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About this Blog

I’ve had fun discussing the series on @xenoblademisadventures. This blog is dedicated specifically to making Top 5 lists because that format has always been fun. <3

Ok, I'm rank the Xenoblade 3 protags from favorite to least now.

1. Mio

Cutely presses the dodge button. Cutely presses the dodge button. Cutely presses the dodge button. Best class. I liked the part where she cutely pressed the dodge button against the concept of aging by body swapping with herself. We all talk about chapter 5 but chapter 4 was the mio moment that made me cry. Mio whyyyy. Fucking iconic. Definitely the character I was most invested in getting a happy ending. Also. She's a cat. Fucking perfection.

2. Eunie

Yass Eunie's the bass. Feather's are a bitch to dry. Queen's knees. Up, up up up up. The Chad who responds to "no more killing ppl" and immediately goes "ok.. but why?" The ultimate character. I wish I was a fraction of Eunie's power. Let Eunie say Fuck. Tragically I didn't actually care for her much beyond her status as a meme queen, but consider: Eunie is the ultimate meme and I enjoyed every moment she was on screen. I also really like the idea that Eunie isn't naturally a healer but learned the role after Joran's death (I forget whether that's a theory or straight up canon but I do really enjoy that). I also have to say that a lot of her high affinity classes are a ton of fun to play as. Very satisfying to watch Eunie fucking eviscerated someone off the face of the aionios. Pretty funny how both Eunie and Taion would run you over with an ambulance.

3. Noah

Def my favorite protagonist. He's so soft spoken. Also pretty funny that his magic laser sword is literally just a sheath for a really sharp katana. Pretty good of him to be the first Xenoblade protagonist to canonically have sex (consider that we didn't get proof of Rex fucking until after we learned about Noah fucking). I like how he's the quiet and thoughtful type, has the best romantic subplot in the series easily (or at least the only one I gave a shit about). I will say that N was a pretty underwhelming antagonist. Man's backstory brings me to tears, yet I still just don't care for a single moment he's on screen (except for "Mio wHYYY" memes those can stay, thank you Henry McEntire for your contributions to this series). As far as protagonist powers go, Shulk sees the future, Cross is mute, Rex gets all the girls, and Noah turns into Evangelion. I think the only conclusion here is to stick Noah and Shulk in a pit and make them fight for who gets to be the Protagonist tm. Also, Noah wears his hair similar to me, therefore he's hot. +10 points for that.

4. Taion

Someone should make the virgin/chad meme with Taion's class in gameplay vs Taion's class in the story. Like, every other character in story is using their class like they would in gameplay, but then Monolith had negative ideas how to translate a swarm of paper airplanes into tangible gameplay. So Taion's class feels very bad to use. That said, love his banter with Eunie. Also love that one H2H where he says he wears practical clothing, then Eunie calls his scarf lame. Poor man acts like a kicked puppy lol. Also has the vibes of that kid who lost chess against Eunie because she ate all the pieces when he wasn't looking. Tries to be the adult of the group, is still, like, 9 years old. Energy of being the one kid in the group project who's trying to lead the other squad of 8 year olds in any given direction. 10/10.

5. Sena

Ngl, I do not relate to her on a single level and also may or may not have forgotten half the scenes about her. Not the character's fault, I just wasn't paying attention. It does feel like Sena's arc wasn't treated with as much importance as everyone else's tho. Also I really didn't get to know Shaniya well enough for her to act as an effective foil. Tho I do think it's quite funny that Sena is Brighid's kid since Brighid is all elegant and shit while Sena just beats you to death with a really big stick. Definitely the character I imagine to have the most different personality between Alrest and Aionios (mostly because she's so concerned about fitting in and stuff). Tho her arc about learning to express herself just comes across as false due to her in-game dialogue contradicting that (and that being the dialogue players will have bludgeoned into their skull). Kinda hard to see Sena as someone who's insecure and feels the need to fit into the group when she shouts "I'm the Girl with the Gall" every other encounter.

6. Lanz

Feels too much like Reyn but not as iconic. Most interesting part of his character was the guilt he felt over Joran's death because he was a dick to Joran and never got to apologize but then Joran sacrificed himself to save Lanz anyways because Joran felt like his life was less important than Lanz's. Sadly, all of this good shit got completely derailed when Joran showed up as an antagonist. Kinda sucks that the villain writing ruined Lanz for me. Lanz's best moments were definitely in his ascension quest. I liked it when he showed his no shit side. Sadly never found a comfortable role for him in the gameplay because evasion tanks are way more fun than block tanks and I don't particularly love any of the classes Lanz specializes in (why does he keep getting S affinity healer classes when his healing power is literally shit?) Tho I will say that I love seeing Miyabi and Fiona class become w i d e on him.

#xenoblade chronicles 3 #xenoblade 3 spoilers #noah #mio #lanz #senna #eunie #taion #ok there was definitely a drop in praise once i reached the muscle duo #im mostly impartial to both characters while i really like everyone else #i look at those two and im like what do i do with you #doesnt help that i have trouble figuring out a comfortable role for either of them in team comp

multicolour-ink-deactivated2026

Favourite XC1 character? (main party)

Shulk

Fiora

Reyn

Sharla

Melia

Dunban

Riki

Voting ended onFeb 13, 2023

xemobladechromicles

Gonna rank them real quick.

1. Riki

I love Riki. He sounds like a chain smoking toddler but then has canonically had more sex than every other character in the series combined. Goes on a quest to save the world to escape debt. Shouts "Riki Sneaky!!" while attacking. Turned himself into a pineapple. Turned himself into a pile of spikes (Riki want hugs!!). Father of Bestest. There to be the emotional support the party (Melia) needs in the most Riki way possible. Wants food. Feed him. Killed God by bludgeoning him to death with a fish. Took Monolith several games to create a Nopon with even a fraction of Riki's success. And that's only because Riku probably could have half as much sex as Riki if he knew what sex is.

2. Reyn

The myth, the legend. Now it's Reyn Time. Alleyoop. Hwah. Can't have a Rainbow without Reyn baby. Only character to manage to annoy Alvis; the supercomputer that is also the very fabric of reality itself. Not, like in a piss him off way, in a "I'm annoyed and will let you know" way. I want to lock Reyn, Riki, and Alvis in a room together for 3.7 hours and then hide in a fallout shelter while observing the consequences. Man rocks that crop top. All of his armor is an eldritch abomination. Never actually learned how to use his kit, but the fact that his weapon is called a Driver is very funny to me after Xenoblade 2's existence happened. And it's even funnier when you consider Xenoblade 3. Man's got a Blade called a Driver. Certainly he is gaming the cosmology of the multiverse. Also I think Alvis made the ocean have salt in it just to spite Reyn.

3. Shulk

I thought his last name was Soss? Xenoblade 3 is out here challenging my most basic assumptions about its story. His run animation looks very funny. I love the part where he wears armor and the artist straight up forgot that Shulk presumably had kneecaps. My man's tastebuds have been slandered nonstop for 13 years. Poor guy was possessed by God and was too damn oblivious to notice the voice in his head telling him to kill everyone and everything. The dichotomy of being too smart and too stupid for this world. Gotta love when God steals his magic laser sword and Shulk goes "fuck you" *makes my own magic laser sword*. Easily the most beginner friendly gameplay out of any Xenoblade protagonist. Simple win conditions. Simple solutions to any wrench the game throws at you. Low customization and thus minimal chance for confusion on what he's supposed to be doing. I give my compliments to the chef. Also gotta give cheers to Adam Howden for shredding his vocal chords for our entertainment.

