Christi Junior on Nostr: Xenoblade 3 Writeup Prologue: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjOZdaQg6QbRd1EXtg ...
Xenoblade 3 Writeup
Prologue: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjOZdaQg6QbRd1EXtg
Chapter 1: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjQTcjhzuEOUi2SwO8
Chapter 2: Finding Its Footing
1/5
The second chapter starts off by introducing us to a bunch of Moebius in their regular, human forms. Usually clad in red armor, their faces covered by helmets, these shadow rulers of Aionios are literal Alphabet People, only known by single letters. They formally hold the positions of Consuls, who outrank colony commanders, but serve under the Queens. Yes, *Queens*, because these niggers are playing both sides, secretly running both Keves AND Agnus to ensure that the war between the two countries never ends. Not all Consuls/Moebius are created equal though, and we already see that a man called Z seems to be in charge of them. Eventually, their little meeting ends with a decision to send Consul K to deal with our Ouroboros heroes – which he does by ordering Colony 4 commander Ethel, perhaps the single strongest Kevesi warrior (and someone who even saved the lives of Team Noah back when they were all still just kids), to wipe them out. This is the big conflict that Chapter 2 will be building up to, as Ethel and Consul K hunt down our main characters.
That said, most of this chapter is dedicated to developing our party characters as they set off on their journey to find the fabled City, introducing a bunch of mechanics that will define the rest of the gaming experience (including mid-battle character switching and the Class system), and generally get the game rolling so that the training wheels can finally come off. Combat, while still missing some key pieces, becomes a lot of fun by Chapter 2, and our main party is already complete – one of the benefits of JRPGs that provide you with a lot of different classes to mess around with is that they can afford to give you access to your entire party early, while still keeping things fresh throughout the adventure by gradually unlocking more and more unique Classes. I primarily associate this system with the Bravely series (especially Bravely Default 1), but those games only consist of 4-person parties compared to Xenoblade 3’s six, and those characters are also overall far weaker than the Xenoblade 3 main cast. In fact, let’s go over our Ouroboros gang right now!
Noah, the protagonist, wasn’t really someone I was all that excited for during the original Xenoblade 3 hype cycle, but the scene establishing him as the Lone Sane Man being horrified by the Homecoming ceremony when all other Kevesi soldiers were cheering instantly sold me on him. Living in Clown World, we so often find ourselves baffled by Normies uncritically lapping up and supporting all sorts of obviously evil and wrong things, and Noah’s status as a closeted dissident serves the character well and instantly makes him more interesting and relatable, as well as making it easy to understand how he’s able to so easily reject everything he has been previously taught when finally faced with the Truth.
A kind man possessing great empathy, Noah is a reluctant warrior, but also an exceptionally skilled one, not only being a formidable swordsman, but also possessing a brilliant mind – during his battle with Mio, Noah’s intelligence and insight enabled him to turn the tables on the catgirl after initially being overwhelmed by her blinding speed, and eventually read her attack pattern like a book. However, Noah takes no pleasure in killing, and as an off-seer he will seek to soothe the suffering of even slain enemies – near the end of Chapter 2, he sends off quite the nasty piece of work, despite Lanz’s loud objections. That said, even Noah’s forgiveness has its limits: a couple of chapters later, he openly admits to NOT having sent off a pair of monstrous Moebius the party just killed, showing that crucially, he’s not Kevesi Jesus or a Gary Stu, making all his earlier displays of empathy carry more weight. And of course, as a veteran soldier, Noah does recognize that certain people really do need killing (Shulk, take notes).
Whereas a big part of Shulk’s character was his role as the Engineer and Weapons’ Researcher, while Rex felt like a classic Working-Class Hero, Noah at his core has the heart of an Artist, specifically a musician. There’s this sensitivity and soulfulness to him that makes him surprisingly compelling, and yet for all his great qualities, throughout the course of the story we will see that Noah is not only not infallible, but that he can potentially fall further than anyone could have possibly imagined. That’s all I will say for now, just know that a certain Golden Consul will end up bringing out completely new sides of Noah, in more ways than one.
Lanz is in many ways the typical massive, physically imposing, book dumb Protector-type character, a good and loyal friend who obviously will make you recall Xenoblade 1’s Reyn – though there are actually some interesting contrasts between Lanz and Reyn that help the former stand out more. Notably, Reyn was quite the soft Teddy bear despite his size, who often got picked on for saying stupid things or being ignorant/book dumb – plenty of post-battle party quotes pretty much amount to Reyn being bullied!
