Xenoblade Chronicles Critique - Of Gods and Homs

[Music] xenoblade chronicles is possibly the best video game i've ever played while there are some flaws throughout the game that even i recognize when everything comes together the story the music the gameplay the unpredictability it's truly amazing xenoblade accomplishes a unity between gameplay and story that i think is unprecedented for the jrpg genre and that's coming from someone who doesn't typically enjoy jrpgs but the unity between gameplay and narrative isn't the only fantastic aspect of the game it also encompasses the characters the writing the environments the world building the combat the music and so much more now if the length of the video hasn't clued you in yet there will be full spoilers for the entire game of xenoblade chronicles with that being said maybe you don't want to watch the entire video but that's perfectly reasonable all of these sections will have time stamps in both the description and the pinned comment before you go i think it's important to know which aspects you may miss depending on where you join and leave in the video the first section of the video will serve as a contextual piece that's meant to be informative there will be little analysis there since it will be a recap of the unusual history for the game for anyone who doesn't know about it for some reason if you think you already know about the history of this game then you probably already know everything that's in that section the second part of the video which is technically the real start of my analysis we'll focus on analyzing the overall events in the story so that all of the concepts in the game analysis have a basis in the video that section will also have subsections for each of the major areas in the game again spoilers for the entire game by the way since i will refer to major aspects that occur later in the game during the early segments of the story although you may think it will be an unnecessary plot summary it will not be that though i will recap some events briefly to provide context for what i'm discussing the section will include my commentary and opinions about the overarching story events specific aspects i'll talk about in that section include story pacing foreshadowing cutscene direction some world building and a little bit about character development when it's relevant since there's going to be an entire section dedicated to each party member i'll also interject some interesting details like the meanings of the kanji on the monado since i know some japanese not a lot mind you but just enough either to identify the kanji or write the kanji and search for the definition online sometimes if i'm feeling really stupid i'll look up a kanji i already know and then get mad with myself when i figure out that i already knew it afterward there will be a section discussing each party member there will also be shorter but still relevant sections about characters who aren't in your party but those sections will include major spoilers so please only view the character sections if you finished the entire game then the majority of the remaining video will focus on gameplay which includes sections like the questing system map design etc it will mostly consist of me explaining the efficacy of these aspects in terms of how well they interconnect in the story and quality of said sections as well and finally the entire video will conclude with a synthesis of the aforementioned thematic elements which means that this section will discuss the commentary of xenoblade chronicles i do apologize if that entire explanation of just my video was boring i do think it was necessary however since probably only a minority of strange crazy people will be willing to sit down for an undesirable amount of time to just listen to me gush about xenoblade and as always please feel free to share your thoughts about the game in the comments down below no matter how long the comment i always try to respond to y'all as much as i can it's honestly my favorite part of this so please feel free to discuss any of your thoughts about the video my voice or the video game in the comments below and with that long-winded introduction finished it's time to begin a too long for its own good video analyzing why xenoblade chronicles is possibly my favorite video game ever the first ever preview of xenoblade chronicles occurred in e3 2009 nintendo decided to shadow trop a trailer for a game titled monado beginning of the world which was the original title for xenoblade chronicles i'm not surprised that nintendo didn't include the trailer in the e3 presentation since it begins the trend of xenoblade chronicles lack of notoriety and marketing there isn't too much new information about xenoblade until january of 2010 when nintendo confirmed that xenoblade was the new name for monado beginning of the world in the same article the author included the link to the japanese website for xenoblade which includes some basic stuff like character introductions screenshots world explanations etc xenoblade after little previews toward the public released on june 10th 2010 to japan and only japan nintendo of europe had some plans to localize the game retitling it as xenoblade chronicles but the european english release wouldn't happen until august 19 2011 over an entire year after the original japanese release but nintendo of america apparently had some stubborn bastards who didn't want to sell the game because the american branch refused to let nintendo of europe showcase the english version of xenoblade chronicles since noa didn't want to present games that they weren't going to sell after this news a bunch of fans band together to start something called project rainfall which was a campaign to convince nintendo of america to bring three games to western markets the last story pandora's tower and xenoblade chronicles the plan was to send physical letters to nintendo of america asking them to bring over the games they sent so many letters that nintendo of america actually acknowledged the group by begging them to stop sending the letters which they obviously didn't what makes the whole situation more unreasonable is that nintendo had complete english localizations for these games made by nintendo of europe which is the localization they ended up using because the british spelling is not changed in the american versions nintendo finally gave in to their demands deciding to release all three games which meant that xenoblade chronicles finally released on april 6 2012 for the wii almost two years after the game's initial release yes the title screen is beautiful it's incredibly serene but we need to move on because otherwise i talk about this title screen the whole damn video so we start a new game and then we see the loading screen which is the monado with the kanji for read yommun which is a cute little detail because the console is breeding the disc or cartridge i guess depending on the version it's nothing incredible but i thought it was interesting since this was one of the many kanji that i searched despite already knowing it the first shot is between two titans the bionis and meconic it establishes a clear binary that's ever present throughout the story here's a binaries between biological life and mechanical life but different types of binaries will crop up throughout the story a disembodied voice whom we'll know later as shulk provides narration to the battle between the bayanis and the mechanism the dialogue here is in the form of a fairy tale or legend characterizing this story as a creation however the whole truth of this scene isn't fully revealed in what we the audience first see the game later re-contextualizes this moment and that motif of half-truths will reappear more throughout the game and this video for now the prologue is a simple creation myth providing some world building and explanation for the conflict after shulk's narration the game cuts to a battle between humanoid creatures called the homs and mechanical beasts called the mekong the two are at war for an inexplicable reason the camera here is well placed it actually provides some creative shot composition in the form of this shot right here the soldiers running away are juxtaposed by dunban's sprint toward the metcon characterizing him as brave reckless and also skill it's a great instance of characterization because the game takes advantage of its medium to indirectly characterize someone instead of directly stating something along the lines of wow that rather handsome fellow over there who is really skilled in combat and is also brave and sometimes a little reckless is called dunban the game instead implements a creative use of the camera in cut scenes to illustrate what took less than four seconds in the video compared to what would have taken about 10 seconds in dialogue form anyway there's not many other small details here the banter between dixon dunban and mumkar does a fine job at characterizing the three dunban is still reckless and brave dixon is reserved and snarky and mumkar is cowardly and selfish the three all have distinct personalities and their speech patterns are all distinct to reflect this the scene also not so subtly introduces new concepts like the monado which is supposedly the only weapon that can kill mecca this will become a bit more complicated in later segments of the game but for now the monado is the only weapon capable of killing mecca there's an introduction to combat and the tutorials are serviceable there isn't anything mind-blowing or subtly masterful here they're simply tutorials with cute little graphics that convey the necessary information it's not a bad tutorial message but it's not amazing either anyway some mech on are killed another cut scene plays and mumkar dies actually mumkar's fake out death is a bit more interesting than that because it actually seems like he dies from just the start of the game the metcon are characterized as ruthless so it's easy to assume that mumkar dies here and that's good the game builds a false assumption that he dies because of previously established villain characterization and then his reappearance later is a subversion of that but it's not an unreasonable twist since there is never an explicit death scene here the last part of this cutscene is a zoom out of the battlefield sword valley and then the camera zooms backward and through all of the other areas that you'll eventually get to explore on the bionis right before showing the bodies of both the bionis and mekonus and now the game starts introducing the rest of its main cast at colony the cutscenes start off with the protagonist shulk and the scene features the beautiful environments that the prologue promised from before the scene also captures that serenity from the title screen with the dragonfly landing on the flower it's still impressive to me that despite the lower than normal resolution for each release of the game the environments are still so impressive but anyway the scene isn't too significant it characterizes shulk as an inventor which actually comes up again in the plot and also several side quests another aspect that xenoblade continually does well it always ensures that each aspect of the plot is relevant for later what's even better is that the game often successfully creates misdirection for the audience to hide its most important twists which is something you'll actually see later on in this section moving along ryan's introduction occurs here but the real characterization doesn't come in yet right now he's just a bulky meat head but it's not terrible characterization since it's only a brief introduction after the small tutorial fight the small conversation provides more personality to ryan because he's so caring to shulk here it sets him up as the best friend character trope but the game inherently having these tropes isn't bad since the game actually evolves on the concept ryan being a trope isn't a bad thing and that'll become more apparent as the game continues there aren't too many notable moments until shulk arrives at the military district however because this marks vanguard's appearance though he's mostly a comedic character he has a lot of strong characterization in the scene as the abrasive leader of the defense force it actually brings me to something i want to praise about the game that would probably seem like a critique to a lot of other people i like the automatic animations in xenoblade chronicles though there are a limited set of animations for all of the characters in these cut scenes all of the animations are far more expressive than the automated animation and a lot of modern story focused games automated animation in cutscenes isn't really as dreadful of a concept as many might believe forcing developers to pour hours of animation into cutscenes that are ultimately dialogue driven is frankly unreasonable and automated animation provides a nice compromise between fluidity and development time since automated cutscenes allow the developers to spend more time hand animating the cutscenes that need the handcrafted animation to have the best effect but for me the automated animation still needs to express the character's motions well enough otherwise the automated cutscenes become truly robotic instead of only made robotic the games i find to have the worst automated cutscenes are open world games the automated cutscenes here have absolutely no emotion the most animation you'll get from these cut scenes is an arm moving up or down while the benefit of skipping the dialogue if you've already read the whole line is helpful alleviating some of the problem majority of the cutscenes would benefit from more animated animations they don't have to be incredible or detailed at all but as long as the animations express a specific emotion clearly and quickly then the automated cutscenes become so much more tolerable thankfully xenoblade actually fixes the problems of automatically animated cutscenes and it came out over 10 years ago though there's only a small batch of animations that any characters can use it still provides more life to the dialogue than an occasional hand movement plus it's far more convenient to skip the lines here than in something like the witcher 3 because it's only a single button press and the game actually tells you what button to push spoiler alert it's a okay i think that's all of note for the vanguard scene but the next scene with dixon is a little bit more interesting with the foresight of dixon's eventual betrayal the scene has more interesting aspects than the small lore dump about the monado that actually sets up the future monado arts and cements shulk status as an inventor because he was able to predict the monado arts accurately the other interesting aspect is that the scene between dixon and shulk is another example of the game ensuring that every single scene is significant it alludes to dixon's loyalty to zanza since he encourages shulk to continue researching the monado eventually leading him down the path that zanza intended which is so significant because it's a small hint towards dixon's betrayal yet the game is so masterful at hiding this aspect that the scene just seems like a normal world building scene until you have the hindsight of the entire game the flashback shulk has of dunban arriving back at the colony also aids in the zanza plot twist though more explicitly than the prior scene with dixon the flashback provides an aura of mystery surrounding the monado and it also sets up an idea that the monado may be sentient although any theories a viewer would have at this point would just be conjecture the next set of scenes focus on dunban and fiora it begins fjora's characterization and the scene sets her up as kind yet also somewhat stubborn which is a quality that dunban shares her kindness is shown through her capacity to take care of her older brother and her obstinances conveyed through her unwillingness to visit shulk until dunban convinces her dunban however is the far more interesting character since this isn't his introduction it actually presents the second core side to dunban's personality he's sagacious and calm exemplified by his ability to persuade fiora to visit shulk the scene ends with dunban attempting to use the spoon with his injured arm yet failing to hold it without trepidation seconds later it signifies that the war against the meccon has grave consequences more than just a few generic soldiers dying since a major character has grave life-changing injuries the next scene is pretty simple just a conversation between fiora and dixon to guide the player toward the next destination the scene in the park is where i actually have my first complaint about the story though i know how blasphemous but it's just a small thing so the scene includes a conversation between shulk and fiora which builds a little romantic chemistry between the two of them but the most significant aspect to the story is when fiora says this you know shulk i hope every day can be like this always that line is such a cliche in storytelling when a character in a peaceful town is enjoying the serene days and then everything changes when the fire nation i mean an invading force attacks now implementing tropes into a story isn't bad by itself hell i'd be a hypocrite for saying that because i love ryan's character but he is absolutely the best friend trope incarnate for ryan i don't mind the trope because he has interesting character interactions with characters other than his best friend shulk in fact i'd argue his character actions with sharla sometimes are better and more prevalent than his interactions with shulk not to discredit the weight and craft of those interactions and because of the diverse meaningful interactions with party members other than the best friend character i don't mind the trope the trope in the park is somewhat similar though it sets up interesting emotional conflicts for shulk after fiora's death so i enjoy that yet xenoblade has a plot that prides itself on unpredictability and i mean good foreshadowed well-developed unpredictability so to have a trope like this that so blatantly outlines the future events of the story is rather boring and unbefitting of a plot like this one the end of that scene though takes us to the next scene where shulk and fiora find ryan back at the research lab and is incredibly dense so there's going to be a lot about this section first off ryan receives a lot more characterization as someone who is clumsy and rash due to his willingness to touch the monado without little consideration it's one of his major character flaws and i think it's perfect for ryan character flaws like these are so integral for a character's personality because without them characters become these perfect do-good husks that are incredibly annoying and take away from the story's potential to develop them because they're already so gosh darn perfect anyway after ryan flails around the game introduces another significant aspect of the monado it can't cut people now this point is very vague because when i first heard this i thought oh that makes sense because they're from the bionis well i was either wrong in my assumption or the game is a little inconsistent in the rules on what the monado can and cannot injure i'm more likely to believe that it's just a mistake on my part since the game never explicitly said what i thought and hans is the only species that the monado can't explicitly cut through although it is still somewhat odd that the monado can't injure homs yet somehow it can kill other living organisms from the bionis like crabbles brogs and caterpillar after that shulk bumps the monado against table and he has a vision of everything to come in the game the kanji that appears on the monado is hata which means machine it's the same kanji used for the enchant art as well not only that but it appears in the makonus's japanese name kishin literally translated as machine god the aforementioned kanji hata is the most common symbol you'll see on the monado so if i don't point out the symbol in a cutscene then it's either a symbol i've talked about before or just this one yet again now on to the actual visions they were surprisingly cryptic on my first playthrough over five years ago despite the fact that they revealed the existence of eggel and ergo machina the visions are fast-paced enough that no one is really going to notice every single scene so it's a good sense of misdirection especially since the rules for visions aren't clearly defined yet afterwards shulk and ryan head toward tephra cave to gather some ether cylinders and fiora meets them at the cave entrance holding the cylindrical tubes they forgot to bring while there isn't too much here it does establish more of fjor's character setting her up as a responsible almost maternal character for shulk and ryan not only that but there's also this line i knew she didn't trust me which will tie into something else later just not very subtly the journey through tephra cave isn't terribly interesting so i'm just going to skip to when the party arrives at the ether cylinder station where two robots awaken and attack the party joke ascertains that the machines aren't mekon and most likely didn't activate because of them which is a much better way to set up the mekong invasion than you know i wish every day could be like this one but after the encounter with the robots comes the best part of this section the mekong invasion the immediate destruction and murder that comes with the mekong invasion is truly terrifying and it displays how fearsome and malicious the mekong are that aura of dread that the metcon have is a wonderful aspect of the story because it also continues throughout the combat which you'll see momentarily because as the party travels back to calling e9 in order to reach dunban shulk and rein encounter a mekong for a first time player this is their first combat encounter with a mekong where they don't have the monado and it is incredibly difficult the first thing that the player will see is a lack of damage since all the damage they deal equals one which is how the metcon are characterized as horrifying for both the player and the characters in the game the metcon are seemingly unstoppable in both the story and gameplay without the monado even to defeat a mechan without the monado in combat the player has to initiate the break status effect and then the topple status effect the player is going to have to rely on the ai to inflict one of the status effects and then the player can inflict the other status effect yet even then the player only has to deal half of this metcon's health bar meaning that the mekong are so powerful both in combat and in the story that it truly takes effort to kill even a single metcon this unison between the character's emotions and the player's emotions is one of the most gripping aspects of xenoblade storytelling the game consistently links both its story concept and gameplay concept for a greater sense of immersion and unity between story and gameplay that whole concept will come up later but for now let's get back to the story so fjor can't find dunban so shulk figures out that they should head to the research lab to grab the monado after the cutscene the game gives a tutorial that says running away is a viable strategy the tutorial message just furthers the fearful aura that the metcon already have since the game actively encourages running away and if you decide not to run away then you'll have the joy of slowly defeating each and every mech on but after that small little choice the player can make the party witnesses the true introduction of metalface i know he was technically introduced when the metcon started invading but this scene is where he truly starts to exhibit his signature dread metalface lands on the ground and the camera features an angled shot between the kernel and metal face conveying metalface as the more powerful menacing figure since he is higher in the shot composition for metalface to intimidate the kernel is impressive since colonel vangar is the most menacing violent homs we've seen so far aside from the more serious tone of the scene however i think it should be known that the colonel is able to survive a meccan slowly crushing him while simultaneously being flattened by the vehicle that metalface throws at him while also surviving the ensuing explosion from the vehicle crashing in to the research lab's entrance so really for metal face to be more menacing than the guy that survives an actual explosion it's pretty damn scary consequently from that wonderful scene the party can no longer enter the research lab so they quickly decide to use the ether cylinders from before to power a machine that can destroy the rubble granting them access to the monado honestly the most impressive part of this scene is how the writers integrated the ether cylinders from before into the plot despite their initial purpose becoming irrelevant because of the mekong invasion after that though the party is circled by mekkon as they tried to run toward the residential district where the machine they need is shulk and ryan tell fjord to leave them and just sprint toward the residential district she swiftly agrees and then ryan has a call back to the beginning of tephra cave when he says looks like she trusts me after all it's not really a subtle callback but the significance of the moment still stands it serves to establish the connection and trust between these three friends while the game could just exclude the scene and say oh boy gosh these three people sure are friends it's a lot more effective and impactful if the connection is displayed through character motivations and actions which the game thankfully incorporates here and also many other instances that you'll witness as this behemoth of a video continues but this moment also continues the connection between gameplay and story that i mentioned earlier you have to defeat several mekong this time without the monado driving home the dread that the mekong bring however the draining fight without the monado is directly juxtaposed by dunban's entrance which is just incredible he comes barreling in defeating hordes of mekong with ease and on top of that the ensuing gameplay fight with dunban is a complete breeze again linking both the emotions from the story and the gameplay into one another thing to note is that here the game does actually make a point of dunban being a significantly higher level than ryan and shulk correlating gameplay experience to actual in-story battle experience this doesn't come up too often but there is a significant fight later on where you should keep this in mind anyway the party decides to take a roundabout path to the residential district so that they can find fiora on the way to the residential district the monado overtakes dunban and he isn't able to control it anymore here we receive more insight on dunban's character specifically his perseverance as evident with this line but i must i don't have a choice but shulk takes a risk and decides to wield the monado and he has a vision of the future this establishes the rules of visions and how they work first time stopped when shulk receives vision second the future shulk sees may not be entirely predestined to happen third you can tell when shulk has a vision because a flash appears in front of both of his eyes that last rule doesn't always apply so it's a little inconsistent but i'll make sure to identify when the game diverges from this rule because it's not really that often another strange part of this scene is that dunban just magically has another sword there's no indication on his model on where he hit the sword it's one of the few inconsistencies in this game so i thought it was worth noting especially since this plot overall is incredible at having a consistent plot where everything is relevant after finishing off the horde of mekong on the bridge shulk rein and dunban all head to the residential district where they encounter metalface who is now more menacing than ever attacks even with the monado are completely futile and that fact just contributes even further to metal faces intimidating presence but after the battle there is quite possibly one of the best moments in the game this is the moment that truly defines xenoblade chronicles the scene defines its unpredictability it defines the stakes it defines the story quality it defines the music quality this single scene is why so many people decided to finish xenoblade chronicles myself included and that's because fiora dies if you aren't really into jrpgs a playable character basically never dies this early on in the game there are some that do have playable character deaths but xenoblade chronicles is one of the few games where it feels like none of the playable characters are safe not only is this scene so unpredictable though it's also an exceptionally resonant scene the song that plays here engaged the enemy is one of the best songs in the soundtrack with triumphant yet somber vocals backing up the amazing composition it perfectly elevates the emotional tension of every scene it's in and another aspect that greatly helps this scene is the voice act now pay attention because this is the only time i'll probably ever say this i like the english voice cast more than the japanese voice cast for this game now that's just in general because there are some characters who have better voice actors in japanese and sometimes the english voice actors will spat out some incredibly awkward dialogue despite being decent or even good actors adam howden however is a good actor and the voice director for nintendo of europe back in 2010 of course did an incredible job directing the cast this is truly lightning in a bile because shulk screen here is the only believable anime boy scream i've ever heard houdin's performance perfectly captures shulk rage and despair and that climactic emotionally resonant moment ends with fiora's killer and the rest of the mech on fleeing the scene with more mystery and dread about the mekong that was just the first two hours well the next day shulk and ryan start talking to each other about fiora and what they'll do next while the scene does a great job of setting up the motivations for shulk and rein establishing that they both want revenge against the mekong the scene also has another great example of misdirection here shulk says in my head there are two versions of me one of them is saying that it's telling me listen to what dunban said what about the other one it keeps shouting make them pay destroy every single one of them while on a first playthrough you would interpret this as a setup for ryan's joke right after the other voice shulk refers to is most definitely zanza since it keeps shouting to kill the mekon hinting at the more violent and destructive tendencies of zanza it's so detailed how the writers already have hints about zanza someone who doesn't become relevant at all until much later and it also reinforces that everything is relevant to the story afterwards we get a scene of shulk and rein heading back to her colony six because metal face flew off in that direction and the camera pans back to reveal dunban who says will join them later it's a small character moment for him which reveals that dunban though wise is still controlled by his own emotions of anger and revenge though the party has technically visited tephra cave before i still put it in the calling 9 section since i didn't want to jump back and forth between the two areas plus the actual significant section of tephra cave occurs here however it's not as long of a story segment as colony 9 so don't worry about that the story arc starts off with shulk and rein arriving back at the door that was closed during their earlier visit to tefr cave they both decipher that it most likely unlocked because of the mekong invasion acting as an escape route of sorts however there's a problem with this if that door is truly locked until a metcon invasion why are there ether lamps that traders use the game explicitly says that ether lamps are placed by armored traders so i think the traders went to colony 9 often if they decided to put up ether lamps but if they did go to colony 9 frequently why is the one and only door to colony nine locked either the traitors have a key to get in and the writers didn't think that was important or this is one of the very few inconsistencies in xenoblade chronicles but there isn't too much that's significant here the next scene just discusses the ether lamps and adds more to the world building it does actually provide a reason as to why there aren't traitors here later on so i'll commend the writers for that after a little exploration the two stumble across some defense force corpses illustrating that cave is filled with actually dangerous monsters not only that but it does provide a little more world building with the whole return them to the biannua spit there isn't anything too intriguing however until shulk's dream here the story starts to flesh out a little more about how the visions work and only vaguely the scene alludes to the idea that shulk is capable of changing the future but the concept isn't proven until much later later in the dream shulk sees rein run away from some arachnos and then a giant arachno penetrates his weapon killing rhine now here xenoblade continues its air of unpredictability because it constantly fluctuates between whether or not one of shulk's visions will become true his first vision on the bridge didn't come true but the one where fiora dies follows through so since the game already established that it's entirely willing to kill off a prominent playable character there's actual uncertainty and tension about rhine's fate after shulk wakes up and loses ryan in an arachnoden we get to the recreation of the moment in shulk's dream or vision or whatever the hell you want to call it again it's incredible that the game can create such uncertainty with its foreshadowing since the story itself technically reveals several crucial plot points already yet the writers are careful not to reveal surviving characters so every cutscene still has tension and it's even more tense because of the story's dedication to unpredictability in the actual scene however ryan survives because shulk unlocks a new art on the monado monado shield the monado shield art uses the kanji tate it just means shield in japanese so there isn't anything inherently interesting for this kanji the one problem with this scene however is the rules for unlocking new monado arts while there is a semi explanation later on it doesn't become a good explanation until you delve into the nomenclature of the game's world specifically the monado but we'll get into that later even then though the game itself should provide a good in-universe explanation which it really doesn't so that does take away from the artistry of the scene a little bit after that wonderful scene