4. Melia

Toss up between her and Shulk because her character's tragedies are sort of undermined by the story putting so much emphasis on the love triangle. That said, very funny class. I literally didn't know she could use her talent art below full gauge to summon discharge first playthrough (I'm allergic to reading tutorials). Lady can knock over a dinosaur by kicking its shins in and has only recently learned how to not fall on her ass in the process. Definitely the most satisfying character in 1 to learn (I say as tho I have any confidence in my mastery over her kit). I like how she has an ability that reflects enemy damage. Also very funny how her AI sometimes gets caught in a loop of doing literally jack shit *stares at Bunnit intimidatingly.* Which makes her being only AI controlled in 3 a very spicy move from Monolith Soft. Also funny that in both 1 and 3 she has the magical power of breaking the chain attack damage multiplier. I have literally nothing to say about her character writing tho. I neither vibe nor dislike her. I will say that I was very disappointed in "that's not Melia that's a robot" twist in Xenoblade 3 because I was really looking forward to the explanation for why Melia and Nia seemingly betrayed their principals.

5. Fiora

Poor lady's been fucking outclassed by Mio on basically every possible level. As a love interest? Mio's got a better balance between being a love interest and being an actual character. Also Mio's theoretical death being a driving force behind Noah's potential fall to darkness just works a lot better than with Shulk and Fiora. Mio's whole "I'm about to die" thing has way more palpable tension than Fiora's. Mio did the whole "I got possessed by a being with ancient memories and then fused with that being after they died to save me" thing way better than Fiora ever did (I don't think Monolith is emotionally ready to remember Meyneth exists yet). Dual wielding badass, guess what Mio's weapon is. Tho I will say that Fiora was a favorite character initially because I like knives, but that is outclassed by Elma and Mio. Get rekt Fiora lol.

6. Dunban

Man gets tased by the Monado and decides to become left handed because fuck you. The only acceptable naked character (Zeke can have a pass too, but only as a treat, Taion is free to keep trying tho it's mildly amusing). Sadly his gameplay sucks. Not as in he's weak, he's just not fun to play. Which ruins his badassery for me. Also never cared for his wisdom as a mentor figure. Quit agressively shipping Shulk and Fiora, man needs a new hobby.

7. Sharla

Literally useless in both story in gameplay its so sad. Step 0 in Monolith's journey of discovery in "how to make healers fun." We all say "rip Melia" but at least she has a fucking fanbase.

#xenoblade chronicles #shulk #reyn #fiora #sharla #melia #riki #dunban #xenoblade spoilers

Xenoblade Games Ranked by Personal Preference

3 just came out (yay). I feel like ranking the games. I’m not including the Gears or Saga games because I haven’t personally played them (sad). I’m also not considering the DLC for 2 or Future Connected because I have not played either. Xenoblade 1 is being ranked by its Wii version because that’s what I played. 2 is being ranked by its base game, for the same reason. I’ve heard that Torna is really good tho and I’d like to play it some day. FC probably will never get played by me since I don’t really have a reason to justify spending $60 on a game that I already own.

Here’s the problem with 2′s locations, they’re underdeveloped. 2 has very few branching paths, optional areas, or particularly varying biomes in its locations, especially as you progress through the game. Besides that, the locations just fall off in quality the further you get through the game. The two main issues I have here are poor scope and lack of optional places to explore. 2 promises to let the player explore a lot of titans, but each titan only has one region and settlement in it, which results in the titans feeling quite small. It also means that the game has very little to center the scope of each location around. The other games tend to use one massive landmark visible from the majority of the map combined with the ability to see previous areas. In 1, for example, you can see the Mechonis at different angles from the Bionis’s Knee and Alcamoth. It’s not much, but it’s enough to ground the scope. The closest thing 2 has is the World Tree, which just doesn’t have the same effect. There’s multiple ways to reach that effect. Like, the Mechonis is shown at the beginning to be the size of Bionis, so even though a good view of the Bionis itself is hard to come by, you can use the imposing view of Mechonis to get a sense of scale for the Bionis. Or in 3, the reason why Uraya’s scale is so much larger than in 2 is because the Titan’s corpse towers over the first two or three massive areas while it’s really just a single big area in 2 where you can’t even see the titan’s exterior, so there’s no real sense of where you are relative to it. 2′s decision to have each Titan individually orbitting the tree without really seeing other titans also worsens its scope. In 1, every location is introduced with some panning shots and a title showing what part of the Titan you’re even on. So, you know that Gaur Plains is really just one of Bionis’s Thighs, Satorl Marsh is a hip, etc. 2 doesn’t really do this. It’s up to the player to figure out what part of the titan you’re on. The amount of each titan you see is also very limited feeling. You only really see Gormott’s right hip. I wanted to explore its back and neck, personally.

Shulk and Dunban in particular establish two types that are distinctly Xenoblade. Shulk is a glass canon who’s attacks are positionally dependent, inflicts Break, and becomes a powerful supportive asset as the game progresses, he is a very straight-forward to understand character who becomes a little more nuanced as the game progresses, but getting the most out of his kit isn’t particularly hard due to him being afforded protagonist privilege. The reason Monolith hasn’t deviated from this type of protagonist (except in X) is that it provides both new players and returning players who aren’t too interested in the game’s mechanics an easy mode. Or at least, that’s how I interpret it. When I say Shulk has protagonist privilege, it’s less overt in 1 than in 2 and 3, but in his case, I mean that the Monado Arts are the most direct answers to anything the game throws at the player. You could fight the mechon by Break>Topple>Daze or you could use Monado Enchant. You could respond to that vision of that AoE enemy Talent Art by doing something creative or you could press Monado Shield and have the problem solved instantly. Low on Talent Gauge? Shulk has an art to fix that. Again, this isn’t me complaining about the character, just me pointing out that he’s designed to be very beginner friendly, so it makes sense that future protagonists are designed very closely to him. I will point out that it took Monolith until 3 to figure out how to make the positional arts feel engaging. In Shulk’s case, repositioning sort of just gives the player something to do while waiting for arts to go off cooldown. Because he can auto attack and run at the same time, there really isn’t a reason not to reposition. In X’s case, there were just so many overpowered abilities that didn’t require positioning that using the positioning abilities wasn’t worth your time while in 2, repositioning wasn’t particularly fun due to slow in-combat move speed, it preventing auto attacks which also charge arts, and the position based bonuses were pretty minor all-in-all. Like, Double Spinning Edge wasn’t Mythra’s best art because of it’s bonus damage from the side, it was her best art because it hit twice and therefore had twice the chance to activate her Art Recharge ability. Shulk’s ability to cut his HP in half to charge his Talent Art also wasn’t very thought out because it’s a situational ability with potentially really high risk the AI will misuse, so I pretty much always have the attack unequipped whenever I’m not directly using him so that his AI doesn’t commit suicide. This archetype of character feels distinctly Xenoblade because it attempts to take full advantage of what the series’ style of combat is capable of. I also like that the protagonists start off as straight-forwards positions-based glass canons but as you learn more about their kits and the game’s systems they become best used as a different class.

