kinoblade 3

 

I love XBC3 a lot.

Okay end of post.

Haha nah okay I'm writing more. I really enjoyed this game so much, and I'm genuinely surprised by how much I liked it! This is definitely my GOTY for 2022, though probably not the best game I played this year overall, I'll have to see how I feel once December hits.

I would like to give a little backstory on my XBC series experience. I played XBC1 on a friend's Wii copy back in 2016-2017 (and I'm in America so this is crazy enough already), and I very much enjoyed it. I remember beating it and thinking damn, that was incredible.

Uh and then 2 was a thing and I didn't give a damn about it. Hey if you REALLY like XBC2 you're not going to like this post so please click off now.

I eventually did watch all of the XBC2 cutscenes/Torna DLC/a bunch of heart-to-hearts around the time of XBCDE's release because I thought it would be relevant to Future Connected. Well, it wasn't, but it WAS relevant to this game so I guess that weekend of mid was worth it.

When I played XBCDE, I kind of thought... Hmm. There were definitely some cracks that showed in XBC1's framework, mainly with the character writing. The plot itself is solid as a rock and fun as hell, it wraps up like a nice little present and doesn't really leave you with any questions. But if you're not named Shulk or Melia, you really do not get many chances to shine at all, and even then there's so much about either aforementioned characters I don't really know. I found it really hard not to focus on these points during my re-playthrough, and I kept getting disappointed by how lifeless and not really relevant most of the cast felt. I was also really unhappy with how the women have so much of their existences tied to the men of the cast, Sharla minorly but Fiora MAJORLY. Fiora is the coolest character idea known to man but so much of her revolves around Shulk it is physically painful.

Anyways if you're reading this post you have probably played XBC1, so why am I bringing this up? Well, this was basically my main concern going into XBC3. I wasn't happy with the character writing or women in XBC1 and XBC2 was a thing that existed, though another specific issue besides character writing and women in that game was how the plot was very all over the place to me— as if you made up a really detailed story with a bunch of friends over the course of like, a year, and then tried to introduce that to an outsider all in one go. XBC2 throws a bunch of stuff at you and a bunch of characters at you and just feels all over the place (and has an unified art style that I think also contributes a lot to this feeling of disconnect).

XBC3 did not do any of this! All my worries were straight up shattered! It was a solid game that I will be very annoying about in these next coming months.

The Characters Were Really Great!

My biggest fear of this game— that Noah (and maybe also Mio to a much lesser degree) would be the only truly relevant and developed character never came to fruition. Though it is true that Noah and Mio do get a lot of spotlight, the rest of the main party gets their own development in both the main story and in side stories, not to mention you get to see tons of different sides to them via their discussions they can have through side quests or from overhearing topics in Colonies.

Like, we all love Reyn, but we really don't know a lot about him personally— his familial situation, how he grew up, how he felt when the Mechon killed his defense force friends in the beginning of XBC1, his dynamic and friendship with Fiora, all of these things we either get a very small glimpse of or a single line addressing before the plot moves on. In XBC3, I could tell you so goddamn much about Eunie, from her backstory, to her other backstory, to her own side story, to Gray's quests, to like 50 different side quests where she does something funny. The characters are so well developed and feel like real, super distinct people, and they're super fun to watch!

This really isn't just exclusive to the main cast, either. God, every side character even down to the most truly irrelevant NPCs get some kind of memorable writing, whether it be in quests or cutscenes or some great lines.

There are also some scenes in the main story where I saw a scene unfolding and thought, "If this was XBC1, Shulk would be stepping up to speak, so I bet Noah is going to start preaching", only to have an entirely different character start talking and have a great moment. I keep saying "great" and other positive adjectives in this section but it's just so true. The characters were awesome.

The Side Quests Were Fun!

I can't speak for XBC2, but XBC1 side quests were pretty cut and dry, with the most writing you're getting is a few extra lines about the matter, and sometimes that's also assuming you've got the right characters in your party to hear said lines. I'm not saying these side quests were bad though, just that they very much felt like side content, stuff that wasn't really relevant and didn't often lead to anything super great but was fun to do on the road to The Main Plot anyways.

XBC3's side quests have so much goddamn writing it's unreal, to the point where I actively sought out doing them whenever possible and kept putting off the main story. I didn't end up doing all of them unfortunately, I only have so much time in the world, but I am definitely going to go back to the game in a week or so and absolutely go to town on the side quests I DO have left (and I heard there was also some postgame content which is also amazing?!).

The side quests can all be boiled down to "go to place or person and interact with them" or "collect [x] amount of things" or a combo of the two, but hey, when you have a lot of writing you can basically do whatever you want with either of these formulas and have a great ol' time with 'em. 

Hero quests and ascension quests were also extremely fun, and I need to make sure I do everyone's ascension quests whenever I go back to the game. I did about half of them and was very enthralled by how they turned out, with some even having character interactions I didn't expect to see— it made the world feel more lived in.