shulk and rhine arrive on the bionis kneecap and the cutscene displays the true magnitude of the two titans and it's frankly beautiful the one incredible detail in this scene is the allusion to zanza when shulk says our enemy it's another moment of wonderful misdirection since it can signify shulk and rein or shulkin zanza this section of the story ends with the scout mecca on spotting shulk and rhine and reporting back to a mysterious towering mekon who proceeds to eat a defense force soldier setting us up for another beautiful vista to explore the bionisleg is where the story truly starts to shine exhibiting the same quality of unpredictability character interactions and tension from before although the weaker more awkward dialogue starts to rear its ugly head once charlo shows up her character introduction is frankly subpar since she awkwardly spouts her important character background but she does offer some interesting character tensions and chemistry with rein after her awkward introduction so i think the slightly awkward dialogue is fine in the grand scheme of the story but we'll touch on those specific instances where charlotte character shines later on because it's definitely not here the start of the chapter begins with ryan and shulk's discovery of an abandoned buggy in garplane then shulk has another vision which is so far still consistent with the previously established rules and then they head for small lake where the two of them find juju the one annoying character in this game frankly his english voice actor doesn't help because it makes his character sound whiny and entitled it somewhat invalidates any genuine character development he receives because his annoying character traits are the features that the game decides to showcase the most like his awful complaining and his stupidity and his susceptibility to being kidnapped he's truly what makes this chapter worse than what it could have been he doesn't become annoying right now since he just gives directions to shulk and rhein to the refugee camp but in the next scene he starts to become the annoying juju because he becomes so so irrational alas before we can get to that wonderful moment we're introduced to sharla she initially scolds juju for leaving the camp and then mentions how colony 6 was attacked by mekon this scene fortunately provides some decent characterization for sharla the writers characterize her as a maternal figure immediately because her scolding to juju still comes off as affectionate the game will also expound upon this character trait throughout the story more but it's a striking introduction which helps her to stand out even if it's only briefly because she's going to be completely overshadowed by the rest of the cast as they join up following sharla's decent introduction the party receives a lot of dialogue that completely dumps charlotte's backstory and this is where her character becomes boring she exposes how her lover gadolt was a member of the colony 6 defense force and she also elaborates on what specifically happened to colony 6. it's a completely boring exposition dump since so much information occurs here and the character has barely been introduced meaning that we don't have any time to actually care about what she's saying and for that reason her backstory is boring rather than emotionally resonant the writers do include significant and interesting payoffs to her backstory but it doesn't appear until much later in the story so for now all the information she provides is rendered useless the one interesting detail from this conversation is the comparison between gadot and rein that carries through the entire narrative establishing a romantic chemistry between rein and sharla however the one weak aspect here is that sharla is far too explicit about the connection far too early a more significant and impactful comparison could be a camera cut from a flashback of gadult in the past to rhine in the present and that kind of composition isn't too strange for xenoblade because it already includes a lot of creative shot composition that does result in more subtle and less explicit storytelling juju then does something useful for once and interrupts sharla's monologuing by driving away again with the buggy and the group now with sharla pursues him after ascertaining the direction of juju's escape shulk has another vision of juju's capture after ragel bridge so the party rushes towards spiral valley to find tentacle mekong there holding juju captive which initiates another fantastic scene that both demonstrates the combat capability of the party but also the fantastic chemistry and relationship building among the cast the two key aspects of the scene are the choreography and the camera movement combined both of the features illustrate the combat capability of the cast due to their coordination and the camera movement even has a segment where there's one continuous shot further demonstrating the coordination of the party because of the continuous flow that the single camera shot provides the first part before all of the wonderful choreography involves a new monado art which is monado speed the kanji here means toku which is the word for swiftly after the introduction of the new kanji the true portion of the scene begins it starts with shulk and rein circling around sharla and then transitions to the entire group fighting the tactical mekong the first portion starts with shulk and then the camera seamlessly transitions to rhine for a little bit then to sharla ending with a combined effort to cut off a tentacle between ryan and sharla since the scene is able to create an uninterrupted flow between all the party members the story is able to display the capability of the party without stating words or otherwise not only that but the ensuing fight isn't as difficult as fighting a faced mekong so the only special status condition that the party needs is monado enchant ensuring that the scene takes full advantage of the video game medium because it integrates both cutscene and gameplay into one seamless scene with a clear direction displaying the team's coordination these kinds of scenes are when xenoblade is at its peak of storytelling and the story continues the momentum throughout even in some of the less interesting parts of the story the scene after the first phase is a cutscene which i think should have been a hand animated cutscene since the placement of an automated cutscene takes away from the tension and excitement of the amazing moment but it's still a minor detail in an otherwise spectacular encounter after defeating the second phase of the tentacle metcon however the party finds juju but then a new faced mekong promptly ambushes the party stealing juju away in the end before his kidnapping though the new faced mekong talks to the party and he reveals that he has a name zord his introduction is interesting since the writers decide to give zord a distinct personality and this is a feature that the writers will continue for the other faced mecca zord's introduction reveals that he is cocky nonchalant and playful although there isn't much of note to point out other than the fight with zord the player is capable of inflicting break and then topple on zord if they have a full party gauge which is the actual key to damaging faced mekong now i thought about this mechanic for a while and at first i thought that it didn't connect to the story because no weapon including dominato can cut through face mech on armor although after more consideration i think it actually still connects to the story since the monado has been shown to cut through a face mechan's face as demonstrated by the encounter with metalface in colony 9. now when a face mekkon is toppled their actual face is much closer to the ground meaning that the party is actually capable of hitting its face however the party can still attack the faced mekong from anywhere on its body once the mech on his topples so i still think that aspect of the fight doesn't connect to the story which is disappointing considering that the entire game connects the story and gameplay so well in most other areas but after the fight juju is kidnapped and the party begins their trek to colony six before actually heading to colony six sharla has a dream which conveys the information about her past with gadol far better than her monologuing did since the cutscene displays some romantic chemistry between the two of them and illustrates her fear behind losing gadalt represented by gadot's walk into the flames and followed by zore taking juju away yet again in her dream she awakens after zord's appearance in the dream but the actual dream creates some great conflict for sharla since it conveys her fear of losing both gadot and juju without her saying a single thing it's some fantastic storytelling and the tension stems from the fact that the player has no idea whether or not they are alive despite the player having a third person omniscient view of the narrative the player is usually privy to information that not even the main cast knows which is the omniscient aspect but the removal of said omniscience creates a fantastic developed sense of the tension that the game will continue to capitalize on once the party reaches the ether mines the ether mine segment is another great display of the unpredictable tension heightening character-driven well-executed storytelling that xenoblade chronicles has shown and will continue to show which is in part due to the tension that occurs between atharon and the rest of the party resulting in some more misdirection that constantly builds to a satisfying outcome the first scene of this segment depicts sharla and the party discovering that the mekong have indeed also invaded the tunnels under colony 6. it instills more tension into the segment as a whole afterwards sharla hears the sound of an ether rifle and she rushes toward the noise finding a thoron the other character from her dream or flashback or whatever it is the party fend off the metcon and they go to a hideaway to converse with atharon about the status of the defense force the party learns about the unknown status of gadolt and many of the other defense force members which furthers the mekong's threatening presence because of their capability to kill almost an entire army of trained soldiers during a planned attack the party agrees to help letharon take down zord but on the way there shulk receives a vision of atharon falling into an ether river which is by the way incredibly toxic so it's reasonable to assume that shulk saw his death shulk voices some concern after the vision and a tharon storms off rein however stays behind and interrogates shulk figuring out the key aspects of shark's vision rhine promises to help change the future establishing some wonderful tension and uncertainty that will carry throughout this segment the party heads toward the bottom of the mind to fight zord who reveals some odd information about his inability to remember his own name this is the most direct hint toward the big reveal about face mechan later on but i don't think it reveals too much about it yet since the name aspect is really vague though if you read the monado archives there's a segment where zord is an earlier model of faced mekong so newer faced mekong can remember their name but the party battle zord implementing the topple strategy from earlier except now the battle has other lower level mech on so that the player can build up the party gage by attacking the other mech on then unleash a chain attack on zord it's a simple yet creative use of the party gauge mechanic for a boss fight after the zord fight comes the incredible tension heightening climax for this section because the game always keeps an air of uncertainty by oscillating between two outcomes a vision coming true or a changed future up to the point of the ether mine shulk's pivotal visions have come true once this is fiora's death and choke has already changed the future twice since he prevented the deaths of rein and sharla now the story doesn't keep a complete numerical balance between the two outcomes but the uncertainty of the outcome once you know a possible conclusion is what creates such wonderful tension in this scene on top of that the scene drifts toward the conclusion where atharon falls into the ether river ever so slowly escalating the tension even further all of this culminates in atharon falling into the ether river except what he says changes it leads the player into believing that they changed the future but only slightly yet even when the scene fakes a conclusion ryan jumps down grabs atharon and fulfills one of his earlier lines about assisting shulk to change the future reinstating a tharon is so unexpected yet still satisfying since the cutscenes kept misdirecting the player and elevating the tension of the scene after a brief fight on the elevator zord spouts some more direct allusions to the faced mekong twist this is thankfully the last obvious hint about the truth of the faced mekong because it almost spoils the reveal but thankfully the writers also include information about the monado's hidden power which becomes the more pertinent information to the party so the hint about the faced mekong is still somewhat hidden once they make it to the top the party reconvenes ensuring that juju is alive and well yet shortly after metalface arrives in a somewhat creative shot where he flies into the gap left by rein and sho his appearance isn't surprising however since shulk and ryan mention him only seconds before he appears but it thankfully leads to some fantastic music and drama between the party and the antagonist because metal face finally speaks his english voice actor is frankly incredible the voice encapsulates the flamboyant maniacal personality of metal face while giving some incredible line deliveries which i think are all leagues better than his japanese voice actor one thing i do want to note is that this is one of the few scenes where it feels like the dubbing isn't synced with metal faces movements but that isn't true the scene carries the same disconnect between the voice and movements in the japanese version so the dubbing isn't to blame here fiora get out of there [Music] [Laughter] [Music] aside from that metalface continues to antagonize shulk in his monologue which sets up the metal face as a wonderful villain since his antagonism creates a very personal motive for the entire party to combat him afterwards shulk decides to run toward metal face except it's a naruto run look i love this scene and i can still take the game as a whole seriously but the running animation for shulk looks so damn awkward although the scene is fantastic the awkward animation here still hinders the emotional resonance of it for me but dunban's entrance shortly thereafter makes up for it backing up the wonderful song that plays here unfinished business and this is the only time this song plays in the entire game right future connected right because of that it elevates this encounter further by ensuring that it has a personal connection to dunban rind sharla and shulk once the wonderful encounter is over shulk and dunban both try attacking metal face yet again seeing if they can injure him now dunban's attempt to strike him may seem pointless but it's actually not since during the scene he's using an anti-mekong glaive so attacking metalface with said weapon is a logical idea since it's able to cut through normal mekon however metal phase is impervious to all of their attempts and the only thing that pushes him back is the arrival of a telethia which causes him and the other mechan to flee zhulk tries to chase after them but he lets go of his anger and deactivates the monado the end of the scene displays alves conversing with the telethia that attacked the mekong moments ago since this scene with him isn't discussed with other characters throughout the game it works as a way to hint at alvis's true role that will be revealed later on on top of that since this is technically alvis's introduction to the player it becomes a hidden clue for alvis's reveal later in the narrative because he receives a second introduction to shulk and another introduction to the rest of the party resulting in more wonderful misdirection in the final scene choke has a vision about visiting an island at the head of the bionis while witnessing himself cutting through metalface's armor he informs the rest of the party and dixon who just so happens to be wise about the entire bionis suggests that shulk's vision occurs on prison island the party believes him and begins their journey to prison island [Music] this is probably the worst section of the entire story because absolutely jack happens in this section the most actual plot that occurs is the party going somewhere else i know the chapter dedicates itself to more of the emotional beats of the story but some of the scenes here are frankly unimportant the first scene is fine because it's a dixon introducing the party to satoru marsh and a little world building about how aether works but i still wish it was a little bit shorter the scene after is the party saying that they should visit the napon camp but the camp has zero relevance to the story at all if you stop at the camp you can buy some gear and receive some quests but why is that significant to the main story it's a completely pointless cut scene and none of the information is pertinent to any other part of the game's story that same aspect carries over for a lot of the scenes in this section the game wastes the player's time during this section with either repeated information or irrelevant information for instance the scene right after the useless knop on camp scene is when the party decides to rest under the glowing obelisk joke reminisces about fiora and remembers his vision the scene replays a sizeable chunk of the scenes that the player has already seen and i think they should have been significantly shorter because it would help the player recall the information but it would also convey shulk's thoughts in a more timely manner once dixon enters the scene becomes better though since the cutscene plays a scene that the player has already watched while dixon talks to shulk it's an effective way to remind the player about a previous scene while also carrying the momentum of the current moment the rest of the cutscene is great since it elaborates on shulk's history and why he is so dedicated to studying the monado it's the best of this section but that really isn't saying much when the rest of this chapter feels almost pointless the party heads toward this auroral statues here atharan and juju decide to start reconstructing colony 6. juju's moment here showcases some decent character development for a minor character because he realizes where he's truly useful in planning not combat and with that juju is gone from the main story for a while and he completes his development which is the best his character has to offer dixon also leaves for unknown reasons and the scene shows some of his internal thoughts furthering his mysterious nature and motives the party has to climb the soror statues after everyone else leaves and at the top there's a scene where shulk asks dunban if he can keep using the monado i don't think this scene is entirely necessary either but it's not intrusive since the scene happens relatively fast once the party enters the bionis interior shulk comments on the fact that the bionis appears to be alive it's another small hint that will develop the last segment of the game so that it doesn't seem out of place for the narrative however it's strange that shulk states this fact and not sharla who is quite knowledgeable about biological life due to her experience as a medic it would have been nice for her to say something in this chapter at least because she says almost nothing in the entire section the final scene in this boring chapter depicts the assembly of face nemesis which accomplishes two things primarily it alludes to the return of a certain character ensuring that the twist has actual hints for it throughout the narrative secondly it conveys some more world building by allowing the player to view the process of assembly for faced mekon now with the worst chapter finished we can finally arrive at a better section of the game this area has one of the weaker parts of the overarching story due to its lack of unpredictability but it's still much better compared to the previous chapter this chapter as a whole has some great new character introductions and chemistry among the cast the first scene is really what kills any mystery that the chapter attempts to create since it reveals melia's race which is supposed to be a significant mystery to both the party and the player the mystery becomes so important that the player can't even change melia's headgear once she joins the party said mystery revolves around the identity of her race whether or not she is a homs the first scene depicts melia and a few guards fighting at telethea the guards have wings that attach to their heads so based on that detail it's fair to assume that maybe just maybe these characters aren't homs now that doesn't deconfirm the melia ham's theory but these guards address her as lady melia so her title implies that she may be of royalty to the strange non-homs beings that accompany her of all the races on bionis we know of all but two but based on the current races we've heard about homs napon mekong and hyentia which race do you think melia is she's definitely not a napon or a mekon which leaves homs or hyentia yet the first scene with her implies that she's associated with non-homs individuals so that must mean she's most likely well it's not important so the most definitely high antea girl attacks the telethia and then collapses the party heads through magnaforce and carries melia over to an area with more shade and sharla actually gets something to do here she states that the comatose girl had depleted energy levels which she includes how this was a strange thing to affect ahams so severely shulk volunteers to harvest some ether crystals near a waterfall from earlier but he goes alone once he reaches the water crystal deposit this strange character from one of the previous chapters alves introduces himself to shulk the scene depicts him as mysterious due to his knowledge about shulk and even the monado but there's more to him that occurs in the later scenes after some time with alvis shulk fights a telethia when he receives a vision acts accordingly and still gets hit by the telethia alves conversely picks up the monado and is able to attack the telethia with ease in alvis's attack a new kanji appears on the monado ha which is the first part of the word hakai meaning destruction or disruption a short fight ensues and alves has a strange blue sword which looks incredibly similar to the junk sword from the beginning of the game though the monado archives the book detailing all of the lore for this game explains this as something elvis crafted it's still strange for alvis to just summon a sword only for gameplay but after the fight there's a fantastic cutscene featuring another hint toward alvis's true identity because the camera cuts to him when he says immaterial but i still appreciate it since there are a lot of hints about his status as an ai later on in the story so i still think it's subtle enough to be considered an engaging twist here joke and rein join up with everyone else and then we get a fantastic scene between all the characters that perfectly showcases their chemistry first charlo revives melia and the group surrounds her as she wakes up joke begins talking to her but she slaps him and apologizes after the fact joel continues his carefree attitude and ryan is quick to judge fitting his previously established rashness and impatience melia strikes back with a witty response that i hate to admit actually made me laugh a little bit god i have such a low par for humor milly's posh accent here also contrasts the accents of all the other characters adding to her great characterization as a proper and honest individual dunban inquires about why she's here and melia agrees to take them to aerith c which all leads them to frontier village the section here has some less interesting plot lines but they still exhibit the great character interactions that the story boasts it just isn't as engaging or rewarding as the rest of the story since the rest is so fantastic the beginning reinforces that melia is very much not ahams the napon referred to everyone else in this part as a hom ha and they refer to melia as bird lady the distinct difference should essentially confirm that melia is not a homs yet the story continues to treat it like a secretive plot point that has yet to be revealed after meeting chief dunga and gaining his blessing to go through aerith c melia decides to stay and shulk talks to her it seems a bit out of character for him but it's only a minor gripe here since the writers justify it as seen later when shulk states how he helps her because she was in his vision therefore he thinks that she's important and speaking of the next scene it does a better job setting up the motivations for melia and shulk albeit with a bit of awkward dialogue from melia like this line this is my pledge to those that have died the line ignores shulk's presence for a bit and i think it ruins some of the good chemistry the scene otherwise establishes once the awkward dialogue has passed the scene displays some great character chemistry between melia and the rest of the cast chief dunga also receives some characterization as an which is the main gimmick for all of the noppon cute creatures who are all selfish cowards chief dunga offers riki the legendary nop-on hero to assist the party his introduction serves a mostly comedic purpose but all of the party members exhibit some more of their signature personalities so i think it's fine it also features the aforementioned noppon gimmick when the background characters throw mushrooms at riki it works as a quick effective way to depict the village's hatred for him which is reinforced when the party has to buy rikki's own equipment despite the small amount of running around it serves as good development while the party leaves frontier village a scene awkwardly begins where riki states his motivation for fighting the telethia which is that he has to repay his debts it's a decent motive but it will seem less decent once he joins the party permanently since he has the least personal incentive to fight the metcon in comparison to the other party members who are all motivated by revenge riki's motives are rather lacking the next set of cut scenes occur to the decayed forest when the party fights the telethia the start establishes some more world building about ether mostly reinforcing that ether acts as a kind of energy and the lack of energy leads to decay i think the idea of ether in the world is implemented wonderfully moving along the next part isn't as good because it leans back into the melia is definitely not a hans have you realized that yet plot point the reintroduction of the plotline allows sharla to explain how her powers work which is good but i wish they had removed almost all of the other parts where the story alludes to her true identity if the writers removed almost all of the other hints i think the reappearance in this scene would be warranted after damaging the telethia a small amount a great scene finally happens milia begins to give up and shulk helps encourage her but i think that's an oversimplification of the gravity for this scene it sets up again how all the party members except for riki join the party for revenge the game doesn't vilify the main cast however instead they're humanized for desiring revenge i think it's a great execution on the motif since you'll find often that in revenge-centric narratives the people who seek vengeance are violent and unjustified but while xenoblade depicts the consequences of vengeance later it sets up the empathetic aspects of the vengeful characters much better than other narratives once the telethia fight concludes we're treated to another combat encounter depicting the great coordination between all of the party now including the new additions like dunban and amelia melia has some closure for her dead friends which ends that plot line on a satisfying note the other thing to note here is the chemistry between rein and riki which is one of the better relationships the writers develop for the little knop-on and once the party arrives back riki receives his forced motivation to continue with the party melia also says that she'll fulfill her promise all the way back from the beginning of magna forest giving her a reason to continue with the party for a little while longer after arriving at apex lake the party transports to aerosea and there's a small scene with laurethia and the telethia laboratory the shot is ambiguous enough not to reveal loratheu's malicious intentions completely but the small hint ensures that her loyalty to zanza is developed and important to the game one last thing i want to mention is the optional monado art shulk can unlock by completing the quest mystery of magna ruins 4. the art is monado eater and the kanji for the art is ta as in the verb taberu meaning to eat in japanese except this form of the kanji has an extra radical on the leftmost side for those of you who don't know what radicals are it's the rectangle on the left despite the extra radical the two kanji carry the same meaning once the party arrives at earth z ryan comments on the strange ethereal appearance of the location which marks the point where he begins to become the strictly comic relief character but this only applies when the story doesn't decide to focus on his character development so this isn't necessarily a bad trait only when the comedy falls flat joke then informs mellie of what's happened to them and why they want to visit prison island which is a quick way of ensuring that all the party members are informed shulk and company arrive at alcomoth's entrance where the game finally reveals proper to the party that melia is of royalty now the awkward annoying plot point about melia's identity is finally finished right melia promises to still help shulk and heads for the audience chamber while she does so a group of guards find the party and imprison them also during melia's arrival were introduced to yumea tyrea and laurethia they exude a vile aura based on their disdain formelia so they're automatically characterized as villains while this bland malevolence is off-putting at first there will be more development later so i don't mind it for now mellie's arrival at the capitol introduces saurian and kalyan as well as laurethia proper now the conversation between melia and saurian establishes the father-daughter relationship between the two because of how proud he is here though i don't think this relationship will receive as much development as it needed calling informs melia that her friends were arrested for wielding the monado because of a chosen one prophecy where if the wielder of the monado is black of heart then it will mark the destruction of the high entire usually i would bemoan a prophecy like this but what's interesting is that the prophecy does come true shulk's actions do lead to the destruction of the high entire and i absolutely love that typically a prophecy like this only adds some slight but predictable tension to the story since the chosen one doesn't actually ruin the world so show causing the destruction of not only the high entire but the entire bionus is a neat twisted subversion of the prophecy cliche galleon talks with melia in private about how she is to be the next empress which acts as a simple but effective setup for melia in future connected the final part of this scene is between lor thea and melia but since we already know that lorethea has malevolent intentions this scene feels a bit too cartoonish for my liking the story cuts back to shulk where they discuss their predicament and surmise that maybe melia is involved in their imprisonment shulk denies this though which acts as a way to show the deep connection he has with her because he's begun to trust her despite pessimism being one of his core personality traits afterward alvis is revealed to be the divine seer and it adds more mystery to his character because the last time we saw him was in magna forest far from alchemoth where he was supposed to be after he leaves an imperial soldier barges in to proclaim that they've lost contact with a transporter requiring you to complete a filler quest in order to continue the story it's a boring and unnecessary story quest and i think it's only there as an excuse to give you some freedom to do something else before the story escalates to a point where you can't go wherever you please but i still think there were better ways to implement this than a superfluous story quest allowing you to travel to any landmark with your entire party after a story cut scene is a better alternative for this and it would even allow players to either continue the story or explore some more if they so desire the scene that occurs during the pointless quest though gives us a glimpse of alvis's foresight he tells saurian that he can't quite see the fate of the bionis but that there is still hope for the bionis with shulk and melia which is a complete lie and we'll see that once alice's allegiance is tested but said lie causes yumea saurian and kalyan to seek the people's approval for melia yumea in all her evilly evil plans proposes the trial of the tomb which the other two expose it how the trial is completely dangerous melia agrees to the trial and then we get a preview of the masterfully malevolent yumea's most malicious meditations and it's so unnecessary there was already a scene where she conveys her distaste for melia so it adds nothing to her character the party finishing up their pointless time wasting quest decides to head back to the capital because oh ricky tired wow what an excellent way to make the quest relevant to the plot once they all get back the crown princess ceremony begins featuring the abhorrent 2d image crowds that i even disliked on the wii version when i first played it but after that the game finally finally gives us the reveal that melia is of royalty after all of the explicit obvious hints so i'm just glad it's all over now after the ceremony shulk foresees mellie's death in the tomb then yumea has a conversation with tyreia revealing that her hatred for melia is because of her mixed heritage this scene in contrast to the one in the audience chamber is necessary because it reveals more about her motivations and it involves everyone's favorite cliche fantasy racism i don't think it's a bad inclusion for her character but the cliche occurs so often that i usually question how effective or necessary a racism plotline is my biggest problem is that when