I’m not going to call Xenoblade 3 a flawless game, like, even regarding the game’s strong-suits, I have stuff to criticize. But they feel more like minor flaws to be ironed out in future entries rather than fatal flaws that ruin the game. The two biggest issues I have with the game are that I don’t think the metroidvania influence was done optimally and that the antagonists fucking suck. Like, I don’t really like that they gated some areas with invisible walls and there were a few instances where the world design of twisty linear paths that open up into other twisty linear paths felt a bit too obviously that. In particular the Satorl Marsh looking place and the Urayan Tunnels felt a little too linear while the Makna Forest looking place did this area design very well. The traversal power-ups were used a bit sparsely. I personally would guess that this decision was made because the devs were worried that they might not be received well or so that they’d be out if the way in the event that they were badly implemented, so I’m hoping this idea gets expanded on in the future since I did like its implementation. I do kinda wish the mechs were implemented into the exploration somehow, especially since there were a few areas that were large enough that I wish I had the option to increase my run speed by a significant amount. I personally wish there was an option to turn off the menu music and for said music to only start once you’re a bit deeper into the menu. I liked listening to it when customizing my characters’ classes, but I didn’t appreciate its presence when I was trying to quickly change while side quest I’m doing or for quick travel. The game’s amount of optional content felt overwhelming. It’s a weird criticism, but I was legitimately interested in the side quests until I got overwhelmed by their sheer amount, which resulted in my not doing the sidequests even though the ones I have done were pretty good. Even though I do really like the protagonists and some of the main themes of the story, I really dislike the way the antagonists were written. I just can’t take it seriously when literally every single remotely important character is an antagonist at some point. Especially since a lot of these instances are handled so poorly. I’ll use Joran as an example, him becoming a Moebius is a stupid decision because he’s designed to represent how good people constantly die in this world for no real reason. Lanz being so torn up about Joran’s death even years later because he knows he was a dick to Joran but then Joran died saving his life anyways was legitimately good stuff, but it got crapped on once Joran shows up as an Alphabet Soup Flesh-Mech Soul-Eating Evil Power Ranger. Especially since Joran cannot fulfill his initial role in the story while also fulfilling the role that the Moebius fill of pure evil antagonists. They were meant to get more thematically complex, but their character writing is so inconsistent that it doesn’t feel genuine.

I’ll go over its Achilles Heel first since I believe it’s the reason this game never picked up much traction. The tutorials fucking suck. As in, I think they actively ruined the game for a lot of people. Generally, there are three tasks a tutorial needs to fulfill to be good: they need to avoid wasting the players time, they need to teach the player the game’s mechanics, and they need to condition the player on how the game is meant to be played. X’s tutorials manage to fail spectacularly on all three of these. Like, it’s a good example of everything not to do when making a tutorial. So, first thing, wasting time. X’s tutorials will have cutscenes upwards of 10 minutes explaining useless mechanics to the player. These scenes are dull and waste a lot of time. But they also cut into the other two issues. First is that these cutscenes implicitly say that X is a movie game, or that the player will be spending a lot of time progressing the main story. This is false. The majority of the player’s time ideally will be spent on sidequests and exploring the giant world. The way the game is structured is that the Story Missions represent big events, the Normal Missions are where the majority of the writing effort actually went into, and the Affinity Missions are where a lot of important character work happens. This is a completely different format from what every other Xenoblade game uses, so the tutorial really needed to get that across. Personally, the way I’d do this is to not give the player information on how to unlock the Story Missions and instead have a pop up telling the player that Story Missions may unlock as the player explores the world and does side content. But really, anything to condition the player to prioritize sidequests was necessary here. The way the tutorial mechanically fails is that it heavily focuses on explaining the least important aspects of the gameplay while also failing to explicitly state anything really important. Like, the average person gets through Xenoblade X without knowing at least one major mechanic. For me, I beat the game not knowing that I could change Cross’s class or realizing that there were Augments I could have been applying to weapons and armor, similar to gems from the first game. Other people have gone through and not realized fashion gear exists or about the existence of party commands. I’m pretty sure that most players don’t know that the game has consumable items in it. In case anyone’s curious, the consumable items are stuff like restore HP, TP, or repair Skell appendages. I don’t think there’s an efficient way to grind for consumable items. Or if there is, I haven’t figured that out.

There are also just entire systems in the game that just go unexplained. Like, appendage damage in particular never really gets explained beyond you can target appendages and break them, which I don’t know if that’s so much explained rather than the player realizing that the lock-on targets different appendages. I know what isn’t explained is that you can click the right stick to stay onto that appendage, telling your party to focus fire will make everyone target the appendage that you are locked onto, destroying an appendage will inflict a debuff on the enemy, certain items can only be dropped if certain appendages are destroyed in combat, your Skells have appendages that can be destroyed by enemies (if you’re ever in Skell combat and one art just is unusable for the rest of combat and you have no idea why, it’s because the appendage that the art was assigned to got destroyed), destroying some appendages prevents certain enemies from using certain arts, some appendages can only be targetted afted other appendages have been destroyed, and different appendages sometimes have different defense and resistance stats. I still don’t really know how the game calculates appendage damage, which is a problem considering that certain materials that you need to grind for require destroying some appendages. If there’s a way to protect certain Skell appendages, also never explained. The appendage system isn’t the only one like this. Skell combat and Overdrive are two other huge offenders. Overdrive in particular tends to either be useless or grossly overpowered depending on whether the player has a vague idea how to quickly obtain TP. It also doesn’t help that Overdrive is both very overpowered and overly complicated, but it’s so overpowered that you really don’t need to know the specifics of how it works for it to break the game. Skell combat also isn’t very well explained. Like, I’m not sure if the fact that Skells don’t scale with the player’s level is ever explicitly stated and the way the game communicates enemy power level gets really fucky after their introduction, especially post-game, where certain level 90 enemies can be significantly less dangerous than certain level 45 enemies.

Basically, the game is overly complicated and the tutorials pretty much fail on every level, which results in players just naturally playing the game completely wrong. Like, going from 1 to X, my first playthrough of the game was quite disappointing. The sidequests in 1 range from a waste of time to okay, so it’s not like I was going to be inclined to do them in X without a good reason. Typically when playing these games for the first time, I’ll go through the story beats and explore a bunch of the map while ignoring sidequests entirely. 3′s the exception where I tried to keep up with sidequests until about halfway through the game where their quantity just got overwhelming and I proceeded to ignore everything but the hero quests (tho I did a decent number of City sidequests because I needed an excuse to listen to its music). But the reason that happened in 3 rather than the other games was because 3 actually gave me a good reason to do its optional content. It front-loaded its best sidequests. Like, you get a voiced sidequest that unlocks a new class and hero, then you can do a bunch of extra quests where you learn more about that hero. 3′s sidequests also tend to have more meaningful dialogue from the protagonists because everyone is out at all times and therefore scripting that part is easier (and it works really well with the campfire system, which I think was borrowed from FF16? I’ve never touched that game so I don’t really know). Plus a lot of 3′s voiced quests are unlocked by just exploring the region, so I kept accidentally running into them and was like “I should complete this.” Compare that to how X presents its sidequests. With very few exceptions, side quests are always found in NLA (and the ones that aren’t are usually in one of the Nopon Caravans, which are static locations). Considering that the game tells you “unlock X amount of a continent to progress the story,” I spent very little time in NLA on my first playthrough and never accidentally ran into a cool sidequest that got me interested in the idea. The Normal Missions the story forces the player to do are also some of the weakest Normal Missions in the game, so the main story never really steps aside to advertise its sidequests, which it probably should have. Like, you know how Elma finds the player in a pod? Maybe some of the important sidequest NPCs should be found in pods during exploration, as a way to prompt the player to go check on them in NLA and then do their sidequests. Maybe there should have been more interesting quests the player can just run into accidentally outside of NLA. Like, give Professor B a sidequest where the player finds him randomly in Oblivia after Chapter 5 and convinces him to come to NLA (which would lead up to the rest of his quest line). Stuff like this would probably be enough to prompt the player to at least check out some of the side quest chains started in NLA. But I don’t think the devs realized that players wouldn’t naturally try to do majority of Normal Missions, which is probably why the game has a reputation of having weak writing.

