Xenoblade Chronicles 3

[MikeBeaver]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

50 hours in now and the game just keeps getting stronger. I’m doing a fair bit of side quests whilst trying to keep the main story going as well because it’s really gripping and I just love how it’s presented. 
 

The locations continue to impress, the part just before entering Swordmarch is beautiful. 
 

But the thing with this game that sets it above the completion, imo, is the battle system. It just never gets boring mixing up classes and setting up combos etc. there’s so much depth to it yet it’s really easy to understand and use. 

I've gone the oposite way tbf, I'm in the last throes of the final area ( I think ) lvl 70+, 67 hours in, and I'm just sticking battles to auto when I can, I just want to reach the end now.

 

Overall it's been a bit dissapointing at how run of the mill the story is, XC2 and Torna have better story lines & characters, no doubt 3 has the better battles though.

[Strafe]

I’m still loving this but have found myself over levelled to the point that getting CP for opening up classes for others is not really happening.

 

My understanding is that you only get CP if you’re fighting something no less than 5 levels beneath you but having done a bunch of assorred side quests (all heroes unlocked, a few colony side quests, activated 3 Feronis Hulks) and following the main story (Chapter 6), this doesn’t happen much. I’ve done next to no grinding really.

 

Any solutions? I need more support options. Does the hero selected give CP for their class or does it have to be one of the main dudes?

[Kevvy Metal]

I’m 10 hours in, Chapter 2 and it’s great fun! 
mom currently mashing every animal I encounter on the way to my objective, is this going to over-level me? 

[Strafe]

1 hour ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I’m 10 hours in, Chapter 2 and it’s great fun! 
mom currently mashing every animal I encounter on the way to my objective, is this going to over-level me? 

Maybe. In retrospect I would have avoided using bonus XP, which throws levels at you.

[MidWalian]

1 hour ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I’m 10 hours in, Chapter 2 and it’s great fun! 
mom currently mashing every animal I encounter on the way to my objective, is this going to over-level me? 

 

It's quite easy to over-level. I've been over-levelled much of the game. You can try avoiding using the bonus xp at rest spots and ignore eating meals perhaps? Towards the end of the game they even have a meal which boosts XP by 40%.

 

I'm level 80 and, yeah, I may as well be a wood chipper.

[Stanley]

I’m a whore for over-levelling, I love laying waste to everything, yet still like to try my hand at higher level enemies to test my load out. 

[BitterToad]

On 15/08/2022 at 16:35, BitterToad said:

I was umming and aahing over whether I was enjoying this yesterday so upped it to hard. It made the fights against mobs a lot longer which meant I had to actually think tactically about some of them so did make it feel a fair bit more enjoyable combat wise. But then I got to a boss and just got absolutely wrecked. I spent a while in the menus, changed my setups, thought about what would work and what wouldn't, gemstones, accessories, the lot! And you guessed it!

 

Died even quicker. Is it a case of levelling up a load? The boss is Level 22 with the old flaming wings and I'm about 22 I think. Should I be much much higher or is it just a case of taking things down to normal again? I'm about 11 or 12 hours in and it's my first Xenoblade game. 

DID THE GIT! Used my bonus xp to up myself to level 25 and spent the whole thing as a healer ducking around supporting my friends. It was absolutely ace and felt really tactical. Will probably stick out hard for a bit longer. 
 

I’m the girl with the gall! 

[MikeBeaver]

Annnnndddd done....70 hrs 44 mins.

[MikeBeaver]

OK, let's have some thoughts on this now I've finished it.... not sure if anything needs spoilering, but I'm spoilering it as I've finished and CBA to censor things, so don't read ahead till you're done with the main game.

Also, it's not a happy set of points, so maybe don't read it if you're loving this, I'm perhaps being a bit grumpy about it.

 

Spoiler

OK, so I really, REALLY liked XC2, and Torna, thought the first one was OK, story was good but the battle system was a bit papp after coming to the series properly from 2 onwards.

The battle setup in this is really good, well crafted and there are a LOT of systems, but you don't NEED to learn any of them to finish the game. The last boss is Lvl 75 and has the Orange flames around him, I got there at lvl 74, I expected to take a kicking, what I instead found was a fucking 1.5 hour SLOG to get the job done, the ending length really did take the piss I thought and the pay off? fuck off mate, it was good, but it didn't do it for me tbh.

