system forever, I also want to talk about sidequests and how this game handled them because they did an excellent job making the sidequests feel great in this game. Sidequests being broken up into regular sidequests and then Hero/Ascension quests is a neat way to break up the monotony of sidequests as a whole, and while I’m sure some might not like that in order to get to Ascension Quests you have to complete some sidequests as a prerequisite, I think it serves to strengthen the worldbuilding of the game and the greater experience as a whole. I know I spent whole sessions just sidequesting and it was a really chill experience just being able to not worry about the main story and see how the main party bounces off of both the seventh party members and side characters that you’ve met across Aionios.
Now for the story. Man. While I will say it’s not a perfect story, I enjoyed what was on offer and yes, like lots of other people, I was emotionally destroyed at key moments. I will not go into detail on those moments or too much into the story itself so as to keep things as spoiler free as possible, but again I thought the story was solid and overall a good time. I love the main six party members so much, all of them bounce off of each other and off of the rest of the greater cast so well and there was never really a dull moment with any of them. I appreciate and love just how much they grow as characters, starting out as enemies only to grow into a really tight-knit group despite being forced together at the start of the game. I want to move into a slight tangent and say that all of the VA’s did such an excellent job for the characters in general. Harry McEntire as Noah especially killed it and I don’t think I could imagine anyone else playing the character. The voicework on this game overall is exceptional and I think really served to elevate the story that Monolith and Takahashi really wanted to tell. Further, I adore the subtleties within the storytelling, especially as you progress. There’s a lot of little details in the visuals and music that feel like “blink and you’ll miss it” moments (I know I missed a bit of these while playing), but if you know or when you learn about them and how things all tie together it elevates the story so much more in my opinion. I think my biggest gripe with the story as a whole is Moebius. They’re cool villains don’t get me wrong, I like their battle theme and their suits look cool as hell, but also I feel like they could’ve…gotten more development or lore or something (I haven’t played Future Redeemed at the time of writing this so I don’t know if they do get more lore or backstory). I will also say that the pacing of the game felt a tad weird to me as well, where things felt like they were going a bit fast until about Chapter 5, then the game hits you with a LOT to do in terms of sidequesting (which is optional, you don’t have to do it, but there’s a lot of good stuff in the sidequests in this section of the game including like two to three Hero quests), and while I enjoyed the game as a whole I wanted to make a note of this since it did feel a bit jarring to me while I was playing.
I'll talk about the music briefly since I don't want to drag this out any longer than it should be but I love this game's OST. Also I get why people do not particularly like the Chain Attack theme overriding a lot of the music at pivotal story bosses, since the music that plays during said bosses is awesome, but you won't be able to hear it while doing big damage. At the end of the day tho, it's just a minor critique.
All in all, I loved playing this game. There’s so much love and passion put into this game by Monolith and Tetsuya Takahashi that I found myself a lot of the time (when I wasn’t being emotionally destroyed) with a stupid smile on my face because I was having so much fun with this game. Even so, all good things have to come to an end.
Anyway thanks for reading my long stupid essay on this game if you made it this far. I still need to play Future Redeemed but I’m giving myself a week or two to decompress but I am very excited to see what’s on offer in that expansion.
TL;DR: this game is peak and I liked it a lot thanks for reading