Chapter 5: Peak Fiction
1/8
Despite getting Xenoblade 3 at launch and playing the game quite intensively ever since (even taking out a few vacation days when it first came out), plenty of people had already finished the game before I was even halfway done. And while I was generally careful about avoiding Spoilers, there was one piece of XB3 info that there was no way for me to avoid, namely Chapter 5 being f*cking wild, and extremely emotional. Thankfully I was in the dark about WHAT exactly it was that made this chapter so special, I just knew that I was in for a treat once I reached it.
And the chapter gets going quickly enough: after exploring Sena’s backstory and her relationships with Mio and Lanz a bit, the party finally manages to actually reach the Great Sword’s Base area, a gorgeous, colorful wetland – and by the end of the area, towering in front of them is the ginormous Mechonis Sword, which stuck in the ground like this is taller than any mountain on earth. This has been the destination of our heroes for so long – but before they can traverse the last few miles and finally get their answers, they find themselves surrounded by a group of heavily armed men and women!
Thankfully, these aren’t actually a hostile faction, they are the Lost Numbers, enemies of Moebius and the City’s military force. Far from wishing our party harm, they were responsible for bailing the Ouroboros out during their Keves Castle crisis, and now they’ve come to guide Noah & friends to the City, after taking the necessary precautions; the party are given eyepatches to block a signal emitted from Ouroboros irises that the Moebius use to track them (which also explains how the party has gotten ambushed so frequently, despite all their precautions). The Lost Numbers, all connected to the Ouroboros, are also wearing eyepatches.
Among the Lost Numbers introduced, two characters stand out: Monica Vandham, the City’s leader, a certified MILF *and* daughter (still a meaningless concept to our heroes) of the Vandham who set all these events in motion, and Shania Reid, a pretty, petite 18 year old girl who has been keeping the Ouroboros under surveillance ever since they were granted their powers. Monica temporarily joins the party as a Hero while Shania guides them to the city. As I touched upon during the last chapter, this is the only section of the game where I actually feel taking away the music can be somewhat justified: as you keep climbing the colossal sword, going up what’s quite frankly an absolute GigaChad of an escalator before traversing an area that’s so high up that it’s covered in snow like a regular mountaintop, the anticipation just keeps building as I keep speculating about just what the City will be like, and how many of our questions will finally be answered.
…and then we’re finally there – a massive, indoor structure dwarfing any of the colonies we’ve been to, dotted with lights and Levnises, with permanent housing in the background. The entire City is enclosed by the hollow bulge at the hilt of the Great Sword, which helps hide the place from its enemies. Its atmosphere is surprisingly somber, arguably even sad, but there’s also a sense of resilience, of long having resisted against overwhelming odds.
Most importantly, the City is a place of Life – real, human life like it was always meant to be. For the first time ever, our party is exposed to young children, and to loving couples. People even older than Guernica Vandham can be seen walking around. And, in one of Xenoblade 3’s defining scenes, our party is taken to a maternity ward and bear witness to an entirely new life that has just been brought into this world, reacting with awe as well as sincere excitement and joy. The tiny, defenseless little baby gives a glimpse of an entirely different world that our heroes never even knew existed, a purpose far greater than forever fighting for fake queens.
Additionally, our heroes are taught by a friendly doctor how babies are made (the game obviously cuts away from the actual explanation), which Noah and Mio in particular find to be…interesting information, to say the least (note that Monica can already by now tell that these two love each other).
And of course, now the Ouroboros also learn the truth about what the Moebius have done to Aionios - how they grow and reuse soldiers over and over again for their war:
Monica: “You were conscripted from birth, trained to kill one another ruthlessly and steal each other's life. That life energy pours into the Flame Clocks, becoming the fuel that feeds Moebius.”
…
In order for Moebius to exist, they must continue to claim life energy.
And these "cradles" right here... They're used to recycle your lives. You live your lives in servitude so that Moebius can exist. And even in death, there's no release. You'll just keep getting recycled.
...
Soldiers bound by Moebius's shackles are destined only for mutual destruction.
Those who lose their lives in battle, they're reborn anew...
They wake from a Castle cradle, a blank slate without a scrap of their former memories.
However, there are people who have successfully taken on the Moebius before – above all, the City’s founders from 1000 years ago, who also harnessed the power of the Ouroboros to give their descendants a fighting chance. Looking at the statues of Founders and reading their short bios, I felt like I was finally starting to peer behind the Moebius veil of deceit, and witness the true origins of Aionios. The true identity of the Founders was also a genuinely tantalizing mystery – after Future Redeemed, we of course know all about who they are, but back then, they were these truly mysterious figures, and the fact that at least some of them seemed to be old Xenoblade party members (the long-haired man wielding a red sword even after losing one of his arms DEFINITELY sounded like Dunban from Xenoblade 1!) just raised all sorts of questions.
No *actual* Xenoblade legacy characters can however be found in the city, though something very important IS confirmed: Melia and Nia DO still exist in this world, even if their current location is unknown. Having now finally reached the City, our party’s new mission will be to track the queens down. Good news, there’s apparently someone who *does* know where to find the queens. Bad news, this person (named Ghondor) is currently locked up in an Agnian prison where the Moebius keep captured Lost Numbers, and is due to be executed during an Eclipse one month from now. Our party, along with a select group of elite Lost Numbers, will need to infiltrate the prison, pose as prisoners and break Ghondor out. Prison Break is about to get another revival!
