Jump to content
NEurope
Julius

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (29th July 2022)

Recommended Posts

@darksnowman have you checked out Base? I picked up a copy earlier this year from them for ~£50 when I noticed physical stock of XC2 was getting harder to find, would definitely vouch for them as I've used them a few times now. They're also one of the few retailers left with any semblance of a remaining physical 3DS stock, which is nice too :peace:

Not sure if you'd also want Torna physically (if you haven't got it already?), but it might be worth hunting down a copy sooner rather than later if you do. I picked up a copy a few months ago at a similar price for what I got XC2, and while it's still available new at a similar price now in some places on eBay and Amazon, given how much it's fluctuated over the last 12 months or so, I imagine that's going to continue skyrocket every time stock gets a little scarce :smile:

Edited by Julius
  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, martinist said:

Where did I get Xenoblade 2? I had it on pre-order from ShopTo before it came out. Got deleivered a day early. If you're looking for a physical copy I'd check GAME or CEX and maybe eBay if you're getting desperate. The eBay prices might have went up now thaat X3 has been released though.

Ah, right. You were there day -1. I got XC:DE after XC3 was announced and I've been keeping an eye out for 2 in the meantime. The eShop card is all I ever see so I was wondering if you'd bought it recently. :( 

8 hours ago, Julius said:

@darksnowman have you checked out Base?

This one is news to me. Just checked it and it's a bit of a treasure trove for games I've been unable to get off Amazon or Game. :o Thought the ship had sailed on these. Thanks very much for bringing it to my attention!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I finally fired this up yesterday evening but before doing that I decided to watch a video put out by Nintendo World Report that done a recap on the story leading up to XC3. I've never really delved into the lore of the games and just took each of them as their own thing. Yeah, the story in these games is just bonkers, at least when you dig a little deeper. I love the Kingdom Hearts series, I've never really had a issue with the overall narrative of those games and was able to keep up with what was going on. These games though? Various gods, parallel universes, links to the Xenosaga games....yeah. I think I'm better off with just enjoying that as a single story rather than trying to piece things together. It's worked for me so far.

I've only put in a couple of hours but I really like what I'm seeing with the narrative and the characters. Eunie is hilarious. I love how brash she is and she reminds me very much of Syrenne from The Last Story. There have been a couple of times where her lines have cracked me up. The following really got a good laugh out of me.

FZLq7T8VUAEXC_W?format=jpg&name=small

Gameplay wise, so far it's the same old Xenoblade. I spent a fair bit of time grinding exp and picking up lots of the collectables that were scattered about the place. I then went to the first town/colony and watched a few more cutscenes.

Spoiler

I loved the bath house scene. These are usually in JRPGs and are often done in a way that has each of the sexes separated and then trying to grab a sneak peek at each other. Here it was done very well. With them all growing up together and fighting together, they've clearly bathed with each other for years and everyone was very comfortable with each other, with Lanz quite happy to stand up with nothing on right in front of Eunie. I just found the scene very refreshing to what at this point has become a trope in JPRGs.

I'm going to assume that the gang decide to break away from the army they are in and I'm intrigued to see how that happens given that they all seem quite happy where they are at.

I will say that the game does look better than the first two games. I would still prefer Nintendo to get their fingers out and give us a more powerful device so that titles like the Xenoblade games will no longer suffer from jaggies, but at least this one does look smoother compared to the previous games. 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, that cutscene was very refreshing. 

Spoiler

I thought of them as being asexual. The way they are created, the way their only focus in life is fighting and such leaves no room for sexual relationships and thus, being naked means nothing to them.

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Eunie is such an unexpected and hilarious juxtaposition to the impression that Xenoblade 1 gave of the High Entia, that she's quickly become my favourite party member! She calls someone a "right muppet" and I was in stitches.

Speaking of juxtapositions, Riku cracks me up too. Hearing that deep voice talk with Nopon mannerisms is just perfect for deadpan comedy.

Edited by Glen-i

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, Riku's voice also pleasantly surprised me. I was once again expecting a squeaky, annoying voice but that's certainly not we got here.

That's an interesting point, @MindFreak. I never thought of it like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
19 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Ah, right. You were there day -1. I got XC:DE after XC3 was announced and I've been keeping an eye out for 2 in the meantime. The eShop card is all I ever see so I was wondering if you'd bought it recently. :(

Funny enough, I have phisical copies of 2 and 3 but I only have a digital copy of Xenoblade DE So I'm kind of in the same boat as you right now, having all three on the shelf lined up would look nice. I just noticed that the titan on the covers of 2 and 3 look the same, then again I haven't really been keeping up with the whole Xenoblade lore. Still slogging it through Xenoblade DE at the moment, just finished with Erith Sea.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, martinist said:

Funny enough, I have phisical copies of 2 and 3 but I only have a digital copy of Xenoblade DE So I'm kind of in the same boat as you right now, having all three on the shelf lined up would look nice. I just noticed that the titan on the covers of 2 and 3 look the same, then again I haven't really been keeping up with the whole Xenoblade lore. Still slogging it through Xenoblade DE at the moment, just finished with Erith Sea.

Did you play the original on Wii?
There's plenty more to slog through yet.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've just met some other main characters and the cutscenes that followed were absolutely fantastic.  