Xenoblade X has a lot of misconceptions or misrepresentation about its qualities that I’d say are born from how shit its tutorials are. It’s a major issue that frankly takes the game down with it. So I wanted to address it. I should probably make my own tutorial type thing for the game. But my best advise for now is don’t be afraid to look up stuff online, make sure to set aside some time to thoroughly explore the game’s menus, which includes attempting every prompt at least once. The game’s best content is in its sidequests and exploration. Think of the game’s main story as its bones while the Normal Missions are its meat, the affinity missions are basically normal missions but with more meaningful gameplay rewards. Also the game has Heart-to-Heart conversations, if a character ever goes missing when you’re trying to find them, that’s why. Either just look up the location online or change the time of day and they’ll be back (unless their name is Phog, that little bastard got wiped off the face of Mira for, like, an irl month because I couldn’t find his H2H where he ponders about ants in the most fuck you location and its only condition was affinity level, so he would not leave his fuck you corner until that H2H was completed, which also applies to multiple of his H2Hs). Also, if you want to 100% the game, make sure to do Lao’s H2Hs before doing Chapter 9. It’s the only content in the game (to my knowledge) that can become permanently unavailable from story progression. Also, the most interesting part of the gameplay is probably the customization of the Self-insert character’s class. You want to get started on that as soon the game lets you, which would be after the game shows you getting Rank 10 in your current class. Look up what status effects do. There are certain buffs in the game that are central to the combat. Even if the name sounds self-explanatory, looking it up is still probably a good idea. Anyways, after that rant I do want to talk about why I actually love this game.

One thing that X’s writing really excels at is the idea of multiple perspectives. Every NPC feels like a character rather than just an NPC, with quite a few being well developed. One thing in particular that I really liked was how no two characters had the same reaction to earth’s destruction. There were always subtle differences even if those reactions can be roughly grouped into categories. Alongside that, these NPCs also all have their own thoughts and reactions to major plot events. Once the mimeosome twist happens, it becomes relevant to so many side quests and NPC character arcs. And yeah, quite a few NPCs actually do go through character arcs. Alex in particular has always been an interesting villain to me because he hates the Ma-non and Nopon because aliens blew up the earth, so he goes on a tirade killing a bunch of the only two alien species in the game that had literally nothing to do with Earth’s destruction and eventually ends up working with the Ganglion, a faction that gloats over its involvement in that event. It’s generally interesting noticing patterns, of how a lot of the hate and resentment over Earth’s destruction gets targeted at the Nopon and Ma-non even after the introduction of races who were actually a part of it. It’s also very interesting seeing humans learning to accommodate these new occupants, as well the handful of people who proceed to exploit them. Cultural differences between the humans and Ma-non are also explored this way. It feels like the sidequests take the major events from the main story and try to examine them under every lens possible. Even more interestingly, there are quite a few major plot twists hidden behind sidequests. The most well known of these is probably the ending to Yelv’s sidequest, but there are quite a few Normal Mission chains that end with similarly scaled major plot twists. Alongside that, these quests actually take advantage of the self-insert avatar. The player can choose to make morally bankrupt decisions and those decisions will have consequences. Because there’s no morality system, those decisions feel impactful more impactful. Like, going back to Alex, there’s this scene at the end of his first quest where he executes a bunch of aliens. The player is given several instances where they can choose to “look away” or “interfere.” If they choose to interfere, there will be a boss fight. But what’s more interesting is what happens if the player chooses the look away. In this event, Alex will execute the surviving aliens one at a time as they beg for mercy. After each execution, the prompt returns. Look away or interfere. If the player repeatedly chooses to do nothing, he will kill everyone and there will be no boss fight. Alex will then commend the player for supporting him. Choosing this route is genuinely uncomfortable to behold because you’re just watching a guy murdering multiple innocent people for no reason and then he thanks you for enabling him, because through your inaction, that’s exactly what you did. Choosing not to save these NPCs doesn’t impact the direction of the sidequest chain or the rewards to any meaningful way. It’s just a really good scene about the consequences of inaction. This was from a Normal Mission. A noninsignificant number of Normal Missions ask the player to make moral decisions like this. With minimal mechanical consequences to these choices, all that’s really left is for the player to witness the logical outcome of their choices. That shit is impactful. I also like how certain decisions that seem arbitrary or innocuous sometimes affect whether a character lives or dies. These types of consequences and choices are extremely rare, but their inclusion in the game is extremely memorable for that. I remember my first encounter with one of these decisions had me arbitrarily pick the option that saved the character, only to in hindsight go “oh shit” because what I assumed was the nice option would have gotten that NPC killed. In a future playthrough, I decided to see what would happen if I got the NPC killed. The sidequest starts with this one character being kind of a bitch, and the game gives you the option to mock them after explaining that everyone died. Which gave some more insight into that NPC, who thought everyone was being an asshole rather than suspecting something more sinister going on. This is all really good writing. And there are enough sidequests like this that I was actually playing through a lot of them specifically because I wanted to know where their stories would go.

