An exceptional finale to the Xenoblade Klaus Saga and expansion for XC3. Gameplay wise, this was a great smaller scope version of the XC3 combat, I was a bit concerned that without Ouroboros mechanics and classes that it would not be as interesting, and while I do prefer the complexity of the base XC3 combat, Monolith did a fantastic job with the slight differences and new mechanics to keep it engaging up until the end, with some excellent class design and balancing overall.

Easily the most fun exploration in any Xenoblade game, the Affinity Point mechanic is a really smart way to encourage going out of your way to fight everything and look for secrets, and the Affinity chart upgrades are very significant. I really liked that instead of gating progress to Community like in Torna, it gated by exceptionally difficult boss fights. While frustrating at times I think they were designed well overall to really make you use everything at your disposal to win, and Hard mode was a lot more balanced throughout the game compared to base XC3, since there wasn't really anything very difficult in that due to over-leveling beyond like Chapter 4.

Story-wise this is everything I could have hoped for. Characters, just as in the base game, were all fantastic and extremely likeable. The events in the last few chapters and implications of those were insane, and Monolith continues to blow it out of the park with some of the best cutscenes in anything I have played. The never-ending references and fan-service I appreciated so much and this really felt like a celebration of the entire franchise, and a wholeheartedly deserved one. Genuinely difficult for me to find really any complaints at all, this is just the perfect finale to Xenoblade and was an enjoyable and memorable experience from beginning to end.