implemented the idea is between two races that really aren't that different or in a worst case scenario fantasy racism can become white person here hates white person there thankfully xenoblade implements fantasy racism between races that have actually different physical attributes though i think there will be a better version of this in future connected during yumea's racism monologue she includes some world building about who or what the first and second consort are and it's essentially a system that has a homs partner and a high entire partner for the ruler to uh frick yeah i think the world building fits well within the monologue so i don't have a problem with it here however callion overhears this conversation and he'll inform other people about it later we return back to shulk and company in their cell or something where there's another mystery about melia's lineage except i prefer it here since it's not meant to be a plot twist it's something that we as the audience already know so it's a neat way to display the characters deducing some answers of what we're already privy to shulk interrupts the conversation to mention that he saw a vision with melia in the tomb before being interrupted by some bainite order assassins while the cutscenes never state this the monado is ineffective against these assassins since they're humanoid beings from bionis so it's yet another instance of the combat linking itself to the story once the assassins are defeated alvis arrives followed by kalyan and some soldiers alvis ascertains that the assassins were inquisitors of the bionite order and then he continues exposing more information about the group which i think is integrated fine because the order is considered a myth shulk bursts out that melia is in danger to callion right before cutting to melia entering the tomb here the game implements some tension heightening dramatic irony as lorthia playfully provides some tips to melia the story returns to the party at alcomoth and callion denies them entry into the tomb but dunban the sly witty man that he is finds a loophole in the fact that the rules only apply to high entire kelly inquires more about dunban's identity revealing that the high entia as a people are prideful and refuse to get involved with the other races on bayanis which is an important detail because it's how callie evolves as a character once the party arrives at the tomb's entrance shulk asks alvis about his ability to see the future he avoids the question mostly hinting at his strange origin as an ai but the interesting part here is his explanation for the monado because he states that the monado is an instrument that can be used to control the particles of ether around it which will become incredibly significant near the end of the video so keep it in mind alves finishes his speech with a vague line about the reawakening of the bionus and the party descends into the high entire tomb [Music] after melia enters the tomb successfully the party arrives at the verification device rein being resorted to comic relief haha stupid character presses a button causing the party to fall down into the depths of the tomb while i hate to admit that i actually found this scene funny reducing rhine to a stupid character is an oversimplification of his personality and i don't think it services the story enough to warrant this slight change in personality the next scene is when melia arrives at the end of the tomb she meets a digital recreation of her ancestor who's delighted that the homs dna integration has worked so well which acts as a small and well hidden hint about how telethia are born from high entia tairea interrupts melia asserting that half holm's hyentia are not worthy to rule the story returns to the main party featuring some small but neat character banter between them all and each of them comment on ryan's stupidity from moments ago the cutscene casts off with shulk somber's reply melia needs us the dialogue furthers the deep connection and trust that shulk has with melia because of his serious attitude during the scene and shulk's seriousness is reinforced by the preceding scene once the party defeats the orluga guard whether or not the connection is mutually romantic though is entirely up to interpretation finishing off the tomb's guard now brings us to the reunion between melia and the rest of the party just in time to hear tyreia shout about melia being half homs swiftly wrapping up any confusion about melia's identity i appreciate the half holm's revelation for the party here because it's a quick plot line that ensures everyone in the party knows the same information that we do about melia without having a lawn drawn out mystery that's frustrating and predictable after the fight with tyreia and the mystery telethia alves prevents the telethia from destroying itself with some unexplained magic tairaya escapes and the team all have a joyous reunion featuring a heartfelt moment between riki and melia preceded by a joking interaction between the hero pawn and rhine all of this is great i love seeing these characters brimming with distinct personalities just interacting with each other it adds more to their emotional connection fleshing out to their characters and personalities through heartfelt moments like these and after that short but wonderful scene we return back to alchemauth [Music] millie's return to the audience chamber informs us that saurian now knows of the bayanite order the first consort is under investigation and melia is accepted as the next ruler of alkamoth joke is invited to the audience chamber to chat with saurian afterward there the two discuss the prophecy of the bionus's reawakening further and it brings into question some of the validity of shulk's quest for revenge because satisfying his thirst for vengeance could lead to total extinction and well it technically does which i think is so creative because most narratives would shy away from filling a twisted prophecy like this one at the end saurian exhibits more of his paternal qualities asking shulk to be melia's friend i think saurian should have had more moments depicting him as a father figure but what we have isn't terrible either we cut to a dark room that features a mysterious new faced mekong that we haven't seen before this is yaldabaoth as we'll know later but right now the scene introduces a new unknown spear that will soon become important a flashback proceeds the scene with shulk and saurian adding more tension to saurian's decisions because he foresees his own death it's such a compelling instance where foreshadowing can still create tension because this is the first time that a character death is linked to a vision that shulk wants to come true ensuring that the foresight mechanic is still fresh and unique in its own story following the flashback the investiture ceremony occurs the most significant thing of note here is shulk's line at the end no it's not like that they're one in the same girl it acts as a turning point for shulkin mellie's relationship since it's him accepting melia's personality in its totality which helps so that mellie's romantic feelings for shulk aren't out of place afterward alvis and laura thea have a private conversation alluding to the fulfillment of zanza's divine plans it adds some more mystery to the two of them without revealing too much about their allegiances the next scene graces us with the wonderful voice of metalface displaying his more aggressive hostile tendencies with his jealousy toward face nemesis the line here let's settle this machine to machine acts as a nice bit of misdirection since it reinforces metalface's lack of humanity diverting attention away from his real identity the game cuts back to the party who all bicker about waiting for saurian to decide whether or not they can visit prison island but riki shows his more caring side when he suggests that they visit melia visiting melia leads to some great chemistry on display as exemplified by the banter between charlotte dunban and ryan about the dinner banquet and after some more fitting explanations to the mask melia's heritage etc shulk has another vision saurian's death the story cuts to metal face destroying a legion of anti-mekong defense mechanisms characterizing him is still dreadful and quite powerful once we return back to the party mellie and everyone else decide to rush to prison island in order to prevent saurian's death the party then arrives at the audience chamber once again to callion assuring them that saurian's death is destiny and that it cannot be avoided but dunban with his in-character obstinance asserts that they should defy destiny and save melia's father before they can go to prison island they have to activate two seals which has always been weird to me because if the two seals need to be activated why didn't saurian have to activate them beforehand i don't know it's a small inconsistency that i think is mostly there as a gameplay moment more than anything but the error is still bothersome to me once the forced in gameplay requirements are done the party finishes off alaya revealed to be an ancient creature who's guarding something on prison island and they all use the transporter to finally visit the faded place this section is where some of the most interesting story moments start to surface and it also boasts one of the biggest and best reveals the game has the first scene involves saurian unlocking what was sealed on prison island a giant it's a strange reveal that receives more explanation later and i think the added uncertainty about the sealed giant is great saurian then proceeds to activate some type of seal casting a shield that protects prison island and prevents any mechan from entering we'll also learn later that the giant is the one who powers this shield because his death stops the shield from functioning the preceding cut scene fleshes out more of the lore behind the island in a natural way while also hinting at the truth behind the hyentia race as for the lore it fits well in the conversation due to rikki and ryan's comments about the statues so melia having a serious tone to these nonchalant comments is fitting for her character the hint behind the high entity occurs when riki says that the statues who are representative of the high entia ancestors look like dino beasts aka telethia the party enters the teleporter transporting them to the top of the tower once at the top the party meets the giant who was sealed away the most curious thing about him is his plethora of knowledge regarding the monado and also its current wielder shulk he includes more confirmation about what's been said toward the monado reinforcing that it controls ether and its shape is formed by the will of its wielder he says that he knows everything about those who wield the monado but a lack of trust is introduced to his character right at the start when he curiously knows that melia is to be the next ruler of the hyentia a fact which he shouldn't know based on what he's told the party but it's such a small insignificant line that i consider it hidden enough to be a commendable decision on the writer's behalf but moving along zanza gives some more hints about the truth of faced mekkon because the constraint he refers to is the idea that the sword can't cut humans since it's an explicit clue that's so so close to the actual reveal i think it works plus i remember that when i first got to this part i thought that the metcon were using homs blood and that's why the monado couldn't cut through faced mekkon so there is still room for more questions and possibilities even after this really explicit clue anyway we cut to metalface and the mekon army trying to break through the shield on prison island metalface figures out where it's coming from so he breaks out the new toy that he has the story returns to the top of prison island when zanza asks shulk to free him which will release the monado shackles he says one strange line here nothing but a god can stand in your way which is such an explicit hint at the final major plot line for the game that i'm surprised i never noticed this until my second playthrough i think the line is fantastic though because it's still hidden while establishing the existence of the final major arc for this game's story mellie is more skeptical of zanza's intentions and rightfully so the rest of the party disagrees with her and i think it's a great way to hint at zanza's malicious intentions even more then choke agrees to set zanza free because his desire for revenge is too great and one excellent touch to the story is that this choice fueled by revenge will ultimately become shulk's downfall once sansa is freed a blinding light surrounds him as he unlocks the monado's powers let the shackles be released but seemingly before zanza can release the monado metalface fires the new spear at zanza and destroys his body face nemesis shows up too and the new face communicates with zanza telepathically which to me is kind of awkward because this character is the only person shown to be capable of telepathy and zanza who is later revealed to have godly powers should most likely know who's communicating with him it's not a major plot hole or anything like that but it just confuses me because zanza seems to be omnipotent or at least omniscient but chulk interrupts the slightly weird conversation by attempting to attack face nemesis face nemesis pleads for shulk to stop attacking but the scene successfully depicts shulk's anger consuming him and attacking the metcon senselessly the following fight scene with the rest of the party conveys how connected they are because of shots like the cut from dunban to rhyme during the fight metal face has a chat with dunban heavily hinting at his past as a homs which i think is fine since the mystery behind his identity doesn't continue long after this moment dunban also has a similar realization that some players might have too and i think it works despite how explicit the hint is after face nemesis prevents any further confrontation sorya protects melia and embraces her giving him one final moment of paternal love which is good to have more of and after metalface lunges toward him he pushes away melia to protect her revealing metalface's crimson covered claws shulk hears sansa's voice though and learns to control the monado even further unlocking the monado too the kanji that appears when unlocking the monado is hito meaning person in japanese which cements even further that humans are inside faced mekon units right before its reveal after the fight shulk's initial vision comes to fruition face nemesis swoops in to block shulk's blow revealing that fiora is alive this scene is so emotionally resonant and it's one of the best parts of the game the music here is the second and final appearance of the main theme i explained the significance of this more in the music section but for now it creates a heightened emotional significance and the petrified faces of dunban and shulk also emphasize the emotional height of the story here shulk's final screams of desperation also drive this home and cap off the sublime scene soren's death is a bit underwhelming but it provides a more emotional core to melia so i still think it's decent the aftermath shows alvis arriving where zanza's body once was enforcing his mysterious aura and foreshadowing alves true allegiances without revealing too much [Music] the slow pacing for the beginning of this section is a welcome addition especially after the previously plot heavy section it allows for some breathing room in the narrative and for the characters to develop emotionally some more the first scene here acts as world building for the political system of alchemoth while also naturally sneaking in details about what's to come melia will not be ruler for a year callion will be emperor in her stead and the capital is planning an assault on mcconus the next scene depicts the party in a state of disarray the dialogue here between the entire party is absolutely superb it brings us up to speed with how the characters feel in a natural believable way like in charlotte's summary here dunban's locked himself away ever since we came back taking that same line charles said it also doesn't directly state any emotion for dunban because it can imply several emotions frustration sadness confusion etc and the use of implications is so necessary in writing because explicit direct statements like dun pen is sad or boring and disrespectful to an audience because it assumes that the viewers aren't capable enough to understand implications or hidden truths on top of the already great implied dialogue though the cutscene presents further romantic chemistry between melia and shulk or at least for melia when she inquires about fiora and that same line leads into an explanation about fiora bringing melia up to speed on everything which also springboards into rhine revealing the frustration and confusion he also feels it's a sublime culmination of emotions and character drama that it's the best part this story has to offer before shulk leaves to find dunban he talks to himself providing an explanation of why he's visiting dunban the later half of the game has these kinds of scenes a little too frequently for me but it does help the narrative and walking segments feel more connected so i appreciate that a lot when shulk finally arrives he and dunban have a conversation that reverses what i at least thought would happen shulk helping dunban but being in line with dunban's character he helps shulk through his emotional turmoil instead it also marks the moment where dunban explicitly reveals the romantic feelings fiora held for shulk it fits perfectly here and the progression of shulk calming down is natural and not ham-fisted when the two return to the rest of the party kalyan summons them all in the audience chamber there he apologizes for the past actions of the high entire and proposes an assault on mike connis with shulk as the ambassador he leaves and contemplates the decision when the other party members except riki all give their own comments on how they can help shulk the first line ryan says is fiora that's why you're hesitating would usually annoy me since it explains shulk's feelings in an unnatural manner but because ryan is his best friend being perceptive and understanding about shulk's emotions is still within the bounds of his personality melia proposes that she should stay behind instead while shulk and everyone else search for fiora on their way out of alcomoth charlotte chats with melia about her feelings towards shulk and there are some implications in this scene and the prior one that the feelings might be mutual such as when charlotte explicitly talks about shulk's own feelings toward melia but then a somewhat strange scene happens emelia stanton appears so that the real melia can join the party for the rest of the game it's a scene that i don't really like because it doesn't feel fitting to the actual narrative and it exists as an excuse for melia to travel with the party it's not terrible but it's still a grievance i have all this time later it isn't as strange as riki though because she does have a desire for vengeance like the other party members kalyan reports however that the faced mekong fled to galahad fortress so alvis accompanies the party on a transport to magnaforest leading them all to the entrance of valak mountain before the party enters the cold climate we're treated to another scene with face nemesis it subtly hints at several future events too which this game always excels at face nemesis's feelings for shulk provide a clue for fiora's return and when she gestures to the item on her chest it's during this line besides the monado will draw him to me on a first playthrough this only refers to shulk's monado but it can also act as a reference to her own monado which is a reveal that happens much later afterward alvis tells the party to head to our assay tower and once they do so they melt the ice and walk inside choke begins to remember his history with this place somewhat when they all arrive inside but alvis takes him aside and tells him more helping shulk remember that this is where he was found by the expedition team it also provides some well-fitted explanations about alpha's foresight and also how the future can even be predicted in this universe since it's such a strange concept i think the explanations several times are warranted and each explanation of the power adds on something so it's never boring repeated dialogue after the group leaves assay tower they find face nemesis and the person who's inhabiting fiora's body appears to be understanding and peaceful right before being interrupted by metal face the presence of his english va is always a blessing but the reveal about metalface's pilot causes some great character drama here metalface is mumkar and i'm glad the game still doesn't dwell on the mystery after the very explicit clue toward his identity on prison island it ensures that the story's pacing is fluid and just fast enough not to be rushed when he takes the monado the whole party is enraged but the scene as a whole chooses to have a fitting focus on dunban's relationship with mumkar it also has some more subtle lines about mamkar's motives here i can't tell you how badly i wanted this sword but when dunban attempts to attack mumkar remotely controls the face unit but melia shoots an ether blast secretly in order to knock the monado out of his hands it's a part that i appreciate since it displays the writers as care for a logical story without the dreaded p word i've said so many times before in this video once the player finishes the combat challenge though the game delivers an excellent fight scene that elevates the character drama between tanban and mom car even further the conversation during the battle is natural since dunban is rightfully confused and enraged by what mumkar has done their conversation provides more about mumkar's motivation which boils down to a desire for power and hatred for dunban which i think aren't bad motivations since they fit with this cowardly personality on display in the prologue dunban's anger comes out in one of the final lines between the two of them i will strike you down and all that you have become you wretched fool the monado will stop you and then you will know the shame of all that you have done traitor this fits so well with the pre-established narrative surrounding revenge and hate that i'm impressed how the writers are constantly developing the idea instead of repeating the same message or even just discarding it entirely yaldabath appears shortly thereafter revealing himself as the leader of mekonus and taking away fiora in the aftermath shulk is worried again about the state of fiora but rein being the supportive character he is encourages shulk again and so the party all head to sword valley though sword valley is a rather short section i think it works well for the pacing of the game and it continues the great momentum from the prior scenes the first scene here provides some decent explanations for what will be an ongoing mystery now about how the mekong army works the party notices ether flowing through the sword and dunban ascertains that it's the fortress which falls in line with his better knowledge about the sword than the rest of the characters dixon who now says he is a part of the new assault on mekonus is awaiting everyone at the bottom to provide supplies and this is where alves leaves the party dunban speaks to himself about seizing destiny and it's one of his repeated lines that i think should have appeared more sparingly the game cuts to yaldabaoth recounting events that very recently happen so i don't think the scene necessitates its appearance but the flashback at the beginning does provides more subtle hints to the truth behind the creation myth so i still want to commend that aspect the next moment is the party's final confrontation with mumkar and it's one hell of a fight the banter between all of the characters is fantastic and it's one of this story's peaks in terms of natural dialogue and emotionally engaging conflict but continuing the banter leads to sharla worrying about whether gadolt is inside one of the face units which adds even more tension and mystery to the scene itself as well as future events metalface in the next scene gives an explanation about ether which is very out of character for him since in one of the lines prior he says that he doesn't know how the spears work exactly there are enough context clues to figure it out and an explanation from a more fitting character like eggiel would have been better suited after the battle is finished mumkar is weakened by the monado and his dialogue reveals more about his psychology specifically that he now has a superiority complex of some sort which i think is a superb development since superiority complexes often stem from feelings of inferiority which is a principle quite evident during the prologue dunban tries to kill mumkar and right now it seems justified because he's killed so many homs for his own gain mumkar is selfish and deserves punishment but then there's this wonderful scene where the motif of revenge has a turning point in the narrative shulk stops dunban from attacking mumkar it's such an amazing scene because there are hints about shulk's pacifism from the top of prison island when he hesitates to attack as well as on valak mountain when he does as mumkar asks it's an incredible progression in the fact that it leads to even better conflict with personal stakes for the characters is just sublime not only that but the game successfully portrays dunban as more violent and ferocious without portraying him as an irredeemable monster his refusal to stop attacking is evidence of this and when he finally stops it leads to the amazing finale of mumkar's character mumkar causes his own destruction in such an amazing way the fact that mumkar causes his own destruction is such an amazing way to end his character his canon shots toward the party which he did due to his hatred for dunban and desire for power are evidence of this his death caused by his own desires is such a fitting and perfect end for the character and i wouldn't have it any other way you went too far you fool the preceding scene features lower thea and alvis in the telethia laboratory which has two functions explain the spears and create more mystery around the two of them i think it successfully accomplishes both and brings into question why metal phase even provided an explanation to begin with the game cuts back to the party after metal faces plunge and shulk has a vision about face nemesis inside the fortress which acts as a neat motivation for the party to continue exploring further into galahad fortress there's really nothing of note before the confrontation with echo there are a few cutscenes that provide some neat context to the fortress and the story quests here aren't anything to write home about once egil greets the party though everything becomes great once again the group fights fiora's face unit which is now clearly under the control of yeldabout the party isn't able to stop her from attacking so they try to flee the bridge collapses so shulk plunges the monado into the bridge and looks for melia of all people to try and catch her while she's falling hmm wonder if that's meant to signify something about how shulk feels i don't know i'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence the party promptly lands where yaldabaoth greets them by turning on the apocrypha this scene creates a wonderful contrast when shulk first used the monado because an attack hits him and ryan has to use all of his effort to take down a single metcon usually shulk can dodge simple moves like the one here because of his visions but the lack of a dodge reinforces the powerlessness of the group here moreover dunban who is usually the most obstinate advises that they should flee it all culminates into shulk's desperation after the fight with yaldabout the next cutscene begins with tragic decision one of the best tracks in the game fjor breaks free of yaldabao's control and she attacks him unleashing a red glow surrounding her figure to which goldface replies i consider this another moment of misdirection because right after he says the line the game cuts to shulk's monado despite the fact that in retrospect he's referring to mayneth's monado it demonstrates how yet again xenoblade excels at misdirection and unpredictability another excellent aspect connecting back to the motif of revenge is when fiora mentions how egyl the one inside yaldabaoth has a desire for revenge 2 setting him up as a parallel to shulk and after fjor's next attack chaos truly erupts throughout the fortress shulk dives off of the fortress to help fiora excellently demonstrating the depth of his relationship with her as they plunge down to the fallen arm [Music] shulk's dream provides more hints of sansa's eventual return because it implies that shulk isn't really alive but in a subtle manner that i found engaging even on my repeat playthroughs the dream is simple enough in summary julk tries to pick up a piece of metal and he falls through the floor seeing a sinister version of himself his fall into the floor is representative of his literal death at ausai tower and the sinister version of himself is zanza since it's quite similar to his character's figure once he returns similar to shulk but with a more malicious personality the camera pans over shulk on the beach once the dream has ended leading into another fantastic scene the reunion between shulk and fiora their embrace at the end of the scene is the perfect way to display their affection for each other and shulk's awkward tendencies interrupted by fiora are another great instance of wonderful characterization for these two the next scene provides some explanation for what fiora felt after she died and i think it's a fitting moment since shulk is likely to have questions about what happened but there isn't too much of note beyond that until shulk says this i hope she stays trapped it reveals some hidden feelings of vengeance and anger toward the metcon that are still inside shulk which acts as a brilliant setup for some tension in an incredibly climactic scene later the two of them take a small rest when fiora becomes exhausted and the monado begins not to function as well this scene begins a small idea that fiora's new body is grotesque or abhorrent in some way which i don't think fully succeeds her body doesn't look that different and certain armor equipment depicts her character with more skin such as on her legs and arms i think it makes sense that her chest always is covered in mech on parts since that's where her wound is but her mechan body resembles that of a human more than that of a disfigured amalgamation like mumkar's body his character model has a giant hole in his stomach where now only a metallic spine remains along with the metal covering his face it presents a more grotesque and drastic change from his home's form a transformation that fiora is lacking so when fjord believes that she wouldn't be accepted by other homs it feels a little ridiculous since she still maintained her general humanoid figure after shulk defeats the mekong who arrive the group is surrounded before cutting to rhine and sharla the scene here allows for some slower character growth of the party members which was also true for the prior scene between shulk and fiora which is well warranted and still indicative of the game's high caliber writing ryan reveals more about his feelings of inadequacy and charla shares her dreary wartime experiences the two begin to open up to one another at a relevant time in the story and the scene culminates in some hints at the romantic tension between the two which is a great flow and development as well ryan and sharla find shulk and fiora leading into a fantastic scene boasting some more great dialogue ryan exhibits his reliability when offering to help carry fiora and it leads to some great banter between the party it continues showing how shulk rein and fiora are friends which benefits the story because it reminds the player about the significance of this relationship and also why the two of them went to such great lengths to find fiora and all of that banter leads into more character development for rhine his whole arc revolves around his friendship with shulk and the explicit mention of it here is welcome and warranted for this kind of arc so i don't find it awkward or out of place the game cuts to the remaining party members once the earlier group arrives at a strange location and it leads into one of the better moments for riki's character yet there are still some problematic aspects i'll mention in his own character section dunban opening up tariki both of whom act as father figures in some way or another is a strange yet fitting combination the scene also capitalizes on melia's unwillingness to share her emotions because it's the impetus for the heart to heart between riki and dunban not to be mistaken with an actual heart to heart in the game mind you once this group heads toward the hidden village they meet up with fiora and the reunion between brother and sister is quite heartwarming and i think it helps to reintroduce their sibling bond in a non-literal manner which i always appreciate in visual mediums of storytelling afterward we're introduced with machina setting up the next major plotline for the overarching story [Music] when the team arrives at junks lenata explains several concepts to the party and ergo the player including story ideas like the machina origins of the metcon etc i'm not going to summarize all of that though because i don't want to waste your time once the party goes inside junks mikol requests that they kill eggo before the game cuts to alchema depicting the continued preparation for the assault on mekonus it's moments like these where i appreciate the third person omniscient point of view for the narrative it provides great context for the player while still maintaining tension and drama throughout plus i think it fits into the motifs around destiny and fate since we the audience act as an all-knowing figure in perceiving this story another great yet small aspect is the tension between etharon and kalyan but the high end his involvement in the battle of sword valley it hammers in the writer's dedication to continuity for character motivations but i'm glad it's mostly resolved right here because otherwise it would act as a hindrance the following scene returns to the hidden village i don't want to bog us down in summary because there's a lot here i think the most significant part is that this acts as another important transition point for shulk's arc of rejecting revenge egil who's acting as an antithesis to shulk is still consumed by revenge but shulk feels pity for him in this scene which ryan doesn't quite understand rein's