as a counterpoint to your "Walls" complaint- those "Walls" are actually my favorite part of exploration in games that make good use of them. You seem to focus a lot on the content to find and the ease of getting to that content, but to me that isn't the exploration itself- that is the reward for the exploration. In your Gaur Plains example, you really focused on these rewards and how easy it is to get to them, but if you break down the actual "gameplay" of the exploration part, it's just holding your stick in a direction until you reach the desired spot, no further thinking needed. Good exploration encourages pathfinding- that feeling of "I see where I want to go, but how am I going to get there?!" Where instead of just seeing something and walking there without resistance, you have to scan the rest of the environment to identify a path that will actually lead you there. It increases my engagement and immersion in the environment, and makes the act of actually navigating more interesting than when I can just walk there unchallenged and unhindered. Especially compared to Xenoblade 1 where so much of it is relatively flat, lateral space. Xenoblade X did this masterfully, which is why it still has the best exploration in the series- many quest objectives would have you go to an area that you couldn't just reach by easily walking there. You would have to pathfind around, sometimes by tremendous distances (quests that require being on Oblivia/Noctillum highground, I'm looking at you especially) to find a path that wasn't immediately apparent to reach your destination. This largely goes away after getting your flight module, but if you have been doing all the quests, you will have navigated to all of those points already anyway.
@@CramerGamer99 This is a great counterpoint, I did think of this while writing but decided not to include it because I wanted to hear why other people enjoy it more and this is a fantastic argument. I totally agree with what you say as well, that’s why I think 3 has the best exploration from a gameplay perspective. But you put it in a really thought provoking and digestible way, goated comment!
@@OwnageMancer Nah, it's not, because Uraya's mouth is gaping open and it actually looks like it could be biting its "tail", (or the land where it's tail would be) just like the snake in an ouroboros does. This is unlike the Bionis' head, in which's case, there isn't even any land straight ahead in front of it, and the Bionis doesn't really have a mouth, even, or anything that looks like it could be one, really, and the Bionis' head is destroyed enough to the point where the place where it's mouth WOULD be is mostly gone. Some people also suggested that Melnath's head (Captocorn Peak) is the head of the snake before, but the supporting evidence for it being the head of the snake that makes up the ouroboros is just as weak as the evidence for the Bionis' head, pretty much.
I can agree Millick Meadows is the weakest grassland area they've made so far. But I still love Cotte Falls, Maktha Wildwoods, and especially Erythia Sea. I love the pirate colony with Triton and the oomfie colony with Fiona. The linearity of the individual islands make them feel like puzzles to figure out how to traverse to the center for the treasure, like a pirate, or like Wind Waker.
Thing is, Millick Meadows was only like a small teaser for their more grand 'grassland' area in Yzana Plains. I feel like Millick Meadows was more like the ending of the tutorial stage of the game before it really opened up and was like, "Ok, here's what we really got". And it worked great for me in that regard. XC3 needed this kind of longer tutorial setup because of its complexity and all the complaints about XC2.
I definitely prefer the Xenoblade approach to 'open' worlds than BotW/TotK. The stories are way better because of the linearity. I do think they could've done a better job of keeping you on that path without just bumping into invisible walls, but even with them I enjoyed XC3 a million times more than I enjoyed TotK.
@@ThePedroLippi I didn't enjoy X as much as the main series, I enjoyed the gameplay more than 1 and the story in X was fine, but I was burned by all the unanswered questions it set up. In terms of the actual story elements, I think the side quests in X are second only to 3's, and maaaybe behind the Blade quests specifically from 2 (most side quests in 2 aren't that great, but the Blade quests were good). I prefer the more linear approach that 1, 2 and 3 had where you get large open zone after large open zone, as opposed to the whole world is open but the main story is linear within that world, but I could accept that approach from X in an 'open world' Zelda game, if it would make the story actually decent. I enjoyed the main plot of X for what it was, it just didn't have as many memorable moments as the other games did because there were fewer cutscenes and it was harder to make going to a new place for the story a huge deal when you'd already been there.
I can actually say I agree a fair bit with your views! I'd actually say for me personally, that other than the inferior environments (imo), Xenoblade 3 is actually my favourite of the trilogy, HOWEVER, I do also believe that the way Xenoblade 3 is with its exploration and environmental traversal is an intentional design decision in order to make you feel trapped and limited with your options, reflecting the same narrative of our protagonists being on the run. In Xenoblade 1 and 2, our protagonists are fighting because they want to save the world they love. We feel this love for the world in the very design itself and want to live in each one. In Xenoblade 3, our protagonists actually learn to despise the world, and even threaten it's very existence for oppressing them for so long. I think it's very ammusing because as fans of the series, when we learnt that the world of Xenoblade 3 was a culmination of 1 and 2's worlds, we likely had the expectation that we would love it equally, if not more than those two, but instead, something was "wrong". The world is bleak. The beauty in it is rare and fleeting. The very method in which these two worlds had joined together was more like that of a natural disaster trying to build a house. If we want to think about things that way, and we really do consider the circumstances and "love" characters have for each of their worlds... it makes a whole lot more sense on why 3 is built the way it is. It leaves us "wanting"... So, with all that considered, if you think about the way Xenoblade 3 ended, and how it teased a "true merging" of the worlds... doesn't that make you excited for what that may look like in the next game? "The way it was meant to be"...
Damn good video I do prefer 3's world design but I can definitely see your point. But I prefer 3 because it's less tedious, it feels like you're constantly finding new things, always tapping into your sense of curiosity, even if it does mean the world is less overwhelmingly massive and exciting. 1 and 2 relied on the wow factor of seeing these gigantic unbelievable locations and they're beautiful but it feels like only 20% of it is actually necessary, meanwhile 3 feels like at least 60 to 70% is necessary. That's why I prefer it, I'm not saying it's objectively better. Some people would rather have a massive gorgeous landscape, but personally I'd rather have a curated well designed area.
Honestly the only thing I dislike about Xenoblade 3's world is how every colony feels the exact same. The reused music and models for everything just make most of them completely forgettable and makes a good chunk of the side quests feel the same way.
@@ancientshiv9837 that was a huge problem I had too. People have used the argument that that’s the point, and that they’re not supposed to have identity because war and stuff, but I always thought that it was lame and did not help the story
Huh, really? I thought XC3 had the best side quests in the main series so far. They felt like little side stories for even bit characters, and were a lot more enjoyable than storyless fetch-me-seven-bear-asses. The colonies do largely look samey, but I was impressed at how they managed to make each one's culture feel unique within the world, even with all the regulations and controlled fates. You had the strategic geniuses, the bureaucracy, the neglected farmers, the pirates, the crazy bloodlusters, the conflict-adverse friends, the mecha fiends... I guess I focused more on the characters of the colonies more than the colonies themselves
I think the game was rushed. They said they didn't give Addam a face in XC2's base game because they ran out of time, and XC3 feels that way through-and-through.
The colonies are meant to be same-y but I think the environment definitely define them. A colony beneath a waterfall, one in the middle of a canyon, another in a deserted area, one built into the mountains. I think they're very interesting in a much more subtle way. I can absolutely see this criticism too, but I appreciate the colonies because they're super interesting in their own unique way. (Also the destroyed feronises are a good indication of once existing colonies, and when you find ones at the ends of Danagh Desert, one in the middle of a closed off area in Erythia Sea and on the cliffs of Rae-bel Tableland, it tells a story of what kinda environments allow the colonies to live or die, helping the idea that the Moebius really are cruel, especially when they choose an unlivable area for people to live in)
I kinda agree, but kinda don't. I feel like the colonies themselves are maybe not too varied, but the environments the colonies are in vary a lot and the side quests, at least imo, make a lot of characters in the colonies feel like distint characters. While I dont remember EVERY one, I remember a handful of characters (aside from the commander, obviously) from just about every Colony. They each just have different vibes, I guess.
