I can totally get why this game's divisive for it's budget issues and pretty straight-forward gameplay; it makes it feel more like a modern port of a Vita game than a 2022 release, if anything.

But to me? That's a great thing. Everything else about it - it's cast, worldbuilding, setting and writing - is just so damn good. It takes a little while to really get going, but I had an absolute blast, and I hope people don't let other opinions deter them from trying the game out completely.

It makes up for it's flaws more than well enough - so if you're able to put up with those nearly as well as I am, there's plenty to appreciate here.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has cemented Xenoblade as my favorite series of video games of all time. Meeting my every expectation and more, we're never getting a game this special for a long time, that's what my gut's saying anyway.

As of writing, I have finished the game, but am doing post-game. I'm planning on replaying it again so I can do a follow-up review that goes more in-depth on my feelings. For now though, my initial thoughts.

The story is an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. I've never felt more connected to a cast of characters in Xenoblade, or really any game in a long time. It got me choked up on several occasions, which is rare. It does have shortcomings, definitely, but I can overlook all of it because this game made me feel something that I'm never going to forget.

Gameplay that is slower and strategic like the first game, yet still fast and always something to set up for, or to pay attention to, never a dull moment, like the second game. Combining both battle systems with even higher satisfaction and how they work together without any issues seems impossible, but they did it. Easily my favorite combat system ever, took everything I loved from both games, and added on top of it to make this game stand out. Variety is also as strong as Xenoblade 2, but not nearly as overwhelming, and everything you gain access to is viable and useful in their own ways, which encourages way more experimentation. Concepts and weapon types that felt under-baked or under utilized from the past two entries have been updated and are fantastic as well!

The world is so vast, and so much fun to explore. I adored almost every setting this game had to offer, while it certainly wasn't as whimsical as prior games, it's still worth exploring and easy to get immersed into. Actually exploring it is so much easier and fun now too. Field skills from Xenoblade 2 return, but they made them progression based, and not a stat check, and it's wonderful. They also fully utilized these field skills in this entry with a lot of the world design, and I'm a huge fan, genuinely a substantial leap forward in almost every shortcoming exploration had in the past two games.

Music is just as amazing as it's always been. While I do think there are more forgettable tracks this time around, the tracks that do stick became some of my favorite in the series, and that is no small feat. I will relinquish some music that plays in the different areas is the weakest part of the soundtrack to me, music played in cutscenes and battles are phenomenal, much more cinematic and grand, like a movie almost, I was honestly a huge fan of the direction they went with it.

Most beautiful Switch game I've ever laid my eyes on almost. This to me is in the running between Breath of The Wild, and Luigi's Mansion 3 for best looking Switch game. Has the same vibrant colors and expressive character designs from Xenoblade 2, but has the more mature and grounded designs of the first game, basically the best of both worlds. These character designs are awesome, I love all of them so much, there truly isn't a weak character design in this game to me, they're all incredible, fixing a major issue once again from its predecessors.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will forever be a favorite of mine, and a game that means so much to me, and will likely only deepen as time goes on. I'm planning on doing a way more in-depth review of this game after playing through the story one more time, so I can collect all my thoughts on it, as well as the game in general. I also have not yet rated this game, or marked it as complete as of making this review, but just know it's 5 stars from me, and will likely go on to 100% this game, as well as the DLC in the future.

Xenoblade Chronicles is one of my favorite games of all time (it's one of 68 games I've given a 5/5 to out of a total of 1135), so Chronicles 2 was an absolute nightmare to play through. I thought it was decent, but it did so much damage that I legitimately did not care when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was announced. Still, I bought it based on impressions from people who disliked 2 as much as a I did and I ended up having a great time. It's a glorious return to form. Gone is...pretty much everything I disliked from 2, and is instead replaced with a great story, a wonderful cast of characters, lovely voice acting, fantastic music, and some genuinely well written dialogue. I don't think it manages to reach the heights of XC1 (although that is an unfairly high standard), but Xenoblade Chronicles feels like Xenoblade Chronicles again, and that's all I wanted.