Though, I really can’t talk about X without talking about the main thing everyone who’s played it knows the game did well, which is the exploration. X has a massive open world. It was the first open world game with vertical scaling. When I say that, think of how in Breath of the Wild you could climb everything path or no path. It’s the same deal here except with flying mechs instead of climbing. Alongside that, Xenoblade X has the most alive feeling world I’ve seen in any video game. Enemies actually feel like wild animals who live in this world. Each enemy will be given a similar level to care in their placement and routine that the original game gave to each NPC. The exact behavior patterns isn’t directly species dependent either. Some enemies will even have routines that cause them to change behavior depending on the weather and time of day. This also correlates with X’s level design where sneaking past and avoiding overlevelled enemies becomes a regular part of gameplay. All of this forces the player to pay attention to what the enemies are doing and the surrounding area. The game mechanically incentivizes you to look at the pretty scenery. Sneaking through these areas is also both possible and satisfying in this game because the average enemy size is massive, especially the high levelled ones and the game provides information on each enemy’s detection type. Alongside that, getting caught can usually result in an exciting chase sequence where you’re trying to get away as fast as possible without aggroing more enemies. I’m not exactly sure how the enemy AI works, but it appears to be designed around making these instances exciting, even if it’s not entirely in the player’s control whether or not they survive. The way getting aggroed by an overlevelled enemy typically works is that the loud music starts, where the player needs to quickly turn around and figure out whether this is a fight they can actually take. Assuming that it isn’t, the player can then sprint away. X has a fast run where characters appear to go full sprint, so it’s a bit different of a vibe from other games where running away from combat just looks like your character is taking a light job while their life is being threatened. While you’re running, depending on where you are exactly, you then need to quickly navigate the terrain (which is pretty dense in this game) while trying not to aggro more enemies. The way levels are designed makes it so that the more likely the player is to accidentally aggro something, the more possible it is to run away. So many of the big AoE projectile attacks are often reserved for flying enemies, mimic enemies, and docile enemies. So, basically the types of enemies that are hard to accidentally aggro one a frequent basis. So, when the player is running away, it often looks like the enemy is picking off the party by one-shotting them one at a time until they reach you or they one-shot the player first because I reacted too slow, I’ve rarely had an instance where my character was the second or third person to die. This also feels like the intended way to play the game as escaping encounters works more times than it fails. Most of the time when an escape fails it’s because I aggroed something while running and that killed me, the enemy had a particularly large aggro range, the enemy one-shot me at the start of the encounter, the enemy in question was one of those heavily telegraphed encounters and I just wasn’t paying attention to it, the enemy showed up mid-battle and I didn’t realize the reason everyone was dropping like flies until it was too late (which very rarely happens without me at least being aware of the possibility of that happening, especially when that enemy in question isn’t a unique monster), and I got cornered while running away. None of these reasons ever particularly made the game feel like bullshit or unfun, especially compared to how thrilling successfully escaping these enemies often feels. The variety in out of combat behaviors for enemies of all sorts of levels just results in extremely varied level design. One area may have enemies that you can fight but then there’s this one giant overlevelled monstrosity patrolling the area in a linear fashion. Another area might have a lot of sight type enemies just lying around in place during the afternoon but they’re somewhere else (either on the map or off the map) during the morning. Some areas are very low tension because all the enemies are either passive or too low levelled to aggro you. Other areas might be very tense because you have to sneak around a bunch of high levelled enemies (and there are sidequests that put you in this situation). Maybe there are a lot of mimic type enemies nearby that you want to avoid. And all of this stuff is dynamic. Impacted by time of day, weather, player level, whether the player’s on foot or in mech, terrain. Because of this, I could list a ton of memorable gameplay encounters I’ve had in this game, even from 5 years ago. Alongside that, it isn’t until halfway through the game where death can have a potential consequence. I really like this approach because by that point, the player should have a better grasp on how to manage the fuck-you enemies everywhere. So, having a consequence early in the game would have been too punishing, while adding a consequence halfway through the game lets there be stakes, even to party members dying (tho that will take a bit to reach). This consequence is the respawn mechanics for the game’s mechs. If a mech gets destroyed, the party member in that mech will be ejected. The mech doesn’t respawn with the player. Instead, you have to go to the Barracks in NLA and manually fix it. If the mech breaks enough times the game starts charging you insurance, which is honestly very funny. Just to be clear, the amount of money a mech costs and is needed to repair the mech is actually quite significant, especially if the player hasn’t been paying attention to the probe system. But this additional consequence for dying, first of all, feels more like a upgrade than a punishment, and secondly, prevents the player from getting complacent about death. It’s also the main thing balancing the mechs, since obtaining and destroying mechs is quite expensive, so using them recklessly isn’t a very good idea. Also I found that the threshold for the game charging insurance for mechs wasn’t so strict that I felt discouraged from using them. Just that the threat of its existence did hold weight over how I haphazardly I used them.

#tho 3 really could contest that title of favorite xenoblade #i just haven't had enough time with the game to conclusively say one way or the other #i really like themes in storytelling and 3 definitely has those #like i just like it when a story leaves me with something to think about and i'm a slut for analysis #also 3 does have really good gameplay #while its world design isn't on par with X it's definitely the second strongest world design so far #and it *does* have the best combat in the series #like playing through it on hard mode I always felt like there was something I could be improving at #but i don't want to call it my favorite now because I really haven't had time to see the extent of what the game has to offer #or time to really reflect on its shortcomings #xenoblade chronicles #xenoblade chronicles x #xenoblade chronicles 2 #xenoblade chronicles 3 #xenoblade series

Thoughts on Certain Xenoblade 3 Heroes So Far

I don’t want to rank them until I’ve both unlocked all of them and completed everyone’s quests. So this is just a ranking based on the impressions they’ve given me, I think there are 5 heroes I haven’t gotten: Nia & Melia, Cammuravi, Machine Assasin Person (her sillhouette looks cool I’m excited to know wtf is going on there), the hacker class, and the seraph class, so I’m not gonna talk about these guys even though admittedly I’m very excited to obtain all of them.

Anyways these are my current impressions of everyone.

Theory crafting time. I’m actually kinda curious if this class could be used as a dodge-tank, especially if you’re given post-game gear to work with and stick the class onto a naturally evasive character like Mio. Due to being mostly AoE and dealing so much fucking damage that aggro management is necessary here, the class wouldn’t really struggle with drawing aggro. When using tank classes, especially Zephyr, I often combine their primary aggro drawing ability with Quickdraw due to QD both providing evasion for the art and it’s bonus damage from the front being a very useful tool for drawing and maintaining aggro quickly due to the ridiculous amount of damage it deals from the front, which is where tanks are going to be positioned most of the time. So I imagine the inverse of using QD with an aggro drawing ability supplementing it would be quite good. Alongside that, I want to draw attention to Demolition. When using the FMJ class, I like to either pair Demolition with an evasion art or another piercing art. I assume the piercing stacks (otherwise rip). But Demolition is so good with an evasion art because the attack animation is so long. In the context of a DPS character, this is usually long enough for tanks to draw the aggro back while you’re hiding in evasion frames, in the context of a tank, I imagine this ability would be great for dodging one to two key abilities (depending on how art-spammy the boss is). Side note, as FMJ, combining Dead Set with an evasion art can also be nice because it guarantees safety while you fully remove aggro, this class is super squishy normally and needs to remain alive to get the most out of its dps. The other thing I think FMJ would be able to do as a tank that other tanks can’t is kiting enemies. Since the class is ranged, it probably would be able to auto attack certain enemies outside of their auto range and if it does this while maintaining aggro, that would help get around squishiness, especially since FMJ uses timed cooldowns.

Since this is a dps class rather than a tank class, a tanky FMJ build would pretty much allow everyone to run Protector’s Pride and the accessory with the same effect, maybe combine that with someone on the Troubadour class and that would create a recipe for art spam. Since the mechanic is meant as an “oh shit” mechanic rather than something you’d have constantly active, especially if you get the level 15 version, which I don’t know what the amount is at rank 15, but with the rank 10 version, it’s a 40% increase, combine that with my current best recharge speed, that’s another 40%, which I’m assuming would result is an 80% arts cooldown reduction that I could theoretically attach to everybody. In FMJ’s case, Demolition has a 26s cooldown at Rank 10 (dunno if cooldown will decrease at Rank 15), so that with an 80% cooldown would be a 5.2 second cooldown, which isn’t that much longer than the art’s cast time. Tho, I imagine there would be some difficulties with the evasion art it’s attached to being auto recharge, especially since 3 doesn’t have Pouch Items like what existed in 2. Quickdraw has an 11s cooldown at rank 10, so an 80% cooldown reduction would result in the art having a 2.2s cooldown. The art itself lasts approximately half a second, so just using QD, you’d probably be in evasion for at least a quarter of the fight just by spamming that ability alone. Third ability would kinda have to be Superstorm since I don’t believe Fatal Barrage has a long enough animation to justify losing out on its back attack damage and deadset wouldn’t be particularly useful to this build for obvious reasons. If you combine this with the Dance of Barrages ability, which at rank 10 gives an 11% chance to keep the recharge when using an art, that would also be valuable to maintaining uptime, even considering its low procc rate. I’d probably combine tank FMJ with a troubadour anyways due to that class being designed around cooldown reduction alongside its passive 15% boost to ally accuracy and evasion (at rank 10, I don’t know what the rank 15 boost looks like). Since that class can also spread Ring’o Roses, I imagine that could be part of the build too, potentially even as the art that superstorm is tied to. Also, keep in mind that all of this cooldown bullshit would apply to your allies too. Which could result in something like, say, a War Medic with healing constantly up, or an Ogre being able to spam their hard-hitting arts, DPS classes in particular would be able to combine this with a crit build and Frenzied Combo. Unfortunately FMJ doesn’t have the best base crit, but considering how many multi-hit arts the class has, crit FMJ with Frenzied Combo could be quite strong, whether it’s attack or tank.