Despite all the things we’ve learned, one hope ends up brutally dashed: Turns out the people of the City don’t actually know of any way to extend a soldier’s lifespan past the designated 10 years. The people *born* free are able to live full lives, but even freed soldiers are still subject to the cruel 10 terms-limit. This means that starting from when the rescue of Ghondor begins in earnest, Mio really will die in just over 1 month. Looking at how the game has been paced so far, that should just barely be enough time for the catgirl to complete this adventure, resulting in one of two outcomes: The game ends with the party finding a way to break their cruse (it IS revealed that two of the City Founders actually did do just that, though nobody knows how), or that Mio will die by the end of the game in a truly heartbreaking finale.
On the whole, the City definitely lived up to my expectations, and going back down to Aionios and its colonies, I felt like the prisoner in Plato’s famous allegory returning to the cave after having witnessed the outside world – my stay in the City having brought home just how truly small and limited the perspective is the soldiers is, and how deprived they are of so many things we take for granted. Ironically, the plight of the soldiers in Xenoblade 3 is in some way similar to how Blades lived under Indol’s regime in Xenoblade 2 (a dismal enough state of affairs to be invoked as justification for Torna’s terrorism), only much worse. This further raises the stakes: Somehow, someway, we HAVE to liberate this world from the clutches of Moebius.
2/8
But with the City finally revealed, I’d say that enough of Xenoblade 3 has now been unveiled for me to finally be able to talk about the game’s content from a culture war/cultural and moral perspective. Yep, it’s finally time for my Based Morality Score for Xenoblade 3, and boy, is there a lot to go over here.
On Fedi in particular, Xenoblade 3 has caught a lot of flak for essentially being the first Xenoblade to truly surrender to the SJWs and significantly alter its content to conform to the Globohom*o Judeo-Leftist standards. This is the downside of the Xenoblade franchise seeing its popularity grow so much after Xenoblade 2 came out – and predictably, despite Xenoblade 2 being so popular, Xenoblade 3 in various ways feels like a rejection of its predecessor. That said, other people have passionately argued that this game actually boasts some of the best, most moral and most wholesome themes and content in the entire series, as well as being surprisingly spicy and countercultural in various regards. As for my own take? I’d have to conclude (and sorry if this comes across like the boring, safe answer) that both sides of this argument are largely correct. Xenoblade 3 for me is the quintessential +2/-2 game on the Based Morality chart.
Since I like to get the bad news out of the way first, let me start by going over the chief objections to Xenoblade 3, and to what extent they’re legitimate. Probably the three most common criticisms I see are the presence of a “non-binary” character in Juniper; the overall Blacking of the Xenoblade franchise, represented above all by the presence of Taion and the widespread race-mixing; and the dramatic nerf to fanservice and a general unwillingness to let female characters truly show skin.
Starting with Juniper, this one is truly weird – before Xenoblade 3 even came out, the threat of “non-binary” representation seemed very real, due to one of the Heroes being referred to by singular they pronouns – but that Hero was Valdi the prodigy mechanic, not Juniper! When Juniper was first revealed, she was referred to using female pronouns in English-language posts, and looked like another quality Xenoblade Waifu – in this case a green-haired catgirl tomboy. Valdi by contrast arguably did look somewhat androgynous – though without the Twitter trannylator using they/them pronouns for him, I think pretty much everyone would correctly have assumed he was just a somewhat youthful-looking Machina boy.
Then the actual game came out, and it turned out that Juniper was a f*cking enby! Or, was she? Note that the character NEVER talks about her “gender identity”, ever, let alone has it play a part in either of her Hero Quests. The entire “Juniper is non-binary” thing basically amounts to the main party referring to the character using they/them pronouns a couple of times, mainly right after a brief battle with Juniper and some of her soldiers, during which they obviously never stopped to ask for her “preferred pronouns”. For what’s supposedly the first notable “non-binary” Nintendo character, they sure don’t play up that fact, let alone celebrate or affirm bullsh*t genderblob identities.
But IS Juniper even an “enby” at all? It does seem like that’s what the wokealizers were going for (and apparently her voice actress is one, which is completely irrelevant unless you for example also now consider every movie character ever played by Ellen Page to be a tranny, including the famously pregnant Juno), but they clearly just had NO material to work with here. And even the datamining that apparently classified Juno as neither female nor male has since been proven to classify multiple 100% female characters the same way, so that ultimately means nothing. It seems we might just be looking at some predictably sh*tty and agenda-driven localization here, rather than the game itself being corrupted at the source.
It should also be noted that lore-wise, Juniper being “non-binary” makes no sense (and yes, those scare quotes are here to stay). As far as I understand that nonsense, “enbies” reject the gender binary altogether, insisting that they neither identify as male or female – but Aionios soldiers only have the most rudimentary understanding of what males and females even are! Basically, they are aware that men and women have different private parts, and refer to male and female characters using proper pronouns – but they have no concept of WHY men and women are different, or why this should matter (note that all Kevesi soldiers use technology in the form of power frames to enhance their strength, while both male and female Agnians tend to naturally boast super-human strength). This means that Juniper shouldn’t even have enough of an idea of what a woman is for her to reject her female identity in the first place, ESPECIALLY prior to being freed from the Flame Clock! For you to seriously buy into her “non-binary” identity, you have to believe that the Ouroboros (who lack a basic understanding of gender differences) were able to magically intuit that a character they didn’t even know (and who has even LESS of an understanding of the two sexes) explicitly rejects a gender binary that should be meaningless to her.
