Board 8 > Xenoblade 3 topic: Because Chapter 5 took me two months

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ok finished all the hero quests

is there anything more thats worth doing? Im kinda not in the mood to go for super bosses

I liked the super bosses but they're not really thrilling story content. If you've done all the hero/ascension quests you've done most of the best content.

Considering the teaser art is all 3 of the main blades together, I had always assumed it would be an epilogue with all of the protagonists.

yeah like I've said I'm not big on XB3 but that DLC preview is definitely looking dreamy

Grimlyn posted...

yeah like I've said I'm not big on XB3 but that DLC preview is definitely looking dreamy

That was all Rex.

Hes a heartless machine! No offense Poppi

DLC in a few hours.

DLC update is out. I'm downloading it now.

I did the beginner's challenge run. I can see how it has potential, and they really put in a lot of different emblems to potentially make each run different. It's also nice seeing a new purpose for all the heroes. Unfortunately I've just already moved on from the game, so I don't see myself putting much time or effort into it.

The cutscene names for the story DLC was datamined out of the recent patch. Not really anything too spoilery but maybe some hints of where the DLC is going.

Not going to post it here but be careful if you're trying to avoid spoilers.

Wave 4 has been datamined so tread carefully

Hopefully that implies it's basically done and will be a summer release. Like a June Direct shadowdrop.

I think it will have a bit more fanfare around its release. I figure it will be part of their business plan for the fall. Early summer will probably have more Shining Force for the GBA available now types of things imo

I think I finished Chapter 5 last night, or at least the whole Mio Homecoming and merging with M thing happened and this game is so neat. The world is so weird and I'm taking it seriously anyway.

But also, did Riku do eyebrows when N was like "how did you get that sword" or whatever? That was hilarious.

I beat 1, but I dropped 2 around where you get Zeke. I'm thinking maybe I should go back to 2 after I finish this... I'm curious if I'll feel that way when it's over, given the meme-level knowledge I have of the ending.

I also had thoughts about giving 2 another shot after this one

but then I remember that I also didn't like 2's battle system in addition to the story/visual design/gacha stuff and I think it's best if I just leave it alone

2 remains my favorite but 3 is damn close.

2s world is better. 3s cast is better.

mnk posted...

I did the beginner's challenge run. I can see how it has potential, and they really put in a lot of different emblems to potentially make each run different. It's also nice seeing a new purpose for all the heroes. Unfortunately I've just already moved on from the game, so I don't see myself putting much time or effort into it.

It's fun but it takes a long time to do a good run. Like I botched my run at stage 100 due to misplaying my chain attack and I'm not sure I want to spend 2 hours getting back there.

XBC2 is in a weird place

Its story is better than XBC3.
Its villains are the best in the series.
Its soundtrack probably the best too.

The combat takes like 50 or so hours to fully unlock - you need to have 3 Blades on each party member to really be into it. But at that point, you're probably fine.

But yeah, the presentation is difficult to get through at times.

XB2 combat is easily my favourite in the series tbh, I get but don't really share the feeling it takes a while to get there but in either case by the end I was loving cycling through different Driver & Blade arts as I stack on orbs to burst down through the chain attack. It was just so dynamic with many different targets throughout a fight and I absolutely had a blast going through the Challenge Battle Mode, definitely more than Definitive Edition's version (although I at least appreciated the need to strategise there), and while I haven't done the XB3 one yet I'm realllllly not excited to try because I was just snoozing through battles in that game, the massive party really makes you feel insignificant and swapping characters is so meaningless compared to swapping around your XB2 blades.

soundtrack is definitely the best, villains definitely the best, story I'm 1 > 2 > 3 but acknowledge 2 made 1's ending better (then 3 made both worse)

party characters I think are just incredibly varied on subjectivity although 2 probably loses out for most people

but of course the biggest problem with XB2 is its unique gatcha system, like yeah I admit to being personally being disappointed XB3 Heroes were not much more involved than Blades (early game showed a lot of promise that faltered), at least you never have to gatcha for them

worlds 1 > 2 > 3 although 2's incredible field music also realllly helps for the experience, I could see giving it #1, especially accounting for Torna which I fucking loved because of that final sightseeing moment.

also though special mention that I do love X's gameplay, although it actually took research for me to really understand how to get the most out of Overdrive but once you do oh god you're jamming

as nonsensical as it is, I think 3 is the best story overall due to the strength of the characters/chapters 4-6

1 is great but it takes a nosedive when you get the last party member and never recovers.

