Christi Junior on Nostr: 7/8 Speaking of that story, once our party has managed to upgrade their boat and ...
7/8
Speaking of that story, once our party has managed to upgrade their boat and force their way into Origin, there’s a fair amount of housecleaning to be done: N, X and Y all have to be dealt with before we can take on Z. Now, the final confrontation with N is quite nice, despite being somewhat lacking in terms of spectacle. Noah had some harsh words for his fallen past self during their last encounter, which while understandable given the hell N had just put him through were not really all that fair (N supposedly being a coward who never really tried to overcome Moebius hardly tracks with his countless failed attempts to defeat Z, which Noah himself bore witness to in Chapter 6). This time however, Noah has had time to process everything he’s been through and learned, and together with Mio (who carries within her a part of N’s beloved wife) he’s finally able to get through to N. With Noah and N finally acknowledging that they are the same, N disappears and becomes one with Noah, confusing most of the party who wonder if the Consul just upped and died. Noah and Mio however, know better. After that Melia is finally freed, but she quickly teleports herself back to Keves Castle, as she has to make her own preparations for the final battle.
I’ve already addressed multiple times just how weak and anti-climactic the final confrontations with X and Y are, but really, they’re quite the shocking letdowns – a natural comparison would be the last few boss battles in Shin Megami Tensei V before the final battle, but honestly, as lame and rushed as those were, they still easily beat what X and Y got. It’s genuinely baffling, and I do wonder what the reason behind it was – whether this part of the game was simply rushed, whether the questionable pacing that led to such a major villain pileup necessitated some of said villains getting quickly disposed of (Xenoblade 1’s Disciples provide a helpful contrast), or even whether X and Y’s pitiful deaths are meant to serve as a statement about how they and Moebius as a whole are just these random losers and deviants who were granted incredible power by Z, but who at their core remain small, insignificant people unworthy of even the grandeur of a proper death scene.
At least the battle with Z is hardly rushed, quite the opposite, though I DO wish we got to spend more time with the villain prior to fighting him. Honestly, I feel that both Z, and Xenoblade 3’s story as a whole, would have benefited greatly from Z giving a good, old-fashioned Exposition Dump, explaining how and why he created Aionios, as well as really digging into the fears and uncertainties the party characters would naturally have about what happens after Aionios is no more, and they lose everything they have ever known. It would have set up Z as an excellent evil counterpart to the Architect (whose own Exposition Dump was actually one of the single greatest, most mindblowing story moments in Xenoblade 2), let him again show off his skills as a manipulator (this IS the man who corrupted N after all) and of course, actually make some sense out of Xenoblade 3’s backstory. Alas, Z prefers to keep his spiel relatively brief and cryptic.
And so the final battle begins, and BOY, is it a long one (I did mention earlier just how long it lasts even in the WR speedrun, didn’t I?), with a whole lot of different stages. It can feel like something of a drag at times, but part of me also really likes how it’s handled – someone like the final boss in Xenoblade 1 quite frankly went down far too easily considering how untouchable he had looked just 10 hours earlier (after which he just powered up further), and Xenoblade 2’s final boss wasn’t even the main villain of the story, and had already proved completely incapable of harming an actual god, so his short-ish battle was justifiable, but underwhelming. Z meanwhile, while not a god, *is* the creator of Aionios and does boast various godlike abilities like raising the dead and creating new Moebius (though I assume the number of active Moebius at any given time is forever limited by the alphabet). And as an abstracta he is essentially unkillable, not to mention that Origin itself is the biggest weapon on Aionios.
Over and over again, over the course of thousands of years, Z has effortlessly struck down the heroes that defied him and his Endless now – and in order to defeat him, our Ouroboros pairs gradually have to overcome their own doubts and weaknesses, unshackling themselves from Z’s grip on their hearts. As the decisive battle rages, EVERYONE gets involved – all the Heroes you unlocked, liberated colonies, Nia and Melia (who turn their respective castles into gigantic War Mechs!), the City and its Lost Numbers – by the end of the battle, all of Aionios is waging war on Z along with the main party!
And it STILL isn’t enough – Z can’t actually be defeated, because the fear and uncertainty he represents is a part of every living person. However, that’s when it turns out that N and M were never really gone, they’d just resided in Noah and Mio ever since finally finding peace. Since they themselves are also abstract beings, they actually *do* have the power to vanquish Z and so, in order to atone for their crimes as Moebius and liberate the world, they sacrifice themselves to destroy Z.
One thing I really like about this ending to the battle is that it gives meaning to everything that came before it – the original Noah and Mio’s countless failed attempts to defeat Z, them becoming Moebius and eventually becoming Regret personified, enabling a new Noah and a new Mio to be born into Aionios – it all came down to this, it all proved necessary to defeat Z once and for all. And given just how insanely hard it was to take Z down, it now feels fully believable that he was able to rule Aionios for so long, and strike down so many rebels. If he at times came across as complacent, it’s hard to blame him, because BOY was the deck stacked in his favor.
One additional interesting thing to note about the final battle is that, as overleveled as I had been since the start of Chapter 5, Z actually represented enough of a difficulty spike that he managed to keep up with my seemingly OP party – I believe I was level 76 by the time I reached Z, while he was level 75, which ensured that the fight had some actual tension to it, Hard Mode again proving its worth.