Lanz meanwhile is clearly someone with sharper elbows, much more willing to stand up for himself, even to the point of being pretty aggressive (the guy can hardly be described as a “Gentle Giant”). Indeed, from at least one flashback we can gather that the guy used to have something of a thuggish, even bullying side to him – but the traumatic loss of a friend that Lanz used to treat pretty shabbily caused a real change in him, and genuinely made our Machina man a kinder, better person. That said, he hasn’t gone completely soft – various sidequests show that he won’t hesitate to punch out both children and old people! (it makes sense in context).
Eunie was easily the party character I was the most hyped for pre-release, given just how damn cute and hot this High Entia girl was! And thankfully, she more than lived up to my expectations. A spunky tomboy with a ton of attitude as well as a short fuse, Eunie is endlessly entertaining, and always good for a quotable, meme-worthy line. She is easily the party member most likely to get into bruising arguments with Hero characters (and indeed, she presumably left at least one Hero bruised after punching him out for acting like an idiot), but there’s no real malice in her.
Sadly, I have witnessed some unironic Eunie Slander here on Fedi – the main strikes against her supposedly being that she’s written like a man, and that she’s a Girlboss. Both are wrong. Beyond the fact that traditional femininity isn’t allowed to exist in Aionios, due to both boys and girls spending every waking day as child soldiers (which is obviously a bad thing, and depicted as such), Eunie’s own femininity does break through in various ways, like her sincere respect for life (despite other aspects of her personality, it actually makes sense that she became a Healer), and her cute clover-collecting hobby. Indeed, she has quite the soft spot for Cute things in general. And when finally learning about babies and where they come from, Eunie is appropriately enthusiastic.
Moreover, while the term “girlboss” has been overused to the point of largely losing its meaning, I struggle to see how Eunie qualifies as one. Yeah, she’s a tough and capable female character, but she’s also perhaps the main source of comic relief in the party, in addition to also having some moments of real vulnerability. Perhaps most importantly, she ALWAYS defers Noah, and will even apologize without too much protest if he tells her to do so, despite not necessarily agreeing with him. If we’re going to be uncharitable here, someone like Morag from Xenoblade 2 is much closer to being a “girlboss” than Eunie is.
Eunie is simply the kind of character that always gets me in a good mood, who tends to steal every scene she is in, and who I’ll always relish the chance to control. She is Best Girl of Xenoblade 3, as well as my favorite character in the game, period.
Prologue: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjOZdaQg6QbRd1EXtg
Chapter 1: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjQTcjhzuEOUi2SwO8
Chapter 2: Finding Its Footing
1/5
The second chapter starts off by introducing us to a bunch of Moebius in their regular, human forms. Usually clad in red armor, their faces covered by helmets, these shadow rulers of Aionios are literal Alphabet People, only known by single letters. They formally hold the positions of Consuls, who outrank colony commanders, but serve under the Queens. Yes, *Queens*, because these niggers are playing both sides, secretly running both Keves AND Agnus to ensure that the war between the two countries never ends. Not all Consuls/Moebius are created equal though, and we already see that a man called Z seems to be in charge of them. Eventually, their little meeting ends with a decision to send Consul K to deal with our Ouroboros heroes – which he does by ordering Colony 4 commander Ethel, perhaps the single strongest Kevesi warrior (and someone who even saved the lives of Team Noah back when they were all still just kids), to wipe them out. This is the big conflict that Chapter 2 will be building up to, as Ethel and Consul K hunt down our main characters.
That said, most of this chapter is dedicated to developing our party characters as they set off on their journey to find the fabled City, introducing a bunch of mechanics that will define the rest of the gaming experience (including mid-battle character switching and the Class system), and generally get the game rolling so that the training wheels can finally come off. Combat, while still missing some key pieces, becomes a lot of fun by Chapter 2, and our main party is already complete – one of the benefits of JRPGs that provide you with a lot of different classes to mess around with is that they can afford to give you access to your entire party early, while still keeping things fresh throughout the adventure by gradually unlocking more and more unique Classes. I primarily associate this system with the Bravely series (especially Bravely Default 1), but those games only consist of 4-person parties compared to Xenoblade 3’s six, and those characters are also overall far weaker than the Xenoblade 3 main cast. In fact, let’s go over our Ouroboros gang right now!
Noah, the protagonist, wasn’t really someone I was all that excited for during the original Xenoblade 3 hype cycle, but the scene establishing him as the Lone Sane Man being horrified by the Homecoming ceremony when all other Kevesi soldiers were cheering instantly sold me on him. Living in Clown World, we so often find ourselves baffled by Normies uncritically lapping up and supporting all sorts of obviously evil and wrong things, and Noah’s status as a closeted dissident serves the character well and instantly makes him more interesting and relatable, as well as making it easy to understand how he’s able to so easily reject everything he has been previously taught when finally faced with the Truth.