That's not to say it's perfect, however. The villains are perhaps the least interesting and most cartoonish in the entire franchise, and there's just...a lot going on gameplay-wise. The combat system is still good, but it feels so bloated. You've got 6/7 party members all at once, interlinking, class changes, chain attacks (XC3 has the sloppiest implementation of it to date), gems, accessories, and more. I appreciate the complexity of it all, but complex doesn't always equal fun. This is why the first game's combat system is still my favorite in the entire series, it's simple enough to get the hang of but hard to master. The environments, while still beautiful, are not as visually pleasing as the ones found in XC1 and XC2.

Otherwise, it was a fantastic time. Xenoblade is back, and I'm here for it.

Yakuza 5 again opts for the multi-protagonist approach of Yakuza 4, but only changes one character out and lets us play as Kiryu's adopted daughter Haruka too, having us move forward with a deeper connection from the get go.

And my god is the gameplay fire. Combat is great with different styles for different characters and the side stuff actually caught me off guard. I did not expect to spend as much time as i did racing taxis and doing a fucking dance minigame, but i did and that high lasted til the end.

The plot is also not as messy as Y4, but I felt pretty underwhelmed by some of the final pieces. On the whole though, this game felt like such a reward at the end of the Y3, Y4 and Y5 trek

Not all games should be as daring as The Last of Us Part II, but those that aim to be should take notes. Technical achievements aside, this was a roller coaster ride of emotions, unlike anything I ever experienced in a video game. Anger, love, empathy and compassion... they were all on display and I didn't get to choose what came next. From the moment I started this game, The Last of Us Part II drained me physically and emotionally, but if somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment... I would do it all over again!

Peak of the monolith

Just in time before Xenoblade 3 for me at least, Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra wraps up the series in the way I really hope it would. It goes without saying but this is the best Xenosaga far none. Emotional payoffs you'd expect from a finale, the combat leaning into the more traditional turn based menu style was probably the best decision they ever made in terms of this game along with ES combat being extremely fun and managing to bring that puzzle element into a few of them all with an incredible soundtrack which is a true far cry from the first game which I found pretty lacking.

The story beats were great and the characters really shined here barring one major exception which I'll get into in a bit. What I love about Monolith Soft's works is they do a good job of stringing you along with a glimpse of the bigger picture until they want to reveal everything and that's what kept me going through the story itself. I will say someone I ended up really liking is Allen Ridgeley who is usually seen as the comic relief but even he has his moments and they are incredible moments. The cast is great as usual but I felt like one blemish to this cast was technically Shion herself. I won't go much into it but the way she acted throughout the game is erratic and disappointing although she does technically improve during the final quarter at least.

The gameplay is probably why I enjoyed this game a lot more than their predecessors at the time. The turn order is better illustrated here, skill trees with points you get a little of per battle which allows a bit of flexibility like before while still getting unique attacks and special attacks from leveling up too giving you a healthy flow of abilities. It honestly just feels more streamlined in good way here that I don't think many people will dislike compared to the pseudo-xenogears deathblow system of the first game and the highly contentious break system of the second. ES combat is extremely satisfying here with equipment being customization and being able to assign specific abilities to your "CPU" like counter and extra stats if needed. Combo attacks, co-op attacks and even some puzzle elements for bosses like doing something extremely specific makes a lot of the ES fights a good challenge but the random encounters are extremely easy on these things if you know what you're doing. From personal experience, if you somehow don't get bored of the game's combat during your whole run then you truly have something special here. The dungeons themselves were not too bad other than the penultimate one again being a bit long winded but it's really cool in design and mood that I didn't mind it too much.

The soundtrack is so good you would forget that the first game pretty much only had two battle themes and here it feels like every special boss has their own theme which further enhances the emotional impact they have. The overall art design feels like a mix of the 90's anime look of the first game and the realistic look they had for the second game for this ideal middle ground which I prefer as well.

Xenosaga will probably not get a remaster for a very long time. It seems that this series might be lost to the annals of the 2000's only living through the act of creating the console from software. But I digress, Xenosaga was a good ride overall from beginning to end and has improved at a great pace from each game with 3 being my second favorite title from the developer barely ahead of Xenogears. It goes without saying at this point but if you enjoyed this developer's work then you have no excuse but to play this gem of a series and this defining moment of a game from them.