His story boss wasn’t very good. It looked like the devs might have been trying to riff on the Zu Pharg fight in Xenoblade X, but the fight against Isurde sort of failed because it had the stuff drawing away from the Zu Pharg’s spectacle without really any of the things that made the boss work. Like, it was a giant quadruped machine that summoned minions and you can climb around its wreckage after the fight. It shares the issue with the Zu Pharg where the camera is just not able to zoom out enough to really get a full view of it. But what made the Zu Pharg such a good spectacle fight where this one failed has to do with X’s scope as a whole, which was much bigger than 3′s. Basically the Zu Pharg fight had you chasing a mech that was quite literally the size of a mountain across an entire continent that you’ve explored up to this point while (most likely) flying in mechs. The fight had a series of fighting the boss, fighting its minions, and running past the minions to get back to the boss. This gave the player a good view of something other than the boss’s legs in the air, and on the ground it gave a good sense of the boss’s sheer scale because while you could not see the entire boss, you could get a leg into frame, which was fucking massive. The Zu Pharg was also by far the largest enemy in the game, which already had some gigantic enemies. This was also emphasized by the mech transforming from a gigantic flying fortress in Phase 1 into a literal fucking mech in phase 2. And yeah, the mech was the size of a fucking fortress more or less. So, the fight was memorable because it overwhelmed you with its sheer scale in a game that already had an emphasis on it. The fight against Isurde doesn’t really accomplish any of this. For one, the mech isn’t towering over the landscape like the Zu Pharg was, and two, you really can’t fly around and chase it like the Zu Pharg did, which was due to differences in 3′s and X’s mechanics. As a result, the mech’s size in 3 worked more against it than anything in terms of spectacle. The enemy summoning didn’t really do it any favors either. In the Zu Pharg, the summons were very good at selling its scale since you’re pairing enemies that are roughly the size of the player’s mechs with the mech itself, while in 3, the mechs the boss summons are larger than the player and Ouroboros isn’t as permanent of a mechanic as Skells were in X. There also isn’t the surprise of leaning that this massive space you’ve been exploring for hours is actually a gigantic boss arena. The differences in music for each boss was also a big deal. The Zu Pharg had a unique theme that was very stompy and crunchy while Isurd used the general boss theme (if I remember correctly). Idk, the Isurd fight just isn’t very good spectacle wise, especially compared to the boss it was clearly based on. And the surrounding story wasn’t very good since Joran is a pretty shit antagonist so “it was Joran making mud-puppets” didn’t really help.

Top 5 Best Villains

5. Ramsus (Xenogears)

I’m going to admit to not entirely remembering Xenogears’s story, but Ramsus was my favorite antagonist there. The problem with most villains in the game are that their most important content happens in disc 2, which is too abbreviated and difficult to follow to properly sell their impact. Overall, Xenogears is a game heavily bogged down by its complexity. It was ultimately both too ambitious for the skill and resources of its creators, which results in a story that presents interesting ideas but is also clumsy and difficult to follow.

Like, many characters, he is a strong concept with a difficult to follow execution. He is a general of Solaris, which are functionally Nazis, while still trying to follow his ideals. He spent his childhood being groomed by the people running Solaris to hate Fei because of lore reasons. So, he’s conceptually meant to be a good person who was raised from birth to be a commander in a fascist government. In practice, Rammus is primarily a Disc 1 antagonist, who starts off intimidating but the player learns about his past over time and starts to sympathize with him. Ultimately, the execution is clumsy and difficult to follow, but his concept always stuck with me.

He also acts as a counterpart to Elly, who is also a soldier from Solaris who ultimately defects. I honestly don’t remember if this idea is even explored because Rammus’s backstory is mostly revealed in Disc 2, which summarizes and skips over a lot of stuff.

Overall, you can probably tell from this that I don’t have the same respect for Xenogears as a lot of its fans, but the main thing that elevated Ramsus over other major antagonists was that I was able to understand the major story beats of his character before consulting the wiki. The only other antagonist to accomplish this was Id, but I wanted to talk about Ramsus because Id barely has the chance to do anything because he’s primarily a disc 2 character.

4. Dickson (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Dickson is a really well done twist villain. He’s primarily a scumbag with shallow motives, but he makes up for it by his plot presence. His VA does an amazing job selling him as enjoying himself but not completely off from the Dickson we knew before that point. He treats the affair of betraying the party like a business as usual ordeal where he just enjoys his job.

He does a lot of heavy lifting in setting the game’s final act, beginning it by killing the game’s protagonist and talking about how he only raised Shulk because he was Zanza’s vessel. Before this point in the game, Dickson was a secondary character who was somewhere between a dad, a jokester, and a cheesy action hero. He effectively goes from being a fun side character to being a fun fuck-you villain. Out of the Zanza-aligned antagonists, Dickson is the only one with an established personality, so leading this act with him shooting Shulk kicks off the final quadrant which is defined by fighting former friends and loved ones, betrayal, and everything the characters knew about the world coming crashing down.

As an antagonist, Dickson is pure evil. No redemption, no mind control, nothing; he does what he does because he does. This hurts because he’s a likeable character, therefore you want him to be redeemable, but he simply isn’t. As a side note, while I don’t think Dickson did the most subtle job at foreshadowing his eventual betrayal, I do think he did a good job at ensuring that this act didn’t come out of literally nowhere, which is the most important thing. Xenoblade chronicles has a lot of foreshadowing in the form of off-handed dialogue, especially placed in the earlier parts of the game, which works for Dickson because even if the player catches on that Dickson is deceiving the party in some way in Satorl Marsh, his betrayal is so much later in the game that there’s a high chance of the player forgetting it. The moment before he shoots Shulk is also great. There’s just enough timing for dread and anticipation to crop up right before he shoots on second viewing.

Dickson’s death was also perfect for the character. He isn’t redeemable, he’s been lying to you this entire time. Despite it all, he did watch the protagonists grow strong enough to beat him. So, his send-off is bitter-sweet. I like how Shulk cries while walking into the portal to fight Zanza. I also like how Dickson calls off the fight when he’s dying and goes to die in a corner and take a smoke. Even though he’s ultimately a piece on Zanza’s chess set, he still got to choose how he wanted to die, a right afforded to him by Shulk, who is fighting to end everyone’s predetermined destinies.

He’s a simple antagonist that could have benefitted from more complications, especially from Shulk’s or Dunban’s part, but he fills his role in the story well for what he is.

3. Kevin (Xenosaga)

Warning: abuse mention

Kevin is interesting to me because he’s such a shitbag. Like, holy shit the amount he emotionally manipulates Shion is ridiculous. I think the Xenosaga series has issues with the concept of restraint, but it really works here. He also acts as a foil to Allen, where Kevin is trying to save Shion from her fate but does so by emotionally scarring her, Allen cares a lot about Shion and wants to protect her but cannot.