"In 3, the areas are just mostly straight lines with a dent in it." While I do feel like 3's area design is a bit more lacking compared to the others, upon a replay I found that this isn't entirely true. Mostly because the something like Millick Meadows isn't entirely the Torigoth/Gaur Plains of XC3. Instead, the entire region is that area. The thing about Xenoblade 3 is instead of having the smaller and tightly design regions of 2, or the chopped up regions of 1- the game opts to go a route where said Regions are massive without much of a loading screen. Aetia is the Gaur Plains of 3. The entire Aetia region is basically meant to be a giant version of the stuff we've experienced in both of the original two games.
Also, and this is just me, but I've never really considered Millick Meadows to be the "Gaur Plains / Gormott" of Xenoblade 3; I've always viewed Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland (combined) to be the actual comparison area. Sure, I guess Ribbi Flats and Rae-Bel Tableland aren't the first big area you get to explore, but it IS the most comparable in terms of scale and vibes imo. However, I've never really thought about things in quite the way you've described, and I think it works quite well.
@@crystalcove99 I can see how Ribbi Flats and Rae-Bel Tableland matches as well. Over-all though, 3 as a whole is weird with how it's map is laid out. A lot of the areas are sot of vast but empty and largely vary by size and environmental variety. It gives Aionios this uneasy feeling, which I feel like they were trying to go for this time around- given the nature of the world itself.
One problem I have with XC3 Exploration is the fact that entrances to caves don't appear on the map, making finding them a nightmare if you exit without finding a landmark. Thank God they fixed this in FR. Also, maybe the wall problem Originated because they took inspiration from X whithout adding the long-ass jump + no fall damage ?
Personal thoughts, this design i think helps with worldbuilding, believe it or not! Between the large holes in the terrain and large walls, along with fewer initial options for area seeking, 3 places the player into a similar mindset and situation as the characters- they were merely born to fight and die, always moving forward, always focusing in the straight path ahead. But as you progress and gain field abilities, their world, perspectives, and understandings of their world changes along with your's. They become more naturally curious and generally the game's areas sorta reflect this to a degree. Millic is narrow with few ways forward, while areas like Erethya are designed more openly. Yes, its still generally one line, but there are many points of interest and areas to go through especially as the majority of field skills are at your disposal from that point on. Its meant to make the player slip into the role of the characters to a degree. Literally stuck in a world crumbling to dust while the walls keep them on their "intended" path. As you progress, the map design emphasizes choices as you go on, even in areas like Upper Aetia where there are only a small handful of distinct paths and they all more or less comnect to the same end point, there is the distinct choice of which path you choose to follow. The players and characters gain more agency as they progress, but arent truly free. Not yet.
yeah this is absolutely what they were shooting for with xenoblade 3. they committed fully to the world they had built and made almost every aspect of the game reflect it. that did make it a lot less flashy in a lot of ways compared to the others, and i can get people feeling disappointed about it or not liking it, but to deny that there is a strong intention around why it was designed the way it was would just be wrong and appreciating it for what it actually is rather than what it's not will allow for a much better experience. all these games are so different in their own ways and i appreciate monolith soft not going the easy way and just leaning into one idea that already worked. once we get more xenoblade, i feel like 3 is really gonna shine for how different it is and the attitude towards it will shift
I don't think putting Dannagh desert before Millick Meadows and Ribbi Flats would be a good idea. The upbeat atmosphere of Millick Meadows is important to establish a temporary freedom from the colonies the party escaped from. While I think Millick Meadows could have been done better I think the open areas of the fornis region were meant more to feel like areas like Gormott, Bionis leg etc on a gameplay scale(Ribbi Flats and especially its theme are really underrated imo) even though Millick Meadows has the funny monkey and bombastic field. I'd also argue the linear structure of Millick Meadows makes sense considering that even though the gang is free from the flame clock they still have to get as far away from their colonies as possible so they don't have much time to sightsee until they take refuge in Colony 4
I'm glad I wasn't the only person who felt this. The maps definitely felt more cordoned off to try and move the story forward in 3, while 1 and 2 let you help out around the camps, rewarded you with not only landmark exp but skip travels, and gave you great sights in hidden places. 3 noticably had not just a lack of skip travels but a lack of those hidden places - I only ever found one, and that was literally where a hero quest lead me to. The locations also didn't really feel dead, moreso bland. I wish the annihilation event's effects on the terrain was emphasized more in the area design, imagine if we could've climbed up the back of that lake in the desert and up some floating islands to find the charred and shattered debris of the back of Torna's neck where we fought Malos in the Golden Country levitating in the air, held in place by time's stasis and in severe disrepair from the gargoyles and the annihilation events. We'd be able to see it from on top of the mechonis structure between the two areas hinting to us that we can go there. *That* is what defines Xenoblade's map exploration to me. They had so much potential for this, and it was all wasted.
For me part of the exploration was actually just walking around and figuring out what came from _where,_ and what Titans or Bionis body parts comprised each region. Like once I realized the opening battlefield is essentially inside what was once the Gormott titan’s head, and that the Cloudkeep was where the top of it used to be, I was ALL OVER the rest of the map connecting dots.
Qualms with each of the Xenoblade series: Xenoblade 1: Fiora sounds constipated when she jumps Xenoblade 2: The clanky pace of the combat system Xenoblade 3: Melia is still depressed Xenoblade X: Unrelated to the main series
It's funny it's almost tradition, poetically, that I usually wait a couple of years after the game comes out before trying. I fell in love with Xenoblade one, got to experience that on the Wii, 3DS, and now the switch.... Xenoblade two fell in love with that game probably my favorite in the series so far. And just this last week I purchased Xenoblade 3 and I'm about four and a half hours in after all of the tutorials. I could definitely see what you're talking about when it comes to the world. However I'm loving the banter of the party, I was iffy at first but I'm definitely sold to playing a lot more. You can always criticize something you love, I hope this series goes full steam ahead. I plan on playing the future development titles.
When I was playing through Xenoblade 3 I felt like the exploration was kind of not fun. I think part of that has to do with the themes of Xenoblade 3. After all can't really build a world if the people living in said world aren't allowed to grow and are only there as pawns of war. But even outside of that I kind of hated the lack of landmarks and meaningful places to go. I think this video really helped me figure out why I wasn't a fan of this. I think Xenoblade 3 has my favorite story in the series, the areas could of used more work. This is an amazing video btw. You should do better audio balancing cause it sounds like the background music was overpowering you at some points. Outside of that good shit!
Starting to think the reason why xenoblade games are all considered perfect is because fanbase will never let you complaint or admit any problem about their games
Ngl never gave much thought to the map design difference cause aesthetically i did like it less than the others and from a gameplay perspective it did feel more polished than the others. I do admit tho the must fun i had exploring were the more open areas like that torna desert looking place and erythia sea. The snow area from an exploration point was the most disappointing on the other hand.
XC3 is my favourite game ever, but I will admit to its exploration being less engaging. I think the issue is that XC3 is game designed around 100%. Its strongest aspect is its world coming alive and interconnecting when you do every sidequest, and the world is designed to acomodate those sidequests. The linear, walled off design means FINDING sidequest objectives is an exercise in problemsolving. You have to figure out what the one correct route is, what the opening in the wall to get to where you want to be is. That's really good for when you're sidequesting, and makes XC3s sidequests more fun to play through than the first two games (a shocking amount of them have handcrafted gauntlets leading up to the objectives), but it makes aimlessly wandering around the world feel linear and dull.