Hilariously, even if you DO buy into Juniper being “non-binary”, she really doesn’t come across like the kind of representation the LGBTP can applaud: Her first Hero Quest revolves around her being a Failure of a colony commander who has essentially given up on living, and who is just waiting around for her Flame Clock to empty out and for her life to end – essentially, she’s about to join the 41%. Also, her Class is seriously flawed, and she’s generally considered to be one of the worst, if not the single Worst hero in terms of combat utility. Not exactly owning the chuds there...
3/8
The second problem, relating to race, is however far more substantial – but really, I don’t think the problem is with Taion. Judged on his own merits, Taion is a fine character who has great synergy with the rest of the party. I can certainly sympathize with objections to the black party member being the Brains of the group, given both the actual state of IRL blacks, as well as the pervasive “Black Brainiac” propaganda we keep seeing in modern media. However, I’m willing to cut storytellers quite a bit of slack with how they portray *individuals* belonging to particular groups, because hell, even in real life people like Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas exist. Hyper-advanced black civilizations in the Wakanda mold can however NOT be defended, though you could argue to what extent Xenoblade 3 blacks are even comparable to IRL blacks – Taion himself is either a Blade (in which case he falls in the same category as Xenoblade 2 characters like Perun and T-elos), or he’s a Blade Eater, presumably of Ardainian origin (Mor Ardain did have some black inhabitants, and Taion is said to be a lousy cook, which is a core Ardainian trait). In other words, not your typical Bantu.
Let’s also note that Taion is no Gary Stu intended to outclass and embarrass the light-skinned characters; he might have the most Tactical Points of the 6 core party characters, but he actually has *less* TP than his fair-skinned mentor Isurd. Moreover, Taion is shown to be somewhat socially awkward, and even allowed to come across as downright unlikable at times (along with Lanz he’s the least cooperative and most unfriendly character when Noah and Mio initially try to bring the party together, but unlike Lanz he hasn’t had the time to earn any good will and sympathy from the player prior to this). Basically, he’s a good and well-rounded character who just happens to be black. And unlike with LGBTP characters, where I’d argue that any positive or even neutral representation is bad and unfortunate, I have no principled objection to black fictional characters, it’s all about how they’re written. Sure - all things being equal I’d rather Taion be White/light-skinned (the original concept art actually depicts him as a White guy with an Afro), but I find it hard to object to him as a character. As far as “representation” goes, Taion is up there with Barret as far as genuinely good and worthwhile black JRPG characters go.
What I CAN’T just go along with is the world of Xenoblade (both Xenoblade 1 and 2, given the nature of Aionios) suddenly, conspicuously becoming so much more “Diverse”. I’d estimate that previous mainline Xenoblade games had like 5% of its NPC be black or notably dark-skinned – in Xenoblade 3, the number has to be closer to 20%. It’s VERY obvious, and makes NO sense in terms of lore, given how quickly after the events of the first two games the merging of the worlds is implied to have happened. Or well, there IS one possible explanation, which I’ll go over in Chapter 7, which is pretty amusing, even if it surely isn’t what really happened.
No, we all know the ACTUAL reason behind this – ESG and the DIE agenda (DEI is just a meaningless acronym used by our enemies, DIE is an alternate acronym that perfectly sums up the end result of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity). Notably, several recent Nintendo releases that I've played (XB3, Zelda: TotK and Pikmin 4) all saw a sudden, dramatic bump to their dark-skinned representation. In Pikmin 4, I estimate the number of dark-skinned NPCs to be very close to 20%, while TotK also seemed to hover around that number – which definitely makes me suspect this is some sort of minimum threshold of “representation” you need to reach to get ESG money, or maybe avoid coordinated bad reviews from game journos. Yes, Fire Emblem: Engage had way less than 20% black playable characters – but that game also reviewed bizarrely poorly for how thoroughly excellent it is in most respects. My most compelling piece of evidence however is the Xenoblade 3 DLC campaign Future Redeemed (which is presumably not bound by ESG restrictions) suddenly and dramatically lowering the number of darkies, to the point where their share might honestly have been the LOWEST in any Xenoblade. Really makes you think.
(UPDATE: Okay, seems like I’ve been huffing some serious Schizo fumes for a while, because replaying Xenoblade 3 right now and nearing the end of Chapter 5, there’s no f*cking way the game’s character roster is anything close to 20% black/dark-skinned, it’s probably barely even 10% - still a very noticeable increase from past Xenoblade games, but not nearly as bad as I made it out to be. I’m still keeping this section of the writeup though, because I find it funny and think a number of the points still ring true).
For the record, none of the black and dark-skinned NPCs are particularly objectionable, and in terms of how they’re written they really don’t push any form of racial agenda – effectively, they’re written in a very colorblind way, which makes sense given how Aionios works, but again, the sheer unreasonable, lore-breaking NUMBER of them is a problem. I mean, I never recall seeing any dark-skinned High Entia or black Gormotti characters before – though in the case of the latter, there ARE parts of Gormott we never travel to, and the Ardainians kinda treat the Gormotti like Cat nigg*rs anyway.
With the greatly boosted number of black characters, along with the colorblind writing, plenty of race-mixing and mixed-race couples was to be expected, and yeah, it’s definitely a thing. While not as omnipresent as in a show like Invincible, or in TV commercials, race-mixing is still very frequent, even among major characters. Eunie and Taion might never get physically intimate, but definitely get their fair share of ship teases – and the character Ghondor turns out to be a mulatto girl, and is actually the daughter of Monica. Now, the fact that Monica was only 15 (!) when she gave birth to Ghondor, and that the presumably black father is never seen, definitely makes for some pretty spicy Meme material, as does Ghondor’s hostile, resentful attitude towards her mother – though ultimately, assuming that we’re dealing with a PSA about Paying The Toll just seems like wishful thinking.