He’s first introduced in Xenosaga Episode I as the primary motivator for her to complete KOS-MOS. She was their project and even though KOS-MOS killed him due to a malfunction, Kevin would have wanted her to finish their project. Shion treats KOS-MOS almost like her child because of it. The player doesn’t learn that he faked his own death until Episode III, where its first primary conflict is KOS-MOS being scrapped in favor of T-ELOS, an android created from KOS-MOS with significantly higher output, which is secretly run by Kevin. By this point in the series, KOS-MOS has established herself as somewhere between a person and a weapon, effectively having a soul, so killing her isn’t going to fly. This also reflects on how Kevin is more than happy to take Shion’s feelings and throw them into the garbage dispenser just to advance his own goals. Which is contrasted by how much Shion obviously loves him. She was willing to complete and defend his legacy in spite of her own mixed feelings because of how much she loves him.

The protagonists of Xenosaga can be defined as being weak but human, while Kevin made the decision to give up his humanity to become strong. This weak but human dynamic is most represented in Allen, who is literally just some guy, but he cares a lot about Shion and even though he’s so nothing, he’ll always try to stay by her side. Allen cannot save Shion from her death, he cannot save the universe from collapsing in on itself, he can’t protect Shion from her trauma, but he’s still there doing every limited thing that he humanly can. Kevin can save Shion from her death, he’s working to prevent the universe from destroying itself, he can do so many things that a human like Allen could never hope to do, yet he’s still a self-serving bastard. He isn’t trying to save Shion because she wanted to be saved, he’s doing so because he wants to save her. And his methods are a major source of trauma for her. Watching him, it becomes unclear whether he even truly cares about her.

Kevin’s also an extension of the themes KOS-MOS vs T-ELOS represents between materiality and spirit. KOS-MOS was created by Shion in memory of a dead loved one and holds Mary Magdalen's soul, while T-ELOS was created by Kevin for the sole purpose of housing Mary Magdalen’s body. Which is reflected in how the two characters see the world. Shion is a very emotional character. She sees the life and value in what exists around her. Kevin, on the other hand is a very material heavy character, he sees the world only in terms of what does and does not exist. So of course Shion’s creation would house a soul while Kevin’s would only house a body. This theme of soul vs material is extremely common in Monolith’s writing and it’s very present here as well.

What I like about Kevin’s story is how messy it is. The story is told almost entirely from Shion’s perspective. Her rose-tinted lens of the man. As the player, it’s hard to know whether he’s a genuinely good person making bad decisions or the biggest pile of dicks to exist ever. But ultimately, through all the feelings of love or any of his stated intentions, he abused Shion. At the end of the series, he sacrifices himself. Whether he did so to protect Shion or for redemption, it’s up to interpretation. I honestly cannot tell whether or not he’s meant to be sympathetic, and I like that because it just adds to the mixed feelings the character leaves you with.

The character being so difficult to get a read on works because that’s how abuse works. Victims of abuse will have a hard time realizing that they’re being abused until it’s too late, they’ll side with their abusers, they’ll see them as good people and make excuses for them, even when they act inexcusably because on some level, abusers are human beings and their victims know this. A lot of stories that cover abuse struggle to really get this aspect of it correct. Usually them being an abuser will be signposted to the audience way before the characters, which makes the character’s sticking with them look like poor judgement rather than what it actually is. Kevin is unique because his hands are never fully revealed, so even after his true death, the player is left without a clear direction on him.

2. Lao (Xenoblade Chronicles X)

Warning: Suicide Mention

Lao starts off as a party member, who then betrays the party for the Ganglion. He is the main focus of the game’s strongest story beat. Lao is a hero villain. He is also the first in a series of villains in the series who is beaten down by despair and opposes the party out of a suicidal desire rather than a malicious one. I personally am not a fan of the villains who want to kill the world because they are suicidal because that explanation doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. Generally when someone wants to kill themselves, it comes from a sense of deep hopelessness and wanting a way out. I’m not saying that it’s always the case, but these villains are typically presented as destroying the world out of a sense of hopelessness. So, I’m left confused on why these antagonists chose to kill the world rather than just themselves. Ultimately, characters like Jin and N feel like they’re trying to imitate Lao without truly understanding why he worked.

As an antagonist, Lao’s value is derived almost entirely from his motives. In Xenoblade X, you should be playing the sidequests experience the full story, so you have likely already encountered evil human characters or characters colluding with the Ganglion, especially if you’ve completed Hope’s second affinity mission. What makes these characters different from Lao lies in their motives and thematic purpose. The human NPCs in X are complex as a whole, each having their own subtly different takes on the events of the game. Earth’s destruction, mimeosomes, etc. They exist to show the complexities of humanity. How some people will do everything they can for the greater good while others will act selfishly, even when it’s to the detriment of both their own and everyone’s survival. Which are how these side-quest antagonists typically fit into X’s themes. As a suicidal character, Lao is not unique either. Throughout affinity missions and NPC dialogue, you learn that many human characters feel disassociated in their mimeosome bodies. Either seeing themselves as not real or expendable. Which is only compounded with by witnessing their friends and loved ones die with the earth.

Lao exists as a combination of ideas already presented in side-stories. He wants to die and he knows that dying can’t be permanent because of the stasis created by the mimeosomes. Even if he took his own life, he’d just be brought back in another mimeosome. It would be an endless cycle. Thus, it would easier to just tear everything to the ground than to go on living in these empty bodies dying over and over again just to protect the parts of humanity least worth saving. All he has to do is steal a piece of data, run, and wait for the clock to go out. His motives become more thematically appropriate upon learning the context of Chapter 12.

On his own, Lao provides an interesting perspective on everything. So much of X is about how humanity intends to survive after losing everything. Elma is the character most representative of this. Her sole focus is the survival of humanity. Lao asks if humanity is worth saving. After all, it would be easier to just accept death than fight this uphill battle. Which is what the conflict between him and Elma is fundamentally about. You could say during this fight, the protagonists represent fighting for humanity’s survival while Lao is fighting for humanity’s soul. That’s also why he gives up on his goal upon seeing Lin stopping Elma from shooting him. Because she proves that humanity still has a soul. It is also why he acts the way he does during Chapter 12, if humanity is worth protecting, he will protect it. The final fight with Lao isn’t about the opposition between humanity’s survival and, well, humanity, it’s about overcoming the ugliest parts of humankind to pave a way towards the future; a sweltering uncontrolled amalgamation that just wants to survive and die and aimlessly destroy where one consciousness has no hope of ever directing the mass of disfigured beings.

The fight against Lao during Chapter 11 is one of the most thematically dense moments in the series, especially among the more recent games. I’ve already talked about how Elma represents survival no matter the cost while Lao represents the cost itself. But the actual details of their debate says a lot about both Lao’s and Elma’s characters. To Elma, there is no such thing as a soul, rather the human experience can be surmised as a collection of one’s memories. There is very little variance between human to human, after all, the DNA of two people on opposite sides of the Earth are functionally identical. Thus, factors like race, class, age, etc. weren’t things she saw as important to consider when it came to archiving the human experience and, in more practical terms, who was worth saving. Lao argued that because she ignored those things, only the worst of humanity escaped Earth’s annihilation. It doesn’t matter if those issues aren’t logical, humans will still do it anyways. The only survivors from Earth were the ultra wealthy and the military. What about the people who were neither rich nor useful? The homeless, the poor, the disabled, the young, the elderly, his family. This isn’t humanity. Lao challenges the very reason you’re trying to save the human race from extinction.