Personally, 3 has my favorite exploration. I tend to get overwhelmed quite easily, so Guar Plains was absolutely a nightmare for me, especially being so early. I very much prefer keeping the early game areas small, which allows me to focus on gameplay and getting used to the flow of things, like the combat and the story. 3 also has, in my opinion, the most interesting and engaging story and NPCs in any game I've ever played. This was the first game I actively went out of my way to do side quests, read all of the dialogue of those side quests, all because I wanted to help these people. Xenoblade 1 and 2 are littered with a lot of "Go find 5 of those" "Go kill 8 of these" types of quests. Xenoblade 1 definitely takes second place in exploration though. I think the biggest thing that Xenoblade 2 lacked was not having much of a sense of progression. In 1, I could look down and see how high I've climbed the Bionis or Mechonis, in 3, when I got to High Aetia and saw Colony 9 and these other places, I thought that was awesome. And the Urayan Mountains and Swordmarch in the distances allowed me to constantly get a feel for where everything was in the world. I had a lot of fun finding other colonies, then opening the big map that showed where it was. It gave me a true sense of progression, just like Xenoblade 1. Xenoblade 2 has *some* of those moments, but not nearly as much. If I could've seen other titans I've been to in the distance, I maybe would've liked it a bit more. Xenoblade 3 also made me feel so much more than 1 and 2 honestly. The only thing I didn't really like about Xenoblade 3 was the whole warning system? That felt entirely pointless. I was at max pretty much the whole game and didn't really feel anything substantial. But the Mechon in 1 just sort of pop in every now and then, and in 2, I'm getting *told* that these titans are dying, and I see it happen once, and I *hear* about all these problems, but I never really see them. Everyone just kinda does their own thing, minds their own business. The major problems of the world just aren't portrayed in my opinion. Whereas in 3, I'm actively seeing how the Flame Clocks affect people mentally. Finding husks all over the place and sending them off, freeing them from this and watching them struggle to figure out what they're even supposed to do anymore. Xenoblade 3 never really had any slow moments for me. I always wanted to keep going, to keep helping people, to see what the heck was even going on, but 1 and 2 felt a bit sidetracked. I was constantly coming up with theories and trying to figure out what was happening in 3, but 1 and 2, I didn't really feel that until the last few chapters. While I think it's fair to say the opening area of 3 is the smallest and has the least to do in it, it's definitely better for me personally.
XB3 felt like it was building up to some massive reveal that never came. Both story and world ended up seeming like a terminal case of mostly unfulfilling member-berries. Oh hey it’s Fallen Arm (nobody comments on how unnatural a giant mechanical hand is). Oh hey it’s obvious ruins of a very architecturally distinct city inside an empty mine (Fonsa Myma) and again no interesting discussion even from an incorrect lore perspective like in XB1 satorl marsh. Up until the endgame I was expecting we’d find a second city or at least an abandoned ruined hidden base of XB1/2 protags/descendants that would make everything click since that’s a staple of 1&2. We kinda get this in the DLC but the base game really needed a World Tree moment or at least more characters who were clued in and could drop exposition before the literal post game like a certain cat girl
For me, Future Redeemed's gameplay and mechanics were PERFECT. Making every single element in the map useful and rewarding with the collectopaedia made easily want to go for the 100%, I hope they keep it like that for next games.
I hate how much time I've spent on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and will continue to with replays in the future Nothing will top Xenoblade Chronicles X world tho
I totally agree with you. I prefer the open square maps with open area's filled with things to look at and run to, like gormott and uraya. That's what I love about Xenoblade 2's world, each titan is a wide area in an enclosed space, but it stil feels giant. The only thing I disagree with is when you said that Xenoblade 3's walls are less deteiled then 1 and 2. Like most of xenoblade 3's world, it has the most detail out of the trilogy, the walls in 1 are mostly just blurred 2011 game walls, and Xenoblade 2 barely has any not man-made walls meant to serve only as a barrier, so it's hard to make that comparison, but they're about the same detail as xenoblade 3. Overall Xenoblade 3's world is my least favorite world to explore but I still love it. And story-wise, it makes sense how non diverse the geography is, considering the world is in the shape of an ouroboros. (also I know it doesn't matter but I'm your 300'th sub so that's cool)
I really didn’t know how to explain the walls visually, all I can say is I adore how they look in 1 and 2 but in 3 I think they’re kind of hideous. It’s a weird phenomenon probably only I have but i think it comes with not really caring for 3s art style
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 isn't it the same art style as xc2, just with a different world direction? Maybe it's just me but when I like at the geographical art style of 2 and 3 like the rock details I see essentially the same thing. I get that though, the worlds themselves regardless of art style are very different
I feel like the reason the devs felt like they had to do this was to make sure the world resembles and ouroboros which makes sense but it would have been nice to have more square areas i agree
I think Xeno’s exploration gameplay-wise (mostly movement) has always been the weakest aspect of the series. Not that i judge it too hard because the time was obviously spent elsewhere. However the floaty, mostly uninteresting movement and wide open terrain are usually made up for by all of the interesting big things to look at in the backgrounds of the levels. In both 1 and 2, unless it’s a cave there’s always something really cool or interesting to look at while you’re running around the so vast, empty levels don’t hurt them as much. 3’s just feels kinda weird since it doesn’t follow that trend and kinda just merges all of the fantastical 3D-ness of the settings in the last two and just makes them a flat circle with normal-looking terrain, with some noticeable landmarks. Again, in the last two EVERYWHERE you go is notable. Sue me but I think 3 should’ve done something crazy and made the endless now just feel like a super F’d up alien environment since it’s basically the last two worlds on the precipice of clipping and colliding with each other and destroying one another. I hope I don’t have to explain how many cool things you can do with that and XBC3 just… doesn’t. Hear me out… Fortnite. lol. The Fortnite setting is the perfect analogy to what xeno 3 should’ve been- a bubble of collided landmass floating in the cosmos stabilized by a powerful magic sphere. Sound familiar? Just make the terrain crazy by having the bionis, mechonis, and titans all floating in space, colliding with each other and frozen in time during the process of ripping each other apart due to their sheer mass. Make the skybox look like the cosmos during both the day and the night and have gravity localized to the landmass you’re currently on, meaning you can still have the wacky ouroboros circle but it can be a cool 3D kinda-circle where you look UP at the places you were instead of a flat boring one. Great Xenoblade settings need larger than life 3D vertical environments imo. Anyway monolithsoft hire me i have many more great ideas like xenoblade sex update
Always Though Aionios felt really boring without the awe the Bionis/Mechonis had or the actual life Alrest was given. Especially with Alrest there was so much attention to detail with various camps, hidden areas, unique features that tied the nations to the titans, just generally good world building. And then there is Aionios, a world built on an amalgamation of the histories of the world we care for, and a History of it's own, yet we see so little of it. With every reference to 1&2 I felt so disappointed when I realised it was nothing more then a background detail with no substance to it, maybe an enemy name reference. First when I realised there was Nothing beautiful or interesting left to Uraya. Then when Mor Ardain's titan was but a hand in the background. When I realised the Agnian Castle was at the head of t he Bionis yet this legendary feature was such a negligible background detail. Outside of the City, the area where we first get the Ouroboros, and Makna/Morytha forest so much felt so bland, lifeless and forgettable. Characters in 1&2 Would react to the world around them, we'd wonder what tf are the High Entia statues in Satorl Marsh, why the Bionis has a beating heart, or why are the High Entia ancestors so advanced. In 2 it would be how the characters would be the reaction to the warships, the bustle of Gormott, the poor land quality of the Mor ardain, the lack of crops in Tantal, and everything about Morytha and Torna. The areas just felt respected as real places with History. All of Aionios in comparison just feels like some nameless routes, without any interest to them, like nothing ever happened there, with the exception of Makna/Morytha and right before Urayan mines where Eunie had her flashback. Nothing of note ever happened in any other area EVER as far as I'm concerned. I get that's kind of the plot of 3, where Mobius are keeping the Soldiers unaware of everything and hiding history, but like, did the story had to make them so flawlessly successful at it? No Records? No Failed sites? No hidden labs trying to fix broken Sirens or researching the Mechonis? Not even a really nice area of Uraya's tail or remains of Garfontt village as a second city? Rant over, great video, made me want to express my biggest issue with this game
I Believe that the problem with what you wanted Is that the big reveal about Who you and the mobius really are comes Just before the Sea. At that point you have a HUGE map to Explore and tbf there are many hidden things that call back to previous games, but at that point the only Maps you have to explore are that and the mountain and the only exploration skills you get are the boat (which tbf you can't bring in other places and doesn't really do much) and poison walk. They could have added more poison areas to cut off exploration to Hide stuff, but that would get the game called a poison swamp simulator. I think that adding One other exploration skill would have helped a lot in hiding stuff in old Maps
@@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 What do you mean by "who you and the mobius really are"? We've known they're bad guys orchestrating the war, messing with the soldiers perception of reality and obscuring facts since the cast becomes Ouroboros. I don't think the ideas I have for making the continuity from the previous games more present in the world had to be necessarily tied with exploration that's blocked off from the player, in fact the opposite really, it should've been a constant reward for the players exploring as far as I'm concerned.