Ultimately, I find Xenoblade 3’s dramatically increased levels of Diversity to be a blemish, but not a major one, as it’s basically handled as gracefully as it could be while simultaneously conforming to Global Standards.
4/8
The nerf to the Fanservice is the aspect of Xenoblade 3 that I find the least defensible, especially given the success of Xenoblade 2. Now, the problem isn’t the canon outfits of the female party members being modest – this fits with the overall darker, more serious tone of this game, and the outfits themselves are hardly burkas – Sena shows some serious tummy, while Eunie’s tight pants hug her butt beautifully. No, the issue is that while Xenoblade 1 and X let us extensively customize our characters’ outfits, INCLUDING letting us strip female characters down to their underwear, XB3’s clothing customization options are FAR more restrictive. Sure, Xenoblade 2 also had almost no non-DLC outfit customization options, but there the likes of Pyra, Mythra and Brighid already came in canon fanservice outfits, as well as boasting phenomenal, boobalicious bodies. And let’s not even get into the jiggle physics of Rare Blades like Vale and Perun.
So essentially, Xenoblade 3 is the worst of both worlds – combining the lack of fanservice story outfits in 1 and X with Xenoblade 2’s crappy outfit customization options (the outfit-changing options are admittedly a lot better than in non-DLC XB2, but still way worse than in XB1 or X). None of the female party members are even all that busty, which definitely seems like Monolith Soft and Saito getting spooked by the retarded SJW whining about Pyra. And of course, despite various fa*gs and leftists praising this change in direction and insisting that it would help Xenoblade achieve far greater mainstream popularity (“now I can finally play Xenoblade in public!” was a typical soy-drenched cuck talking point), Xenoblade 3 predictably didn’t even come close to selling as much as its predecessor, whose big-titty Best Girl had supposedly scared off countless potential buyers. Monolith Soft and Nintendo were f*cking stupid and cowardly falling for obvious lies and propaganda like this.
In fairness, Xenoblade 3 certainly isn’t completely devoid of fanservice – in terms of cute girls it’s comparable to Xenoblade 1, and better than X (Eunie is a Top 5 Xenoblade female character design to me). Hell, plenty of random female NPCs are way cuter than pretty much any girl you’ll see in a modern Western AAA game. Also, while none of the main party girls are stacked, Ethel puts even Pyra to shame when it comes to cup size – and interestingly, Lolibros are eating surprisingly well: Not only are there are actual Loli Heroes like Fiona and Segiri (the former being considered the best Hero in the whole game!), but major characters like Ghondor, Shania and of course Sena are REMARKABLY petite. Hilariously, these girls are also all *exactly* 18 years old, definitely to conform to those pesky Global Standards, but in this case I see nothing wrong with that – indeed, knowing that they’ll probably never grow any taller just means that there will never come a time where you can no longer go all IMAGINE with them. It doesn’t hurt that at least one of the aforementioned girls really deserves some rough treatment (but not Sena, she is a sweetie).
…on second thought, maybe the petite platoon all being legal-age wasn’t a Global Standards thing after all, because during one Hero Quest this game also randomly drops the bomb that this one extremely breedable female character is only the equivalent of 15 years old, which everyone finds shocking. Not that it should matter since she’s fictional (and generally quite mature, not just physically), but still, I doubt that kind of Jailbait Propaganda gives you a lot of DIE points.
Overall though, Xenoblade 3 is a massive downgrade for the Xenoblade series in terms of fanservice, going from being one of the best mainstream JRPGs in this regard to arguably one of the weaker ones: it definitely compares unfavorably to something like Persona 5, and barely beats out Dragon Quest XI. The DLC was especially disappointing – Eunie’s bikini bottom coming with a cloth that covers her ass is CRIMINAL, as is the butchery of the Brighid DLC outfit so that it now shows WAY less skin, which really sums up how much Xenoblade 3 has Regressed from the glory days of Xenoblade 2.
There are other issues too – the sheer number of Strong Female Leaders, some of them with markedly diffident male lieutenants, is notable, though ultimately I didn’t really find it overbearing or distracting – I don’t recall any Persona 5-style feminist preaching, and there are plenty of strong and admirable male characters too. Additionally, one of the game’s most notable POSITIVE aspects makes it hard for me to really fault its handling of female characters. There have also on Fedi been various objections to different localization changes and instances of “Reddit Speak” (including various Aionios-specific euphemisms and PG swear swords), but I honestly found the writing less distracting, and certainly less objectionable, than the overwhelmingly anachronistic language in modern Fire Emblem games. Moderate forms of fa*gspeak, like frequently using the word “partner” over husband or wife, are however quite common, and the overuse of singular they is pretty bad (though not quite as bad as in modern Fire Emblem).
This all being said, I feel that I’ve by now given an unironically fair and balanced assessment of Xenoblade 3’s Based Morality negatives, and why I feel they warrant a -2 score.
5/8
Now let’s get into why the +2 isn’t there just for show either:
First of all, there’s the strong and pervasive natalist themes. I already mentioned the unforgettable scene involving the baby, but there’s actually another similar scene in Chapter 6 that’s arguably even more powerful, due to the baby this time belonging to two characters we actually care about, rather than a couple of City randos. And who could forget The Photo from the ending showing off Rex and his 3 wives, each cradling a baby in her arms.