The main story was pretty straight forward, you start off fighting the Agnust troops, then discover Mobious and from that point on, it's ALWAYS Z that you know you're going to have to fight at the end, there is no massive twist, no winding, weaving storyline, OK, that's a bit mean, there is, but it's not very winding, it's just a straight forward path, in XC2, there were proper mad twists, you knew Malos was going to be the big bad, but there was, to my mind anyway, no indication of what was to come just before the final fight and seeing the creator etc, the dissapointment of seeing Elysium as a barren wasteland of it's former glory and not what they were expecting.

The charaters in this are pretty meh in comparison, yes I know people didn't like the Gatch mechanics for the blades, but the blades themselves were pretty distinct, even if some were stupidly top heavy and VERY underdressed, in 3, they seem to have scaled this back way too far, not the lewd / anime stylings per se, but the actual designs of the chracters, they are all just bland, even the Hero characters have very little pressence about them.

The world, for all that it looks better than 1, 2, Torna, is a bit boring, maybe it's due to playing almost eclusively in handheld mode, or not fully exploring the world ( yet, I am going to go back, I want to do some side quests or start NG+ perhaps? I didn't say I hated it ok 😛 it's just NOT as good as 2 ).

Maybe the expansions and DLC will round out the story nicely, but currently, I feel like there is so much more to this game that is missing, I don't feel like I've finished it, if that makes sense, more I've finished the prologue, at the 70 hr mark in XC2, things were getting juicy and there was plenty more to come, with this I'm done and there is only side content ( even if it is good side content, it's still side content ) to go back for.

This kind of reminds me of when I watched Death Note years ago, after months of catching it every single week, the ending pay off spoiled the whole ting for me and left a sour taste, this just feels unfinished I think..

 

 

Anyway, those are some thoughts after playing this at every possible free moment I could since it came out, so I obviously don't hate it, or even really dislike it, but I do think I had to kind of force myself to get it over with.

 

Thoughts from those who've finished it? Am I missing something / Missing a point? I "should" be gushing about this really, but for some reason " shrug "

[Stanley]

Question regarding hero quests and classes , I’ll spoiler it just in case as it’s fairly far in that I’ve discovered this. 
 

Spoiler

I’ve just completed a hero quest for Eunie and by completing it I can now level up the Medic Gunner class from 10-20, do all the main characters have these quests? 

 

[MikeBeaver]

4 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Question regarding hero quests and classes , I’ll spoiler it just in case as it’s fairly far in that I’ve discovered this. 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

I’ve just completed a hero quest for Eunie and by completing it I can now level up the Medic Gunner class from 10-20, do all the main characters have these quests? 

 

Pretty sure that's a yes, I've not encountered that one, but have done for several others.

[Stanley]

Just now, MikeBeaver said:

Pretty sure that's a yes, I've not encountered that one, but have done for several others.

Ooh, I might have missed some then - this one was really good, properly fleshed out and voice acted etc. 

[MidWalian]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

Question regarding hero quests and classes , I’ll spoiler it just in case as it’s fairly far in that I’ve discovered this. 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

I’ve just completed a hero quest for Eunie and by completing it I can now level up the Medic Gunner class from 10-20, do all the main characters have these quests? 

 

 

They all do. Some of them have my favourite moments in the game. That's a lot of content.

 

I'm close to the end now. Could have finished it dozens of hours ago but wanted to do the ascension and most of the side quests.

[MidWalian]

For one class I think I had to help the colony by dishing out 500k in gold. Just a heads up. By then you should have loads of it as the economy is a bit broken. I still had well over a million left.

[MikeBeaver]

2 hours ago, MidWalian said:

For one class I think I had to help the colony by dishing out 500k in gold. Just a heads up. By then you should have loads of it as the economy is a bit broken. I still had well over a million left.

Didn't spend ANY gold in my entire play through!!

[MidWalian]

48 minutes ago, MikeBeaver said:

Didn't spend ANY gold in my entire play through!!

 

I think there are 2 colonies who need that heavy gold to complete ascension quests. Another one has a sidequest for it. Other than money is useless.

 

Nearly completed the game now, will share my final thoughts then. I still think Noah says "You're a light saber".

[Strafe]

I’ve managed to keep my gold reserves at modest levels due to buying one of anything I don’t have from any store I find. Then I assign  gear with the auto function.

 

Strictly speaking I’m carrying around 20 metric tonnes worth of bangles by this point.

[Nosejam]

I’ve put nearly 8 hours into this so far but it’s not grabbing me yet. I adored 1 and 2 and fully expect at some time I will get addicted to 3. There’s nothing I dislike at all but I’m not getting the sense of awe and wonder, leading to marathon gaming sessions that I got with the previous. 