@@Adam_Zielinski no, I mean about the fact that moebius are ex soldiers and all work under Z and that they are doing this shit since time long past. this stuff is all discovered between eunie's quest, the castle of keves and the meeting with the people of the city. the party discovers who they are and the fact that they have been living a lie only when meeting with the people of the city, before they were still seeking answers. having too many hints around the map or worse, a hidden camp making research that knows what's going on but doesn't tell the gang, would make the revelation a little bit redundant and lose a lot of impact, and since the whole section of keves castle and the sword is one of the one I like more, I'm afraid changing it around all those hints may work badly. but who know, we can just say "if" and on "if" nothing was ever built
"if you see something you want to go to you're going to have to find a specific path on unlike Xenoblade one and two" I definitely disagree with this sentiment. Especially with xc2. Umon shipyard, the broken down factory in mor Adain. That's not even mentioning the side quests. Xenoblade two had so many parts in the game where you had to go through a very specific path to continue going and checking things out. In fact I thought it was very annoying and too. So many times I had to look up guys cuz I could not figure out how to get to a certain area I saw from a distance
Not to mention the many field skill checks that stop you from exploring interesting paths until you grind the gacha mechanics enough and rearrange your entire party
When I said going along a specific path, I meant more for general exploration. I actually quite like those moments in 2 because they feel like hikes more so, while still offering multiple routes. I was more talking about the general exploration in 3, rather than linear story moments
I think the main thing that should be taken away from this video is that not having enough skip travel points is a huge problem, especially in certain Xenoblade games.
@@maynardburger I don't personally have a problem with it and i wouldn't add very many new skip travel points anyway, (if i could) so that isn't true in my case. But in general, don't be ridiculous, there's a reason that skip traveling exists! You manually travel your way to a certain landmark, and you can skip travel back there quickly, whenever. It's a convenience thing. Just because people want more skip travel points does NOT at all mean that they don't like manual traveling, especially since manual traveling is what unlocks skip travel points in the first place... 🤷♂️🤦♂️ It sounds like you'd prefer there to be NO skip travel points... that, or you're just blindly hating, for... some reason???
Neither of these games got anything on Xenoblade X's maps and traversal mechanics. They are so much inferior I can't even replay Xenoblade 1~3 without getting bored and turning Xenoblade X on instead. I have THOUSANDS of hours doing on foot parkour in XCX and I STILL discover new ways to get to new places, some of which were thought impossible even almost 10 years after the game's release. Basically, XCX is the premium vertical open world experience with the finesse of mechanics not unlike Super Mario 64 or old school Tomb Raiders. I wish MonolithSoft would give us something like this again otherwise I'm done with the mainline games and their clunky, sad little jump without any stakes.
The whole time watching this I just kept thinking “all these problems are fixed if you play Xenoblade X” lol It blows this whole trilogy out of the water in terms of exploration
I honestly think one of the biggest things that makes Xenoblade 3's areas *seem* less exciting is the more subdued soundtrack. If you took away Gaur Plains GOAT-level theme music, it really wouldn't hit as hard. Even moreso if it wasn't your first Xenoblade game. It's big and beautiful, but also soooo much empty space and a bit of a chore to actually explore or backtrack through. But that music carries it so much, my god.
Those maps would be better if the game had better movement like SMT V otherwise they don't work too well. That's why I can't stop thinking that those maps will be better for something like Xenoblade X. Suddenly you get more verticallity with the Skell's jump before being able to flight
I definitely agree with the funnel design to the maps, always felt like your always on the run Needing to get through the area fast to Mach the story. Personally I think the story has for more to criticize than the world design when directly comparing to 1&2. Would love to hear that 2hr review!
Actually, the story was my favorite part of the entire game, and probably the only part I’d potentially put above 2. But believe me I’d love to discuss that as well!
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 My main issue was it had too many missing details left out until the DLC, where 1 and 2 had a complete story without requiring DLC, though that may be my preference for full stories without required DLC to fill the holes
@@robertwallen1582 even with the dlc 3 still has too many holes left open for a sequel, I prefer how xenoblade 2 has actual closure to everything, especially with torna. 3 didn't surpass any aspect of 2 whatsoever for me. 2 still has the best combat system to me, has the best maps, most beautiful and memorable locations, best exploration where you can find chests everywhere, best worldbuilding, best story, best main cast, best villains, best character development, best overall music soundtrack with shared motiff, etc, and I've played all the xenoblades and their dlcs, including xenoblade x. also I know alot in this comment section are trying to claim xenoblade 3 has better exploration because its challenging, thats false, theres no point in making the exploration challenging if theres no big rewards to find in every hidden spot on the map, and xenoblade 3 had none of that in base 3, all you could find was supply drops and nopon containers and it was lame, future redeemed felt more like xenoblade 2 where you could find chests everywhere. xenoblade x also is more like xenoblade 2 than 3, while its true xenoblade x gates alot from you with walls til you have the flying skell, it also has hidden items and other treasures everywhere like xenoblade 2, x and 2 both reward you more for your exploration, whereas base 3 does not.
I think you pose some fair points here, but I personally find comparing Bionis Leg to JUST Millick Meadows to be a bit of a disingenuous comparison. Personally, I don't consider Millick Meadows to be the real "Bionis Leg / Gormott" area in XC3, but rather that should go to Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland (combined, because of how similar they are and how they practically overlap, in the same way the upper and lower parts of Bionis Leg and Gormott are). Sure, Millick Meadows is the typical "first open grassy area" that you explore, but comparing it to Bionis Leg and Gormott is a bit unfair; Millick Meadows is one of the smaller and more simplistic areas in XC3, whereas Bionis Leg and Gormott are some of the larger and more expansive areas in their respective games. It's like if you tried comparing Bionis Leg to Cliffs of Morytha. Furthermore, if we are going to compare to Millick Meadows, why are we constricting ourself to JUST Millick Meadows when it's connected directly to other areas in the Aetia Region? I wanna be clear that, even though XC3 is my favorite game in the series, I still do think the areas are generally a bit of a step down from XC1 and XC2, at least in specific comparisons. I mention comparing Bionis Leg / Gormott to Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland instead, but that doesn't mean I think it's *better* than those areas. And I can't help but feel a bit sad that the absolutely stellar Urayan Titan in XC2 is so dull and limited in XC3, even if it is for lore purposes. Probably my biggest issue is something you mention: the general lifeless feel of Aionios in comparison to Bionis and Alrest. I think just adding more flora to many areas could've gone a long way to making Aionios much more fun to explore. For example, Syra Hovering Reefs might be my least favorite area in the whole game because sure, I guess it's SUPPOSED to be pretty lifeless, but just imagine how gorgeous it would've been if we had floating islands full of grass, trees, and other flora as opposed to a bunch of barren rocks.