A kind man possessing great empathy, Noah is a reluctant warrior, but also an exceptionally skilled one, not only being a formidable swordsman, but also possessing a brilliant mind – during his battle with Mio, Noah’s intelligence and insight enabled him to turn the tables on the catgirl after initially being overwhelmed by her blinding speed, and eventually read her attack pattern like a book. However, Noah takes no pleasure in killing, and as an off-seer he will seek to soothe the suffering of even slain enemies – near the end of Chapter 2, he sends off quite the nasty piece of work, despite Lanz’s loud objections. That said, even Noah’s forgiveness has its limits: a couple of chapters later, he openly admits to NOT having sent off a pair of monstrous Moebius the party just killed, showing that crucially, he’s not Kevesi Jesus or a Gary Stu, making all his earlier displays of empathy carry more weight. And of course, as a veteran soldier, Noah does recognize that certain people really do need killing (Shulk, take notes).
Whereas a big part of Shulk’s character was his role as the Engineer and Weapons’ Researcher, while Rex felt like a classic Working-Class Hero, Noah at his core has the heart of an Artist, specifically a musician. There’s this sensitivity and soulfulness to him that makes him surprisingly compelling, and yet for all his great qualities, throughout the course of the story we will see that Noah is not only not infallible, but that he can potentially fall further than anyone could have possibly imagined. That’s all I will say for now, just know that a certain Golden Consul will end up bringing out completely new sides of Noah, in more ways than one.
Lanz is in many ways the typical massive, physically imposing, book dumb Protector-type character, a good and loyal friend who obviously will make you recall Xenoblade 1’s Reyn – though there are actually some interesting contrasts between Lanz and Reyn that help the former stand out more. Notably, Reyn was quite the soft Teddy bear despite his size, who often got picked on for saying stupid things or being ignorant/book dumb – plenty of post-battle party quotes pretty much amount to Reyn being bullied!
Lanz meanwhile is clearly someone with sharper elbows, much more willing to stand up for himself, even to the point of being pretty aggressive (the guy can hardly be described as a “Gentle Giant”). Indeed, from at least one flashback we can gather that the guy used to have something of a thuggish, even bullying side to him – but the traumatic loss of a friend that Lanz used to treat pretty shabbily caused a real change in him, and genuinely made our Machina man a kinder, better person. That said, he hasn’t gone completely soft – various sidequests show that he won’t hesitate to punch out both children and old people! (it makes sense in context).
Eunie was easily the party character I was the most hyped for pre-release, given just how damn cute and hot this High Entia girl was! And thankfully, she more than lived up to my expectations. A spunky tomboy with a ton of attitude as well as a short fuse, Eunie is endlessly entertaining, and always good for a quotable, meme-worthy line. She is easily the party member most likely to get into bruising arguments with Hero characters (and indeed, she presumably left at least one Hero bruised after punching him out for acting like an idiot), but there’s no real malice in her.
Sadly, I have witnessed some unironic Eunie Slander here on Fedi – the main strikes against her supposedly being that she’s written like a man, and that she’s a Girlboss. Both are wrong. Beyond the fact that traditional femininity isn’t allowed to exist in Aionios, due to both boys and girls spending every waking day as child soldiers (which is obviously a bad thing, and depicted as such), Eunie’s own femininity does break through in various ways, like her sincere respect for life (despite other aspects of her personality, it actually makes sense that she became a Healer), and her cute clover-collecting hobby. Indeed, she has quite the soft spot for Cute things in general. And when finally learning about babies and where they come from, Eunie is appropriately enthusiastic.
Moreover, while the term “girlboss” has been overused to the point of largely losing its meaning, I struggle to see how Eunie qualifies as one. Yeah, she’s a tough and capable female character, but she’s also perhaps the main source of comic relief in the party, in addition to also having some moments of real vulnerability. Perhaps most importantly, she ALWAYS defers Noah, and will even apologize without too much protest if he tells her to do so, despite not necessarily agreeing with him. If we’re going to be uncharitable here, someone like Morag from Xenoblade 2 is much closer to being a “girlboss” than Eunie is.
Eunie is simply the kind of character that always gets me in a good mood, who tends to steal every scene she is in, and who I’ll always relish the chance to control. She is Best Girl of Xenoblade 3, as well as my favorite character in the game, period.