[MidWalian]

Completed this last night. All ascension quests done, level 86. Only took me just over 120 hours. 

 

 

[Stanley]

30 minutes ago, MidWalian said:

Completed this last night. All ascension quests done, level 86. Only took me just over 120 hours. 

 

 

Thoughts overall? 

[Retroguy]

One thing I have noticed in this, which I didn’t notice in XC1 or 2, is random monsters stuck walking in place trying to get past scenery. Seen it with party members when I’m not controlling them sometimes too. Bit of a shame as it just makes the game seem a bit more shonky than the others, and breaks the immersion in the lovely environments.

[BitterToad]

It’s really annoying in this that only healers can help up. It just means that if the wrong two party member get caught in the crossfire you’re essentially boned. So you just have to sit and wait while the baddie rocks through your party. 
 

That aside the game’s properly clicked over the weekend. It’s very, very, very moreish once it all opens up. 

[MikeBeaver]

8 minutes ago, BitterToad said:

It’s really annoying in this that only healers can help up. It just means that if the wrong two party member get caught in the crossfire you’re essentially boned. So you just have to sit and wait while the baddie rocks through your party. 
 

That aside the game’s properly clicked over the weekend. It’s very, very, very moreish once it all opens up. 

You can hold the "-" button to bring up a menu that allows you to default lose the battle.

 

As it was, I ended up playing with 4 healers most of the time, just so this shit didn't happen!

[MidWalian]

On 20/08/2022 at 14:13, Stanley said:

Thoughts overall? 

 

For the most part I've really enjoyed it. I'm still playing it as there are some new things post-game and I just like exploring and finding secret locations and unique monsters and there may be some other interesting doo-dahs . Story fizzled a bit towards the end but still has plenty of good moments. One of the issues the game has for me is that Xenoblade 1 and 2 exist! If this is your first you may enjoy the locations more and whilst still good to me they don't beat some of the areas in Xenoblade 2 for example, many of which were quite dense and seem more lived in. You can sort of argue the premise has made some of the areas more mundane. The game does look sharper and runs better but I guess this is because along some new techniques some areas seem a bit more sparse - amazing draw distances though. I did enjoy many of the heroes, to the point where I wish there were more side stories with them and maybe they should have been incorporated more into the main story. Music is great (apart from 1 track), just not as good as some we have had in previous titles. I will probably end up getting the DLC sometime in the future, you could do some good things there. I do like the characters but sometimes the voice direction seems a bit off, I would have liked to see some more lighter moments with them. The design of some of the consuls are shit though.

 

The above may sound a bit too negative at times but its just little criticisms thrown in. I was hooked, the world is so huge it comes across as even more content could be added. Gameplay wise it is has less frustrating moments than earlier games (2 had those annoying ways to unlock bloody field skills, crap tutorials etc), and easier to get through than 1 (which had difficulty spikes for me). It doesn't have as many moments which excited me as the first 2, I haven't bother going to the event theatre this time.

 

Hopefully Nintendo will allow MonoliftSoft to keep on making these huge sprawling RPGs,I would love to see what they could do on updated hardware.

 

Rating: Buy and play it/10.

[Stanley]

I love how there’s stuff just dotted about to find, some really good side quests, hero quests etc. 

[spanx]

Having binned off Mario 3D World as my holiday game I’m quite interested in this to keep me amused. Never played a Xeno game before though, this a good place to start?

[Strafe]

11 minutes ago, spanx said:

Having binned off Mario 3D World as my holiday game I’m quite interested in this to keep me amused. Never played a Xeno game before though, this a good place to start?

Yeah, I haven’t played the first one but I found this a big step up from 2. The story is self contained too. Apparently there are some themes and references shared across the games but I haven’t spotted them.

[Stanley]

7 hours ago, spanx said:

Having binned off Mario 3D World as my holiday game I’m quite interested in this to keep me amused. Never played a Xeno game before though, this a good place to start?

It’s as good a place as any and I would say it’s a hit more friendly to get into than 2 with its tutorials and what have you. 
 

I just hope you have a long holiday if you plan on finishing it 

[scottcr]

I haven't quite figured out how to get the best out of a chain attack - sometimes someone will smack and take the thing to 80%, sometimes it's only 20 or so... 

[Stanley]

Talking of which

what’s everyone’s highest score? I’m level 63 and did this one earlier, and I believe you can get pretty massive percentage multipliers by using the soul hacker class, which although I’ve just acquired I haven’t tried yet.