Then there is Lin, the sole child to survive human extinction. She represents everything humanity is meant to protect. Though she was only brough aboard the White Whale because of her engineering talents, she is humanity’s future. Lao recognizes this. While Elma treats Lin as an adult, entrusting her with a world of responsibilities, Lao sees her as the kid she is. For her, he puts aside his depression and takes care of her in whatever capacity he can. He takes her out for tea, he jokes with her like an uncle, he keeps an eye out for her wellbeing. Even when he’s seeking to destroy the human race, he’s still trying to protect her from his hopelessness.

Lao is the climax to Xenoblade X’s themes. An interesting villain with easily understood motives hiding a lot of depth. He acts as a foil to the two protagonists, giving them a lot more depth. Elma in particular really shines during the Lao fight because he challenges everything she stands for.

1. Metal Face (Xenoblade Chronicles)

Metal Face is a pure fuckboy villain, and he leaves a glorious first impression. He has the perfect combination of amusing and terrifying, ending his run as pathetic. He establishes the Faced Mechon and the mechon as a whole as malicious and threatening, which sets the scene perfectly for every mechon-related villain after him.

The reason he’s able to establish himself as a threat so quickly and effectively is that his first two encounters consist of him taking the protagonists down a notch. During his first encounter, you just got the Monado and just obtained some way to fight the mechon, only for this one mechon to appear that cannot be damaged by the Monado and then said mechon proceeds to kill an established party member. Metal Face’s decision to leave doesn’t appear to be caused by the protagonist’s actions either. In all of Shulk’s rage and Fiora’s desperate final stand, they were only able to scratch him. The second time Metal Face shows up, he doesn’t even fight you, he only taunts you. This time, he appears right after Xord’s death, which establishes that the Faced Mechon are not invincible. Metal Face uses this time to reestablish the Faced Mechon’s threat and to undermine any growth the protagonists might have undergone between his first and second encounter. Even resident badasses and heroes Dunban and Dickson showing up only proceeds to amuse him. Xenoblade Chronicles is a shounun, which uses strength as a metaphor for growth. By having the protagonists unable to even shut him up, it’s a reminder that they are still weak and powerless. But the fact that he is forced out of the encounter by a Telethia piloted by some unknown man says that seriously threatening Metal Face, and, by extension, the mechon as a whole, is possible and the protagonists will get there. As a side bonus, it also puts the Telethia above the mechon in hierarchy early in the story, which helps elevate Zanza’s threat during the final quarter of the story.

Metal Face’s role in the story changes during Prison Island. While his first two encounters consisted of him knocking the protagonists down a peg by showing up at the worst times possible and being a dick, you are prepared for him this encounter, and you destroy him. Shulk rips his arm off and could have killed him easily if not for the revelation that the Faced Mechon were once homs. Now that the protagonists can annihilate the mechon, which is represented by Shulk chopping Metal Fuck in half, the story begins to shift towards should he do so. Metal Face goes from representing the image of all mechon to representing the evil of the mechon. If Metal Face didn’t exist to ask the question of “can Shulk destroy the mechon,” it would have diminished the tension of “should Shulk destroy Egil,” which is the primary question that follows Metal Face’s death.

During Metal Face’s encounter during Valak Mountain, he attempts to pull the same stunt as his second encounter where he appears out of nowhere to put down the protagonist’s goals of making progress, but he ultimately fails at that mission as the goal has begun changing from “defeat the mechon” to “understand the mechon.” Thus, introducing Egil here as the leader of Mechonis progresses that goal while phasing out Metal Face’s importance. As Mumkhar, he is presented as a pathetic man using the power given to him as a mechon to incite petty revenge against Dunban. Mumkhar is not an interesting character and the story doesn’t try to make him one either.

I will say that the story stuff surrounding Mumkhar is weak. Most of the details are left to the imagination. Was Mumkhar corrupted by the Monado? The mechon? Was he always a dickbag? He’s established as a coward in the prologue, but does that translate to him being a murderer? These questions at best create some uncertainty around Face Nemesis, but are undermined by her trying to have a conversation with the party before he interrupted. Mumkhar’s death was also quite weak. The party spares him, but he ultimately gets himself killed in a last ditch effort to kill the party. This could be meant to set up the idea that no everyone can or deserves to be spared, which could have lead nicely into the decision not to spare Zanza or his disciples, but this is never properly reflected on by the party, which results in Metal Face’s death feeling like a cop-out.

Overall, Metal Face does an amazing job establishing the groundwork for Xenoblade Chronicles. He gives the mechon a face before that torch can be passed to Egil. He also sets the scene of the conflict of the Homs and Mechon as being a simple conflict, which will be subverted later in the game. On his own, Metal Face strikes a strong balance between fun and threatening. His existence enhances the presence of many other villains that follow him.

Top 5 Villains Overview

I’m going to make several lists based off of this, so this is an overview on the subject.

This series’ villains typically range from decent to good. The series villains tend to either be fuckboys who fuck you up for the fun of it but are then given fuckboy backstories explaining why they want to fuck you up, they’re written to be heroes of their own stories with actual reasons to fuck you up, or they’re masterminds pulling the strings from the shadows. There are exceptions to this, but these are the villain types that Monolith seems to be most fond of. So, I’ll do a quick rundown of what makes each villain type work at their best and their worst.

The fuckboy villains are all about being entertaining to watch. Their backstories tend to be pathetic, but those stories really don’t matter because no amount of backstory is going to make a delightfully evil villain sympathetic (at least in my eyes). They’re usually the first major antagonist the player meets in the game, where their role in the story is to make a strong first impression. Many of the fuckboy villains in the series are also meant to leave off intimidating first impressions before evolving in some direction. The two ways these villains typically fail are either when they’re expected to be sympathetic but then proceed to come across as pathetic, which results in villains that I personally just want to get off screen the moment they’re on screen. And then villains that fail to be amusing or intimidating, which just results in a very forgettable antagonist.

The hero villains are the ones who could have been written as protagonists in a past life but for a properly justifiable reason have decided to be become antagonists. These villains are typically made relevant after the fuckboy villains have had their chance to be proper fuckboys. The hero villains exist to add complexity to the story and act as a foil to the protagonists, either by heavily implying or outright saying that the heroes could have become them. These villains also often die by heroically sacrificing themselves, occasionally they will die peaceful deaths. This villain type typically fails for me when their backstory is either not explained enough or just flat out doesn’t make sense with their actions as a villain. At their best, these villains add depth to both them, the protagonists, and the story’s major themes. At their worst, they take away from those very things.

The mastermind villains are usually reserved for late to end game. Usually they are twist villains who are the source of the main conflict. Interestingly, they are only sometimes the final boss. Monolith usually writes their mastermind villains to either be self-serving or philosophical. The decision between which of the two routes the villain leans towards is typically based on whether to the story wants to focus on the villain’s cause or their effect. The exact where and how these villains are masterminding everything also ranges from vague to exact. Generally, the series does better when the villain’s methods are left on the vaguer end of the spectrum, when they get super specific, there’s usually a lot of jargon and convulsion, which makes the story difficult to follow. While when Monolith picks to make their methods more vague, the story can go right into the meat of the villain.

#overview #top villains #xenoseries

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