rebuttal is such an amazing moment because it signifies that this rejection of revenge is a slow arduous process for the party moreover the pity shulk feels is what sets him apart from eggil ensuring that the two characters act as foils to one another but thankfully the game avoids egil being a problematic character since he's still humanized and his desires are portrayed as flawed and funnily enough human the next cutscene features fiora lying on a table with lenata explaining more mechanics about how the humans piloting face units operate it's a well fitted explanation and it provides a decent excuse to return control for the player allowing them to explore the new area during the story quest upon completion the party returns to junks and talks with mikol about his request they somewhat decline until dixon conveniently appears to help normally i would find this annoying and indicative of lazy writing but in retrospect of dixon's later reveals i honestly don't mind it what's impressive is that there are two major hints towards said reveal the fact that mikol knows him and the line where he says the spears would be useful to have the first part hints at dixon's old age but in a way that can also act as a connection to him being well traveled the second part i mentioned is played off as a joke but it becomes a subtle nod to the future of his character who eventually fights the inhabitants of bionus ii the next scene is quite somber yet effective it communicates shulk's confusion and hesitation just from his expression alone when we return outside of junks dixon and shulk discuss the journey ahead when dixon advises shulk not to hesitate when fighting egyil which is yet another hint toward his allegiance to zanza because he's encouraging shulk to seek vengeance in direct contrast to what's been developed for his character recently so it creates more subtle suspicion around dixon's character after mikol sends off the party we cut to a scene with egyl featuring him creating a new face who is essentially confirmed to be gadolp because there's a strong memory of sharla and there aren't any other presumably dead significant characters who fit that descriptor besides gatols before heading on to mcconne's field there is an optional monado art that you can unlock here monado armor the kanji for the art is yo roi as in the verb which can be translated as to arm oneself although the version i mentioned yo roi could be translated as a noun for armor as well [Applause] mcconnell's field is an endurance run to see if the player is capable enough to continue playing the game after the exceedingly satisfying reunion with fiora so in other words it's boring so boring that some players quit the game around this section which is a shame since this chapter ends with some great character interactions between ryan and sharla along with a memorable confrontation to cap it all off in fact nothing of interest in terms of the main story happens until the very top here's the first cutscene of mcconus core abridged to prove my point wow mechanus big eggheals at the top i appreciate the scene for giving direction to the player yet adding better but still short character interactions would help spice up the scene and the flow of the level doesn't help with the boredom either since you'll have to run around the entire map activating switches on one end of the map for an elevator you already passed on the opposite side of the map it's just so frustrating the first interesting part of the story happens on the fourth floor the first interaction is between dunban and fiora it displays their sibling chemistry while also highlighting dunban's paternal role in helping fiora fiore is more honest with her brother since she reveals how she's truly feeling about her new body it works as a great method to illustrate her trust toward dunban because she's finally honest the following interaction is between charla rein and shulk which is spectacular ryan helping charlotte with her rifle and realizing the emotional significance behind it helps deepen the romantic chemistry between ryan and sharla plus the scene features a more subtle comparison between ryan and gadold when the camera cuts to a flashback with gadolt after a shot of sharla admiring rein in the present the character choreography on display here too is superb capturing shulk's dedication and reine's enthusiasm in such a sublime way the proceeding flashbacks flesh out more of gadol's personality conveying him as a stalwart persevering militant figure which is not so subtly setting up his character's return after the flashbacks charlotte questions ryan to see if he's truly similar to gatold and ry's answer is different from gadolts now since he says that he's not willing to die in order to stop the mekon which is the first difference the story highlights between the two of them the end of this fantastic scene shows dunban being as perceptive as expected for his character noticing jade face spying on the party the next important set piece is when the party finally confronts jade face the scene begins with two key setups for future events first fiora collapses from exhaustion which acts as a setup for her potential demise since her new body is losing energy second the third rule for shulk's vision the flash in front of his eyes doesn't occur which isn't an inconsistency it's a setup for zanza's soul regaining more power inside of shull after the two setups jade face arrives leading to a unique boss battle jade faces at the end of the long tunnel and you have several ways of approaching the boss the two most effective options i can think of are these either travel from barrier to barrier slowly traveling toward jade face or cast monado shield and head straight toward him with brute force the flexibility of the combat encounter here is a great strength of the combat system since it allows for player experimentation not only that but the boss fight has more elements for you to juggle than just defeat the boss even though i still find those encounters engaging too the party eventually defeats jade face and gatils leaves the faced mekong's cockpit to reveal a grotesque decrepit form which is a starker contrast and fiora had with her homs figure and i honestly appreciate it charlotte attempts to reason with gadot and during her conversation the camera displays a moment where rein stops dunban from attacking jade face which is such a simple yet amazing character moment since it furthers ryan's romantic feelings for sharla those same feelings are reinforced when he protects sharla from jade face's canon blast finally egil acting as gadalt monologues about returning order to the world while the camera zooms into the monado hinting at the more sinister side of the sword as we continue onward to the next part of the game [Music] the opening depicts egyl at the mayneth shrine where he rambles about to dealing with monado it isn't anything too significant since it acts more as an explicit hint about zanza's malevolent use of the monado the scene afterward is the introduction to memory space showing shulk floating in space surrounded by planets the game reveals later whose memory this area originates from but for now it's a complete mystery alves talks to shulk in this void and he tells him to find his own monado it's confusing for now but acts as a setup for when shulkin locks the true monado although i wish the scene was a bit more subtle about it shulk's flashback afterward provides better mystery and foreshadowing thankfully the details of the event in shulk's mind aren't exactly clear but i prefer it that way the lack of clarity adds to the mystery while setting up clear plot points like zanza's return and shulk's true history in assay tower the next cut scene depicts the party waking up again and it introduces vinaya her dialogue here serves an explanation to a lot of questions the party has including the truth about mayneth faced mekkon and zanza though some of these are half explanations that don't contain the whole truth i think they're satisfactory for the range of knowledge that phanea has plus the information here isn't a complete repeat of information so the scene is warranted and relevant my only complaint here is that the exposition dump still feels a little unnatural the lead-in for vinaya's monologuing is organic since it begins because of charlotte's comments toward jadeface but the extended exposition beyond jade face feels awkward and out of place despite its necessity this far into the narrative the story then jumps to the battle on sword valley where we see legions of homs napon and hyentia unifying to battle the mekon army kalyan's speech here cements him as a successful leader since he comes off as prepared for the attack on galahad fortress the game cuts back to the party talking with fineo where she guides them toward the next destination agniretha but to enter the city the party needs to traverse through central factory which acts as a transition area so not much of plot significance happens here there are the face maintenance bay and maintenance wing locations that reveal more about eggel's manufacturing capabilities though the first location provides context for certain scenes prior and the second one showcases and introduces the concept of a mass-produced face but other than those small details there isn't anything until echneretha [Music] the egg nearest this section provides some of the better segments of storytelling but also the overused power of friendship cliche in a manner that i don't think befits the story the cliche by itself is not bad and i need to stress that it can be executed in a subtle well-told way but the idea comes out of nowhere and it doesn't quite fit with the pre-established motif of revenge which has so far been the focus for the narrative this segment opens with a preview of what's happening on sword valley it acts as a successful attempt to display the unity between all the different races of bionis but it also presents setups for the eventual turning point of the battle the one major hint here is when alves discusses the enemy's hidden reinforcements which marks the arrival of the mass-produced face squadron it serves as a hint of what's to come since the line demonstrates how the squadron isn't guaranteed to win the battle and we'll see more explicit hints toward that later we return to eggnertha greeted by a scene that integrates reiki into the conversation well which is something i wish the game had more of but ricky's involvement leads the party to finding fossilized telethia which vinaya says came from the ancient battle between bayanis and mechanus which had a small hint toward the telethia's involvement in the very first cutscene of the game once the group reaches the top of the data tower a long expository scene takes place elucidating most of the truth behind the mythical battle the first superb detail for the characters is that the party doesn't know what a hologram is so they're amazed by it and they rationalize their own explanation which drives home the writer's commitment to character consistency the digital memory also displays a peaceful lively time period for the capital and also the giants acting as a successful contrast to the current state of the world the other great payoff here is the bionis offensive attack form which already was present even from the first cut scene the one detriment to this scene although is the backgrounds for the memories they're all 2d images and sometimes characters like zanza don't quite fit the background however i think what really makes this scene so fitting is how it re-contextualizes the narrative the events leading up to agniretha have a different more twisted context now that the party knows what truly happened between the bionis and mekonus not only that but it adds to the dichotomy between shulk and fiora shulk has a biological form while acting as the successor to zanza fiora has a mechanical form while acting as the successor to mayneth it's a great juxtaposition that the soundtrack will capitalize on later in the video after a small contextual cutscene the group arrives at to the transporter and jadeface greets them once again shulk's continued ability to sense attacks without visions hints at zanza's return since it acts as his slow regaining of control after the fight though charlotte's attempt to appeal toward gadot's emotions is something that i could find boring and cliched but frankly it fits the narrative because of how incompetent agile is his first designs for faced mekong like with sword only used the supposedly essential parts such as the brain heart etc so his first attempt at erasing memories was bound not to succeed fully additionally mainnet's assistance toward the party here is warranted and it doesn't feel as though it's a convenience for the characters since fiora and mayneth are still learning to share a body once the party buys her enough time fiora unleashes an attack that she learns in game after the encounter final cross which acts as yet another bridge between story and gameplay when gadold finally regains control we see his distorted abhorrent figure which is the type of character design that fiora needed and didn't receive the one final detail here is when gadot calls ryan kidd it reinforces the similarities between the two of them in a subtle way and it acts as a great closure to almost ending the relationship charla had with gadold there's a little preview on the battle of sort valley again and alves states how the mechanus is reawakening but he had a similar prediction about the bionis much earlier and that so far has not come to fruition so there is still uncertainty about to this aspect egil chats with vinaya right before everyone else arrives and it reveals some more key information about why he continues to seek revenge so i think the scene is warranted in order to ensure that he isn't considered a monster by the player once the rest of the cast arrives though there's a natural flow into more elucidations about egil's tactics and while there is a large portion of information it's still relevant to the conversation and also our knowledge of the game's plot the one part that bothers me is when the dialogue uses rhine as a cliched ignorant scapegoat to explain starvation tactics in case the player has no military knowledge while the moment works as it is portraying rein as the local dumbass isn't the best way to provide this simple information the final cutscene before the fight implements ryan's rash personality in a much better way when he's quite ready for combat despite eggil being the challenger after the fight finishes the stupid power of friendship moment occurs with this line the power of the will to protect your own is that what you refer to listen the power of friendship motif is not a bad concept inherently i feel like i've emphasized that too much throughout this video but it's true having a specific trope is not as bad as long as it presents something new or unique and it's relevant to the narrative the cliche here does neither of these and i think the second aspect is the most egregious the significance of friendship doesn't come up enough throughout the story to warrant its appearance what's more is that the cliche appears as an excuse for the monado to work not as something emotionally profound i've always found this odd and the only redeeming quality about it is that it doesn't come up that often to become a major hindrance upon the overarching story but after the dip in quality comes the rise in quality with this fantastic line your blade it did not cut deep enough this moment serves as a fantastic and subtle parallel to the fight between bionis and mechanus so long ago zhulk strikes the same arm where zanza swung at cutting off the mekonus arm the same arm that egil presumably rebuilt since it's now fixed during shulk's time and because shulk couldn't pierce his arm he's depicted as weaker or less capable than the bionis which will act as a setup for more tension when he finally confronts zanza moreover it creates more immediate tension because agile is stronger and more resilient than shulk so there is actual uncertainty of whether or not the main character will succeed so even though they do ultimately win the tension is still present and developed throughout what brings everything together is the preceding combat encounter with yaldabaoth who's at level 72 as someone who did every single side quest barring i believe two of them yaldabaoth is still a higher level than me in this boss fight so for even the most prepared players egil is characterized as more powerful than them in the gameplay too but after the fantastic combat encounter comes the moment where ekiel receives more empathy because of his conversation with maina he explicitly feels betrayal which i think is a necessary line since we can't see his face inside the mech and his emotions are so resonant here as a result of the emotional personal conflict between the god he worshipped and himself his desperation leads him to piloting the meccanus and while we don't understand the full context of what it takes to pilot the titan it appears to be taxing on the user probably because a machina was not meant to pilot it the party reawakens and tries to escape the city in a futile effort the desperation in all of their voices especially sharla's is superb writing all of their fear is expressed plainly and it elevates the scene from boring to personally engaging the conversation between ryan and sharla is exemplary too it implements ryan's reliable nature to convey his supportive caring attitude towards sharla the two bounce off of each other wonderfully and it's why the romantic chemistry is developed and natural in the entire narrative after an almost failed attempt getalt rushes in and protects the party from the harmful blast while you could say that it's not clear how gatilt would protect the party from a blast like that i don't think it takes away from the emotional impact of the scene at all it's such a fitting conclusion to gather character and his death provides even more personal stakes for sharla and ryan also developing the two's feelings along the way and i couldn't ask for anything better to end this section the mechaniscore has a hefty amount of plot so i'm going to attempt this without any summary unless it's for an example the section on a general level however is one of the best parts of the game and it acts as the climax of the entire story despite the slightly interesting but still worthwhile falling action that precedes this eventful chapter the mechanism awakening is so eventful and impactful to all of the characters including secondary ones like kalyan that it's frankly impressive galion's growth occurs later but right now mayneth's levitation powers are a neat reveal that also explains how the party survived their fall from galahad fortress another point of consistency for the story one small detail i appreciate is the change in fiora's expression when her body switches between mayneth and fiora it's a small but necessary visual cue that would otherwise be confusing and in this scene the game rationalizes gadot's death more meaning that it provided an actual impact on the narrative which character deaths should always achieve the group falling afterward had a little annoying fake tension but their rescue by junks is set up long before it happens so i don't view it as an inconvenience the party's return to the hidden village has a few explicit hints about alvis and dixon's true intentions by building up more of the mystery surrounding the two of them the third person omniscient perspective allows for the narrative to have these hidden mystery building moments and it's a testament to the writer's ability to choose and take advantage of the proper storytelling perspective before the group leaves for the cooling duct we see a preview of who lived through the battle of sword valley and among them is of course the colonel it's some brief levity i appreciate right before the deathly serious encounters later returning to junks fiore and vinaya have a personal moment between themselves and i think it's warranted considering the fact that vinaya used fjor's body for her own purposes resolving this small emotional conflict is a necessary element of the story and it's a great placement in the plot because after the meccanous core there isn't as much time to fit in more emotional slow moments between characters though there are still a few that i enjoy the journey into the mcconus shortly thereafter presents some neat visual flair which is a welcome addition once the party arrives inside central factory again shulk has his inquisitive skills on display questioning why egil called him zanza rein rightfully is the character to calm him down but this will have a more negative effect for the rest of the party later the hints towards zanza's return are far more obvious here but again the writers placed the obvious hints right before the reveals occur to remind any players if they forgot previous hints and the most obvious hint of all is when the monado begins to harm shulk in a similar manner to that of dunban one year ago the supportive expressive attitude from rein is so beneficial to the scene in order to have some form of subtlety to the hints and it even develops his character a little more too on the way to the apocrypha generator fiora talks to shulk when he starts overthinking acting as a nice way to deepen the two's romantic relationship but it also depicts mellie's unrequited attempt to support shulk which begins her story of tragedy that will continue and grow throughout the final parts of the game egil is able to control the mechanus though when the party reaches the apocrypha generator and it leads to one of the small differences between gameplay and story and i don't like it a ill strike on valak mountain while monumental for the story is minor or dare i say not even impactful on gameplay it's a small yet disappointing disconnect after the game's complete commitment to linking the gameplay and story so far once the party defeats the apocrypha generator shulk unlocks the last monado art monado cyclone which uses the kanji todoro meaning roar or thunder and that brings us to the climactic fight with egyo which still has personal stakes despite the grandiose setting for the fight and something i still find impressive in spite of not knowing how to say why is egil's speech inspiring shulk's final decision in the game's finale i guess i like it so much because the moment demonstrates how every scene still connects to the overarching plot so even though the plot can seem disconnected at a general glance each event still leads into another meaning that all of the scenes are significant and contribute something meaningful to the narrative what i find impressive for this fight is the leveling as well yaldabaoth is still at level 72 for this fight and despite doing every single quest besides one or two of them and discovering every single landmark all of my party members were either at the same level or lower to that of eggil it makes the fight difficult and i love it for that plus the added creativity in the boss design adds to that difficulty the bionis 10 moment is what i'm referring to by the way eggiel can spawn additional lower level enemies for the player to defeat while they also have to destroy the three energy devices the design of this boss fight is the peak of xenoblade's boss design for better and for worse but mostly better i think it's creative while not seeming unfairly difficult since there's only so much you can do when creating boss fights in jrpgs sometimes though i do wish there were more variety for the boss fights as a whole since this little bit of simple variety is the most unique encounter in the game once the battle is over shulk demonstrates his mastery of the monado by dodging every single attack egyl throws at him without needing a single vision but once shulk overpowers eggil we're treated to this wonderful scene where we finally hear shulk's inner voice from the beginning of the game zanza he states that shulk should kill egyl he repeats this phrase over and over again but shulk doesn't recognize the voice which is a wonderful way to depict shulk's growth throughout the game he can't recognize the voice that drove him to revenge in the first place it's a stark contrast from how he began and also a fitting well-paced character arc and during shulk's introspection we see one of the best implementations of flashbacks in the game the flurry of flashbacks all transitioning seamlessly is a fantastic and effective method to depict shulk's conflicting emotions and everything culminates in shulk not killing eggil what follows is an introspective conversation with him where shulk states that he realized how the two of them are the same which is a cliched line i normally hate because it appears during a stereotypical villain's introduction to another character but here the line appears after the two characters came to an agreement so having the line isn't cliched at all it's organic the conversation leads into a flashback featuring egyl and argolas the dialogue is a bit awkward albeit useful and decent at explaining the necessary parts about the history of the world after the memory comes one of the best most hidden reveals in the game dixon's betrayal you shouldn't have done that little brat while the hints become progressively less subtle toward the event of his betrayal i think it still functions as a well-hidden reveal elevating the personal stakes for characters like shulk and dunban which is one of the strong suits for this game the memory that flashes on screen once ego recognizes him still has some hidden truths because you can even see laura thea in the background there which is a detail i never actually noticed until watching back the footage for this video zanza's return has some great aspects and some poor ones as well the disconcerting mood of the whole scene is really well executed shulk's pale white eyes convey this idea perfectly instilling dread and horror one other well-presented aspect is the initial characterization of zanza the first bit of this occurs when egil attempts to attack zanza but he prevents the attack from hitting him with ease demonstrating his divine power and superiority to shulk zanza's design also contributes to the horror that the entire scene exudes his similarity to shulk is terrifying and unusual which builds the disconcerting atmosphere the rest of the scene flows into some exposition explaining the full truth behind dixon and zanza i think it has a nice fluctuation between the characters reactions and the antagonists as well as mayneth providing the explanations though it is somewhat awkward the choreography of dixon is fantastic elevating the exposition from boring to decent he walks around nonchalantly and he even starts smoking while he monologues it conveys his sense of superiority and also his dread-inducing treachery the final part that convinces me this scene was designed to horrify is the part about shulk being an empty shell the line re-contextualizes the events of the entire game without sacrificing the emotional weight and investment behind the story since what shulk did still affects the other party members to a great degree what i love a lot is the fulfillment of the previously mentioned chosen one prophecy or rather the subversion of it we find out that shulk had no particular reason to be the chosen one and he's even discarded by the god who deemed him so special it's a neat subversion of the tropes and shulk is more human because of said subversion later in the scene the horror element reappears when zanza reawakens the bionic suddenly serving two purposes one to convey zanza's divine prowess two to horrify the characters on screen since the bionis awakening occurs far quicker than the mechanuses once egil begins to combat the bionus a wonderful fight occurs it depicts the colossal stakes of the fight against zanza while still remaining personal to all of the characters which is the most significant aspect of the story so far for me the personal element comes in with egyil including the people of vionis in his declaration against zanza but after his defeat comes another binary between zanza and mayneth resembling shulk and fiora and representing the bionus and menchonus the binary continues until there are opposing ideals and beliefs zanza believes he is superior to his creations but maineth believes they are equals the significant contrast elevates the story's thematic elements but i don't think it provides enough personal touch for the characters so it's not as strong as the other moving parts of this scene the following gameplay fight between the two isn't that eventful aside from zanza's level question mark question mark question mark it ensures that the game is consistent with the in-canon rules about levels corresponding to actual strength because otherwise despotic arsene abunea would be more powerful than zanza though his actual stats aren't anywhere near as high as despotic arsene so i guess he is more powerful than god once everything settles we witness mayneth's final words create a world with no need for gods it illustrates her changed philosophy and it provides a significance to the entire conflict with egyil since it provided an emotional ideological change in a significant character it's what i love about this whole story despite how much the stakes escalate everything is connected significant and personal this segment of the game has some wonderful moments and it creates great setups for the game but i wouldn't say that the payoffs are as amazing as the rest of the game's storyline they're still quite good mind you but just not as impactful as prior moments like the confrontation with eggil or metalface's demise agile's final stand opens the segment and i think it works great as a final send-off for his character his death provides an actual bearing on both the plot because he helps the party to escape and also the character as evident with vinaya's sadness toward her brother's death moreover it acts as a fitting end to his character arc accepting loss and moving forward it's such a fitting end to set arc because he still exhibits his signature dedication but this time it's for a different cause signifying his distinct well-written change and development for his character what precedes the death scene is this awkward cut right here being the introduction to another tragic melia moment however the opening to the scene is quite good the conflict between dixon and dunban is absolutely excellent and a fitting dynamic since the two have had a lengthy history together his signature taunt stupid beast now has a malicious ring to it which is followed by dunban's i'll kill you the two callbacks are wonderful and it creates an interesting dynamic that the story never really expounds upon there aren't many more interactions that focus solely on dunban's pain after this incident the focus switches to the relationship between dixon and shulk which isn't terrible i think it's better that the narrative chose that relationship instead but i wish the story had more time to develop both not just one because i can always find something to complain about the mass transformation of the high entire army follows the shot here dixon leaning down to view the party is particularly stunning because it's creative and useful it's useful because it conveys how dixon is overwhelmingly confident and powerful in this scene amplifying the despair that melia feels which is the entire purpose of the scene ensure that melia suffers it sounds ill-intentioned but that's what her character arc is coping with suffering and for that purpose the scene works well the despair mellia feels is conveyed incredibly well by both her facial expression and the musical choice here plus since the scene feeds that aura of despair it fulfills its role well enough the next part displays shulk huddled in a ball inside memory space the long flashback sequence goes on for far too long in my opinion despite its great emotional significance and it teases more of alvis's identity since he inhabits memory space yet it's still a hidden clue since we are unsure of the location's name and also whose memories inhabit this place when returning to colony 6 we witness fiora giving shulk a replica monado and also a strategic briefing between colony officials the first scene is notable because it follows some consistent rules the game had made the machina were quite capable of crafting anti-mekon weaponry so crafting a weapon similar to the monado wouldn't be outside of their skill set the second scene is the last major hint of alvis's allegiances towards zanza and it follows the other reveals we've seen a final explicit hint which i still think is a fine structure to follow and it's a structure i never consciously noticed even after three playthroughs the following personal conversation between melee and fiora does a great job at setting up the tension that fiora could power down at any minute though the game never capitalizes on this tension as much as i think it could have it does showcase more of mellie's discernment because she accurately predicts fiora's condition based on small context clues plus building a relationship between the two people who have romantic feelings for shulk provides some great chemistry between the both of them once the telethia arrive a confrontation between dixon and the party without shulk yet again begins it's a simple scene that i appreciate for creating context and continuing newly established plot lines but nothing beyond that the cutscene interjects another personal moment between alves and shulk which i think is the more important and significant part in choke's low point this mysterious strange figure convinces him that what he did wasn't meaningless it's not that original in concept since it serves as the low point in the hero's journey trope but it connects toward the commentary of xenoblade chronicles which is the most interesting part it focuses on meaning in a predestined world but that's a general concept i'll elucidate much later needless to say it provides a unique enough twist to make the scene worthwhile the next cutscene post-telethia fight depicts the party excluding shulk exerting an incredible amount of effort to fight the telethia and they end up almost losing but once shulk arrives they win the battle with ease the contrast is a welcome addition since it illustrates how all of the party members are important and without one none of them would be able to accomplish what they did and for once this statement doesn't exclude riki ricky smiley smiley one other significant contrast is the fact that shulk finally has visions again because the flash of blue now appears in front of his eyes showing that shulk is no longer relying on zanza's powers to dodge attacks instead using his own elvis betrayal isn't