Moreover, the natalist messaging is actually on occasion explicitly articulated – there’s on multiple occasions the suggestion that childless City NPCs have to “make up for” their childlessness by being especially good and active citizens in other ways, and there's definitely this social expectation that people in the City *should* have children, whether to help the City itself survive and flourish, or just to continue their bloodline, and NOT having children is explicitly stated to be unusual.
Now, a certain ex-president on Fedi has objected to claims of Xenoblade 3 being natalist by pointing to the complete lack of families with multiple children depicted in the game. First of all, I’m not sure just how true this is – Shania and Jansen are City characters who both HAD siblings, who I believe both died fighting Moebius, and of course there’s Rex and his 3 kids. I assume there are a number of other cases as well, once you really dig through the affinity chart. But more to the point, I find this criticism at best to be a case of making the Perfect the enemy of the Good, and at worst wildly uncharitable – the message that Xenoblade 3 conveys is that having children is Good and Important, NOT that having 1 kid is good, but please just stop there. I’ve seen JewTube comments about how Xenoblade 3 is some of the best propaganda for having kids that they’ve never seen; I’ve NEVER seen anyone persuadable by pop culture media even suggest that they felt the game was discouraging the formation of large families.
There’s also this more subtle, but definitely very real theme of male-female Complementarianism being pushed: Every single Ouroboros pair is opposite-sex, and while the key requirement is stated to be Keves and Agnus coming together as one, the fact that EVERY pair involves both a man and a woman is definitely intentional (and apparently also consistent with pre-Xenoblade Xeno lore). It reminds me of how the mechs in Darling in the Franxx used to require male-female pairings to work, but without muddying the waters later on with same-sex interlinking the way Franxx did. Or to be more specific, same-sex Interlinking *is* actually somewhat common in Xenoblade 3 – among Moebius, that is. Also worth noting, I couldn’t actually find a single gay Xenoblade 3 character, in this case making the game superior to not only X, but Xenoblade 2 as well (Rare Blade Sheba is explicitly identified as a lesbian, and there are hints that party character Brighid is gay for Morag).
Differences between the sexes being real and important is another clear, if subtle theme in Xenoblade 3, which becomes a lot more obvious once you step back and actually reflect on nature of the twisted, corrupted world that the Moebius have created for the soldiers: As I mentioned before, men and women are barely even acknowledged to exist, and no meaningful difference between the two is acknowledged; they shower together, sleep next to one another, and feel no physical attraction towards each other.
However, once freed from their Flame Clocks we pretty much IMMEDIATELY witness the Ouroboros characters beginning to see the opposite sex in a brand new light, with Noah and the other guys suddenly becoming flustered watching their female teammates finish changing into new clothes for their journey. Similarly, in one sidequest Lanz is about to strip naked at the request of an Agnian mad scientist character who wants to study him, which causes the Ouroboros girls to become so scandalized that they resort to violence just to stop him from undressing. Interestingly, they can’t actually articulate what exactly is wrong with a boy undressing in front of a bunch of girls – they just naturally *know* that it’s improper behavior.
6/8
Far more provocative and countercultural still is Xenoblade 3 hinting that racial pride, in moderate doses, is actually a *good* thing. And no, this isn’t just me seeing what I want to see – along with being oblivious to the fundamental differences between the sexes, soldiers under the yoke of Moebius are completely colorblind, in the sense that racial differences mean NOTHING to them, the only thing that matters being your nationality. It’s really not too different from the MAGA Boomer Civic Nationalist dream, where Americas of all races come together to die for Israel.
This racial blindness is however contrasted with a meeting the party, or more specifically Eunie, much later on has with a very important and beloved authority figure who also happens to be High Entian. At one point during their conversation, Eunie is struck by the fact that she and this highly revered woman both have head wings, and this fills her with pride. “It makes me feel special” she says, “like we’re the same”. And far from chiding Eunie, Juden Peterstein-style, for feeling pride in the accomplishments of another High Entian, the woman gently confirms that Eunie is right, the two of them ARE the same. In a very real way, Xenoblade 3 sends the message that racial identity/racial pride is a core part of the human experience, which is NOT something you often hear in contemporary pop culture products, unless it’s strictly reserved for black and brown people. And no, High Entians have never been “Coded” to be an underprivileged race, the kind that in the US might be allowed a sense of racial pride – indeed, High Entians in Xenoblade 1 were about as prosperous and advanced a race as you could find on Bionis, as well as uniformly light-skinned.
Then there’s the Moebius Question itself, which I’ve so liberally alluded to throughout this section of the writeup. Now, I’m generally not inclined to give a game bonus points for “accidentally” Based implications or Memeable content. Can the Moebius be understood as Crypto-Jews? Absolutely. Indeed, I find it very easy to draw parallels between the tragic brother war between Russia and Ukraine, and the Keves-Agnus war. Was this what the developers actually had in mind? Surely not. And given how certain foolish people have tried to meme Helldivers 2 (a Soyny game whose devs are openly Woke) into being Based, and the negative consequences this has had (people giving Soyny money), I think it behooves us all to separate Meme and Reality. That said, the fact that Aionios is controlled from the shadows by a small group of literal Alphabet People who cause all the wars in the world DOES make for some powerful Meme Magic.
There’s however no need to spin the words that Z, the leader of the Moebius, use to justify the world he created – his ultimate vision of Radical Egalitarianism:
Freedom is nothing more than fiction... A deception.
Those with power, those who can choose think nothing of it.