Speaking of that story, once our party has managed to upgrade their boat and force their way into Origin, there’s a fair amount of housecleaning to be done: N, X and Y all have to be dealt with before we can take on Z. Now, the final confrontation with N is quite nice, despite being somewhat lacking in terms of spectacle. Noah had some harsh words for his fallen past self during their last encounter, which while understandable given the hell N had just put him through were not really all that fair (N supposedly being a coward who never really tried to overcome Moebius hardly tracks with his countless failed attempts to defeat Z, which Noah himself bore witness to in Chapter 6). This time however, Noah has had time to process everything he’s been through and learned, and together with Mio (who carries within her a part of N’s beloved wife) he’s finally able to get through to N. With Noah and N finally acknowledging that they are the same, N disappears and becomes one with Noah, confusing most of the party who wonder if the Consul just upped and died. Noah and Mio however, know better. After that Melia is finally freed, but she quickly teleports herself back to Keves Castle, as she has to make her own preparations for the final battle.
I’ve already addressed multiple times just how weak and anti-climactic the final confrontations with X and Y are, but really, they’re quite the shocking letdowns – a natural comparison would be the last few boss battles in Shin Megami Tensei V before the final battle, but honestly, as lame and rushed as those were, they still easily beat what X and Y got. It’s genuinely baffling, and I do wonder what the reason behind it was – whether this part of the game was simply rushed, whether the questionable pacing that led to such a major villain pileup necessitated some of said villains getting quickly disposed of (Xenoblade 1’s Disciples provide a helpful contrast), or even whether X and Y’s pitiful deaths are meant to serve as a statement about how they and Moebius as a whole are just these random losers and deviants who were granted incredible power by Z, but who at their core remain small, insignificant people unworthy of even the grandeur of a proper death scene.
At least the battle with Z is hardly rushed, quite the opposite, though I DO wish we got to spend more time with the villain prior to fighting him. Honestly, I feel that both Z, and Xenoblade 3’s story as a whole, would have benefited greatly from Z giving a good, old-fashioned Exposition Dump, explaining how and why he created Aionios, as well as really digging into the fears and uncertainties the party characters would naturally have about what happens after Aionios is no more, and they lose everything they have ever known. It would have set up Z as an excellent evil counterpart to the Architect (whose own Exposition Dump was actually one of the single greatest, most mindblowing story moments in Xenoblade 2), let him again show off his skills as a manipulator (this IS the man who corrupted N after all) and of course, actually make some sense out of Xenoblade 3’s backstory. Alas, Z prefers to keep his spiel relatively brief and cryptic.
And so the final battle begins, and BOY, is it a long one (I did mention earlier just how long it lasts even in the WR speedrun, didn’t I?), with a whole lot of different stages. It can feel like something of a drag at times, but part of me also really likes how it’s handled – someone like the final boss in Xenoblade 1 quite frankly went down far too easily considering how untouchable he had looked just 10 hours earlier (after which he just powered up further), and Xenoblade 2’s final boss wasn’t even the main villain of the story, and had already proved completely incapable of harming an actual god, so his short-ish battle was justifiable, but underwhelming. Z meanwhile, while not a god, *is* the creator of Aionios and does boast various godlike abilities like raising the dead and creating new Moebius (though I assume the number of active Moebius at any given time is forever limited by the alphabet). And as an abstracta he is essentially unkillable, not to mention that Origin itself is the biggest weapon on Aionios.
Over and over again, over the course of thousands of years, Z has effortlessly struck down the heroes that defied him and his Endless now – and in order to defeat him, our Ouroboros pairs gradually have to overcome their own doubts and weaknesses, unshackling themselves from Z’s grip on their hearts. As the decisive battle rages, EVERYONE gets involved – all the Heroes you unlocked, liberated colonies, Nia and Melia (who turn their respective castles into gigantic War Mechs!), the City and its Lost Numbers – by the end of the battle, all of Aionios is waging war on Z along with the main party!
And it STILL isn’t enough – Z can’t actually be defeated, because the fear and uncertainty he represents is a part of every living person. However, that’s when it turns out that N and M were never really gone, they’d just resided in Noah and Mio ever since finally finding peace. Since they themselves are also abstract beings, they actually *do* have the power to vanquish Z and so, in order to atone for their crimes as Moebius and liberate the world, they sacrifice themselves to destroy Z.
One thing I really like about this ending to the battle is that it gives meaning to everything that came before it – the original Noah and Mio’s countless failed attempts to defeat Z, them becoming Moebius and eventually becoming Regret personified, enabling a new Noah and a new Mio to be born into Aionios – it all came down to this, it all proved necessary to defeat Z once and for all. And given just how insanely hard it was to take Z down, it now feels fully believable that he was able to rule Aionios for so long, and strike down so many rebels. If he at times came across as complacent, it’s hard to blame him, because BOY was the deck stacked in his favor.
One additional interesting thing to note about the final battle is that, as overleveled as I had been since the start of Chapter 5, Z actually represented enough of a difficulty spike that he managed to keep up with my seemingly OP party – I believe I was level 76 by the time I reached Z, while he was level 75, which ensured that the fight had some actual tension to it, Hard Mode again proving its worth.