terribly surprising since the trinity still required another traitor even after laurethia but shulk's refusal to attack him directly implies that he understands the actual truth behind alvis at least a little bit which is in line with his intelligence that's been on display the whole game after the final telethia fight the two members of the trinity flee and the game begins its changed focus to the shulk dixon relationship the wit and chemistry on display near the end works to still illustrate their student-teacher relationship in spite of how different everything is dixon's trepidation at the end is amazing though because it humanizes him ensuring he isn't a one-dimensional boring villain for the final arc of the [Music] game the bionis interior is an incredibly short area and it mostly acts as an interim location although the wrap-up formelia here is the best part and it will lead into her final brief character moments on prison island the most disappointing part though other than the bland visuals and music for the area is the lacking depth for the story the general plot outline for this area goes as follows the party enters the bionis lorothea challenges the party to a fight at the top of the tallest tower they defeat her dixon appears and challenges the party and shulk and friends go through the portal it's simplistic and straightforward but not in a good way compared to the other more character motivated aspects of the story the bionis interior section is akin to a simple video game plot where the player receives a task climbs to the top of the tallest tower and defeats the villain it's more lackluster compared to the rest of the overall plot but i don't want to discredit the character interactions and development here once the party arrives inside the bionis they comment on how the bionis interior is more different than before they all proceed forward and lorothea challenges everyone once the party reaches the heart the game begins to display its great character interactions and development yet again the fight against laurethia starts to show the great character drama when lorothia fuses with callion she spouts some slightly awkward world-building about telethea entomology but after the actual boss fight melia has the opportunity to interact with her brother's ghost and it's fantastic it highlights more of melia's feelings of inferiority and colleen helps her work through it along with that it acts as a good lead-in to melia's character arc and future connected afterward lorothia spouts her motive for joining zanza which was immortality i think the mention is actually well integrated since it makes sense for her to state her motive while she dies the moment post-lorothia death involves ricky and melia bonding over his ability to see her brother's ghost a plot point that the game hinted at in the high entire tomb and several other instances like the heart to heart and assay tower i think it's one of rikki's better standout moments and the straight thin chemistry between riki and melia doesn't hurt either [Music] the start of prison island's reintroduction is somewhat odd to me because of its placement on the bionis map and the motivation to reach the top millio mentions in this first scene that prison islands sunk into the bionis head but the actual skybox doesn't reflect that the skybox is filled with crimson red clouds which is strikingly dissimilar to the previous area inside the actual interior of the bionis it's a minor inconsistency that always bugs me despite how beautifully the skybox pairs with prison island the next aspect the party's motivation boils down to this riki and dunban have a feeling that dixon is at the top so the party heads there it's not a terrible motivation but in the previous section lorethia appeared in front of the party giving them a more reasonable motivation to head toward the top of the area dixon even appears before the party enters person island and i think if the writer slipped in a line for dixon about meeting everyone at the top this problem would be solved again i should emphasize that this is minor and i do greatly enjoy this section as it progresses toward the end after reaching the arena on prison island dixon appears yet again forcing the party to confront an obart before they can move on i think the section is fine although a bit lackluster it feels like a waste of time because once the player finishes the fight the elevator descends and then you have to go back to the arena again starting near the beginning of prison island it's a small grievance but still annoying nonetheless after the arena annoyance the team activates the transporter a notification appears informing the player that this will truly finally be the end of the game the scene has a little banter between the party but the one small thing that bugs me here is the last line dunban has time to seize our destiny it's the same phrase he's repeated throughout the story but he repeats it more frequently in the final hours of the game and it becomes far too annoying for my taste the next cutscene depicts the people of colony 6 fighting off an army of telethia but the most significant aspect is when a mass-produced face appears to protect a juju it's an odd appearance for a mekong but it resolves any remaining questions about the fate for all of the faced mekong so i appreciate it then the party meets dixon at the top of prison island for the penultimate fight and honestly i used to hate this scene i thought it had awkward dialogue without any meaning to it but after a second playthrough i realized to something this scene caps off each character's growth throughout the main story each party member's dialogue acts as an encouragement to shulk while also reflecting the end of their character arcs now there are two key questions each line should answer if this is true first what is the character arc and second is this character arc fitting for the character melia is up first and her transformation involves overcoming her suffering she's a self-conscious character at the beginning and she has to gain more confidence and accept her situation her dialogue here exemplifies that character arc since it implies that she's finally coped with her unrequited feelings towards shulk and on top of that i think it's fitting for her character it works wonderfully for her since she suffers the most personal loss throughout the story so overcoming that grief develops her confidence and it even is fitting for the idea of overcoming revenge i even think it flows well into her character arc in future connected charla's next and her character arc also involves overcoming grief but for her lover however that isn't the sole component because she learns to value life over sacrifice the character transformation i just described is present because she mentions how there's no point in dying the line references sacrifice or sacrifices she also mentions how you have to take what you want when combined both lines reveal that her character arc involves learning to live for herself which i think is fitting for charla whose life has been affected and altered by war and violence for ryan he encourages shulk by saying that he's capable of taking on dixon by himself rein's transformation reflects his growth out of the best friend character trope he starts off as shulk's protector and here he's accepting that shulk is capable of taking care of himself so ryan's dialogue fulfills the first obligation and i think his character arc is fitting as well he starts off the narrative as the best friend trow so a character arc where he grows out of said trope i think is great writing i absolutely love ryan's character arc because it's so fitting for him and while it's not necessarily a subversion of the best friend character trope the writers didn't rely on the trope's key characteristics so he finishes his character development as an amazing character and now for ricky hoo boy the writer's attempt to character arc for him and while i think it is kind of fitting there are no scenes that actually develop his character arc like at all so his character arc is supposed to encompass how he learns to be brave he starts out as a coward in making a forest and he encourages shulk to be braver implying that rikki learned how to be brave at some point and i think it is a great idea for a character whose gimmick is that he's cute and selfish but there are no points throughout the story where he becomes brave the only scene i think it refers to is when the party fights the telethia all the way back in macna forest since his only contribution to that fight is fleeing i'll get into this more in his character section but it just doesn't work dunban is the final character for this segment and his character arc involves coping with his wartime injuries as evident with this line believe in your own true strength it hints that his character arc involves focusing on inner strength instead of physical strength and it is incredibly fitting for him dunban starts off with grave injuries due to his military history so an arc where he has to outgrow that and cope with what happened is interesting and perfect for his character after the aforementioned characters complete their character arcs the party defeats dixon and were treated to another good death scene it has this line i just wanted the power of a god this martyr stuff's not for me that subtly introduces dixon motives for joining zanza while also acting as a fitting addition to his hesitation to continue fighting on top of that his dialogue once the party starts leaving reveals more emotional depth toward his relationship with shulk which is the best relationship he has the two of them have a teacher-student relationship and the dialogue references how shulk outgrew dixon which is a satisfying end to their relationship while also adding more humanity to dixon i think it's fantastic and his death wonderfully leads into the really bizarre finale [Music] the finale here doesn't truly become great until the epilogue and the rest of it is only average in my opinion which is due to the over-reliance on jrpg end-of-the-world let's go kill a god tropes i should emphasize that the presence of these tropes by itself doesn't cause bad storytelling the lackluster storytelling happens because the story doesn't expand upon the tropes nor does the story have interesting moments that stem from said tropes the most that they contribute to the story is boredom which is such a shame because the rest of this story is so creative the section opens up with a scene depicting zanza's vision of what's to come yet he oddly can't see beyond the beginning of his confrontation with the party the ending hints at zanza's demise though there isn't much misdirection here unlike with the plethora of other visions the most misdirection occurs at the end of the vision when the screen becomes a black void the end hints at the universe's own end but it's uncertain how the universe of xenoblade will disappear however with how little of the plot remains it's fairly obvious that shulk and his friends will triumph afterward the party begins traveling in space fighting spirits of past enemies they fought the most interesting part of this section is the appearance of planets from our solar system like saturn jupiter and mars it creates such strange and striking imagery and it's a great non-direct hint about the creation of the bionus and mechanus although it still feels too late for it to be as subtle and thought-out as the rest of the prior twists the party finally arrives at the sentient genesis where zanza has revealed his true form which yes is an interesting character design but starts to lean too hard on the stereotypical jrpg final boss tropes a lot of this segment however plays a more significant role in the commentary for the game so i apologize if this section of the analysis is more bland than normal because i'm only going to analyze the quality of the storytelling on a literal level at the moment and on a literal level the dialogue between the characters here is alright the scene provides some final aspects on zanza's motivations but not in the best way based on the dialogue here zanza is a power hungry character who wishes to be superior to everyone it seems like a disappointing villain at first glance and after more consideration i think he's a fitting villain but his motivations are lacking the story doesn't really define his motivations clearly and even after years of attempting to interpret his motivations it still seems unreasonable to me the best you could argue is that zanza has a superiority complex since before he was a scientist and now he's a literal god but i don't think that fits with the narrative very well and so his motivations are lacking even up to the very end the party proceeds to fight zanza but then he goes you fools this isn't even my final form and the party fights him again unlocks the true monado and finally defeats him once and for all in a scene that i find a bit awkward to look at due to the strange over-the-top choreography choices for characters like shulk he decides to jump to unreasonable heights seemingly floating in the air it's frustrating because the out of place choreography detracts from the scene's impact in a severe way so despite how much i like the ending zanza's death is always a sour point in the ending one final thing of note for here is the kanji that appears on shulk's monado kami the word kami refers to several million spirits in shintoism but the word is more commonly used as the translation for the word god in english and i think the translation of kami as god is more fitting for this scene and what i presume the intended english meaning is too the preceding scene depicts the birth of the bionus and mechanus explaining slightly how the universe of xenoblade came to exist it also reveals whose memories inhabit the world of memory space zanzas or more accurately klaus's the origin myth for xenoblade is quite fitting in my opinion klaus creates the world for science or progress and i think that fits well with the consistent idea of seizing one's destiny that the game so often proclaims so when klaus becomes zanza and enacts his own will on his creations is a distortion on that idea that made him create the universe in the first place and i love it i think it fits well for the narrative and it's unique enough that i think its inclusion helps the narrative overall after the memory elvis questions shulk about what kind of future he'll create since he's now the god of this world all the party members come in and interject the same meaning while maintaining their wonderful personalities and that message is an unknown future is a better future that kind of mentality will come up more when i analyze the actual meaning for the entire story but i still think it's fitting for the literal narrative then shulk returns back to all of his friends and he enacts his godly decree and so what i know what we wish for is a world with no gods [Music] the epilogue is beautiful it's the best way to describe it while there is the whole confusion about fiora's restoration i think it doesn't take away too much from the moment since there is an official explanation that was planned for the game even though it's a shame that the explanation isn't in the game still but that's really the only flaw i have with the final cut scene because besides the small misstep the scene provides some creative composition for a small reveal the character interactions are absolutely perfect and it leaves just enough ambiguity to fit with the game's focus on an unknown future during the rest of the conclusion the first aspect the shot composition is a first-person perspective with fiora which is a unique shot that the game saves up until the ending it creates some uncertainty about fiora's status since the player can't see her figure just yet it leads to a small surprise which carries into a cute conversation between shulk and fiora the conversation acts as a nice conclusion to their romantic chemistry since shulk finally makes a decision which contrasts the uncertainty about the relationship throughout the majority of the game the change signifies a finality to their romantic feelings and it's a well-developed fitting conclusion to their relationship her earlier conversation with melia is also a decent setup for future connected while also being a more explicit reference to the core motif of the future the next great set of character interactions occur between rein sharla ricci and juju rein and juju cement the father-son relationship that the earlier parts of the story hinted at along with that ryan and ricky have some more comedic interactions sharla and ryan's chemistry mimics that of an old married couple which also acts as a conclusion to the romantic tension they had throughout the story each character interaction has some great finality the only exception i would consider is melia since she still has more development and future connected but her dialogue still hints at a conclusion for her character in the base game accepting all the changes she endured throughout the story the last part i described earlier the hints at the future come up during fiora's trip through the town and shulk's memory of alvis it even displays dunban's return to leadership when rebuilding the world an uncertainty about the future pops up in this scene since the new colony isn't complete and the characters are all unsure of what new life will appear afterwards the conversation with alvis is an explicit extension of the scene in the town though since alves discusses an unknown future and the unity of all life in the new world when considering the track that plays here beyond the sky the final moments of the original story all culminate to an emotionally and thematically satisfying ending and i absolutely love it future connected is nowhere near as good as the main game in terms of its story the returning characters are bland the new characters only contribute somewhat decent character interactions plot points are completely dropped off since they become short boring optional side quests the returning voice actors have terrible performances and to top it all off the dialogue is awkward as hell it results in a bad story with one redeeming quality however melia's character arc her growth into a leader is the most compelling part of future connected because it acts as a great extension to the game the other good aspect the writers accomplished is relegating the other party members to side characters who don't really have a character arc i think the lack of a character change for people like shulk is a great choice since he had substantial growth with a great sense of finality in the main game i still wish kino and nene both had more character development but nene is decent enough that i don't mind it for her the new music and map design are fantastic too featuring some wonderful serene tracks and vistas to experience the side quests aren't as good as the main game but they're still decent the main story is the core issue i have with the epilogue though so that is going to be the majority of the analysis here the main story begins with flashbacks of some mostly relevant scenes near the end their inclusion is fine since some players might begin this expansion after not playing the game for an unknown amount of time so it works to help all players recollect the important information from the base game the game jumps into the main conflict immediately thereafter introducing the two new napon as well who unfortunately don't go anywhere nene is a copy of riki a silly looking character who secretly has a serious paternal side to them she doesn't really have an attempt at a character arc like rikki but i don't mind it as much for her since the story is so much shorter and the writers can only fit so much character growth into one narrative kino however is a character who should have received more development or at least been changed from what he is because right now he is an absolute nuisance while his hero pawn in training gimmick can be somewhat funny at first it becomes so annoying because his entire personality involves [Music] why [Music] [Music] fight against impossible odds is natural like breathing that line of hero ponkino sounds like joke it's all he ever talks about but having some development beyond that would have made his character less annoying he's just an annoying character as is and while he does have some good moments they're all in the quiet moments not the main story after the party fights the pack of wolves they all discuss how everyone ended up on the bayana's shoulder right before heading toward the high-end encampment which is where the game introduces two distinct plot lines one of which is semi-interesting and another of which is the fog king that first one involves some personal distrust of the other high antea camp that decided to live in harmony with the macna so basically it's fantasy racism the sequel i think the trope functions well here because the two races are actually quite different to clarify that doesn't mean i think racism itself is good what i mean is that the trope creates a good story about how this high entity encampment has to overcome their prejudice if the high entire stayed racist i would be far less happy about this trope with that being said i don't find that second plot line to be worthwhile because it's simply an excuse for the first one to satisfy its foregone conclusion unifying the two camps the funking has some slight implications that connect the game to the others in the xeno series and while i appreciate that aspect the fall king is not a compelling force of nature antagonist a great force of nature villain is simple it's a being that exists to test the characters and act as a catalyst for their development the fog king only accomplishes that goal for one character melia the king is a force that prompts melia to become a better leader which is her entire character arc in this expansion it's a fitting albeit's not amazing implementation of an antagonist that can so easily be horrible but just because it accomplishes this for one character that doesn't mean the villain is a worthy addition to the story the fog king slightly causes the reunification of the two hyentia camps but it's not to the degree that i would want because it stays inside alchemoth for the entire campaign only slightly influencing the fun of the area in the later parts of the story this first high-end tia camp also introduces galgar whom i despise his character is so annoying his dialogue is so repetitive and he's completely useless and irrelevant to the entire narrative in fact he's so useless that the writers chose to relegate his ending to an unsatisfactory side quest we'll see more of his annoying elements later but his insistence upon calling melia by an incredibly formal title becomes annoying quickly it characterizes him as an obvious villain because he's casually confrontational to the main cast so it's fair to assume he's going to become another villain which he does and unfortunately his appearances don't stop there the next story beat is a more personal one but it begins the main writing problem i have the dialogue isn't natural melia's speech here reflects some interesting plot points disappointment at the strife and hatred in the new world but she expresses it as though her thoughts were narration in a novel which is not befitting of character dialogue in a visual medium of storytelling like video games i think one cause of the awkward dialogue is a misunderstanding of her character it's best evident in a line like this one i have been mistaken in my thinking this line is incredibly awkward to say but i think the intent was to capture melia's speech patterns from the original game which is not a bad aim but in the original game melia was not foreign to natural organic dialogue the most proper aspect of her speech was avoiding contractions and her posh accent conveyed her royalty in fact in the final battle on top of prison island she even shouts at fiora but throughout this speech she is calm collected she doesn't emote despite expressing some very personal feelings of disappointment and inadequacy since melia was able to emote in the main game without it misconstruing as a break in her character the proper dialogue ironically is a break of her character here this proper dialogue illness thankfully doesn't affect nene and kino in this scene and they actually contribute meaningful dialogue into the conversation which i appreciate by the way whenever there's a scene with these two and i don't mention their presence it's because they don't contribute something meaningful in my opinion so i hope you're ready for me to mention them very infrequently the party moves along and enters alchemoth where shulk surmises that the fall king could have come from the portal and that portal is likely a cause of the newly formed world both of which i think are fair for shulk to conclude since he was the god of this world for a brief time i think the current explanation for the portal's appearance is fine but i'm still disappointed that the game doesn't evolve beyond what's there the sparty prints to protect the endangered boy who turns out to be zealand if you don't remember who telon is i don't blame you he's a minor part of a sidequest chain where you help to discover some secrets that might change the telethia back into high entire but even in telon's own quest he plays a completely nameless role and as someone who completed every side quest twice i never recognized him until future connected released and researched who he was i think that's a deeply unfortunate choice of character from the developers because he doesn't even have much development in the expansion his appearance is most useful in terms of his research which acts as another catalyst for a confrontation with galegar who's a wasted villain in this narrative i think it's just a poor choice to pick telon an underdeveloped character from the base game to be a plot device without development for the expansion there are some better character appearances later on but this reappearance is still odd the party's union with telon marks the first encounter with the fog king featuring two fake outs one with the taos and another with the actual fog king it's not anything major but it's a minor nitpick that always bothers me when i watch this scene the actual choreography here is pretty good it displays some coordination among the team strengthening the chemistry they all share which is one minor aspect i appreciate because it's difficult to successfully build those connections in this short of a campaign and this even marks another point of kino and nene being useful and relevant but the scene mostly has visual flair nothing of note beyond that what follows is a decent exposition scene that establishes concepts like fogbeast before they all head to telon's lab at the lab tairea becomes a part of the story and she's an example of a good character reintroduction she was a very minor character in the base game but she's upgraded to a secondary character here plus the writers actually implement her in an effective manner after the moment in the lab melia and tyrea have a small heart to heart one small detail i dislike is this line from tyrea my helping with tylan's research is a simple matter of give and take the possessive here is so awkward in spoken dialogue and the removal of it would carry the same meaning while maintaining her proper english that i believe the writers wanted to achieve the fixed line would sound like this helping with telon's research is a simple matter of give and take alternatively me helping with tylan's research is a simple matter of give and take it's unfortunate that this awkward dialogue continues for a majority of other characters in this expansion and not just melia but what the scene does well is progressing both the characters of melia and tyrea tyria conveys her fractured emotional state after the transformation of the high entire moreover the cutscenes depict melia's personal doubts and failings as a leader both of these personal details enhance the narrative of future connected since tyrea's character is a natural progression from her original counterpart and melia's character development receives some much needed downtime to have some more explicit growth the party then decides to visit grandel to converse with radson someone who's important to telon's research so they have good reason to visit the town once there the game spouts a lengthy amount of exposition about why the high entity are split into two groups it provides some decent motivation for the split but at the cost of some awkward dialogue as per the usual with this expansion here it's when melia finishes helma lane's line when their country was taken from them the extent of their anger and resentment was fully understandable it isn't quite natural to verbal speech due to its absurd length but it also is an instance of poor storytelling because it doesn't allow the player to infer the hyentia's emotions there were already enough context clues from the npc that assuming the people who left were angry and justifiably so wouldn't be a large with even logic the change would also respect the viewer's intelligence something which i think this expansion story is lacking in the group meets radzom further in the village and we receive some explanation as to why the fog king doesn't leave alchemoth and i think it's a pretty decent explanation it revolves around ether which as we've seen acts as an unknown energy in all living things so its influence here is reasonable and a good expansion upon the principle set up from the original story then melia transitions to radzim's involvement in the split hyuntia group it provides some decent motivations from him and i think the explicit nature of this scene is better because the two characters are talking in a personal manner that fits the narrative so far however the preceding cutscene annoys me it summarizes the feelings of all the people living on granddale despite us just learning about these emotions in a scene or two prior it's repeated information that's superfluous to anyone's character development what's even more frustrating is when shulk and melia summarized the events of the original game with minimal input from kino and nene you could say that this acts as a reminder to the player about the important aspects of the original narrative but that reminder already exists in the form of the flashback cutscenes at the very beginning of the expansion so again this is superfluous the end of the scene however provides some much needed tension as the rift seems to grow larger and larger the party rushes back to alcomoth and the story introduces a new concept fog beasts vlog beasts provide a decent introduction of more tension to the narrative since the fog king has more influence as an antagonist on the bionis shoulder ensuring it's a threatening villain after dealing with the fog beasts near alchemoth and grandel the group heads back to telon's lab for another encounter with galegar yay he explains more of his motivations asserting that he hates the pure-blooded hyentia and that the rift in the sky deems them as abhorrent the rift aspect of his motivations appear as an almost half-assed attempt to connect him with the actual narrative at hand but it doesn't really work since he isn't part of the main story at all after this point he's a pointless character that contributes little to the story and once the encounter ends he thankfully and kind of unfortunately leaves for good once melia awakens in grandel we see another great character moment for her she failed to save telon's research from the fire acting as another failure on her part as a ruler it's the low point for her character so her quick action to leadership during the rest of the story feels well earned the scene ends on a positive note since melio was able to save the one tome telon needed to regain his research it's a spark of hope for melia to become a great leader and i'm glad this scene in particular respects the viewer's intelligence so that the wonderful scene isn't ruined after gathering some high purity ether crystals though amendment fog beast invades grandel right before the fight and even after the fact melia is more commanding giving orders to everyone as to what they should do it's a nice rebound from melia's low point moments ago but the exploration provides enough breathing room that the small change doesn't feel too sudden and the dialogue preceding the mammoth's defeat includes some of the clarity and brevity i've been craving such as in this line thank you we'll be quick what makes this line so effective is that it still maintains melia's proper cadence without sacrificing natural spoken dialogue while this example can seem quite specific the same principle carries over for the dialogue of both radzim and tyrea in this scene so the writers are capable of creating natural significant spoken dialogue which makes all the other instances which lack that so disappointing the next set of scenes between melia and maxis are genuinely good as well it demonstrates mellie's capability as a leader since she's able to rally the troops and unify both camps later on at granddale and the battle there is the best part of the story melia leads a charge of hyentius soldiers which is her defining moment as a character she's become a leader tyrea also completes her character arc of accepting melia and i think it's fitting that the transformation happens here when she has to trust that melia will succeed it's just an all-around great moment and while i don't think unfinished business is a good choice as a track here the moment is still wonderful after maxis and radzim settle their differences we get to the worst part of the story all of the emotional weight is gone because the development of melia is complete so there's nothing emotionally engaging about combating the fog king sure it's a neat spectacle but it doesn't have any substance beyond that i think a decent way to sidestep this problem would have been to add more connections to other games in the series but the most development we see on this idea has already happened explaining every single detail about the fog king isn't necessary and i'm glad it's still ambiguous the problem i have is that the emotionally engaging story has concluded so defeating the fall king is a foregone conclusion because it's so obvious that the heroes are going to win plus the story itself has given me no reason to care about the outcome of this conflict and because of that i see no reason to comment on it any further unless you want me spouting everything you just heard again and again for several minutes on end of course so in conclusion fog king bed end of story i don't want to talk about it anymore however the ending sequence is thankfully decent enough to cure my eyes of the lackluster