What then of those who cannot choose?
What about the meek and frail?
Not everyone is granted as many options as you all have!
…
There are no losers in the world I offer.
With a turn of the clock, anyone can be a winner, given the time.
Couple this with the fact that the REAL Queens of Keves and Agnus are highly admirable (continuing the Xenoblade series’ pro-monarchy record), and communist Xenoblade fans are taking some big, fat Ls here – though of course, the biggest L of all is being a communist in the first place.
Let’s also take a moment to note some of the common JRPG tropes (which the Xeno series itself is no stranger to) that you WON’T find in Xenoblade 3: Not only is there no Evil JRPG God in this game (Z is something more than a man, but he is certainly no god), there is no Corrupt Church or Rotten Religion either. And if you want to deny the game credit for that on the basis of religion in general seeming absent, that’s only a reason to note how religion is another part of the human experience that Moebius have stolen from the soldiers (though the veneration of the queens, the work that off-seers do and the Homecoming ceremony are essentially secular substitutes for religion, similar to the sort of thing we’ve seen in communist countries). Perhaps most interestingly, XB3 stands as a pointed refutation of X by affirming the existence of immortal souls, which becomes a an important plot point in the final chapter.
To summarize, Xenoblade 3 is a game buoyed by some very notable moral positives (arguably more numerous and more pronounced than in any previous Xenoblade), but also significantly compromised by Global Standards and learning all of the wrong lessons from Xenoblade 2’s success. As such, I feel that a +2/-2 is the only possible score I can give (for the sake of comparison, I’d say XB1 is a +1/weak -2, X is a +1/strong -2, and XB2 is a weak +2/-1. In keeping with that slightly more detailed scoring system, I’d argue that XB3’s score of +2 is Stronger than its -2 - ultimately its positives are more notable, and define the game to a far greater extent than its negatives. If you bought X and don’t regret it, or have enjoyed the likes of Final Fantasy X or Persona 5 (all -2 games in my book), there’s certainly nothing in XB3 to warrant a boycott.
7/8
Returning to the story, the party first needs to get a boat ready, and once that matter is handled they head off to Erythia Sea, by FAR the biggest area of Xenoblade 3. It’s quite an amazing place, so massive that you really *need* the boat to traverse it, but also full of interesting, varied islands that are home to everything from colonies and monster’s nests to forts and toxic swamps. I was reminded more than a little of the Great Sea in Zelda: The Wind Waker, but Erythia Sea is actually superior in various ways, due to your boat having an engine, and the way more convenient quick travel system. And so, while I really wanted to get on with the story to find out what everyone was raving about (the City segment was great, but hardly the kind of stuff that by itself would cause Xenoblade veterans to gush this much about Chapter 5), I first spent plenty of hours exploring this fantastic new location, including getting two new Heroes in Fiona and Triton. I also did Eunie’s Side Story, which introduced me to Consul X, who would actually end up playing a small, but notable role in the Chapter 5 story as well.
Overall this was definitely the right call (once you get to the Li Garte Prison Camp, your ability to explore and sidequest will be restricted for quite a while), but it did ensure that I went into the upcoming stretch of the game significantly overleveled. This has tended to be an issue with mainline Xenoblade games, especially Xenoblade 1, since you gain experience not just from killing monsters, but from exploring (discovering landmarks) and completing sidequests. In one sense this is great, because it essentially makes traditional RPG level grinding a non-factor, but for completionists like me, it inevitably results in an overleveled party.
Xenoblade 2 TRIED to fix this, by turning the EXP earned through various non-combat actions into Bonus EXP, that can be collected at Inns, or not used at all (until the post-game at least) so that you don’t become overleveled, meaning that there’s no risk at exploration and sidequesting accidentally making you too strong. This is a great idea, albeit insufficient – at least when combined with another new Xenoblade 2 mechanic called Overkill, where any enemy killed during a Chain Attack doesn’t actually die (like in XB1), but starts giving you extra EXP (NOT Bonus EXP) the more damage you inflict on it during the Chain Attack. This is on its own another really great anti-grinding feature (and why XB2 has a sub-4 hour speedrun), but since Chain Attacking bosses and Unique Monsters is almost always the play (we talked about this during Chapter 4, it’s why the XB3 Chain Attack Theme becomes so overused), it greatly increases the risk of becoming overleveled.
Thankfully, the Xenoblade 1 Switch Remaster came up with the perfect solution to all of this: Giving you the ability to Level Down your character whenever you want. Like so many truly fantastic ideas, it’s so simple, yet so impactful, and genuinely changed how I experienced many of the XB1 story bosses, the only problem being that a Xenoblade 1-specific quirk (if your enemy is more than 5 levels above you, it becomes near-impossible to hit it) limited the extent to which you could realistically underlevel yourself and still win, without exploiting some truly degenerate strategies. But the Level Down mechanic itself is just phenomenal, and should become the new JRPG standard.
…so naturally, Xenoblade 3 essentially removes this feature, relegating it to the post-game, where it’s presented to you in a significantly less convenient form than in Xenoblade Definitive Edition. It’s BAFFLING that Monolith Soft would so badly fail to take advantage of their own amazing mechanic, though I suspect Nintendo encouraged them to do this: Nintendo often seems downright hostile to player choice and customization options, and wants people to play their games in one particular way, their way. So Xenoblade 3 just continues with XB2’s old and inadequate EXP and Bonus EXP system, as if Xenoblade DE never happened – though you ARE now able to Disable Overkills, which, full disclosure, I did not know about until long after I finished the game. I don’t know if this was a later update to the game, or if I was just not paying attention, but yeah, I’d probably have ended up a whole lot less overleveled had I actually known about this feature.