2? again, I'll never know because I hate the character designs so much

ESAMarathon doing a 7 hour speedrun of XB3 on Twitch if anyone wants to be in XB3 for the next 7 hours.

https://www.twitch.tv/esamarathon

I don't know where 3's story is going to end up, but I feel like I am gonna remember it way more than I will ever remember 1's story. I finished 1 and do not remember the ending or major plot points or themes or lessons to have learned.

Like this is what I remember: Dickson betrayed us! Fiora came back as a robot! The Mechonis was actually people too? (Is the one even right?) Zanza something something! The Monado! That doesn't feel like what they wanted me to remember?

the last couple chapters of xb3 help you remember it by giving you nothing more to learn in the first place

Grimlyn posted...

the last couple chapters of xb3 help you remember it by giving you nothing more to learn in the first place

oof you hate to see it

XBC3 has what could be a cool battle system, but it's easy as balls. Chain attacks are cool but so slow to pull off and so strong.

Story-wise, it suffers from having mostly faceless villains.

I also don't mind the gacha system for XBC2 so much, but then again, I knew what blades I was going to use once I bothered looking it up, and my endgame team had I think 2 gacha blades out of 9? And if you use Poppy, that limits you to like, 4 actual slots.

With the combat, I haven't seen anyone comment on how every single character is almost exactly the same due to the class system. It kills a really important avenue of characterization, and adds nothing to the combat since you have all 6 in your party all the time anyway.

That's absolutely true but I still think it's more interesting than XB 1's combat

I don't see how.

1's skills had such awesome synergies with the other characters, and it only got more interesting with more skills and characters. The core ability cooldown loop was addictive from the beginning, trying to choose skills (up to 7?) that all synced up with each other. Each character had 2-3 different styles of gameplay they could spec into depending on which skills you focused on, and respecing was really easy. So many viable and fun builds to explore. Healing was largely a crutch and discouraged for a well-performing team, which was such a mind blowing idea at the time.

3 messed up the cooldown loop, eliminated creativity in builds due to the 3 skill limit, and went back to the typical RPG focus on healing/defense to be able to survive the meat shield bosses. Fusion attacks and Ouroboros are not fun at all.

Also in 1 having to spend some chain meter to command your teammate always led to some awesome moment that felt like you creating your own story. Only downside is that several characters weren't great on AI, so your choice of lead was pretty limited. In 3 you just select them like a menu so it doesn't matter who's lead.

Just started Chapter 7 last night, "excited" for macguffin retrieval in areas I've already been to. I've got a TON of ascension quests to clean up / find in the first place, and it's feeling like now is the right time to do them, so that's something, I guess.

I tried switching the combat to Hard and Ouroboros control to fully manual to make the combat more fun. Having Ouroboros off is good, that was just messing me up. I'm not sure if Hard is adding anything to the experience? I've had Overkill off for a while, so I'm only like 4 levels over the story bosses, but they're not dangerous, they just have long HP bars, like boringly long. I fought a unique monster that was maybe ~3 levels over me at the end of Chapter 6, and it wasn't that tough either. Maybe if I was using an Attacker to Smash instead of a Defender, the pace would feel better and I could try fighting stuff that's more over-level?

Regardless, it's nice getting to a point where you're switching between levelling different classes but can consistently build a team that can regularly perform a Smash combo. I get the complaint about all the characters feeling the same because they can all do the same thing, but I still have like... 4-6 classes on each character that I haven't levelled, and other ones I haven't had to play them as because I used Nopon Coins. It feels like Sena's never been a Healer for a significant amount of time, but maybe that's not actually true.

As far as the plot goes: Alright, so they tried to merge the worlds before they all got screwed, and it didn't go how they planned. I guess that explains some stuff? I remember something about Alvis and actual Earth happening at the end of 1, and I know in what I did of 2 they were talking about the world dying, so maybe this is consistent with other things. I'm not sure what kind of explanation I was hoping for. Are all the party members (and the whole world) a simulation by Origin / Z? "How the world should be" is a big decision for a bunch of simulations to make. I assume I'm misunderstanding something (or am just not far enough to have it all revealed yet).