I totally didn’t even think of the flora, that would have helped me too. Also, thinking back to Ribbi Flats, that area has a lot of similar problems too millick meadows, you basically go straight forwards, climb up the mountain, do a loop at the top, and then move on. I just specifically chose millick meadows because to me that was the games first big area. That was the area they had been building up to too wow me. Ribbi flats is so much later in the game I basically consider it gaur plains attempt 2, or millick meadows 2.
I don't think that comparing those 2 maps is really fair. True, both are the big field map with the huge monkey (jingoist gigantus ain't shit tho, rotbart supremacy), a staple of the series, but just like you said it isn't really good, espacially compared to gaur plains. However, can you say the same about other xb3 areas? This theory works here, alright, but on the rest of the game? Just take the map before with the cliffs and the lake and the red grass zone and the sand and all that or the one next with the arid enviroment and the desert. Both are really good map, with tons of exploration and tons of activities. I know of many people that ended up exploring so much that they ended up level 40 before reaching the saffronia tree (which in itself is a problem about this game, but that's a different question). I think this analysis ended a bit quickly and didn't really question itself on its validity.
@@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 fair enough, I personally think the red grass area also felt very hallway like but I didn’t mind it then because it was part of the intro. I would say every level felt very linear and wall heavy, even the desert and forest areas. As far as the essay not answering itself, I just suck at writing lol
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 not Just the intro, but the colony and other areas like the lake Just below the mountain. It feels like a big enough area. It's Say that makta feels Linear if you Just do the story? But there are many optional areas, a good distribution of levels from enemy (both on the bridge and in the separation tree/ground) and a good mixup of nature and Urban. I think that One really isn't Linear. But don't worry, everyone gets Better by Just doing stuff, this Is a stepping Stone. An advice I can give that comes from One of the greatest philosophers Is to Always think what someone trying to disprove your argument would Say and see if you can refute their claims; that Will build up your argument into a strong One.
I enjoy the story of this game but I really couldn’t care less about exploration or fighting the monsters in this game. After playing Witcher 3 and games like that, I just don’t care about the open world here
Got an 80hr chap5 save file I left behind because I was so bored with the exploration and tired of the characters monologuing at one another, and fed up with chaos of the fights that end with the tedium of the combo. But I already bought the game, so why not try again from the start because I don't remember the mechanics anymore. My god, the environment really is boring.
You do realize Aionios is supposed to be the worlds of xenoblade 1 and 2 mashed, or colliding together, frozen in a moment of time right? They aren't going to be the exact same way you remember them because they aren't supposed to be. I get some of your overall criticisms of the visuals, but it's really not fair to try and hold one particular area's structure in Xenoblade 3 to how they looked and functioned in the past games, heck, I was just happy to reminisce around "Colony 9" again in Future Redeemed.
@@Crest_Expert I wouldnt go as far as to call it that but it definitely felt very non Xenoblade my first time playing it, and it’s the one I have the least emotional attachment too
Though I think it's a given that 1 and 2 are praised and debated on their stories, worlds, music, and battle systems (with fans of 2 saying it's the best due to its complexity). And yeah they're older so inevitably they get discussed more compared to 3, which is now 2 years old
Sorry but this is a pretty bad analysis of the world design in the games. if you look more closely at the trilogy as a whole you'd find all three of them tend to funnel the player down a particular path. every game has its tunnel linear areas, but even the most open ended areas have their beaten paths and when you get around to continuing the story, you're going to end up on that beaten path many times. and you're giving 3 a hard time when the other games are just as guilty of it. for instance, you criticize Erythia sea for its islands being linear but take no consideration that the areas that one is a combination of are both largely made of tiny islands connected by single linear paths. Both Eryth sea and Leftheria are be no stretch "non-linear" in their design or exploration. To justify one dead end having bunnits as being good, but not consider anything at all in the other comes off a bit disingenuous too. Its not that Xenoblade 3s areas are designed badly or that there isn't anything to find or do in them. there's a fair bit actually. The reason why I find its a worse experience comes down to a couple of reasons that aren't the fault of its map design. The first being the general story structure of 3. In 1 and 2, there would be lots of points where the story would make you take specific paths and head toward certain points of interest across its areas, especially its more open ones and often times you'd get some additional story peppered in. take for instance Uraya in 2 where after reaching Garfont it sends you down a path towards the blowhole before bringing you back then sending you towards the capitol. which the path requires a detour in order to remove a blockage. the path itself is fairly linear but its sending you to a wider range of locations in the area. In Xenobalde 3, it doesn't do this as much. most of 3s story is unloaded at the beginning or end of the chapters leaving a bulk of the time between just getting through the area to the point of interest. it won't as often lead you towards several different corners of its areas to progress the story as much as 1 and 2 did. This leads into the second point i think where 3, base game that is, doesn't incentivize you to explore its areas. compared to 1 and 2 where growth of your characters or abilities were more dependent on exploring and doing things out in the world. 1 practically forced you to do sidequests if you wanted to keep your level up and through beating unique monsters you could find especially powerful gear and more importantly manuals to improve your arts further. 2 had the blade system and affinity charts which required you to go out and do various things in the world if you wanted to improve your blades or get more of them. and everything you accomplished in these games would also translate to points you could use to power up abilities in what order you saw fit. Base game 3 in comparison provides barely any incentive to explore. The gear you could acquire was never really as good as what you could simply buy, expanding and improving your characters was now entirely relegated to leveling them up and the big thing to find, the classes, were always found by these big glowing yellow markers on the map telling you to go there and no where else. even powering up those classes had nothing to do with really exploring or doing anything other than fighting enemies. which if you spend too much time doing so would be easy to find yourself overleveled thanks to the level curve of the game. Its why FR is so much better in its exploration compared to base 3 despite their area designs not being all that different. because FR gave you all the incentive to explore and do things in its areas because everything relied on it. from expanding arts and accessories, to powerful chain accessories, to leveling up and learning arts and skills. it required investment into its world.
I'd argue that this game was designed, beginning to end, in such a way to grab new players to the franchise (people like me who started with 3). I appreciated the linearity of the story as that was what I was most interested in. After I'd gotten hooked on the story at the end of Chapter 1, I just wanted more story. By the time I met Valdi and Colony 30, I was finally ready to backtrack, do sidequests, and explore a little. Sure the world is a mishmash of 1 and 2, but new players don't know how Millick compares to Gaur or Gormott. Neither the brand new player nor the characters know anything of what came before. A brand new player exploring Aionios really feels like Noah and the gang. In contrast, I believe Future Redeemed was designed especially for fans of the franchise. You *can* play FR before 1 and 2 (as I did), but you miss out on so much context. What I think XC3 does well is make a brand new player who finishes the game go, "Why did it have to split apart? What are these two worlds the queens were talking about? How did this all start?" I played 1 and 2, but did not really connect with some of the design choices like Machina or rare Blades. I'm rambling now, but I think maybe exploration suffered in 3 because it was designed for new players with story first in mind.
Yeah a lot of xenoblade 3s “problems” are just designed a certain way because of the story I know that doesn’t make said design good but there is a reason for it
Let's face it, XC3 was disappointing in every aspect of the game. Dull exploration, corny story, lame characters, boring battles, &c. None of these 3 games is in the same league as XCX, the best of the franchise by miles.
I dunno I just liked Xenoblade 3 a lot more, never put any further thought into it Only thing that distinctly was better for me was I never felt like I was playing a borderline porn game, which 2 made me feel like a couple times
as a counterpoint to your "Walls" complaint- those "Walls" are actually my favorite part of exploration in games that make good use of them. You seem to focus a lot on the content to find and the ease of getting to that content, but to me that isn't the exploration itself- that is the reward for the exploration. In your Gaur Plains example, you really focused on these rewards and how easy it is to get to them, but if you break down the actual "gameplay" of the exploration part, it's just holding your stick in a direction until you reach the desired spot, no further thinking needed.