Spoiler

The battle between the two teams was tremendous. I loved it when Noah figured out Mio's battle style and was counting her steps in order to counterattack. You then get what I assume is going to be a returning antagonist show up, before the Interlink mechanic is revealed and the epic battle music plays. Amazing stuff. 

Eunie seemed to have some kind of flashback when the big bad showed up and I'm curious to see how this plays out.

It was hilarious seeing the teams react to an old person/human. Not seeing one before or knowing what old even was...great reaction.

The game's cutscenes certainly feels more like the second game (very anime) than the first, which is exactly what I wanted. 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The best thing about that certain character is that out of all the things he could've said as a first line, they go with "OI, OI!"

NoA not wanting to localise the first game is the best thing that happened to this series!

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
14 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Do you need to have played the first 2 games to get into 3?

Think it's newcomer friendly--like you'll miss/not appreciate whatever finer aspects connect it to the first 2, but you'll not be lost with 3 as a standalone game. That's my understanding anyway, even if I would like to have 2 under my belt first.

One thing you will need to do is tear yourself away from the Steam Deck though. ;) 

  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
16 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Do you need to have played the first 2 games to get into 3?

If it's anything like the second game, not really. Sure, there may be references and callbacks but as I mentioned earlier, I treat these as seperate games and its been fine experience for me. Besides, if you really wanted to dig into things and be upto date you'd probably have to play the Xenosaga games on PS2.

  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
19 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Did you play the original on Wii?
There's plenty more to slog through yet.

I played the Wii version up to a point then I got distracted by other games. I bought the New 3DS version also but I dropped that too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just chiming in to say I don't like Taion. The guy seems to be a massive prick. He puts a downer on an otherwise pretty cool JRPG party. :mad:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Just chiming in to say I don't like Taion. The guy seems to be a massive prick. He puts a downer on an otherwise pretty cool JRPG party. :mad:

I agree, but I think it works in the game's favour. Adds a bit of conflict flavour to proceedings, and it's not like I don't understand where he's coming from, seeing as he basically got roped into this because he just happened to be assigned with Mio and Sena at the wrong time.

Crazy bad luck.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Just chiming in to say I don't like Taion. The guy seems to be a massive prick. He puts a downer on an otherwise pretty cool JRPG party. :mad:

All I can say on this is every time Taion speaks I'm disappointed he isn't voiced by Richard Ayoade!

 

giphy.gif

Edited by Ealdst
  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 03/08/2022 at 8:32 AM, MindFreak said:

Yeah, that cutscene was very refreshing. 

  Scene (Reveal hidden contents)

I thought of them as being asexual. The way they are created, the way their only focus in life is fighting and such leaves no room for sexual relationships and thus, being naked means nothing to them.

 

Regarding this...

Spoiler

I'm guess this isn't the case. I had a cutscene last night where the guys didn't want to get changed in front of the women. I assume they weren't comfortable getting undressed in front of the opposite sex who they weren't familiar with.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Regarding this...

  Spoiler (Reveal hidden contents)

I'm guess this isn't the case. I had a cutscene last night where the guys didn't want to get changed in front of the women. I assume they weren't comfortable getting undressed in front of the opposite sex who they weren't familiar with.

 

I got that as well the other day but couldn't tell you. Also the way Eunie reacted when another one called her Eunie-love made me consider otherwise. 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Ealdst said:

All I can say on this is every time Taion speaks I'm disappointed he isn't voiced by Richard Ayoade!

 

giphy.gif

Oh wow, he does look a little like Richard, doesn't he?

And now I'll be disappointed too!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
All I can say on this is every time Taion speaks I'm disappointed he isn't voiced by Richard Ayoade!
 
giphy.gif
Joins in 2012; last posted in 2014; comes back 8 years later like they were never away. I need to know more!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
46 minutes ago, bob said:
7 hours ago, Ealdst said:
All I can say on this is every time Taion speaks I'm disappointed he isn't voiced by Richard Ayoade!
 
giphy.gif

Joins in 2012; last posted in 2014; comes back 8 years later like they were never away. I need to know more!

I've posted a few times since 2014, but not much (last post was July 14th of this year, so I guess that's where that comes from!) But not much to know, I check this place most days but I've just never been so good at actually contributing!

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Playing through this game at the moment, currently on Chapter 3, its pretty great so far. I was worried that having 6 party members would make things overkill but removing the ability for anyone other than healers to revive party members fixes an issue where the class was just not outright useful enough in previous games. If you still don't like them, you can just not run with it.

 

I got another class for Noah from one of the Heroes and I immediately switched to it as it was my favourite class from the original game, nice to be able to play that here.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

On Chapter 3 and been on chapter 3 for what seems like probably 70% of my total play time so far haha.

Pretty sure if I move to the next main quest marker I'll move to Chapter 4...but I keep finding side quests and new places to explore and am loving it...also spotted some ? on map that when got too realised I am way under leveled for also.

Getting more used to the class system, trying to switch whenever a character maxes one but also trying keep team balanced.

Characters at level 33...hope not gonna be too over powered by time I move forward.

Have 5 Heroes unlocked which and how they work with the class system wasn't expecting.

Love the combat and love the way artes recharge differently depending on if the character/class is based on first of second game races.

Of the side quests I've done so far I found ot interesting some of them involved stuff that I would have expected would be part of the main story quests.

 

Edit: So after a lot of searching the map trying to get to new places finally went to next main quest marker....it did not bring me to Chapter 4, still on 3 haha

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

×