final boss there are no spoken words and all of the characters are expressive enough that i think the cutscene is so much better without the dialogue the instrumental arrangement for beyond the sky is fantastic too elevating the emotional significance of each reunion the moment after the credits is amazingly simple though tyrea using melia's proper title signifies her full acceptance of melia as the new ruler and all of the dialogue from her is brief and natural the same goes for melia she maintains her proper speech pattern while having the simple dialogue i love but just because it's simple doesn't mean that there's no depth melia's new coronation is the final nail to her character arcs coffin she finally became a leader in spirit and status and the simply amazing final shot shows light encompassing the screen as tyreia and melia walk toward a bright but unknown future that is finally the end to the entire story of xenoblade chronicles this entire commentary of the narrative was quite long even with deleting entire sections highlighting details i originally thought to be important i needed to avoid rants and i hope i was still able to do that while providing a meaningful commentary of the story for you on the whole this plot is fantastic it's creative and surprising in just the right ways the writers are so careful to leave just the right amount of hints throughout and the tension never suffers with all of the plot twists and foreshadowing but below all of that is actual heart in the characters and meaning behind the story we haven't seen much of either of those aspects in this commentary so far because the story's meaning is for last and the fantastic characters are up next shulk is by far the best character he has the most focus and development in the main story reinforced by all of the wonderful heart to hearts the best aspect about shulk is that he isn't the stereotypical shonen anime protagonist that has become a staple of jrpg storytelling the stereotypical protagonist for the genre desires to become the best of insert famous title here these include your ash ketchums izuku midoriyas narutos and jinkas yet shulk exudes an incredibly human and selfish motivation revenge the majority of the narrative is shulk's revenge story while the revenge plot line is pertinent for all the other members of the party except roriki the main goal is shulk's revenge against the mekong his desire for revenge prevents him from being a perfect character which is fantastic his imperfect character elevates the story further and creates better tension character chemistry and conflict on top of that it perfectly sets up his own character growth that happens naturally and progressively he begins as vengeful after fjor's death and doesn't truly disregard revenge until right before he attempts to kill egil but the entire growth of his character has incremental moments where his ideology begins to change all the way up until prison island his desire for revenge grows and grows up until he discovers that fiore is alive then the narrative depicts his diminishing revenge it starts with the reintroduction of fiora continues with the second encounter with her occurs again with mumkar's death goes on when fiora reunites with everyone develops even more with the jade phase plotline and culminates in the preceding encounters with egyl at mayneth shrine and mcconus core all of the small instances where his resolve dissipates are so well paced because it's all relevant to the main story ensuring that the story is relevant to the characters and also the ongoing drama and when shulk finally decides against revenge the scene is believable and earned because the plot has subtly introduced the consequences for seeking revenge i think that subtlety is the key here because the game has far more explicit explorations about fate and free will it doesn't spend a lot of the character dialogue proclaiming the supremacy of not getting revenge as we'll call it instead a reverse approach occurs shulk's revenge is normal at the beginning and then it's out of place when confronting egil a normal approach to this type of character arc includes explicit sometimes unnecessary depictions of violence and overzealous indulgence in character deaths and an all-around simplistic view of critiquing getting revenge so diverging from that tired structure breathes new life into the character i know i've spent so long discussing shulk's motivations but i think it's key to understanding why his character is so amazing along with his great personality and chemistry with the entire cast shulk's personality traits aren't even that hard to decipher because the game has them laid out right in front of your eyes in the skill trees granted that the great in-story characterization helps too what i think is the best skill branch here is pessimism the exact opposite trait that's so common to jrpg protagonists and his pessimism even manifests throughout the narrative since he isn't positive or hopeful after fjor's death he's distraught unsure of what to do seeking what i would classify as some incredibly genocidal and therefore harmful coping mechanisms he doesn't cheer up immediately either that pain carries on to the point that he even explicitly mentions it to melia in magna magnaforest all of his negative pessimistic emotions are a subversion of what would be the stereotypical protagonist for a game of this genre and i appreciate his character so much for that reason ryan starts off as a stereotypical best friend trope character but he evolves into something much better a character who grows out of said trope i think ryan's character arc is amazing and his great personality and dialogue just amplify his best qualities even further he's significant to the plot too and his character chemistry works perfectly for both comedic and serious scenes in comedic scenes his character is used as the butt of a joke and he's the character who interacts with riki the most which lends itself to more comedic moments like spiking ricky in frontier village his more serious moments are emblematic of an exceptional character dripping with personality that aids the development of other characters along with his own a scene that perfectly embodies this is when the party reaches the top of mekonus field his lighthearted supportive attitude is on display here and it complements charlotte's growth here too his character model is so expressive and it's something i appreciate about all of the main cast they have distinct personalities there aren't any bland characters in the main cast and they all bounce off of each other in such a great way that brews some wonderful chemistry looking into the mekonus field scene demonstrates that idea even further the chemistry between sharla and rhine is the real standout here because it serves as an extension to their romantic feelings as well as their own character growth for ryan his attentive attitude towards charlotte's sentimental feelings about her weaponry is what develops more of the romantic bond but charles questions after the gadold flashback reveal more about rhein's own character arc to overcome his protective attitude the questions that charlotte proposes involves sacrifice which is still relevant to ideas about protection rhein says that he wouldn't sacrifice his life to stop the mekon which is another major turning point for his character it's a realization that he can't do everything possible to protect those he cares about including shulk yet another moment that illustrates rein's inner struggle in such a fantastic way is when the party falls onto the fallen arm ryan and sharla have another more personal conversation which emulates the two concepts i explained before chemistry and growth therefore it achieves two things one it continues the relationship building from before because the two of them are opening up to each other more two it's a major turning point for ryan's character he despairs because of his inability to protect shulk but he comes out of the situation realizing that he doesn't always have to protect him the drastic change is so natural and fitting since it's caused by an incredibly personal conversation between charlotte and ryan so having a drastic change in outlook is reasonable and well earned these two scenes are why ryan is such an incredible character he's brimming with some expressive personality traits but that doesn't mean he's a devoid of character he has a very explicit character arc pertaining to his relationship with shulk but ryan also aids in the development of other main cast members like sharla he's such an integral part of the story and cast that this game wouldn't be the same without him she's a healer in combat and a protector in the story both of which correlate surprisingly well the danger of this type of character occurs when writers can base an entire character's personality on one's adoration or affection of another character a good example for a parody of this character type includes the nuns from monty python and the holy grail in castle anthrax the basis of their personality only consists of swooning over sir galahad and while monty python implements the archetype for a comedic effect some stories rely on this aspect for an entire character at a first glance charla seems to be like this archetype because of her constantly panicking over the safety of gatold and or juju but she has far more personality and character that the story thankfully displays more often than her concerns for gadol and juju she doesn't have that great of an introduction but in the later parts of the story she becomes a great addition to the party after all a perfect personal scene for this is the top of mechanus field which is such a fantastic scene all around so that's why i keep discussing it so often in the scene sharla holds on to gadot's rifle as a memento and ryan recognizes this prompting a flashback of gadot which displays his militant philosophy that philosophy involves this idea that always comes up for charla's character death is a worthwhile sacrifice what i think is the most interesting part of charlotte's growth though is that instead of growing into this philosophy she has to outgrow it essentially making her character arc this getting over-gaddled and moving on with her life it's such a refreshing character arc since it doesn't fall into a common somewhat disconcerting archetype where she would fall in love with another man and then her character would entirely revolve around the new man thankfully xenoblade not only avoids the trappings but it still creates an interesting compelling character arc for sharla going back to that scene in mcconne's field charlotte interrogates ryan asking him whether or not he's willing to sacrifice his own life to stop the metcon to which he replies no it's quite a personal conversation between charlotte and ryan and it acts as a major moment for charlotte's growth because she begins to question the ideals of someone who was so close to her questioning these ideas of sacrifice leads to her becoming a doctor by the end of the game which is quite fitting for her character it demonstrates her growth because instead of using her healing skills to perpetuate conflict and violence she instead uses them to heal and protect people which signifies her transformed outlook the conclusion of her character illustrates how she had such a drastic developed change throughout the story and it's what makes her such a great addition while her character starts off with dumping her backstory it all leads into some emotionally engaging sequences for her character and i absolutely love it dunban is fantastic and one of the core reasons why i enjoy the characters in this game so much he fits the story in an excellent manner because of the strength of his personal connections to all of the ongoings in the story such as fiora's death metalface's identity and dixon's betrayal what's even better is that all of these moments are plot relevant while also being relevant to his character development i think the best way to elucidate this though is through the three moments i just mentioned because they can highlight this far better than i'm capable of in broad strokes the first instance fiora's death illustrates this connection between the personal and the plot during the mekong invasion dunban's involvement with the plot is at a maximum he tries to use the monado attack metal face and stop the mekon invasion he's an active character contributing a lot to the ongoing conflict but on top of that the conflict is incredibly personal the most personal part is when metal face murders fiora his sister sparking him to join shulk and rein in their quest for revenge dunban's feelings of revenge are personal and his personal feelings springboard into all of the other major plot events which is how this impetus connects the personal and the plot the reveal of metalface's identity is yet another exemplary moment for dunban's character it's personal and plot relevant the personal comes up with mumkar a person whom dunban fought an entire war with so the emotional connection and personal drama is quite strong and this connection though brief is shown to us in the very prologue of the game their entire relationship has been as friends and the reversal of that for this conflict is what's so captivating about the character drama dunban's anger and conflict are the center of the scene and the tension between dunban and mumkar's fight escalates further and further the two aspects here involve dunban's emotions and his actions they both escalate in unison ensuring that dunban's personal conflict is as necessary to the actual ongoing events which is the best part for every single character dunban's conflicted emotions are so captivating because it's an emotionally resonant conflict and the writers are careful to convey those emotions in a manner that respects the player's intelligence but on top of that those emotions and motivations lead to conflict and growth dunban's character growth is about overcoming his past and it fits exceedingly well here dunban has to fight someone from his past literally so it combines his emotional growth along with his character actions the personal emotions cannot be engaging without the captivating plot and it's what makes dunban such a fantastic character while acting as an incredible example of how the writers excellently utilize their characters to create a compelling emotionally engaging narrative [Music] melia is an incomplete character if analyzed only for her base game appearance while i still enjoy her character and growth throughout the game i still can't shake the feeling as though it's incomplete which means that her development in future connected is thankfully relevant and worthwhile the character arc i always state for her is this her journey throughout the game is her journey to overcome tragedy which leads to a developed and somewhat changed character near the game's finale now the main problem i have with this approach is that there isn't enough change but that's only when considering the base game released back in 2010 so when considering the context of definitive edition set flaw is essentially nullified she has the additional growth i wanted so what's left is a truly great character that fits the narrative so well she mostly fits the commentary around revenge that xenoblade fixates on during the early portions she seeks vengeance for the royal guards in macna forest and for her father after the events on prison island her motivation for revenge against the mekong is the core that links everyone in the party together except rikki it's also what makes her character so compelling melia's tragedy begins with her introduction and it grows at an almost exponential rate as the game continues following the brutal murder of her father she has to overcome her feelings of affection for shulk and inadequacy to rule which just pile onto the later death of her brother and loss of almost all her subjects but what ensures that her tragedies are so compelling and personal is that they link to the advance of both the overarching plot and the actions of the other main characters for the plot events like the death of her father trigger crucial plot points like awakening the monado 2 and rediscovering fiora without the crucial character moment there wouldn't be the preceding crucial plot moment it connects the two so that neither is disparate or unnecessary the second part the other main characters is a bit trickier to land since melia's struggles are quite personal but then there are events like callion's passing in the bionus interior which displays riki and melia bonding the tender moment connects them by utilizing the single character moment to enhance the relationships with other characters another scene like this is when the party encounters metalface on valak mountain the fight is personal especially to shulk dunban rein and melia for all different reasons but it unifies their goals and makes sure that the four of them are relevant to the story because this encounter is so personal to those four characters they enhance the story and personal drama that xenoblade embellishes in [Music] riki doesn't add too many significant character interactions or chemistry to the story but god damn i still love this character the gimmick behind him is this he's a cute creature designed for comedic purposes who's surprisingly wise and emotionally intelligent the gimmick still works however since the writers don't overuse the joke in the story but that's only because the writers under utilize him in the story which is the actual main fault of his character he isn't a bad character by himself but because he lacks weight and significance to the story he pales in comparison to the others his most significant moments include his introduction the rest at the fallen arm and lorothia's defeat in the bionis interior each of these moments exhibit the best of riki but these are the only three important moments with him his introduction implements his gimmick the best since the writers implement his character joke properly and riki's participation develops his own character his first appearance characterizes him as an adorable joke character and the surprise occurs once the chief forces him to join the party since the writers depict riki's selfishness and dunga's manipulative nature the scene serves as a method to develop a contrast between the hero pond's appearance and his personality he doesn't receive too much development here but it's his character introduction so that's understandable the next significant instance isn't until the fallen arm though which is an important distance from his introduction while he has slight development here his role mostly serves to elevate dunban's character he inquires about dunban's feelings and he expressed his concerns about fiora and shulk which occurs as a nice change of pace compared to the prior action-packed scenes at galahad fortress and it allows the characters like dunban to express their emotional growth and desires at to this point in the story but riki doesn't display any emotional growth along with dunban he either reinforces what dunban says or he prompts dunban's emotional growth the most emotional development he receives is his perception of melia's exhaustion and deciding to stop for her sake which characterizes him as kind but ricky shouldn't be receiving basic characterization this far into the story it makes his character completely lag behind when compared with the other characters yet despite all of that this moment is supposed to be riki's grand character moment his next important story moment doesn't occur until the end of biona's interior which is when he sees the ghost of melia's brother the scene doesn't provide any more development to reiki since it acts as the closure to melia and kalian's relationship the most he gets is some more characterization as kind and caring but it's just an event that fits his character instead of a form of character development i've already talked about the last scene with my character development for riki and it's the prison terrorist fight against dixon but i'll briefly restate what i said for those who skipped to this section the fight serves as the final conclusion to each party member's character arcs and the writers even attempt a character arc for riki when he states that he knows shulk is brave based on what i concluded previously about the story cut scene the line signifies ricky's character growth from a cowardly selfish nop-on to a heroic one but that character arc doesn't fit because he doesn't have enough scenes or significance to convey the character arc properly the three significant scenes i highlighted don't provide enough explicit character growth in riki's courage for the line in this scene to make sense yet the writers are clearly attempting for this to be ricky's character arc because there are small one-shot lines like this one on sword valley lonely friend behind ricky's scared but ricky won't go too but one line isn't enough for a character to be developed or have a successful character arc even though ricky's character doesn't appear in the main story too often and he really suffers for it his character mostly shines in the heart to hearts but even that still has its problems his heart to heart suffer from their formulaic writing while it doesn't always play out the same way the formulaic heart to hearts fail at providing enough significant characterization or character interactions for reiki the most common reiki heart to heart has this same structure riki is sad over something typically about his own failings as a hero pawn then another party member asks him what's wrong riki explains why he's sad and then the other party member responds that's not the reiki i know it's absurd how often the writers fall back on this same structure for the reiki heart to hearts because the heart to hearts with other characters aren't this formulaic the other ones provide some great character insights that flesh out their personalities even further and it even presents some great character interactions between people who don't interact as much throughout the main story including the likes of melian fiora as well as dunban and sharla riki's heart to hearts do provide some of the same character insight yet to the formulaic heart to hearts are the norm which brings down his character even further since his presence in the main story is already lacking however he still does have some wonderful heart to hearts which develop his paternal habits even if some of them follow the aforementioned formula from before for instance the heart to heart between him and sharla in satoru marsh discusses a time when ricky thought he failed as a father since he wasn't there for one of his daughters who is revealed to be naenae in future connected it works well as a heart to heart because it develops riki as a father and charlo's maternal personality complements the conversation well along with some small personality development on her side when the discussion switches to sharla deviating from a stereotypical girl as a kid the two have great chemistry in the heart to heart and the writers selected a topical topic for the two of them because of rieki's actual paternal role and charla's figurative maternal role in the party these are the norms for the other characters heart to hearts and even though most of reekies are formulaic i don't want to downplay the quality of these segments for him because he does have some fantastic character moments i just wish there was more fjor enters the narrative as a character brimming with personality and she exits the narrative as a plot device for shulk to begin his mekon slaying journey by the way this is the start of the secondary character so if you are tuning into the section just for party members you can move along now are they gone okay cool now let's actually talk about fiora because once she re-enters the narrative she's still dripping with personality but her development afterward is a little disappointing that's not to say i hate a re-introduction though quite the opposite actually i love that she comes back as a faced mekong and she's such a great addition to the party fostering some great chemistry between the other main characters but she doesn't receive quite the amount of development i think her character needed she has a miniature character arc about her self-image since she has a different body though it doesn't look that different from her homs body she starts off as shy reserved and doubtful when she finally meets shulk again but by the end of the game she's willing to continue living in her mekong body no matter how long her depleted energy supply has it's a distinct change in her character's mindset which is the great part but it's not as striking to me as the change that someone like ryan or shulk undergoes which are the results of several rigorous trials shaping their outlooks ryan's major character moments include the metcon invasion tephra cave ether mine the fallen arm and mcconneus field each area builds on top of the previous story beats when ultimately ryan realizes that he doesn't need to protect shulk it has the same distinct mindset change that fiora has but the difference is the amount of character moments and trials that she undergoes fiora reappears so late into the game's run time that she doesn't have as many opportunities to undergo significant story events that contribute to her changed outlook the explicit change ends after mcconus core and once the party returns to colony six the conversation between mellie and fiora is the specific moment where fiore states her character change she wants to continue in this current body as much as she can so the only significant moments she had to undergo this change include the following areas the fallen arm slash hidden village mcconnell's field agneretha and mcconus core her major moments in mcconus core and agneartha don't even involve her personally sometimes it's just mayneth explaining something which takes up more of fjor's screen time that could have gone to developing her character it's not enough development and that's not to say her character arc is bad she has a decent amount of development but it's not as much as the other characters whom i think have a superb amount metalface is an incredible villain his maniacal chaotic tendencies and his integration into the story are the key to what makes him such a great antagonist the writer slot him in the story to maximize the character development of other characters and they kill him off once his utility ends while he gets some flack for having some simplistic motivations i don't think it's problematic and it even fits momkar's character in my opinion his personality is the main reason for his appeal though so let's start there metalface is threatening intimidating and maniacal as all hell i already highlighted how the game establishes his menacing presence back in colony 9 but the introduction of his voice is what creates his signature attitude metalface's maniacal personality appears at the exit of the ether mine where he taunts shulk with some excellent expressive choreography on display he's dripping with personality and creativity and it's indicative of the fantastic characters the writers are capable of creating that personality continues for all of his reappearances and dialogue cementing him as a wonderfully expressive villain the writers later introduce his motivations for becoming a face unit his hatred for dunban and desire to wield the monado and become renowned as the hero his hatred stems from a place of jealousy and it causes some great tension and character moments for dunban and even shulk which is why i think his motivation is so fitting it builds upon the narrative that's already there since it causes a natural flow into memorable scenes like the confrontation on the hilt of the mekonus sword his motivations don't take away any quality from the narrative and frankly they add some of the best moments to the story the final part i've seen a complaint about is his death specifically that it happens too soon after mumkar's reintroduction but i don't think that's a fair critique there are two key encounters after mumkar's reveal valak mountain and sword valley in valak mountain his appearance brews some character drama between him and dunban because of dunban's friendly history with him sword valley is the natural continuation of this event because it brings that same character drama to even greater height while involving other characters like shulk on top of that it leads to mumkar's death in an ever escalating cutscene the flow into his death is well paced and natural along with being a fitting ironic end for the character since he causes his own death the only logical continuation after this is yet another scene that creates even more character drama for dunban and at this point it begins to be formulaic so having only two of these scenes post mum car reveal is fine plus the game even utilizes mom mumkar after his death to develop dunban some more in one of my favorite heart to hearts eternal scars it presents dunban's conflicted emotions about mom card because despite being a friend he murdered so many homs and if you choose the path with the most affinity gain it ends with him saying this mumkar i doubt i'll ever forgive you for what you did but i'll never forget you and i hope you can find peace i think it's a great end to both dunban and mumkar for dunban it acts as part of his process for coping with what happened in the war one year ago and for mumkar he dies because of his own power lust and desire for revenge almost as a what-if scenario for if dunban shulk or anyone else continue to try and enact their vengeance egil is an amazing villain because of how much he adds to the story's commentary toward revenge the most significant characteristic of him is his similarity to shulk while the allegiances of the two differ their motivations are ultimately the same they both experience mass tragedy resulting in great loss for their respective races the two seek revenge by deciding to murder an entire group of people for egil this is every inhabitant on bioness and for shulk this includes all the mekon in the end they both realize their vengeance killing spree is immoral and they decide to stop though shulk has his epiphany a little earlier than agile the two experience a strikingly similar character arc and it's what makes agile such an amazing villain often in narratives there are attempts at this similar idea creating comparisons between the antagonist and the protagonist for some kind of narrative effect most often though the connection is explicit following a similar structure to this scenario protagonist kuhn you and i aren't that different that can't be i'd never be like you you will see in time protagonist kuhn laughs maniacally xenoblade takes a more subtle approach to the concept there are moments that express the similarities between shulk and egyl instead of dialogue which is what creates the subtlety but even when the game has these explicit connections it implements them in a non-cliched manner so as to ensure that the character similarities don't fall into the trappings of said cliche for instance when shulk hears about how they're similar he doesn't deny it that's the key difference because that denial from the protagonist is the most annoying part of the cliche and while you could say that it's shulk's character who improves this i think egg hill is really the villain that the story needed to make shulk an even better character [Music] gadolt is a great addition to the story because he acts as a part of emotional backstory for sharla and he also helps develop ryan's relationship with her while still being relevant to the plot as both a villain and an ally he's mostly absent from the story so that means he serves as emotional baggage for charlotte to cope with which is fine i don't want to misconstrue his absence or the emotions that sharla feels as bad or irrelevant because they're neither of those things it's just more prominent for charla's character than gadolds his great moments come in once the character is reintroduced as jadeface which is so fantastic because it illustrates the significance of his relationship with sharla while also developing rein's camaraderie his actions during the maynath shrine events elucidate this the best he refuses to kill charlotte as jadeface and when he regains his memory he encourages ryan to help take care of sharla once ryan treats him like a fellow soldier the part about sharla furthers the relationship between the two of them because his memories and love for her are genuine enough that they permeate his consciousness even after losing some of his memories moreover the rhine aspect conveys ryan's preparedness as a soldier furthering his own character's complex personality and gadold is such a great addition for that he develops two of the main characters relationships in such an amazing well-integrated manner [Music] though i highlighted how much i think juju is annoying he's still a much better character than someone like linada he's a minor character who still has a meaningful arc that progresses the story and even opens up the best side content of the game his character begins as a scrawny weak rash child who wishes to help fight and defend his homeland after being captured and causing his friends to rescue him though he realizes that he shouldn't fight instead he understands that he should help others peacefully which ends up in him leading the reconstruction of colony 6. his character arc isn't original but it still works for the little time he has and it even fits with the themes of freedom and a defying fate his character arc goes against the path of all the other party members since they decide to exact revenge through violence but juju rejects the fighting and focuses on rebuilding a new home instead it's a rejection of the norm that the game establishes and though it isn't original or masterful i still think it's impressive that even a character as minor and annoying as juju can still have a fitting character arc for both his personality and the game's story overall saurian doesn't appear in the narrative for long but his presence works as the motivation for melia to join the party and seek revenge against the metcon he fulfills his role well enough since it creates a reasonable motivation for melia's appearance in the game but he lacks enough personality for his death to be more moving saurian's whole character leads up to his death since julk and by extension the player know about his demise from his introduction he's a plot device but that isn't inherently bad except for the fact that he has few redeeming qualities as a person the most characterization he receives is as a stern but caring father yet the game doesn't fully commit to that character he exhibits his restrictiveness by not permitting