I Liked The Story!

XBC1's story is crazy yet still simple and sweet. XBC2 is XBC2 whatever idc anyways XBC3 THOUGH. I thought it was good! I won't delve into spoilers but I thought it was fun and I enjoyed that this game wasn't a complete cross between XBC1/XBC2, rather instead its own thing that has elements from both games.

I have said this many times in past tweets and posts, but it is very easy to get me to cry. If you make me cry during your game, you have done a good job. If you try to make me cry and you do not, you have a problem on your hands. Of course, just throwing out sad things isn't going to make me cry, you have to make me emotionally invested in your characters and your story for me to feel the urge to start bawling at a plotpoint, whether it be happy or sad. XBC3 made me cry multiple times and even left me sobbing and shaking and kinda gasping for air at one point, so I think it passes the "Lone Cry Test" with full marks.

There are some details I'm a little confused on, and this is mainly due to some vague writing that others have also criticized. Overall, though, I really enjoyed the main plot and the themes of the story and could still follow along regardless of some of these aforementioned details. I could easily see myself replaying this in a year or two, which is an very bold thing to say because I do NOT replay long games like this often.

The Game Was Not Wildly Heterosexual!

This is gonna be a weird point to make but I must make it. I mentioned before how I disliked how some of XBC1's (and some of XBC2's) women are very tied to men and often revolve around them, usually in a romantic sense. Now, I am a sucker for a good romance. Emphasis on good, though. 

Let's look at Fiora for example. The game wants you to ship her and Shulk, and they want to hammer this into your head any way possible. I think all of Fiora's heart-to-hearts mention Shulk in some way, they kiss at the midgame, she ends up with him at the end, Dunban takes the time to go "Shulk you can date my sister" after they run into her at Prison Island for the worst tonal shift of all time, etc etc whatever. But Fiora has little substance outside of Shulk. Sure, she's got all of her Android GF issues going on, but the game rarely taps into these issues to explore her character indepth at all, her suffering about what she's become, how she feels about her death and sacrifice being taken from her, her feelings about her brother coming along on this quest, wondering if she's worth it, so on. It's a lot of missed potential. As a result, she feels like she's mainly there to be the Inciting Incident and Love Interest but not her own person. How can I enjoy a romance between Shulk, a generally fleshed out character, and Fiora, who's an idea of a character?

Okay, what does this have to do with my point? Basically, I don't like when women revolve around men for the sake of a ship in a game and don't really go any deeper than that, that they aren't their own person. I can't get into it when the romance is there solely because she's the girl character and he's the guy character so they have to be together.

This is not at all a problem with XBC3! It does not force unnecessary romances or have a woman in the main cast revolve entirely around a man with no other character beside that. The women in the game have their own motives, desires, personal moments, so on and so forth, all of which are outside of romantic feelings for a man and it is very very refreshing and genuinely surprising to see! When there is a ship between two people, it feels genuinely earned because it's slowly built up and the characters have depth outside of the ship. Real characters and real romance. I cannot possibly resist shipping something like that.

Again this was extremely surprising. I was really happy about this.

Onto The Meh Stuff Now.

There were only a few things I think really needed some work. This is where I will get into spoilers! Just scroll all the way down to skip these.

Again, Some Writing Being Vague

This game had a kind of odd quirk about the writing where they would give you information in a way where you understood the beginning and the end of a plot element, but they're unclear about the the exactly-how-things-got-there part.

I'll take the arc part of the main plot for example. I get the beginning, which is the worlds are going to collide and so they create The Arc to preserve the data of the worlds/kickstart everything into being back to normal when they do collide. I get the end, which is that that didn't happen, Moebius came to be, and thus we are in the endless now. What I don't get is the middle, which is specifically how they got to that end of being in the endless now. I interpreted the entire game as being inside The Arc, with Origin being a manifestation of the "core" of The Arc, it would at least explain how Z/Moebius are able to manifest despite being just thoughts and feelings and how the war could go on this long despite the worlds being on top of each other (time is distorted/not proportional to the real world inside this computer).

There were a few other scenes like this, not too many but definitely a few.

Death Kinda Sorta Means Nothing

I already talked about this at length before, but I'm really not a fan of Cammuravi's and Miyabi's returns. However, I do think they can be good if the writing was tweaked. 

The motes of life have a lot of ambiguity and I think the concept of Consul Y bringing them back to life was totally fine. But they don't touch on the graveness this scenario brings enough for my tastes. They really could have tapped into this playing with lives Colony Omega element by highlighting the fact these characters died in a scenario they wanted to die in. Fiora in XBC1 for example, they don't really touch on it very much but something so stinging about her coming back aside from the fact she's an enemy is that even the death she wanted to have, the sacrifice she made to save her friends, she was robbed of by the Mechon.