And even WITH me being overleveled, the story bosses would still take a while to go down (remember, these guys are HP sponges), and could even sometimes kill a number of my party members. Still, the sheer TENSION that Hard Mode had until now imbued story battles with was by late Chapter 5 pretty much gone, and as incredible as the chapter is in terms of storytelling, this questionable difficulty curve ought to be acknowledged – especially since Xenoblade DE had already come up with an obvious fix for this very problem.
But as for that storytelling….first of all, there’s a lot of buildup. General concern for Mio of course (again, the catgirl barely has over 1 month left at this point), but also Sena working out her insecurities, which Shania (who is one of the Lost Numbers accompanying the party, and Ghondor’s childhood friend) seems to share. Once they manage to sneak into the prison (there are over a thousand prisoners, used for slave labor by Moebius, so it’s easy enough to get lost in the crowd), Ghondor herself is hardly eager to attempt a jailbreak - and since she’s a thuggish mulatta who talks like a Boondocks character, she admittedly does seem to be right where she belongs. Seriously though, her real reason for initially being hostile to the Ouroboros characters is the conviction that their actions are going to “Kill the Now” (this will make a lot more sense by the end of the game), just for a shot at extending their own pitifully short lives. This jab was directed at Mio in particular, but the catgirl is undaunted, and with a heartfelt appeal she actually does manage to convince Ghondor that she’s worth taking a chance on. Ghondor also confirms that she knows how to track down the REAL Queen of Agnus.
A plan to break out is quickly agree on: it turns out that 3 days from now, Agnus will be holding a large-scale training exercise that will causes prison security to be reduced to the bare minimum. That will be the perfect time to bust out – until then, our party has to keep their heads down, perform prison labor and not unveil the Ouroboros powers until the time is right. So basically, it’s a stretch of JRPG busywork, not mind-numbingly boring or anything, but clearly meant to be the calm before the storm.
Then the fateful day arrives, and at first everything goes swimmingly – the remaining guards are no match for our battle-hardened soldiers, and the Sena/Lanz Ouroboros manages to easily break open the formidable prison gates – only to be confronted by a small army of Agnian forces, including the giant Castle Guard mechs. Worse, FAR worse in fact, is the presence of two Moebius – Consul N and Consul M. Turns out we’ve been betrayed from within, and the identity of the traitor proves a particularly nasty shock to Ghondor and Sena. But before the party even has time to recover from that revelation, they’re hit with another bombshell – the fact that N and M are none other than Noah and Mio!
Now, the player will have known this for a good while already, but what he won’t know is how this is even possible – we know that characters like Eunie have lived past lives, probably many of them, but that has always been the same Eunie, dying and being reborn over and over again. For two Noahs and two Mios to exist simultaneously, that’s unheard of, and shouldn’t be possible.
Before taking on N and M however, the Ouroboros have to overcome the Agnian forces accompanying them, which they do with ease, even managing to create an opening so that Ghondor, bearer of precious knowledge, is able to escape. Now it’s time for the main event, and first up is Consul M: Surprising N, she asks for a chance to take on the Ouroboros, and show them how powerless they really are, just like N and M themselves were once “persuaded”. This Evil Mio seems to carry with her painful memories of a tragic past, and once she opens her eyes after first unleashing her special power, she actually sheds a tear, causing Our Mio to be visibly shocked.
M’s power turns out to be quite devious – she can hijack the body of anyone she targets, having the two switch bodies, as well as rapidly jump between bodies. Suddenly we’ve returned to the early days of Chapter 1 and the Ouroboros soldiers viciously fighting each other, but the choreography on display here is if anything even more impressive, as our heroes keep switching between defense and offense as they desperately try to tell friend from foe. Eventually however, Taion manages to figure out M’s weakness, that her real body takes damage whenever a body she possesses gets hit. And since our party comes with 2 dedicated healers, this is a war of attrition they are sure to win, provided they don’t hold back against whatever comrade is temporarily under M’s control. It’s an inelegant and pretty painful solution, but it gets the job done, and M is eventually defeated.
8/8
Up until this point, the Ouroboros have always managed to overcome everything thrown their way, whether by raw strength, wit, resilience or luck, and despite the terrible betrayal they’ve suffered, the hope of managing to escape along with Ghondor is starting to look like more than just a pipe dream. Then Consul N steps in, and all hope is turned into the darkest despair.
The power gap between N and M is incalculable – whereas M had to rely on trickery to neutralize the party, N is able to effortlessly overpower them all, in their Ouroboros forms – all without he himself transforming. Taion’s illusions, Eunie’s ranged attacks, Sena’s power, Lanz’s defense, Mio’s speed and Noah’s mastery of the sword – it’s all meaningless to N, as he effortlessly bats away their strongest attacks, tosses the massive Ouroboros warriors around like ragdolls, and slices off their limbs with the ease and bored indifference of a sad*stic child pulling off a spider’s legs. As an action-scene, it’s awesome; as a story battle, it’s both awe-inspiring and horrifying.