melia to leave without her bunnette and his caring attitude occurs near his death but frankly it's characterization that happens too late to be meaningful kalyan is the character who has the closest relationship with melia and as such he has more impact on her growth than saurian does he also receives much better characterization than him so he ultimately becomes a more successful character the success of callion lies in his chemistry with melia the interactions convey a meaningful believable sibling relationship between the two of them something so significant because it also develops his personality in kalyan's interactions with melia the dialogue reveals that his character is selfless knowledgeable and caring though he doesn't receive much characterization beyond this i don't view it as a problem since he is a minor character and he also has significant bearing on the plot for instance his transformation into a telethia and his ghost's reappearance later are integral to melia's character arc about overcoming loss calling's actions and also his fate are the loss that melia experiences which is why they are integral to the character arc and because he gains more of a personality than saurian his death scene is more emotionally resonant his attempt to revolt and attack laura thea fits greatly with his already established personality on top of that callion's dialogue creates more of an emotional impact for me personally but also for melia's character growth compared to saurian who mostly pushes melia to become part of the main plot calling is a much better improvement on what is essentially a similar character concept tairea doesn't receive a large amount of development until future connected and since i think the expansion is a great extension of her character it's best to combine the two here tyrea's whole character arc involves her overcoming her prejudice toward half high entia ironically being one herself it's a satisfying character arc because it starts off as slow development only appearing when it's relevant and then becomes a significant part of the main story in future connected the slow burn begins in the high entire tomb when she's tasked with assassinating melia and fails she reappears in chapter 17 as part of a quest in which she has to cope with her mother's transformation into a telethia the little amount of character change here is good because she only appears when the party has good justification to encounter her so i think it's a natural fitting addition her next major appearance is in future connected where she receives the most development because she learns to accept melia as a leader and i think it does two things really well it fits with the plot and presents a relevant character arc her relevance to the plot appears when she fights back to defend the city of grondell she contributes meaningful actions to the plot here and it's what helps her to be relevant to the overarching story and the end of her character arc here embracing melia is still fitting to her character and the story at large her character arc involves overcoming prejudice so accepting melia a half-high entia is a wonderful extension to that idea even more it's still relevant to melia's journey to become a leader in this new epilogue laurethia is the least interesting of the trinity but that doesn't mean her character is bad she becomes a decent antagonist as the story progresses but the interesting developments are too brief and they arrive far too late to have as much significance as necessary at first she's characterized as manipulative and mysterious both of which are due to the third person omniscient perspective for the story it does a decent job of building up a reveal as part of zanza's trinity but it's nowhere near as good as the reveal of dixon or alves because she receives so little significance to the overarching plot she has good strong distinct characterization but the plot doesn't demand much of her the most plot significance she has is suggesting the high anti-a tomb ritual and analyzing the ether based javelins the metcon used because she lacks significance to the actual plot her eventual reveal or betrayal isn't as exciting the best part about her reveal as a disciple involves callion and melia's relationship not laura thea herself and while her motivation to become a disciple is fine i don't think it's as acceptable as it is with dixon for laurethia she exclaims that she would gain immortality from helping zanza while that is a decent motivation for someone as selfish and deceptive as laura thea her character didn't receive much development beyond that which sharply contrasts dixon and alvis who are both incredibly relevant to the ongoing plot making several appearances while also maintaining an air of mystery about their true intentions so really she's just an okay antagonist completely outmatched by her two peers dixon is a great villain with a great personality a great english voice actor except for all the awkward line deliveries a decent motivation and good character development all around his character always shifts in the narrative but his transient role in the story never comes as a surprise uncertainty surrounding his character begins as early as when shulk and rhein leave for teffer cave in the flashback to when dixon found shulk in assay tower he smiles near the end of the cutscene and it establishes an uncertain somewhat malicious side to him there are even more minor glimpses of this throughout the story and even his own knowledge about the world aids in the plot twist that dixon is in actuality a giant i know some might say that it comes out of nowhere but the writers plant so many tiny instances that seem coincidental for instance he consistently has information about the new locations which often includes some exposition so it masquerades as a simple exposition dump that's organically introduced to the story however it provides another layer of uncertainty around dixon's character the other coincidences include finding shulk in assay tower saving the party by informing mikol about the party's close demise arriving at sword valley just in time to help the party etc etc it all builds and builds so that when he betrays the party it's still surprising but also reasonable and understandable in universe and even has a great distinct personality to pair with the wonderful hidden twists about his character he's always snarky and knowledgeable his snarky attitude lends itself to some great character interactions between him shulk rein and dunban and what aids his character even more is the casting choice for his character anthony may he has an amazing voice for dixon and most of the time it works great his performance starts to waver after the trinity reveal however and it's most prominent in the fight against him on top of prison island it seems like his voice actor didn't have enough context for the strange awkward fight scene dialogue because the normal character interactions are great well maybe that's conjecture because i don't really know what happened but something did change because his va was great before and then he just wasn't i think the real disappointment for some people though lies in his motivations to join zanza's trinity the most development in this area occurs when he's dying and it reveals that he only wanted power which by itself is a simple motive that i don't think pairs great with dixon it's not terrible because there were several hints about dixon being off throughout the story and these can connote an error selfishness about his character yet it still feels a bit too simplistic i don't think it's a terrible motive but it's not an amazing motive either and yet i still don't mind it i think the simple motive is okay because dixon already had so much development prior and the more significant role of his character involves his relationship with shulk on the prison terrace the scene focuses more on dixon and shulk than dixon's motivations anyway and i also believe that it's the better aspect so having more focus on their relationship is still good character development for me alves has the least personality for all the members of zanza's trinity but he still has the most plot relevance which is a strange inverse relationship to have the most characterization he receives is as a witty mysterious person but he lacks any other discerning personality traits and his character ultimately suffers because of it while he is somewhat of a plot device like some of the prior characters there are clear attempts to establish a relationship between him and shulk so since there is an attempt at a relationship it's more significant to evaluate to the efficacy of his character's personality and chemistry than with characters who only act as a plot device unfortunately his character's personality is not that effective he does have glimpses of personality like when he first meets shulk the choreography here shows him almost dancing around shulk which acts as a way to illustrate how he's more powerful and knowledgeable than shulk however it can also characterize him as mouthy and witty but those character traits don't come up again throughout the narrative his other interactions with the party and those outside the party display a mysterious eerie side to his character but that doesn't define his personality scenes like outside of the high entire tomb and the journey through valak mountain exhibit little to no personality from alvis his mysterious ara is the only unique aspect about him and it's disappointing i think the most common counterpoint here is that well he's an ai you idiot so of course he doesn't have a personality but i don't agree with that sentiment because there is an attempt at personality as evident when he meets shulk and teaches him manado purge his identity as an ai doesn't excuse his lack of a personality so while i appreciate the attempt it's certainly a bad one at that zanza as a villain complements the story best on a figurative level what i mean by a figurative level is this he works as a great tool to flesh out the commentary about xenoblade chronicles because the narrative advocates for a philosophy of absolute cosmic free will and zanza is a contrast to that ideology i'll elucidate what i mean more in the final section but needless to say he works great for developing the game's message in terms of the literal story or plot though he still works but he isn't an amazing villain like eggil or metalface he has a distinct personality which is his best quality and he has lacking motivations which is his worst quality his character is someone who is selfish malevolent and prideful zanza is a self-obsessed character and it creates some great interactions between him and other characters he's so playful with cosmic grand concepts like creation and transformation that i think his character is unique enough to warrant his appearance well the story alludes to his presence several times throughout in some really clever ways so that does aid his plot's significance on the other side though there's his motivation lacking enough complexity to elevate his character to a great villain recreating the world just cause is the most development his character receives in terms of motivations i understand that he's a selfish imperfect creator but it seems as though he mostly recreates the world for the hell of it mainth doesn't appear too frequently throughout the story but i still view her as a good addition to it she embodies half of the binary i mentioned near the beginning of this video but not the contrast between mechanical and biological maintenance acts as a kind god contrasted by zanza who is a cruel god i think it's a great binary that works well to develop zanza's character her juxtaposing views on creation develop sansa's selfish egotistical motivations to oppose the party though the most problematic flaw for her character is that she doesn't help flesh out his motives as much as necessary there is still a great amount of confusion and lack of clarification surrounding zanza's motives and while i think that his self-centered intentions work well with the story's commentary it doesn't complement the storytelling on a literal level like i mentioned before and since the writers use mayneth as a tool to develop zanza it becomes a flaw for her character too shulk's reappearance and future connected only serves a gameplay purpose instead of a story one since he serves a supporting role in the story with no character development whatsoever i want to highlight though this isn't a bad thing he already had a fantastic amount of character depth and change from the first game an attempting to match said development or even expand upon it in a less than 10 hour campaign where melia is the main focus would be madness shulk's most significant contribution to the epilogue is as a plot device he receives an upgrade to the monado replica ex and it just allows him to kill the fog king he has a few interjections about events going on in the story but there is no character development or change again that's not bad if the writers tried to implement a character arc for both shulk and melia then the narrative would be too crowded so i think the lack of a character arc is fine for shulk but his lack of a character arc doesn't excuse his lack of a personality in future connected shulk loses all semblance of a character and it's frankly baffling wait sorry he still has two remaining personality traits he's brave and he's an inventor that's it he doesn't exhibit his integrity humanity intuition or pessimism throughout this expansion oh what's that do those sound familiar at all well they should because it's the names for all of his other skill trees so the qualities i just mentioned are also personality traits that the writers or at least developers are conscious of the fact that he doesn't even display a majority of the character traits that the developers gave him is problematic it doesn't ruin his character from the original game but it makes the dialogue in the expansion feel more bland and uninteresting since one of if not the most interesting character from the original story has a butchered personality what i think is ironic in the most terrible way possible is that shulk is now an optimist instead of a pessimist this happens so frequently in the expansion whenever a character mentions that defeating the fall king is impossible shulk will quickly rebut and even after attempting to fight the fog king he's still confident that everything will be right in the end and that they can defeat the fog king and unite the people of the bionis shoulder they literally just gave him a character trait that's the exact opposite of one of his skill trees it's just incredibly sad and disappointing and i just want to move on melee's character is the best part of future connected and that's what makes the expansion so disappointing because her overall character is just mediocre she lacks any personality because of her bland dialogue and whatever the hell kind of performance this is all right i'm on my way what begone let's play a path i just don't understand how this all happened to her character especially with her voice actors performance jenna coleman is a good actor and she can have a good voice performance hell she did a good job as melia in the original game yet somehow she's bland uninterested and frequently mismatched with the script i know this is complete conjecture but i think something happened with the voice direction here since jenna coleman isn't a bad voice actor no matter what happened though there is something wrong here and it negatively impacts her character melia's dialogue doesn't help either because it's awkward and unbefitting of melia's character her dialogue from the original story is proper but still comprehensible she still has some quips that even happen in her introduction she's also reticent to share her emotions but i think you could argue that she becomes more open emotionally near the end of the game but in the expansion she comes off as a blundering buffoon her dialogue most commonly boils down to one of two instances surprised and confused or spouting meaningless monologues i say meaningless because the monologue she frequently delivers have no correlation with her actual character arc becoming the next leader of the high entire and since the emotional beats don't correlate with her character in the epilogue it results in a messy character that really isn't interesting the best part about her however is the character arc i mentioned earlier the significant moments for her character arc include cut scenes like when she commands the high entire camp to help defend granville it's the completion of her character arc and it effectively conveys her growth into a leader because of her command prowess yet moments like these are few and far between so melee's character has great or even amazing moments contrasted by an overall average personality performance and dialogue kino is absolutely terrible he has an annoying personality with no character development he has a few charming voice lines and quiet moments but these are the exception to the general rule kino is annoying his annoyance begins when the writers introduce his main character gimmick a repeat of riki's selfishness for riki's character he calls the other party members his sidekicks as the great legendary hero pawn while being a coward himself which is supposed to be the comedic part even if it doesn't always land for me the same joke repeats itself for kino except he's a hero pawn in training it's cute at first especially when he mentions it in battle but it's the most common personality trait the story chooses to display it becomes annoying after so long which i think is frankly impressive that kino is this annoying in this short of a campaign his least annoying moments happen in a few quiet moments specifically one between kino and melia presents a more serious somber side to him which i think works great to flesh out his character it didn't even take that much change in kino's personality because he still exhibits his signature child-like innocence i think it's great and i wish this was the standard for kino's character interactions but unfortunately it's the exception even in his other quiet moments for instance in one quiet moment between nene and him kino complains again and again that he's hungry so nene tries to help him imagine eating food and in the end he complains that he's still hungry aside from the quiet moments lacking any purposeful character development kino features his annoying complaining here and it's the most common feature he shows off in his quiet moments i would say more about how annoying he is but i shouldn't give a character with such lacking depth any more depth in this analysis nene is a decent character brought down by the fact that she exhibits the same gimmick as rikki's character a silly nop-on who's surprisingly mature while i think ricky is fine on a critical level nene isn't as good of a character as riki since she's just a repeat joke living in her predecessor's shadow that doesn't mean ricky is a better character though they're functionally the same person of the same quality but the fact that she's a repeat is the crucial flaw thankfully she cuts out some of the more annoying qualities that rikki exhibits but it also results in lacking depth for her character she doesn't have any character arc throughout the story since the ending just has her say [Music] and that's it along with that her most main story significance involves spouting single line ramblings that often aren't relevant followed or preceded by kino spouting whatever stupid thing he wants to say but because she lacks significant character change and main story involvement she's a lacking character which is unfortunate because i think her personality is so vibrant yet since she's a completely new character i think she needed a significant amount of development and especially since she had the potential to be a good character but as she is she's mostly lacking in development but rich in a comedic and striking personality [Music] [Music] the combat is a terrific divergence from the stereotypical turn-based combat that's a trademark of jrpg design the one flaw to xenoblade's approach though is that it's sometimes too basic to allow for any challenge if you aren't privy to some of my past videos i've said that turn-based combat doesn't interest me since i find it slow and archaic there have been exceptions to that like the persona series and undertale but in general turn-based systems are tedious and not worthwhile combat systems so when i discovered xenoblade's real-time combat i was enthralled gone were the slow monotonous mechanics i despised absent were the tedious experience grinding systems finally a game had capitalized upon a system that made combat exhilarating and refreshing except after completing the game twice i don't think the combat is as magnificent as i first thought it leaves a great first impression though the combat pacing is great since there are no turns and you're always doing something to advance the fight auto attacks cause minor damage frequently enough that even while arts regenerate you're already looking for the next art to use and strategy to implement while you don't have full control over every party member the ais are reliable enough that the system still works well and the ai controlled characters still contribute to each fight they may not use arts reliably but the auto attack system ensures that they are continuously contributing it's an easy trade-off compared to implementing a potentially boring combat system into the game it also helps that the combat perfectly fits with the other gameplay systems a real-time combat system allows for you to enter and exit fights seamlessly so the pacing of exploring areas and venturing to the next story beat aren't interrupted the characters also have unique fighting styles from one another for instance ryan is the assigned tank role for the party his kit works well to absorb aggro from enemies and take damage conversely dunban the other tank focuses on high agility and strength to dodge attacks and the massive damage dealt absorbs any potential aggro from enemies despite these two characters serving the same party role their play styles and ideal equipment setups are completely different and it's what helps make the combat seem so unique and complex while i think some will find that satisfying enough the system seems to be losing its complexity the more i play it the system as a whole isn't flawed though the general structure of real-time combat where the player takes control of any one of three party members to defeat a single target enemy is so engaging in general it lends itself to complexity and characters that can fulfill a variety of roles the one disappointing aspect is individual character variety while each character has their own gimmick each party member suffers from limited customization options let's look at dunban for this since i have already mentioned him his core role is as an agility tank it differentiates his counterpart rine while also allowing for some differences in each build his skill trees also contribute to that his wisdom skill branch promotes the naked dunban build focusing on a lack of armor in favor of increased agility it's a creative build that still sticks towards the character's main gimmick while giving a unique option for better customization but the problem is there isn't a lot of variety in his skills the other three skills in wisdom focus on improving double attack rate more agility and armor weight bravery improves aggro tension and strength at full hp prudence focuses on critical hits light armor defense spike defense better party gauge and aura duration obstinance feature skills that improve equipment again hp buffs again physical defense again and blow down immunity the final skill branch enthusiasm benefits dunban's haste rate tension again counter attack rate and party gauge recharge based on these five skill branches there isn't a lot of variety for customizing dunban or even other characters due to the skill link system so for dunban by himself he mostly focuses on increased aggro reduced equipment weight and high agility you can add some high strength stats to his character too with some strength up gems but that's the maximum amount of customization there is one skill in the prudence branch which can incentivize players to equip light armor making him more of a physical tank however he still remains an agility tank if you try slightly diverging from that set role that dunban plays then he's going to be an inferior character for skill links though his best links are similar skills that other party members have too including increased tension reduced equipment rate etc these skills are attributes that every party member should equip so it reduces the amount of skill variety for dunban's character now it's possible to conclude that the minute-to-minute combat is repetitive as well with how much i've hammered on about a lack of customization that would be reasonable to assume but i don't entirely agree with that the main flaw is the lack of customization because it can bleed throughout the rest of the combat like a ripple effect however i still think the combat is good and unique but it's just not as complex as it should be the lacking complexity hinders my enjoyment of the combat system since xenoblade has the potential for an amazing combat system yet this first entry doesn't reach those heights in my opinion xenoblade chronicles 2 boasts more complex developed customizable combat and i prefer it more for that reason despite all of my grievances with the combat the greatest strength of it is what the game does to connect the combat and the narrative one of the most prominent and well-known parts about xenoblade is the foresight mechanic shulk is capable of seeing the future and it results in some great misdirection in the cutscenes not only is his power a narrative mechanic it's also a gameplay mechanic it bleeds into every aspect of the game and xenoblade's quality only strengthens because of it the foresight system in combat is what drives home the unique nature of it both because it's fitting for the narrative and also because it creates interesting gameplay the first part is more obvious since the narrative implements a foresight mechanic a gameplay system featuring said mechanic is fitting moreover it prevents the combat from seeming inaccurate or improper for xenoblade the second aspect i said is what elevates the whole combat system because the mechanic rewards players who pay attention and are prepared for an encounter the tutorial messages inform you about each type of attack and based on that a perceptive player can figure out how to counteract each type for talent arts using monado shield is best for ether attacks monado armor is the most effective and for physical attacks the player can use either monado armor or monado speed to counter-attack and to prevent any of these attacks the player can also break topple and then daze an enemy so based on these options a player can prepare for specific counter-attack methods and if they do they're rewarded with greater tension which busts the party's critical hit rate critical heal rate and chain attack damage all of those rewards incentivize the player to prepare and understand the combat system better which is a feedback loop that encouraged even me to learn the combat system thoroughly and that's truly impressive because i usually find the combat in jrpgs to be supplemental distractions at best if you remember earlier in the video i critiqued witcher 3's approach to cut scenes but that isn't to say i hate the game in fact i think the story and especially the side quests are the best part the side quests all present detailed intricate stories without the stereotypical fetch quest design it's frankly amazing and it's what i consider peak side quest design yet despite how much i love xenoblade its side quests are nowhere near as good as the witcher 3 and it's due to two things first the quests require too much fetching of items for some of them to have any depth and secondly they don't tell as interesting of stories as i think the game and its writers are capable of i'm certain that the development team had creative competent writers and while xenoblades still does have some well-told stories that interweave into the side quests the amount of generic ones is just too much now what i called generic quests don't include the actual in-game generic quests a generic quest in the game are the ones that you receive from npcs who have no names such as colony 9 resident or colony 6 resident etc you also don't have to return to the quest giver to complete these quests and they encourage the player to explore fight monsters and collect items because you automatically receive rewards for participating in the game's own gameplay loop it's a wonderful system and i think it works well as a way to still incentivize these actions without the need for a large majority of fetch quests however there are still a lot of these fetch quests even with the named npcs the fetch quest objectives would be more understandable to me if the quests had a majority of interesting memorable stories while xenoblade does have these they don't encompass a majority of the hundreds of quests the player can accept what i mean by memorable stories doesn't exactly equate to the side quests of the witcher 3. that game has side quests that take advantage of the subversion of fantasy tropes to create unique stories for each quest you encounter i don't think that style fits xenoblade but xenoblade already has the framework for amazing side quests the game just doesn't apply this to as many side quests as i think it should have done causing them as a whole to seem underdeveloped a prime example of great quest design for xenoblade is the side quest chain about the drug ring in frontier village the party discovers that the drug ring in alchemoth takes advantage of a group of napon who produce red pollen orbs in frontier village shulk and everyone break into the club at night expose the drug ring and then stop bana was the kingpin of the entire operation the quest chain i just described doesn't provide any meaningful commentary or subversion of tropes it's simply a memorable story that explores and develops the world of the bionis even further which should be the standard for the quests of xenoblade most of the time however the quests consist of small stories that are even less memorable than the kingpin banner quest line and when that happens the fetch quest objectives aren't as acceptable the most common quest chains you'll find amount to one or two quests with minimal meaningful character interactions for instance there's a quest chain in alchemoth with a high anti-a boy named elior who wants to look at the stars he asks the party to gather the materials for the telescope and he's able to make one later on kaleca takes interest in the boy's fascination with the stars so he asks the party to gather even more materials to enhance its functionality yet that's the end of the quest line it's simple and boring yet it stuck out to me because i thought the designers could have done so much more with the quest line the side quest sequence i mentioned above happened so frequently another strange example of this happens in a quest line near the end of a typical playthrough requiring them to defeat two high-level unique monsters for the very end of the sidequest chain the first one is about getting supplies for the high india refugees in the refugee camp simple but effective at displaying the conditions of the hyuntia after what happens at mcconus core instead of developing the high entire refugees however the next two quests focus on dolan's affections for a high entire girl in colony 9. the second quest requires shulk and friends to find a flower in tephra cave and the last one is the quest that involves defeating the two unique monsters i mentioned earlier the quest diverges from the interesting development about the high entire to a love questline that doesn't go anywhere what's even worse is that the final one is a special skill tree quest so the game believes that this quest is of high importance to the characters and after all the effort to help dulland with his feelings the quest doesn't even showcase what happens when he confesses his feelings you can find him in colony 9 though sitting next to a high nto woman with a generic npc name and i think that truly pinpoints how generic and unsatisfactory this quest line is while the two examples i just included were generic and disappointing the game's side quests are still good i don't want to downplay how much i love them in xenoblade the best side quests though take advantage of the foresight mechanic while including memorable stories characters or ideally both each area typically has a handful of these types of quest lines and they exhibit the best qualities i mentioned earlier colony 9 has the emmy leader side quest chain where the party witnesses her growth throughout to the defense force and they ultimately influence her decision to cheat or not during the captain's test the quest line is so memorable because the player can witness a character's entire growth and the consequences of her actions during the penultimate quest colony 9 also has the quest line from sesame simply titled the plan where the characters help him gather supplies for what seems to be a shady deal however sesame actually was only planning a fireworks show for the colony even though the quest line ends in a slight gag it still boasts a unique storyline that displays the colony's growth after the mekong invasion satoru marsh has the quest lines from bakoko and kacha where the player rescues kacha from a base infested with ignas and after rescuing her the player can go atop exile fortress and find a giant's trove which is the truly memorable part since a giant's trove is an incredibly rare find only appearing a few times throughout the entire game frontier village has both the kingpin bona quest line i mentioned and the mystery of mcna ruins quest chain the latter grants shulk access to an entirely new monado art which is a very rare occurrence cementing this quest as another memorable moment in a playthrough and this list goes on and on xenoblade provides a plethora of side quests to the player but really each one is a part of a group and most of the groups in the game are all memorable and unique enough to be praised but despite the great parts of the side quests they're still lacking in terms of character development for the npcs not to the main cast the game side quests don't lack memorable moments but they aren't as frequent as i think the developers are capable of however one part of the side content i think they succeeded at was the reconstruction of colony six [Music] reconstructing