You could really go at that narrative with Cammuravi and Miyabi, like how they were both so satisfied with their ending only to have them brought back and used by someone else, how it lessens their deaths and sacrifices by stripping away their autonomy. But they really don't go very hard on this aspect and it's disappointing. It lessens the impact of their deaths so much when they don't really even highlight this and the characters just get to be normal people walkin' around the City after.

The situation reminds me a lot of FE:A where you could marry Emmeryn/all the villains who died during the story for the sake of fanservice. The villains I don't really care about, but Emmeryn's death was just so important plot wise and emotion wise and now you just bring her back? Why should I be invested in anything if you're just gonna subvert the emotional story beats from prior in the game? When I replay XBC3, should I even care about Cammuravi's death the first time it happens when I already know it's going to be taken back?

I also think it would have been better for Miyabi to remain a character you only see in flashbacks... I don't wanna get into this though lol. I just think it lessens her sacrifice a lot that she's back with her memories intact.

Moving on, Crys is the above problem but at a more critically awful scale because they shove him in at the very last second and manufacture drama for Noah to have. Guys it's the end of the game already he's got enough drama you don't have to make up more. They did what they did with Joran but without any of the emotional build up or even the proper justification for a return. God what a hot mess that was, I really wish Side Story Noah and Side Story Mio were optional because if I could avoid doing them I wouldn't even have to make this point.

To an extent, I'm less critical of Ethel coming back because it serves for a good plot reveal in Chapter 4 when it happens, and I only dislike it when Cammuravi comes back and she gets tied into him once again. I dunno. I'm just not a fan.

Mwamba coming back was VERRRRY funny though so he can stay.

The Fucking Picture At The End

XBC3 leaks started happening around a sweet spot in time where I wasn't checking the TL often, so I DID hear about "some image" from the very end getting passed around, but I never saw it myself and didn't look it up myself either, because I didn't want to get spoiled on a game I would eventually buy. And wow I am really glad I did NOT see it because I think I would have put off buying XBC3 for another like, 5 months.

Why does this picture suck ass? I would like to break it down into three points.

1) The ending of XBC3 is really emotional and impactful. At least, this is what I gather from sort of paying attention to the cutscene. You see, following The Fucking Picture being flashed into my eyeballs I was unable to keep my focus on the rest of the game because I could only think "Why would they show me that??". The whiplash it generates is so strong and genuinely distracting from the rest of the game, even if I was a fan of any ship in The Fucking Picture. Of course, I'm not, and I did not enjoy seeing it. Onto my next point.

2) Who is this image for? This image of this hentai-ass basic-ass protagonist grinning smugly over these women. It can't be for the Rex/Pymythra fans because Nia is there. It can't be for the Rex/Nia fans because Pymythra are there. It can't be for ME because I hate XBC2 and I still don't understand how anyone is cool with these two grownass adult-coded Blades being romantically involved with a literal 15 year old who is ultra underwritten and also has a lot going on for a 15 year old. This image is for the people who have like 5 TB of XBC2 hentai in their harddrive where when Rex happens to be in it you can barely see his face because the viewer is supposed to be projecting onto him.

Okay that sentence might be too harsh and maybe I'll backpedal on it after posting but anyways I don't understand who wanted to see this image. I don't get it. Why do I need to see Rex's groomer gfs* and the best character of XBC2 be Rex's babymakers why do they do this I would be fine with a group photo of them all being friends!!!

*AUTHOR'S NOTE: I THINK PYMYTHRA CAN BE COOL CHARACTERS IF THEY TRIED (IN TORNA MYTHRA IS REALLY FUN) I JUST THINK IT'S WEIRD THAT THEY'RE DATING A 15 YEAR OLD. WHY ARE PEOPLE COOL WITH THIS

3) Why does Melia not get anything in comparison to this? Like what's up with that. You can't even include a picture of Shulk somewhere? You gotta show a busted up ugly Monado? Alright.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce I am docking points from XBC3 solely because of The Fucking Picture, a lot because it just genuinely distracted me from the ending and a little because I'm a XBC2 hater.

The only silver lining to all of this is that one of my worries with XBC3 was that it was going to end in a heterosexual JRPG way where all the girls of the cast are babymakers for the guys at the end and the guys still get to go on cool adventures. They localized all of that into The Fucking Picture and I couldn't be more thankful. Leave it to XBC2 to be the worst part about XBC3.

Overall Thoughts

XBC3 was a fantastic game and easily my favorite of the main Xenoblade trilogy, it blew both games right out of the water in nearly every way. I laughed. I cried. I fell asleep while playing into the late hours of the night and dropped my Switch on my face at least twice. 

If you didn't play XBC1 or XBC2, I will still recommend this game to you because by golly it's good and you can 100% get by without having played either. If you DID play both games and still haven't tried this what are you doing!!!!! Go!!!!

I am very curious to see what the final DLC story update will be and I'll most likely buy it because I love the characters and story and game so much. Maybe I'll update this post when I get around to playing it or make a new post entirely, this one's long as hell.

Final Score:

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: 4.5/5. Goodass game.