Christi Junior on Nostr: 2/7 The immediate aftermath of all this utter insanity we’ve just been through has ...
2/7
The immediate aftermath of all this utter insanity we’ve just been through has got to be one of the happiest, most uplifting segments in all of Xenoblade history – everything feels right with the world, our precious catgirl survived and has a new, immortal body (AND long hair!), and we just scored a giant victory over Moebius. We get a lot of sweet and even funny character moments, as the happier and more hopeful New Normal begins to sink in. However, this is where I have to be the bearer of bad news.
The end of Chapter 5 and the beginning of Chapter 6 is where Xenoblade 3 peaked. No moment from here on will be able to match the power and emotion of the preceding scenes – and at the same time, the story will become more and more erratic, in terms of plot, pacing, tone and even world building. In many ways it feels like we’ve already won and are just doing victory laps, as at least until the final boss, no Moebius will do more than slightly slow us down. This is a problem, since there are almost 2 full chapters left, in a 7-chapter game. There’s a reason why Shulk’s darkest hour came at a significantly later point in Xenoblade 1, while Rex was subjected to some of his harshest trials in the very final chapter of Xenoblade 2.
An illustration of this new, easier road our heroes are now on comes after they set out on their new mission, to find and awaken the real Queen Nia. Soon enough on this journey they face Consul Y, who like X is an especially high-ranking Moebius, and a Fauci-esque cruel and immoral scientist. Y has a nasty surprise in story for our heroes: he brought back a number of our party’s fallen friends, as they were the day they died, only now brainwashed and under Y’s control. And one of these revived friends is someone particularly close to Mio. It’s a dirty trick, though our party had for a good while been aware that they could one day face a situation like this, given what the Moebius are capable of.
And yet, this potentially nightmarish, gut-wrenching scenario of having to fight and probably kill long-lost friends is wrapped up quite quickly, and in the neatest, most convenient way possible for our heroes, as the power of Friendship and Flutes frees Y’s puppets from his control, ensuring that the game has just brought a bunch of characters Back From The Dead, with no real negative repercussions. Hell, one character even still has all her old memories intact! Sure, on its own the scene is sweet and emotional, but for a game like Xenoblade 3, which has been unsparingly bleak for so long, this kind of plot development feels almost like a form of wish-fulfillment, like all sorts of sad events from earlier in the story being partially or completely undone. Not only isn’t this all that compelling as drama by itself, it arguably undermines and cheapens those earlier, tragic story moments.
The immediate aftermath of all this utter insanity we’ve just been through has got to be one of the happiest, most uplifting segments in all of Xenoblade history – everything feels right with the world, our precious catgirl survived and has a new, immortal body (AND long hair!), and we just scored a giant victory over Moebius. We get a lot of sweet and even funny character moments, as the happier and more hopeful New Normal begins to sink in. However, this is where I have to be the bearer of bad news.
The end of Chapter 5 and the beginning of Chapter 6 is where Xenoblade 3 peaked. No moment from here on will be able to match the power and emotion of the preceding scenes – and at the same time, the story will become more and more erratic, in terms of plot, pacing, tone and even world building. In many ways it feels like we’ve already won and are just doing victory laps, as at least until the final boss, no Moebius will do more than slightly slow us down. This is a problem, since there are almost 2 full chapters left, in a 7-chapter game. There’s a reason why Shulk’s darkest hour came at a significantly later point in Xenoblade 1, while Rex was subjected to some of his harshest trials in the very final chapter of Xenoblade 2.
An illustration of this new, easier road our heroes are now on comes after they set out on their new mission, to find and awaken the real Queen Nia. Soon enough on this journey they face Consul Y, who like X is an especially high-ranking Moebius, and a Fauci-esque cruel and immoral scientist. Y has a nasty surprise in story for our heroes: he brought back a number of our party’s fallen friends, as they were the day they died, only now brainwashed and under Y’s control. And one of these revived friends is someone particularly close to Mio. It’s a dirty trick, though our party had for a good while been aware that they could one day face a situation like this, given what the Moebius are capable of.
And yet, this potentially nightmarish, gut-wrenching scenario of having to fight and probably kill long-lost friends is wrapped up quite quickly, and in the neatest, most convenient way possible for our heroes, as the power of Friendship and Flutes frees Y’s puppets from his control, ensuring that the game has just brought a bunch of characters Back From The Dead, with no real negative repercussions. Hell, one character even still has all her old memories intact! Sure, on its own the scene is sweet and emotional, but for a game like Xenoblade 3, which has been unsparingly bleak for so long, this kind of plot development feels almost like a form of wish-fulfillment, like all sorts of sad events from earlier in the story being partially or completely undone. Not only isn’t this all that compelling as drama by itself, it arguably undermines and cheapens those earlier, tragic story moments.