I wrote a pretty long comment elsewhere regarding Xenoblade 3, which is pretty much my favourite game of all time in 30+ years of gaming. I guess it would be a cool idea for others to do the same - but don’t just give a list, sell your favourite title to us!
So, Xenoblade 3 (Switch, although I now play it on my PC via Yuzu in 4k) is the final part of the RPG trilogy developed by Monolithsoft (Nintendo owned second party, responsible for the overworld tech in Zelda BOTW/TOTK). The director of the series is Tetsuya Takahashi, who is also the creator of Xenogears and Xenosaga (there are links to Blade, I won’t spoil). It shows what happens to the individual worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2 once they collide. However the series is structured in such a way that you can arguably play them in any order and not miss out. There are of course twists and callbacks throughout to reward those who play them in order. The one absolute rule is for the two massive DLC expansions. Xenoblade 1 (Future Connected, play after 1), Xenoblade 2 (Torna - to be played after 2) and Xenoblade 3 (Future Redeemed - to be played only after playing EVERYTHING else as it wraps up the trilogy).
Xenoblade 2 put off a lot of people with it’s anime-ness and big tidday girls (not me, but eh). Xenoblade 3…doesn’t have that.
It’s serious and is set in the midst of an eternal war between two nations. Each inhabitant of this world is born at age 10, trained as a soldier to fight, and then either die on the battlefield or live long enough to die at age 20 by force. Both nations rely on the life force of the other side to live - hence the war.
The story concerns two groups (three from either side) from opposing sides who join together with the aim to live longer than their artificially reduced lifespans - of the two main protagonists, one (Mio) has only three months remaining. This is the crux of the story, really.
best bet to see if you’d like it are these two videos I took. The first is the first 15 minutes of the game - it introduces the world, scenario, characters, and also introduces the gameplay part-by-part. NO SPOILERS in any of these, I promise.
The battle system is gradually introduced throughout, at a pretty good pace (eg. chain attacks, transformations, combos, class changing). It ends up sometimes chaotic, but always fun. You can stay as a healer with a rifle, swap to a martial arts class and attack with your fists, or change to a tank class for each characters, for example. You also recruit computer playable heroes throughout the game who offer new classes and weapons.
Chain attacks are an entirely other thing, relying on measured logic and number skills. The other main draw is the story - this game takes some pretty dark turns. Your mileage may vary though, depending on your tolerance for cutscenes. There’s still 100+ hours of actual gameplay easily and the sidequests and community supports are all actually well thought out.
and this is a short video showing the scale of the world (one of 9 massive regions - there’s another desert, a canyon and a forest halfway up a mountain trail in this one. The sword in the distance holds a city at its peak. There’s also an ocean that has a rocket powered boat to traverse, or you could just swim it), plus a short battle with 7 team members:
lastly I guess, if you’re a dr who fan (who knows?), it may interest you that Jenna Coleman voices the Kevesi Queen.
anyhow the game is cool imo. I got the first Xenoblade a week before the UK launch date in August 2011 as I ran a Blockbuster at the time (Xenoblade was localised by Nintendo UK and came out here, Europe and Australia a mere year after Japan. NOA refused to launch it in America, until a petition forced their hand another year later). It blew me away, and the remastered Definitive Version is a classic. The fact that Nintendo UK localised it is why it has its unique UK focused VA throughout. The regions in the games are Welsh, Scottish, etc. It adds a huge amount of character that American voiced games lack imo.
Worth giving a shout out to Xenoblade X (outside of the trilogy’s storyline), which still has the largest world of any game I’ve ever known, eternally stuck on the Wii U. That’s a fucking mental game and I don’t even know where to start with it. If you like Xenoblade, mech battles/flights and Attack on Titan’s soundtrack (sawano), then it’s the game for you.
anyhow back to Xenoblade 3, you may hate it who knows but… hopefully this does sell a few people on it.
Your turn
I had a great time with Final Fantasy XV near the top of this year. I had a ton of fun with the floaty combat and the character moments! The game got patched up for PC, so the only problem I had was that they stopped support after the rough release and didn’t finish the story they intended to tell.
This led me to pick up Forspoken (same devs) as well despite the negative press. I can’t think of a movement system I’ve enjoyed more. The writing isn’t as awful as everyone says (IMHO) and the spell casting focus with parkour woven in is just chefs kiss. Slap on some tunes and grind out my masteries was how I spent a good month. Huge fan of the cuff character as well (no spoilers). Honestly was devastating to hear the studio close, because the DLC just released was pretty rad too.
Edit - RIP the double post bug got me too. Deleted comment’s just a copy of this
That’s interesting you loved XV, I played right after the VII Remake and it just didn’t ‘click’ with me.
I love the design (the almost mid-cent car’s look), but it just wasn’t right to me somehow.