Perspective is important when it comes to JRPGs, for most people the first few JRPGs that they tackle will always hold a special value. Those who have played 10s or 100s of JRPGs know that a lot of these stories commonly share the same elements, some people become jaded about JRPGs some people work around it. I think something I really appreciate about having played a lot of JRPGs is that my respect for the genre is on a new level. I always look forward to how a game tackles a similar subject compared to how another game did it. I want to say Xenoblade 3 was no exception, there were things I genuinely really liked in this game. Like how it explains why the world was like it is, this game reminded me of a few games I really like with similar worlds and in a few ways this game managed to hone in on aspects that those other games didn’t or were just weaker parts, the Mio execution part was a great idea and scene that I’d love to see in another game and maybe even brought further, I also really enjoyed the battle system, the chain attacks were my favourite part of the battle system and I loved how much strategy went into them. Other than that, honestly XB3 probably has my least favorite battle system out of the main 3 Xenoblade's but I didn’t really go out of my way to go into the depths of it like 1 or 2 and nonetheless I appreciated it anyways.

I don't care about this game. Even the good parts.
Nowadays, A cast and overall charm are very much a make or break in a JRPG for me. I found these guys to be an all-around good cast in the end but, I couldn't ever really feel them. Something I loved in Xenoblade 1 and 2 or even other games I love is that I can understand someone's character from the environment that they came from or their strong personalities or backstory. I didn't get a feel for this cast ever because they mostly felt really boring or their backstory was just Joran. I can't really just come on here and shit on the game for this because that was kind of the point that it was going for, these guys don't have a lot of life behind them because they are mostly vessels for battle.

I think one thing that really fucked this game over for me was once I saw that ethel was in the party, I realized that the game was just going to do a lot of focusing on one-note side characters. I feel like this was such a bad decision and it kind of took away fire that could have been used to flesh out the main cast more, I can't even name a single hero I liked lol.

I won’t get into too much, but I seriously think this might be one of the ugliest JRPGs worlds I’ve played in recent memory and this series I love for how pretty the worlds are. The chain attack theme is good, but that’s about all I have to say about the ost. Its kind of just washed over me.

I think my main issue is how the game handled its messages, for one, I felt like it shared messages with the second game, 2 had vague meaning of life messages flowing in the background for the cast because a lot of them were trying to find a place in their dying world. Xenoblade 3 was a lot louder with its messaging but I seriously disliked how it was handled. Alot of the messages were relegated to side characters or the main villains who would be on screen for like 30 minutes say their thing and then die or join your party then it feels like we move on to the next thing and the topic is dropped. I found a lot of these characters reasonings were super dumb and not relatable in any sense. N is fine but I think he's super close to what they were trying to do with Jin and for that, Idk I just don't care. I don't even want to get into the stupid villains so I'll just leave it at that lol.

The reason I talked about perspective at the beginning is because in a weird way regardless of all the problems or just personal nitpicks I have with this game, I kind of understand why people are like BROOOOO IT’S THE GREATEST OR I LOVE IT. I think that the messages in this game are very important to those who are Young, Lost or Even just need a reminder maybe if I had played this game when I was much younger it might have had a massive impact on me and maybe I would have had an undying love for it, Most of my dislike for the game just basically comes down to me knowing what I like from how many JRPGs I’ve played in the past and Xenoblade 3 just didn’t do it for me, regardless I’m glad people are getting something out of this game even though I didn’t. For me there’s one game I’ve played in the past that just did what Xenoblade 3 was trying to do, and that was the one that ended up having an impact on me.

I think there's some fundamental quality missing here that I personally came to love the Xenoblade series for and made me hold it in such high regard like plot, characters, story, worlds, music, and narrative. Just worked so well together in 1 and 2 and for many, it made an engaging unforgettable experience, that I seriously couldn't find in 3.