Okay, 150 hours later, I'm finally done. This is the only game I've played since launch day. Usually with a game this long I'll take breaks with other titles, but not this time. Take a bow Monolith Soft, this game is a stunning achievement that deserves heaps of accolades.
Likes
First off, the gameplay "loop" felt far more satisfying and enjoyable than either of its predecessors. Areas were a lot more fun to explore without needless hindrances like field skills. Quests were dramatically more entertaining than in any previous title. While I felt burnt out doing mindless fetch quests for shallow NPC's in XC1 or having to grind field skills in XC2, I was constantly engaged in the gameplay here. It just like a much more polished game taking in all the criticisms of the first two and delivering a very refined version of Xenoblade.
The music lives up to the impossibly high expectations. I'm still having a hard time dropping the soundtrack even after listening to it for so long. I think there's a youtube upload with the full OST clocking in at almost 12 hours and so much of it is bangers. I think overall it is my favourite soundtrack in the series because of the size and variety, even though I think It may not reach the peaks set by older tracks. I like the final boss theme but I do think it's the weakest so far. I'm not sure any field themes get to the level of Satori Marsh (Night) or got me pumped the way Mor Ardain (Day) did on the first listen. Captocorn Peak is probably the closest. But I think the music during cinematics is definitely the best so far and that probably goes for the battle music as well. Songs like Noah and N (Phase 2), Words That Never Reached You, the Moebius boss theme, all so good. But my favourite moment was hearing "Elaice Highway" for the first time and getting goosebumps as I slowly recognized the melody. Part of the reason Chrono Cross is one of my favourite OSTS ever is the hints or notes taken from Chrono Trigger to hit that nostalgic sweet spot, absolutely loved all the callbacks to prior Xenoblade music. Please Nintendo, I don't need a new character but I will pay you $5.99 solely to add Xenoblade 3 songs to Smash.
Our protagonists were really likeable! I'll admit that it took me some time to warm up to them, it was probably about 25-30 hours in before I really started to connect with the gang. But I did end up liking everyone in our group. And most of the heroes were interesting and likeable enough as well. I think they were a lot more engaging than Blades from the previous game.
Dislikes
I really did not like the class system leveling structure, but this is really more of a personal thing. What I don't like is that by it's nature, you're basically never in your "optimal" lineup if you want to be efficient in leveling up. From about halfway through the game, I knew how I wanted my team to be set up. Noah Incursor, Mio Zephyr, Eunie Signifier, Taion Lone Exile, Lanz Troubadour, Sena Ogre. So of course you need to unlock the proper master arts/skills from other classes you want to add. But beyond that, those arts and skills are only optimized if you're a level 20 for that class. So practically that means getting ~5-6 classes to level 20 so all your arts/skills are at the highest level. Some of those classes you'll want to level up aren't unlocked until relatively late in the game as well. As a result, I beat the game before ever playing my ideal party. For example I went through the final battles with multiple Seraphs because I was trying to level up the Ultimate Annihilation skill on multiple party members. Now of course, you don't need optimized builds to beat the game. But on normal the game was easy enough that I could randomly swap classes, not even adjust arts/skills/accessories and still do fine. And it just felt weird for me to be fighting and gaining CP if it wasn't going to anything productive.
The villains and climax were not particularly memorable compared to past entries. N has a little bit of a Jin thing going on which I liked, but overall it was disappointing. Xenoblade 1 felt like a M. Night Shyamalan movie with all the twists in the second half and man did I hate Zanza. Xenoblade 2 had an assortment of villains all more engaging than anything found in 3. Where were all the late game revelations? It felt like after the M/Mio swap happened, the plot just kind of played out very predictably. I was hoping for some kind of solid Z/Zanza connection. There was no moment that hit me like Rex begging Poppi through tears to take him to Pneuma. She's right there...
Overall though, I was blown away. 9.5/10, up there with Persona 5 as my favourite JRPG's of the past decade.