With the Interlinks being pushed to the brink due to all the additional energy required to constantly regenerating lost limbs, Sena and Lanz do however realize that there’s actually a way to defeat N: The Annihilation Effect unleashed by an Interlink reaching its breaking point. Temporarily obscuring N’s vision with all the clouds of dust generated by big attacks seemingly missing their mark, Sena and Lanz manage to grab hold of the Moebius, and soar into the air to ensure that their friends don’t get caught up in a blast that will destroy ANYTHING, no matter how durable. It seems like all the focus on Sena this chapter has been leading up to this very moment, but as she says her tearful goodbyes and is about to go Allahu Akbar along with Lanz, the Interlink is suddenly broken up Consul X, who saves both N and the Ouroboros pair at Z’s request. Our party, initially relieved that Sena and Lanz actually survived their ordeal, now has to face a bitter truth: they’ve lost, and are now at the mercy of Moebius.
It turns out that N has special plans for our heroes – Homecoming will be in 1 month, and since that’s when Mio’s life is going to end, she will be given the “honor” of having her very existence erased by the (fake) Queen of Agnus. This is no act of mercy however: turns out that the truth behind Homecoming is that those who undergo the ceremony will never be able to be reborn again, and so Noah and Mio will have no hope of ever being reunited. Every action N takes, including keeping Mio in a separate cell from the other Ouroboros, seems specifically intended to hurt and torment Noah, for whom the Moebius harbors burning, seemingly irrational hatred.
And so the month gradually goes by, and along with it, the last days of Mio’s life. Stripped of all their resources, and depowered inside their cells, the party frantically, desperately tries to come up with ways to escape and save Mio – to no avail. Helplessly having to watch their friend die (at this point the fact that the rest of our party is likely to be executed after Mio is gone doesn’t even seem to merit consideration) takes a heavy toll on everyone – but Noah especially is utterly devastated, just as N intended (he IS Noah after all, and knows exactly what would cause him the most anguish). Our protagonist pounds his fists into the prison bars until his knuckles are broken and bloody, he completely stops eating, and the night before Homecoming he completely breaks down, lamenting how not only his quest to free the world from Moebius, but even his more modest ambition of helping people as an off-seer, has all been for nothing; we see the dark side of Noah’s empathy, just how much it grieves him to keep seeing lives slip away from him, without being able to save them – and now having to watch this happen to the one he loves the most.
In his darkest hour, one voice alone is able to get through to Noah: Mio’s voice. While separated by prison walls, Mio is still close enough to talk to Noah, and she finally reveals how she truly feels about him; whereas before, she never even called him by name, now she opens up and confesses her love. She assures him that as much as she wishes that she could live on further, she doesn’t regret the life she lived – and it’s all thanks to Noah:
these feelings that grew within me...
They're thanks to you.
That's why...
you're not allowed to say it's been for nothing.
You've enriched my life, Noah. That's clear now.
...
You know... I don't want this to be it.
If I were given the chance...
If this road I've walked...were to keep on going...
I'd like to spend that time...with my Noah.
Rest assured, in that moment it’s not just the characters in the game that are crying.
As the dreaded day of the Homecoming, and the accompanying eclipse, finally arrives, there are still signs of hope – we’ve seen a short clip of Ghondor, now back at the City, wanting to mount a rescue, and even as Monica refuses to allow it (the strike against Keves Castle only worked because it was a surprise attack), we see a mysterious figure seemingly teleporting into the city as the game cuts away. And Riku, the enigmatic Nopon, hints that Noah will still be able to draw Lucky Seven despite having his powers suppressed by Moebius.
But as the ceremony begins, the cavalry fails to materialize, and Noah is still incapable of doing anything. Queen Nia steps up and gives a speech about the Meaning of Homecoming (an hour ago that namedrop, even for a known Fake, would have been like a jolt of electricity – but in that moment, it barely even registered). Mio is brought out in chains, but as Noah tries to run to her, he’s thrown to the ground by surrounding Agnian soldiers. Then N, surprisingly, signals that they let Noah go, before he walks up to his counterpart. And as Mio stands in front of the Agnian queen, N tosses down Noah’s old flute (NOT Miyabi’s flute that he got from Mio) and demands that he send off the woman he can’t bear to let go:
Pick it up.
You're an off-seer. So send her.
What's wrong?
Go on, send her.
Isn't that your role?
Isn't she your Mio?!
As N practically spits out these last words, Noah, in a daze, actually does pick up his flute – only to drop it in shock and horror as he sees that Mio is already disintegrating in front of his eyes. Mio, having accepted her fate, turns to Noah and says her goodbyes, before her body turns to light and disappears. Noah, his spirit completely broken, is now a sobbing wreck, oblivious to everything except the loss of Mio. Two Agnian soldiers pull him up to face his executioner, as N brings his blade down on Noah’s exposed neck. End of chapter.
I named this part of the writeup “Peak Fiction”, and I meant it: I struggle to come up with any other comparable scene in any work of fiction, let alone a video game, that for me is on the same level as the final 20 minutes or so of Xenoblade 3’s Chapter 5. When I first got to this part, it broke me to the point where I legitimately had to pause the cutscene to compose myself and blow my nose – and going over it again for the sake of this writeup, I was stunned by just how strong of an effect it still had on me – hell, just listening to the song that plays during Mio’s confession of love on its own often brings me to tears, and watching the actual scene, even in isolation, always leaves me crying. And for some context, there really aren’t many games out that have ever brought me to tears, half a dozen or so at most. And this game EASILY tops that tiny list.
Everything about this anime episode-length scene is perfect, the music, the cinematography, even the English-language voice acting, it’s all flawless. For all the hype going into Chapter 5, it lived up to my expectations, and then some. And for the first few hours at least, Chapter 6 follows up in style, ensuring that Xenoblade 3 delivers a medium-defining double act.