Good exploration encourages pathfinding- that feeling of "I see where I want to go, but how am I going to get there?!" Where instead of just seeing something and walking there without resistance, you have to scan the rest of the environment to identify a path that will actually lead you there. It increases my engagement and immersion in the environment, and makes the act of actually navigating more interesting than when I can just walk there unchallenged and unhindered. Especially compared to Xenoblade 1 where so much of it is relatively flat, lateral space. Xenoblade X did this masterfully, which is why it still has the best exploration in the series- many quest objectives would have you go to an area that you couldn't just reach by easily walking there. You would have to pathfind around, sometimes by tremendous distances (quests that require being on Oblivia/Noctillum highground, I'm looking at you especially) to find a path that wasn't immediately apparent to reach your destination. This largely goes away after getting your flight module, but if you have been doing all the quests, you will have navigated to all of those points already anyway.
@@CramerGamer99 This is a great counterpoint, I did think of this while writing but decided not to include it because I wanted to hear why other people enjoy it more and this is a fantastic argument. I totally agree with what you say as well, that’s why I think 3 has the best exploration from a gameplay perspective. But you put it in a really thought provoking and digestible way, goated comment!
Have you ever realized that the map of Xenoblade 3 forms an ouroboros
@@qrowthebird7496 yes I did, it’s a really cool detail!
Still wish it was a titan tho…
You mean a circle? I don't think it's that deep.
@@rhettoricalNo, an Ouroboros, with Uraya being the head of the snake.
@@lemmyxproI always thought the Bionis head was the head of the snake
@@OwnageMancer Nah, it's not, because Uraya's mouth is gaping open and it actually looks like it could be biting its "tail", (or the land where it's tail would be) just like the snake in an ouroboros does. This is unlike the Bionis' head, in which's case, there isn't even any land straight ahead in front of it, and the Bionis doesn't really have a mouth, even, or anything that looks like it could be one, really, and the Bionis' head is destroyed enough to the point where the place where it's mouth WOULD be is mostly gone.
Some people also suggested that Melnath's head (Captocorn Peak) is the head of the snake before, but the supporting evidence for it being the head of the snake that makes up the ouroboros is just as weak as the evidence for the Bionis' head, pretty much.
I can agree Millick Meadows is the weakest grassland area they've made so far. But I still love Cotte Falls, Maktha Wildwoods, and especially Erythia Sea. I love the pirate colony with Triton and the oomfie colony with Fiona. The linearity of the individual islands make them feel like puzzles to figure out how to traverse to the center for the treasure, like a pirate, or like Wind Waker.
Thing is, Millick Meadows was only like a small teaser for their more grand 'grassland' area in Yzana Plains. I feel like Millick Meadows was more like the ending of the tutorial stage of the game before it really opened up and was like, "Ok, here's what we really got". And it worked great for me in that regard. XC3 needed this kind of longer tutorial setup because of its complexity and all the complaints about XC2.
@@maynardburger Yzana plains was before Millick Meadows. Millick Meadows is chapter 2.
The world if Xenoblade 3 didn’t reset the time to day every time you fast traveled:
That was patched
It wasnt @@beeswaxnano
@@ZComma it was, you just pick the place and press l or r to pick the time: morning, day, evening, night
@@beeswaxnano it doesn't do it automatically like in fr
I definitely prefer the Xenoblade approach to 'open' worlds than BotW/TotK. The stories are way better because of the linearity. I do think they could've done a better job of keeping you on that path without just bumping into invisible walls, but even with them I enjoyed XC3 a million times more than I enjoyed TotK.
What about Xenoblade X?
@@ThePedroLippi I didn't enjoy X as much as the main series, I enjoyed the gameplay more than 1 and the story in X was fine, but I was burned by all the unanswered questions it set up.
In terms of the actual story elements, I think the side quests in X are second only to 3's, and maaaybe behind the Blade quests specifically from 2 (most side quests in 2 aren't that great, but the Blade quests were good).
I prefer the more linear approach that 1, 2 and 3 had where you get large open zone after large open zone, as opposed to the whole world is open but the main story is linear within that world, but I could accept that approach from X in an 'open world' Zelda game, if it would make the story actually decent. I enjoyed the main plot of X for what it was, it just didn't have as many memorable moments as the other games did because there were fewer cutscenes and it was harder to make going to a new place for the story a huge deal when you'd already been there.
Well apart from x Xenoblade are not an open world games. They have expansive maps.
@@itsasecrettoeverybody Basically, yeah.
I can actually say I agree a fair bit with your views! I'd actually say for me personally, that other than the inferior environments (imo), Xenoblade 3 is actually my favourite of the trilogy, HOWEVER, I do also believe that the way Xenoblade 3 is with its exploration and environmental traversal is an intentional design decision in order to make you feel trapped and limited with your options, reflecting the same narrative of our protagonists being on the run.
In Xenoblade 1 and 2, our protagonists are fighting because they want to save the world they love. We feel this love for the world in the very design itself and want to live in each one.
In Xenoblade 3, our protagonists actually learn to despise the world, and even threaten it's very existence for oppressing them for so long. I think it's very ammusing because as fans of the series, when we learnt that the world of Xenoblade 3 was a culmination of 1 and 2's worlds, we likely had the expectation that we would love it equally, if not more than those two, but instead, something was "wrong". The world is bleak. The beauty in it is rare and fleeting. The very method in which these two worlds had joined together was more like that of a natural disaster trying to build a house. If we want to think about things that way, and we really do consider the circumstances and "love" characters have for each of their worlds... it makes a whole lot more sense on why 3 is built the way it is. It leaves us "wanting"...
So, with all that considered, if you think about the way Xenoblade 3 ended, and how it teased a "true merging" of the worlds... doesn't that make you excited for what that may look like in the next game?
"The way it was meant to be"...
@@TheFrostedfirefly absolutely makes me excited, I can’t even imagine what 4s world will look like. Thank you for the comment!
Damn good video
I do prefer 3's world design but I can definitely see your point.
But I prefer 3 because it's less tedious, it feels like you're constantly finding new things, always tapping into your sense of curiosity, even if it does mean the world is less overwhelmingly massive and exciting.
1 and 2 relied on the wow factor of seeing these gigantic unbelievable locations and they're beautiful but it feels like only 20% of it is actually necessary, meanwhile 3 feels like at least 60 to 70% is necessary.
That's why I prefer it, I'm not saying it's objectively better. Some people would rather have a massive gorgeous landscape, but personally I'd rather have a curated well designed area.
Honestly the only thing I dislike about Xenoblade 3's world is how every colony feels the exact same. The reused music and models for everything just make most of them completely forgettable and makes a good chunk of the side quests feel the same way.
@@ancientshiv9837 that was a huge problem I had too. People have used the argument that that’s the point, and that they’re not supposed to have identity because war and stuff, but I always thought that it was lame and did not help the story
Huh, really? I thought XC3 had the best side quests in the main series so far. They felt like little side stories for even bit characters, and were a lot more enjoyable than storyless fetch-me-seven-bear-asses.
The colonies do largely look samey, but I was impressed at how they managed to make each one's culture feel unique within the world, even with all the regulations and controlled fates. You had the strategic geniuses, the bureaucracy, the neglected farmers, the pirates, the crazy bloodlusters, the conflict-adverse friends, the mecha fiends...
I guess I focused more on the characters of the colonies more than the colonies themselves
I think the game was rushed. They said they didn't give Addam a face in XC2's base game because they ran out of time, and XC3 feels that way through-and-through.
The colonies are meant to be same-y but I think the environment definitely define them.
A colony beneath a waterfall, one in the middle of a canyon, another in a deserted area, one built into the mountains. I think they're very interesting in a much more subtle way.