Looking back on this, I definitely wish I played it sooner. Regardless though I'm glad I was able to experience what this game has to offer. To be honest I've been trying to come up with something to write about this game and how much I loved quite literally everything about it from beginning to end but it's unbelievable how complex this game can go with it's story, themes, and characters. It's the most thought provoking story I've seen in a game and something I resonated with greatly. You can argue that it can be flawed in some aspects given it's age, but the story is so immensely rich to the point that I feel the flaws could just be glossed over. The cast I believe has a very colorful personality with many underlying themes and an immersive world that intrigued me instantly, and it only got better over the course of the story. Really don't what more I could say other than this is something I highly recommend you should play.

A game I wish I could give a score higher than 5 stars; easily one of the best RGG games. Everything wrapped up so wonderfully in the end.

I've been meaning to play this for months now, hearing countless praises since it released back in 2021, and my goodness is it well deserved of the praise it gets. The combat here is probably the best combat RGG has made in their games--with style switching that's been tremendously improved from all the way back to Yakuza Zero.

The story is RGG's sublime writing as usual, WAY more intense than it's predecessor with a more powerful message than most, and with the best antagonist in the franchise to date. It's saddens me knowing this is Nagoshi's final RGG game, but it's quite perfect with a conclusion this extraordinary. I could say so much more about this game but I think this encapsulates my thoughts about it well enough.

This game is great, and it feels like a natural next step after the Sky trilogy. It does a great job expanding on existing lore and events from the Sky trilogy, without overly relying on what the trilogy did before it.

The story was very well paced, giving plenty of time for world building and revealing more and more about the city of Crossbell. Because of that, I could sympathize with the protagonists and better understand their plights.

Zero definitely pays homage to the previous games throughout its story by using previously seen characters and reusing some plot elements; however, it never feels predictable or samey, and each reference feels like it adds something meaningful to the overall plot.

The second half of the game centers around corrupt political systems and goes absolutely nuts with it, yet the conflict feels like it naturally progresses with higher and higher stakes, especially given what the player will know about Crossbell at that point in the story.

Because I’ve played the Sky trilogy, the protagonists all feel familiar. There are certain tropes and archetypes that remind me of the previous games, but the protags here don’t feel like anything like copies. They definitely feel like their own characters, through and through.

Each character brings something new to the table, both with how they interact with others and with how they develop as characters. Perhaps they don’t have the most engaging personalities on their own, but collectively, they're the most interesting team I've seen in the series.

I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite character. All four of the protagonists are awesome, and many of the support cast are great too.

The gameplay is a natural improvement from previous games, keeping everything familiar, but giving me so much more to play with. It’s very easy, which is my only gripe, but I did play on Normal, so perhaps Hard would’ve been a better challenge for me.

OST-wise, it's kinda hit-or-miss for me. The town themes are generally calm and nice, but there are some earworms that get grating after a while.
The battle themes are amazing and high energy, which holds true for all Trails games, and are my favorite tracks.

Because Zero is so different from other Trails games, I’m not sure where I would rank it compared to the rest of the series. At this point, I think I would consider it better than Third, but just below SC.

After playing through the game, off-and-on, for almost 9 months, entirely in Japanese, I had a great time. I've put a couple hours into the sequel already, and it looks like that will be a fun one too!

2-3 years after only playing Yakuza 0 to Kiwami 2, I've finally caught up with most of the Yakuza games. As for why I only played those 3 at first, I'm not quite sure myself truthfully. But this game...I don't even know where to start with this masterpiece. An emotionally devastating yet breathtaking end to Kiryu's story, now my favorite video game character. This is the best RGG has been with it's writing, completely unrivaled from characters to storytelling. It's not as ambitious in scope as Yakuza 5 was but it still does a good job in finalizing Kiryu's character and Haruka's relationship. The callbacks throughout this game were spectacular, each and every one of them making everything hit so much more harder. Even the substories are easily at it's best in this game, with surprisingly amazing writing throughout all of them.

Moving on to the gameplay itself, I really enjoyed the return of the Dragon Engine, albeit in an older state since this game released before Kiwami 2. I seriously don't think the Dragon Engine is that bad; and while yeah I do agree that 0's/5's/etc is better, It's still pretty fun for a prototype.

Finalizing my thoughts on this, I'm just glad I could experience the rest of Kiryu's journey throughout Kamurocho and the rollercoaster of emotion it offers. He is easily my favorite video game character ever as I've said before, and this game was pretty much confirmation of why. The RGG games as a whole has taught me a lot and I'm so glad I could experience these games. From beginning to end, it’s truly been an unforgettable journey.