colony 6 is the best part of side questing for xenoblade chronicles the act of reconstructing takes advantage of the gameplay loop i mentioned before battling exploiting and collecting to open up more quests shops and item orb locations to the player the reconstruction rewards players who actively explore battle monsters and collect items since you offer a combination of monster drops and items to level up the colony as the player levels up the colony they can invite more residents opening up more facilities and activating new side quests which all give the player more experience money items and gear for completing said quests it's a fantastic loop that continues throughout the entire run time of the game however the actual systems in place to upgrade the colony aren't always reliable since they sometimes require items of unnecessary rarity to continue reconstructing the colony the most infamous of these items includes the ice cabbage which has a six percent chance of spawning only at night and only in specific locations it is technically possible to find it in generic locations at night but you have to be incredibly lucky it's reasonable that a player could find one ice cabbage on a normal playthrough if they explore valik mountain thoroughly this can present a decision for the player choosing between a collectopedia entry or colony 6 reconstruction but reconstruction requires two of the damn cabbages so it's incredibly unlikely that a player will get the two cabbages required for reconstruction to make matters worse the only way to trade for an ice cabbage is to trade with euro and that also requires the player to complete mcconaug's core and not invite him to colony 6 while also having 4 star affinity with upper bionis the requirements for the trade are frankly ridiculous and it's the most annoying aspect about colony 6 reconstruction while it doesn't classify as a complete failure for me it's still a major weakness of the reconstruction process aside from these sometimes annoying reconstruction though the rewards from reconstructing the colony are the best side content in the game which includes memorable stories that fit with the game's core exploration of destiny and choice the quests fit the game's exploration about fate when the player is able to choose the outcome for quests however once you accept these types of quests shulk will receive a vision about a potential outcome or outcomes the player then can decide which outcome is the best with the foresight of what will happen so their decisions have more weight and the decisions are never something that the player didn't want or choose a better implementation of a romance quest line includes the choice between dream of a poet and melody of happiness the player has to decide between yura and nick's affections for rosemary and once the player chooses a character they can see the actual outcome of the relationship however that quest in colony 6 isn't as interesting as some of the other ones it offers for example the quest lifespan of a machina is a short yet memorable one because it implements the vision mechanic again so that the player has to choose between two extremes prolong imac in his life for a short time or prolong a macna's life for possibly hundreds of years the quest provides some more insight on machina physiology in an organic way and includes a meaningful choice for the player to make while players aren't able to see the full ramifications for their actions the visions and the distorted speech from neonic which becomes fixed after the player's actions are still good enough as outcomes for this quest with far-reaching consequences quests like these are what make colony 6 such a great part of the side content in xenoblade it's still a shame that the great side quests aren't as frequent as they should be even in colony 6. but something that did consistently impress and all me was the environment [Music] the environments of xenoblade chronicles are so beautiful creative and thought out that i don't think i can truly give them justice despite only having two titans to work with monolithsoft were able to create a variety of environments that all fit organically within the world i think some great examples of this include the areas with stark weather changes like valak mountain by itself the mountain starts off tame and bland during the day but once nightfall arrives the scenery lights up literally the crystals begin to glow and shoot a beam of light into the sky creating a beautiful skyline and the game even elucidates the cold climate of wallach mountain contrasting the humid climate of magna forest stating that the sun isn't able to hit the bionus's arm directly therefore the climate became more and more cold as the shadows of both the bionus and the mechanus blocked the area's sunlight but climates aren't the only variety that xenoblade has in store the fallen arm is a unique area that combines greenery with the mechanical style of the mechanism it's a slight variation on the nature-ridden mechanical landscapes featured in games like the last of us there's also satoru marsh combining angelic vocals with the serene nighttime atmosphere which provides a unique take on the stereotypical dark gloomy swamp environments colony 9 is also a different implementation of a hometown placing it in the middle of a canyon armed with military anti-air batteries the game has a plethora of unique visuals that serve as striking often mesmerizing scenery which acts as a wonderful unique creative setting for the player to explore the exploration however is the most issue i have with the level design the act of exploring isn't that interesting since there aren't too many incentives to do so exploration acts as a side effect from the player completing side quests collecting item orbs finishing the story and fighting monsters the most significant rewards for only exploration are secret areas which award a significant amount of experience but they're often gated off by high level enemies which encourages the player to progress further and then come back to the area it isn't a terrible system but the act of just exploring isn't fun or incentivized by the game i think another detriment of the system involves the lack of movement options the player can only walk or jump while the developers included an autorun in definitive edition to remove some of the tedium it still remains and it causes the exploration to be somewhat boring the best aspect about exploring aside from the beauty is how seamlessly it flows from the other aspects i mentioned earlier like collecting battling questing etc the exploration occurs as a side effect of those aforementioned other gameplay features and a majority of maps can be completed by completing the other systems i just mentioned it creates unique gameplay flow that incentivizes the player to interact with every gameplay system and the interconnectivity is what makes the game's interactivity so engaging despite the somewhat lackluster quality of the exploration if you look at it in a vacuum the music of the game is amazing at this point it's one of my favorite video game soundtracks because of just how unique and varied the soundtrack is along with the implementation of light motifs throughout the ost i think the only lacking part of the soundtrack is that the implementation of light motifs feels a bit too infrequent but that could just be because i'm expecting something like mother 3 where every other song uses one of two light motifs to bolster its own commentary and storytelling xenoblade definitely doesn't do that but i think it's only a minor flaw in the ost there are like mother 3 two types of light motifs here the main theme and zanza's theme the main theme appears exactly four times throughout the soundtrack according to my unreliable non-musically talented ears of course so take my claims here with a bit of skepticism the first instance is obviously the main theme [Applause] the next is the end of prolog b [Music] the third is in the track shulk and [Music] fiora [Music] and the final appearance occurs in bionis awakening once the organ starts playing [Music] [Applause] to find the significance of the motif i think lightly investigating some peer-reviewed academic literature on the name for monado is important since the monado marks the first appearance of the main theme and i am no expert on entomology or the game's nomenclature now the monado originates from the word manad which can have slightly variant meanings depending on the field of academia but the most prominent interpretation i found was from the pythagorean tradition the best explanation for the concept came from mysticism and science in the pythagorean tradition by conford fm the pythagorean monod similarly symbolizes the primal undifferentiated unity from which the two opposite principles of limit physically light or fire and the unlimited space air void must in some unexplained and inexplicable way be derived the explanation here represents the monod as a form of unity between two contrasts or binaries and i think that same binary carries on for each appearance of the main theme in the soundtrack the first instance the title screen juxtaposes nature and technology the technology is represented by the monado and nature is represented by well the landscape or nature if you will it starts off the union of binaries and it characterizes this union as beautiful because the scenery is so serene and the game will continue to display the beauty of this binary as the light motif reappears such as with the next appearance that depicts a different more sinister side of a binary in the prologue the binary is now between homs and mekon biological and mechanical it continues the contrast that appeared in the opening between the bionis and the mechanus and the theme still has the confrontational aspect from the opening but as the light motif reappears the game illustrates a more loving side the appearance afterward is in shulk and fjor which begins the affectionate side of the light motif because it changes to a more hopeful romantic version of the main theme that romantic aspect is also reinforced by the intimate reunion between shulk and fiora based on the romantic mood of the scene the game's soundtrack conveys the significance of love and unity the game already has the same commentary about love and unity throughout the game especially with colony 6 reconstruction the battle against zanza later on and even future connected it's no stretch to state that xenoblade chronicles proudly displays said theme but it's just subtle enough for my liking furthermore a key aspect about the banod is that the idea incorporates opposites and in the two characters as reunion the mechanical biological binary manifests again fiora has a mechanical body and hails now from the mechanus shulk still has his biological body and hails from the bionus it acts as a beautiful union between opposites so it's incredibly fitting that the main theme representing the idea of a monod occurs here it's a way for the music to reinforce the game's own narrative which here aims to convey the romantic chemistry and affinity between shulk and fiora the union commentary continues in more of an antithetical way during the events of the mekonus core in the song bionis awakening the organ plays a sinister version of the light motif since the theme is now sinister the game characterizes whatever occurs in the scene as malevolent and undesirable and what exactly happens that is so vile well the destruction of unity of course the destruction i'm referring to is when zanza takes control of the bionus and destroys the mechanus which represents the act of killing half of a binary by depicting the mekonus death as malicious the unity commentary is yet again reinforced by a wonderful implementation of the light motif it's one of the most impressive parts about xenoblade using light motifs to influence the game's own message and while we're discussing the mana's influence on the game i think it's best to mention how the explanation for the monado arts fits with the pythagorean monod because it also has the unity theme i described the monado arts appear at times of distress for shulk mainly near a character's predestined death but the arts act is a way to preserve a character's life so the binary there is between death and life while the explanation is somewhat interesting on a thematic level there is never a literal explanation to the appearance of the monado arts all we're left with is this commentary which isn't bad by any means but not as satisfying of an idea as it could have been with respect to how the monado arts activate but as a whole the reappearance of binaries throughout the narrative especially the music is beautiful the localization for this game in particular is quite pertinent since xenoblade had such difficulty receiving an english localization what's even more surprising is that it has a frankly amazing one at that the voice actors are all fantastic the dialogue is varied and natural to english and the team created unique names for characters or concepts that don't directly translate well i'm quite amazed at the team's competence for what was an obscure game that nintendo of america believed would sell so poorly that a localization wasn't even profitable needless to say i'm pleasantly surprised the most noteworthy part of the localization though is the english voice acting the voice directors and actors blended together perfectly creating some of the best dubbing i've ever heard adam howden rufus jones jay taylor and timothy watson are all the highlights of the cast especially timothy watson for his work as metal face watson's performance encapsulates the malevolence of metalface while also interjecting a unique voice for the character and he never has a line delivery that i would consider awkward which is the most impressive part for an english dub since the old lip syncing still needs to match the new dialogue rufus jones does an exceptional job as dunban too and i think he fits the character perfectly even though his japanese counterpart is the one and only ryo horikawa who is the voice of the man the myth the legend captain falcon ryohorikawa takes a higher pitched approach to dunban's voice but he still encapsulates dunban's obstinance and bravery in his performance i personally prefer rufus jones deeper voice to dunban though they're both perfect for the character not every character performance is perfect however even though i think all the voice actors did at least a decent performance the main problem comes from awkward line deliveries despite the fantastic voices the actors have the most egregious character for this is dixon who has an incredibly fitting english voice actor but he has more awkward line deliveries in the final chapter he's the most disappointing example but the rest are typically incredible now the problem for the awkward deliveries isn't the lines because all the dialogue has fantastic translations there are three specific words i think exemplify what i mean kyoshin kishin and kishin hey the first word means great god and it's the japanese name for the bionis i don't even understand how the localizers came up with the new name but it fits much better for english i've mentioned the second word in the video before kishin which is the name of the mechanism japanese but the last one is an extension of the mechanism name kishin hey the final word he can translate as machine god soldiers which is the japanese equivalent for mekkon the word mekong fits far better than mcconaug's soldiers which still works for the english language and i have to commend the localization team here for their dedication to creating an english localization that was beyond exceptional [Music] this section is titled definitive edition changes which is an oxymoron since definitive edition didn't really do a whole lot of you know changing but when the developers did add new content it was lackluster at best time attack mode is the best new addition to help elucidate what i mean time attack mode is a great new addition to the game it has a plethora of new combat challenges just like the ones in xenoblade 2 which is so great since it adds a new layer of content to the game time attack mode is also really challenging with different difficulty levels just like the mode they made before in xenoblade 2 and that's what time attack mode is right well actually time attack mode is an inferior version of challenge battle mode from xenoblade chronicles 2. although it is fitting that the name is time attack mode instead because it's not challenging at all it's an underdeveloped addition to a combat system that desperately needed something more challenging than the final super bosses in the game sure the super bosses are difficult but once the player understands how to defeat them there isn't any additional challenge adding further challenges beyond the difficulty of the super bosses would have been an excellent idea since so many people have mastered the game's combat system by this point but what we're left with is a disaster that's disappointing and lackluster i don't want you all to think that i hate definitive edition though because i still think it's the best way to play xenoblade the visuals are beautiful and i think the anime art style fits better than the originals arch direction since characters are far more expressive and the console's graphical limitations don't hinder the presentation as much as the poor old wii i vastly prefer this art style and i think it looks great in xenoblade 2 as well what i didn't like in xenoblade 2 was the change to movement however the game changed the jumping mechanics so instead of carrying your momentum after a jump the characters would pause and then continue walking it's so frustrating because the movement mechanics in both xenoblade 1 and 2 aren't that engaging there is minimal change in how you can move since movement is limited to walking jumping or sometimes even walking vertically so having one of the three movement options slightly punish the player for using it is rubbish to me i was afraid that definitive edition would change the jumping mechanics back to the system from the sequel but it's not the jumping mechanics are the same as they were in the original with one exception when you jump in the water the character model can't move until it resurfaces in prior xenoblade games the character model would continue moving while it was submerged but for some unknown reason the developers changed it it's not productive for me to speculate how this happened though i do have an inclination why but the mechanic change is still a disruption to the gameplay flow and it happens far more frequently than you think what's even more annoying is how inconsistent the water mechanics are if the bottom of a lake is shallow enough then the character model can continue moving while they're still underwater so now the mechanic change is disruptive and inconsistent it's probably the worst change that happened in definitive edition but i'd much rather have this than the jumping mechanics from xenoblade 2. the one additional change that i could see people taking issue with is the alteration to objectives for side quests there's now an option to have a blue objective marker that can display the exact path you need for all of the side quests in the game and i love this change i think it's a great way to cut down on the tedium of the game without drastically changing the original or intended experience of those quest lines the question i always had in my head though was this does the new feature ruin exploration no not really even with the guidance on it takes the player to new sometimes unfamiliar locations prompting them to explore new locations and find more secrets so really the change to quest objectives doesn't take away from the game's experience it just adds to it and even if the new changes aren't to your taste the plethora of added customization options allow for a smooth and all-around better experience hey i didn't want to put this at the beginning of the video but there's another spoiler warning for me except this time there will be spoilers for the entirety of xenoblade chronicles 2. if you want to skip the spoilers then you should go to the next section right away i don't want to explain too much about why i have to spoil the sequel so here's your warning and uh proceed at your own risk all right adios yet another disappointing part of the remake included the lack of changes to the story i should clarify though that i appreciate the dedication to the original story but when the developers don't follow through with retcons they added to the universe it becomes frustrating elvis design change is a great addition connecting the continuity between xenoblade 1 and 2. but the developers decided to keep the universe creation scene from the original which is just baffling lifting the scene from the first game can cause confusion since it's vastly different compared to the scene from its sequel it isn't a matter of perspective though since albus is the one who shows shulk the creation of the universe i believe it's supposed to be a memory from zanza since it takes place in memory space but alvis otherwise known as antos originates from the other universe so he should have knowledge of what actually transpired on the space station i don't know why the developers kept the scene the same but it's confusing and unproductive it's indicative of the main problem with definitive edition too little change i don't think drastic changes would have been good either but as someone who adores the original i personally wished that the developers added more before we move on though i do want to heavily commend the ui overhaul the team added because it's a significantly better interface than every other xenoblade game including the original all of the text on screen has a consistent font to it and all of the descriptive elements like stats and art descriptions are large enough that it's convenient for people to read and reference all the sub menus house information that the player needs and there aren't as many tabs in tabs that the original suffered from you can even press the menu button again to close the menu from wherever you are too everything here is just so cleaned up and presentable the other edition includes the new kanji in the top left corner of the menu so here's the lightning round for all those in no particular order the one for system menu is se meaning system law or rule the auto save kanji is kaki which means writing equipment is sona which means to equip arts are waza which means art ability or skill shop is mise which means store tutorials is for gaku which can be attached to words for learning something or the study of something loading is yomi which means reading like we discussed at the very beginning of this behemoth saving is the same as autosave cocky expert mode is kuro which means expert or professional the kanji for area map is chi as in the first part for the word shizu which is the word for map in japanese changing time is toki which just means time quest log is tong which means quest or search items is shina which can mean articles or items or things quiet moments is hanashi which means a talk options is ogina meaning supplement or assistant achievements is sho which means prize or reward the main menu is o meaning center or middle party is thai meaning regiment party or squad heart to hearts are naka which means relationship the pawn specter report is ton which means barracks or camp gem crafting is ko which means craft or construction colony six reconstruction is oko as in okoru which means to become prosperous skill trees are ude which means ability or talent affinity tree is kizuna which means bonds and finally the collectopedia is atsu as in atsumaru which means to collect or to gather okay that was a bit too long but i found that information a little bit interesting so i decided to leave it here in the video but now we're at the final section what message is xenoblade chronicles trying to convey and how well does it truly achieve that xenoblade chronicles is a rejection of deterministic philosophy for those who don't know determinism is in the most general sense the philosophical belief that all events happen due to previous causes and people often contrast it with the philosophical idea of libertarianism which is very different from the political ideology by the way and for the rest of the video when i say the word libertarianism i'm referring to the philosophical term not the political ideology so determinism has a more symbolic status in the narrative because the visions and the entire foresight mechanic is representative of determinism i think the best way to elucidate the symbolism is by this method the characteristics of visions in xenoblade chronicles share similar qualities to determinism now this analysis isn't going to cover the entirety of determinism because i think you only need just a light surface level understanding of it to grasp the commentary of xenoblade chronicles so the main aspect of deterministic thought is that prior events cause future events this process can be referred to as causality and it's the process that xenoblade features the most the idea of causality is rampant in the story especially in terms of visions and the mechanics behind them the visions work because of the ether particles which are a base element in the game's universe ether particles act in such a way that instruments like the monado are capable of predicting where the particles will go since everything including all creatures on bionis and mechanus consist of ether their actions are predicted too these aforementioned mechanics are indicative of a causal relationship because the ether particles cause a predictable chain of events so since the foresight mechanics have a causal relationship it's representative of determinism due to the idea of causality being a staple in both xenoblade's foresight and the idea of determinism so now that we know how the visions and determinism are quite similar how does that affect the story or the meaning it's attempting to convey well the entire game depicts the struggle of shulk and his friends trying to defy what happens in the visions for instance shulk sees a vision of fiora dying and he attempts to prevent it when he sees another vision of ryan's death he prevents it and unlocks a new monado art when he foresees sharla and juju's deaths he accompanies sharla and stops the vision from coming true once he sees melia dying in the high entire tomb the party leaves alchemoth and heads towards the tomb to help save melia's life even combat carries over this idea since the visions in combat occur when the party is in danger or is liable to die each example here demonstrates the character's desires to defy the visions because while the actual characters don't know this each vision benefits zanza for instance when shulk witnesses the vision of him attacking metalface on prison island he tells the party and they all arrive at prison island to ensure that the vision becomes reality but the events on prison island have lasting effects that the party doesn't know about it frees zanza's spirit and aids zanza's plan to defeat mekonus and ergo mayneth each vision helps zanza and reinforces the idea of causality that i mentioned earlier so attempting to defy causality acts as a rejection of determinism the same rejection appears again in the game's ending in lines such as these i just want to live my life as a homs we do not know what the future will hold more fun not knowing this dialogue acts as a method to display the characters determination to defy determinism because they all reject the idea of causality which is a staple of deterministic thought plus the game's resolution involves creating a world without causality without a determinism zanza acts as a god of the world and he behaves as though deterministic thought is the way of the world he created so when shulk creates a world without gods the game's symbolism implies that shulk is creating a world without causality since the game resolves in a world without said causality contrasted by the previous world being riddled with determinism the narrative acts as a commentary on deterministic thought saying that it doesn't define the world or human actions it's essentially a story that proclaims the supremacy of free will it's amazing how monolith soft created a game with such a well-integrated commentary that i only scratched the surface of it's spectacular how well the literal narrative and the gameplay mechanics feed into that commentary too it's sublime how fantastic resonant and unforgettable xenoblade chronicles is and i won't soon forget it [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey everyone thank you so much for watching this video no matter how long you watched if you only watched a little bit or the whole way through for some reason i truly thank you there are a lot of people i would like to thank for helping with my writing and um making this video possible and making some things i said in this video possible so first of all i would like to give a huge huge thank you to the translators of xenoblade the secret file monado archives which includes the following people so thank you to hachimitsuka like semo7878 itramel shulink cybraters rajyamoto paradigm and erico poki isegi no mikata 4453 i have no idea if i pronounce those kanji right there's only the kanji here and i'm not great with um japanese names so i apologize if i got that wrong also thank you to zelosta lugo banda telos zack fred zero athacaspin wooden zero spoon anthony cavuorto noe brandon beckstren sandile 483 flippy tg galifron sleepy flcn artemis hunter catamas and these final two people i have some other special thanks to but those were people who either wrote translated or edited the english version or unofficial english version of the secret file monado archives and these last two are some special thanks from the book the first one is clyde mandolin whom you may know for translating mother 3 and making the fans translation huge thank you for working on secret file or for just being in the special thanks and for translating mother 3 because i love that game so thank you very much chugga conroy is also in the special thanks and i would like to give a special thank you to him as well for making his xenoblade let's play it is the reason i finished this game and fell in love with it so much i had it before and then once i discovered it i just tore into this game 100 completed it and so my love and adoration for this game would not have been possible without him so thank you very much i'd also like to thank a few people that inspired me to make this video thank you to kay jewelers signet and luxon for providing some great analytical content on xenoblade thank you to anel for showing me how creative and unique the combat of xenoblade 2 truly was i would also like to thank the people on the xenoblade wiki for providing some information that i didn't know the following information and pages are what i used to research for this video the first one was the ice cabbage collection statistic verifying the kanji that were on the monado verifying the names of npcs if i couldn't remember them verifying the names of locations if i couldn't remember them and verifying the names of skill trees if i couldn't remember them as you can see i'm not the best at um long-term memory so the xenoblade wiki helped a lot with that thank you very much i would also like to thank some people from reddit specifically from r xenoblade chronicles for helping me whenever i had a question or i was curious about something so this is a list of people who helped me with the project directly by talking to me and saying hey here's something you can add or hey here's um like a little tip or something or hey yes i think that is right you're good 100 yeah so i would like to thank shulk narukami on reddit for helping me a lot with the script and coming up with everything and keeping it all in my head making sure i stay track on things thank you a lot i really appreciate you uh the rest are people who answered my questions on the subreddit if i had any so thank you to 10 tanak robo tortoise unbound monado and waluigi fan 20. i would also like to thank you deleted because one of the people i wanted to thank has since deleted their account i don't know who you are but thank you all those responses are something that actually did influence the writing and what i wanted to talk about so thank you all very much i have two last thank yous one is senna which is a japanese let's play channel and that's where i got the footage for the japanese voice acting for metal face so thank you very much i would also just like to thank monolithsoft for making this game and re-releasing it i really like them as a developer and i think they're making some great games i really like supporting them even if i don't think every game they make is masterpiece level quality i think they're so great any sources i discussed or referenced during this video will be in the description below even if i didn't directly reference them in this video they did influence my writing and so i want to cite them as well yeah i think that's everything one last thank you i would like to thank you the viewer for watching this at all in any capacity i really appreciate you normally i do this this kind of spiel where i say make sure to dislike and unsubscribe and leave a hate comment but um i don't think that feels quite right for this video so i'm gonna try being a bit more genuine um leave a like if you did enjoy it leave a comment about the video or the game just discussing what about xenoblade chronicles you love or you don't or what about this video you love or you don't and subscribe if you want to see more content like this and let me know down in the comments what kind of games you want me to cover that should be everything and um thank you so much for supporting me through all this and just still watching my videos and thinking they're worthwhile so i really appreciate it anyway i may be cynical but i wish you the very [Music] best you

Channel: Cinnacal

Views: 44,116

Rating: 4.927897 out of 5

Keywords: xenoblade chronicles definitive edition, xenoblade review, xenoblade critique, xenoblade chronicles review switch, xenoblade chronicles definitive edition review, xenoblade chronicles review, xenoblade chronicles critique, xenoblade chronicles, xenoblade chronicles review wii, xenoblade de review, xenoblade de critique, xenoblade switch review, xenoblade analysis, xenoblade chronicles analysis, xenoblade chronicles retrospective, xenoblade retrospective, xenoblade wii review

Id: jL3BaBNvO0Y

Length: 272min 9sec (16329 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Jagoslaw]

Came for the background music, Stayed for the critique itself.

Nicely done

[u/bloodshed113094]

I think you meant 4+ hour!