I can absolutely see this criticism too, but I appreciate the colonies because they're super interesting in their own unique way. (Also the destroyed feronises are a good indication of once existing colonies, and when you find ones at the ends of Danagh Desert, one in the middle of a closed off area in Erythia Sea and on the cliffs of Rae-bel Tableland, it tells a story of what kinda environments allow the colonies to live or die, helping the idea that the Moebius really are cruel, especially when they choose an unlivable area for people to live in)
I kinda agree, but kinda don't. I feel like the colonies themselves are maybe not too varied, but the environments the colonies are in vary a lot and the side quests, at least imo, make a lot of characters in the colonies feel like distint characters. While I dont remember EVERY one, I remember a handful of characters (aside from the commander, obviously) from just about every Colony. They each just have different vibes, I guess.
"In 3, the areas are just mostly straight lines with a dent in it."
While I do feel like 3's area design is a bit more lacking compared to the others, upon a replay I found that this isn't entirely true. Mostly because the something like Millick Meadows isn't entirely the Torigoth/Gaur Plains of XC3. Instead, the entire region is that area. The thing about Xenoblade 3 is instead of having the smaller and tightly design regions of 2, or the chopped up regions of 1- the game opts to go a route where said Regions are massive without much of a loading screen. Aetia is the Gaur Plains of 3. The entire Aetia region is basically meant to be a giant version of the stuff we've experienced in both of the original two games.
Also, and this is just me, but I've never really considered Millick Meadows to be the "Gaur Plains / Gormott" of Xenoblade 3; I've always viewed Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland (combined) to be the actual comparison area. Sure, I guess Ribbi Flats and Rae-Bel Tableland aren't the first big area you get to explore, but it IS the most comparable in terms of scale and vibes imo. However, I've never really thought about things in quite the way you've described, and I think it works quite well.
@@crystalcove99 I can see how Ribbi Flats and Rae-Bel Tableland matches as well. Over-all though, 3 as a whole is weird with how it's map is laid out. A lot of the areas are sot of vast but empty and largely vary by size and environmental variety. It gives Aionios this uneasy feeling, which I feel like they were trying to go for this time around- given the nature of the world itself.
Yet the execution still falls flat due to the limitations of switch hardware. I think the first two games approach actually works towards that favor.
One problem I have with XC3 Exploration is the fact that entrances to caves don't appear on the map, making finding them a nightmare if you exit without finding a landmark. Thank God they fixed this in FR.
Also, maybe the wall problem Originated because they took inspiration from X whithout adding the long-ass jump + no fall damage ?
Personal thoughts, this design i think helps with worldbuilding, believe it or not! Between the large holes in the terrain and large walls, along with fewer initial options for area seeking, 3 places the player into a similar mindset and situation as the characters- they were merely born to fight and die, always moving forward, always focusing in the straight path ahead. But as you progress and gain field abilities, their world, perspectives, and understandings of their world changes along with your's. They become more naturally curious and generally the game's areas sorta reflect this to a degree.
Millic is narrow with few ways forward, while areas like Erethya are designed more openly. Yes, its still generally one line, but there are many points of interest and areas to go through especially as the majority of field skills are at your disposal from that point on.
Its meant to make the player slip into the role of the characters to a degree. Literally stuck in a world crumbling to dust while the walls keep them on their "intended" path. As you progress, the map design emphasizes choices as you go on, even in areas like Upper Aetia where there are only a small handful of distinct paths and they all more or less comnect to the same end point, there is the distinct choice of which path you choose to follow. The players and characters gain more agency as they progress, but arent truly free. Not yet.
@@NeverBetter23 that is a very interesting way of looking at it! I’m not sure I ever considered this, thank you for sharing!
yeah this is absolutely what they were shooting for with xenoblade 3. they committed fully to the world they had built and made almost every aspect of the game reflect it. that did make it a lot less flashy in a lot of ways compared to the others, and i can get people feeling disappointed about it or not liking it, but to deny that there is a strong intention around why it was designed the way it was would just be wrong and appreciating it for what it actually is rather than what it's not will allow for a much better experience. all these games are so different in their own ways and i appreciate monolith soft not going the easy way and just leaning into one idea that already worked. once we get more xenoblade, i feel like 3 is really gonna shine for how different it is and the attitude towards it will shift
I don't think putting Dannagh desert before Millick Meadows and Ribbi Flats would be a good idea. The upbeat atmosphere of Millick Meadows is important to establish a temporary freedom from the colonies the party escaped from. While I think Millick Meadows could have been done better I think the open areas of the fornis region were meant more to feel like areas like Gormott, Bionis leg etc on a gameplay scale(Ribbi Flats and especially its theme are really underrated imo) even though Millick Meadows has the funny monkey and bombastic field. I'd also argue the linear structure of Millick Meadows makes sense considering that even though the gang is free from the flame clock they still have to get as far away from their colonies as possible so they don't have much time to sightsee until they take refuge in Colony 4
I'm glad I wasn't the only person who felt this. The maps definitely felt more cordoned off to try and move the story forward in 3, while 1 and 2 let you help out around the camps, rewarded you with not only landmark exp but skip travels, and gave you great sights in hidden places. 3 noticably had not just a lack of skip travels but a lack of those hidden places - I only ever found one, and that was literally where a hero quest lead me to. The locations also didn't really feel dead, moreso bland. I wish the annihilation event's effects on the terrain was emphasized more in the area design, imagine if we could've climbed up the back of that lake in the desert and up some floating islands to find the charred and shattered debris of the back of Torna's neck where we fought Malos in the Golden Country levitating in the air, held in place by time's stasis and in severe disrepair from the gargoyles and the annihilation events. We'd be able to see it from on top of the mechonis structure between the two areas hinting to us that we can go there. *That* is what defines Xenoblade's map exploration to me. They had so much potential for this, and it was all wasted.
For me part of the exploration was actually just walking around and figuring out what came from _where,_ and what Titans or Bionis body parts comprised each region. Like once I realized the opening battlefield is essentially inside what was once the Gormott titan’s head, and that the Cloudkeep was where the top of it used to be, I was ALL OVER the rest of the map connecting dots.
Qualms with each of the Xenoblade series:
Xenoblade 1: Fiora sounds constipated when she jumps
Xenoblade 2: The clanky pace of the combat system
Xenoblade 3: Melia is still depressed
Xenoblade X: Unrelated to the main series
It's funny it's almost tradition, poetically, that I usually wait a couple of years after the game comes out before trying. I fell in love with Xenoblade one, got to experience that on the Wii, 3DS, and now the switch.... Xenoblade two fell in love with that game probably my favorite in the series so far. And just this last week I purchased Xenoblade 3 and I'm about four and a half hours in after all of the tutorials. I could definitely see what you're talking about when it comes to the world. However I'm loving the banter of the party, I was iffy at first but I'm definitely sold to playing a lot more. You can always criticize something you love, I hope this series goes full steam ahead. I plan on playing the future development titles.
When I was playing through Xenoblade 3 I felt like the exploration was kind of not fun. I think part of that has to do with the themes of Xenoblade 3. After all can't really build a world if the people living in said world aren't allowed to grow and are only there as pawns of war. But even outside of that I kind of hated the lack of landmarks and meaningful places to go. I think this video really helped me figure out why I wasn't a fan of this. I think Xenoblade 3 has my favorite story in the series, the areas could of used more work. This is an amazing video btw. You should do better audio balancing cause it sounds like the background music was overpowering you at some points. Outside of that good shit!
Starting to think the reason why xenoblade games are all considered perfect is because fanbase will never let you complaint or admit any problem about their games
Ngl never gave much thought to the map design difference cause aesthetically i did like it less than the others and from a gameplay perspective it did feel more polished than the others. I do admit tho the must fun i had exploring were the more open areas like that torna desert looking place and erythia sea. The snow area from an exploration point was the most disappointing on the other hand.
XC3 is my favourite game ever, but I will admit to its exploration being less engaging. I think the issue is that XC3 is game designed around 100%. Its strongest aspect is its world coming alive and interconnecting when you do every sidequest, and the world is designed to acomodate those sidequests. The linear, walled off design means FINDING sidequest objectives is an exercise in problemsolving. You have to figure out what the one correct route is, what the opening in the wall to get to where you want to be is. That's really good for when you're sidequesting, and makes XC3s sidequests more fun to play through than the first two games (a shocking amount of them have handcrafted gauntlets leading up to the objectives), but it makes aimlessly wandering around the world feel linear and dull.
Personally, 3 has my favorite exploration. I tend to get overwhelmed quite easily, so Guar Plains was absolutely a nightmare for me, especially being so early. I very much prefer keeping the early game areas small, which allows me to focus on gameplay and getting used to the flow of things, like the combat and the story. 3 also has, in my opinion, the most interesting and engaging story and NPCs in any game I've ever played. This was the first game I actively went out of my way to do side quests, read all of the dialogue of those side quests, all because I wanted to help these people. Xenoblade 1 and 2 are littered with a lot of "Go find 5 of those" "Go kill 8 of these" types of quests.
Xenoblade 1 definitely takes second place in exploration though. I think the biggest thing that Xenoblade 2 lacked was not having much of a sense of progression. In 1, I could look down and see how high I've climbed the Bionis or Mechonis, in 3, when I got to High Aetia and saw Colony 9 and these other places, I thought that was awesome. And the Urayan Mountains and Swordmarch in the distances allowed me to constantly get a feel for where everything was in the world. I had a lot of fun finding other colonies, then opening the big map that showed where it was. It gave me a true sense of progression, just like Xenoblade 1. Xenoblade 2 has *some* of those moments, but not nearly as much. If I could've seen other titans I've been to in the distance, I maybe would've liked it a bit more.
Xenoblade 3 also made me feel so much more than 1 and 2 honestly. The only thing I didn't really like about Xenoblade 3 was the whole warning system? That felt entirely pointless. I was at max pretty much the whole game and didn't really feel anything substantial. But the Mechon in 1 just sort of pop in every now and then, and in 2, I'm getting *told* that these titans are dying, and I see it happen once, and I *hear* about all these problems, but I never really see them. Everyone just kinda does their own thing, minds their own business. The major problems of the world just aren't portrayed in my opinion. Whereas in 3, I'm actively seeing how the Flame Clocks affect people mentally. Finding husks all over the place and sending them off, freeing them from this and watching them struggle to figure out what they're even supposed to do anymore.
Xenoblade 3 never really had any slow moments for me. I always wanted to keep going, to keep helping people, to see what the heck was even going on, but 1 and 2 felt a bit sidetracked. I was constantly coming up with theories and trying to figure out what was happening in 3, but 1 and 2, I didn't really feel that until the last few chapters. While I think it's fair to say the opening area of 3 is the smallest and has the least to do in it, it's definitely better for me personally.
XB3 felt like it was building up to some massive reveal that never came. Both story and world ended up seeming like a terminal case of mostly unfulfilling member-berries. Oh hey it’s Fallen Arm (nobody comments on how unnatural a giant mechanical hand is). Oh hey it’s obvious ruins of a very architecturally distinct city inside an empty mine (Fonsa Myma) and again no interesting discussion even from an incorrect lore perspective like in XB1 satorl marsh.
Up until the endgame I was expecting we’d find a second city or at least an abandoned ruined hidden base of XB1/2 protags/descendants that would make everything click since that’s a staple of 1&2. We kinda get this in the DLC but the base game really needed a World Tree moment or at least more characters who were clued in and could drop exposition before the literal post game like a certain cat girl
@@Leathal Agreed honestly
Interesting discussion, though I found the background music was turned up high enough that it could distract from the speaking.
For me, Future Redeemed's gameplay and mechanics were PERFECT. Making every single element in the map useful and rewarding with the collectopaedia made easily want to go for the 100%, I hope they keep it like that for next games.
I hate how much time I've spent on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and will continue to with replays in the future
Nothing will top Xenoblade Chronicles X world tho
I totally agree with you. I prefer the open square maps with open area's filled with things to look at and run to, like gormott and uraya. That's what I love about Xenoblade 2's world, each titan is a wide area in an enclosed space, but it stil feels giant. The only thing I disagree with is when you said that Xenoblade 3's walls are less deteiled then 1 and 2. Like most of xenoblade 3's world, it has the most detail out of the trilogy, the walls in 1 are mostly just blurred 2011 game walls, and Xenoblade 2 barely has any not man-made walls meant to serve only as a barrier, so it's hard to make that comparison, but they're about the same detail as xenoblade 3. Overall Xenoblade 3's world is my least favorite world to explore but I still love it. And story-wise, it makes sense how non diverse the geography is, considering the world is in the shape of an ouroboros. (also I know it doesn't matter but I'm your 300'th sub so that's cool)
I really didn’t know how to explain the walls visually, all I can say is I adore how they look in 1 and 2 but in 3 I think they’re kind of hideous. It’s a weird phenomenon probably only I have but i think it comes with not really caring for 3s art style
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 isn't it the same art style as xc2, just with a different world direction? Maybe it's just me but when I like at the geographical art style of 2 and 3 like the rock details I see essentially the same thing. I get that though, the worlds themselves regardless of art style are very different
I feel like the reason the devs felt like they had to do this was to make sure the world resembles and ouroboros which makes sense but it would have been nice to have more square areas i agree
I think Xeno’s exploration gameplay-wise (mostly movement) has always been the weakest aspect of the series. Not that i judge it too hard because the time was obviously spent elsewhere. However the floaty, mostly uninteresting movement and wide open terrain are usually made up for by all of the interesting big things to look at in the backgrounds of the levels.
In both 1 and 2, unless it’s a cave there’s always something really cool or interesting to look at while you’re running around the so vast, empty levels don’t hurt them as much. 3’s just feels kinda weird since it doesn’t follow that trend and kinda just merges all of the fantastical 3D-ness of the settings in the last two and just makes them a flat circle with normal-looking terrain, with some noticeable landmarks. Again, in the last two EVERYWHERE you go is notable.
Sue me but I think 3 should’ve done something crazy and made the endless now just feel like a super F’d up alien environment since it’s basically the last two worlds on the precipice of clipping and colliding with each other and destroying one another. I hope I don’t have to explain how many cool things you can do with that and XBC3 just… doesn’t. Hear me out… Fortnite. lol. The Fortnite setting is the perfect analogy to what xeno 3 should’ve been- a bubble of collided landmass floating in the cosmos stabilized by a powerful magic sphere. Sound familiar? Just make the terrain crazy by having the bionis, mechonis, and titans all floating in space, colliding with each other and frozen in time during the process of ripping each other apart due to their sheer mass. Make the skybox look like the cosmos during both the day and the night and have gravity localized to the landmass you’re currently on, meaning you can still have the wacky ouroboros circle but it can be a cool 3D kinda-circle where you look UP at the places you were instead of a flat boring one. Great Xenoblade settings need larger than life 3D vertical environments imo.
Anyway monolithsoft hire me i have many more great ideas like xenoblade sex update
Always Though Aionios felt really boring without the awe the Bionis/Mechonis had or the actual life Alrest was given. Especially with Alrest there was so much attention to detail with various camps, hidden areas, unique features that tied the nations to the titans, just generally good world building.
And then there is Aionios, a world built on an amalgamation of the histories of the world we care for, and a History of it's own, yet we see so little of it.
With every reference to 1&2 I felt so disappointed when I realised it was nothing more then a background detail with no substance to it, maybe an enemy name reference.
First when I realised there was Nothing beautiful or interesting left to Uraya. Then when Mor Ardain's titan was but a hand in the background. When I realised the Agnian Castle was at the head of t he Bionis yet this legendary feature was such a negligible background detail. Outside of the City, the area where we first get the Ouroboros, and Makna/Morytha forest so much felt so bland, lifeless and forgettable. Characters in 1&2 Would react to the world around them, we'd wonder what tf are the High Entia statues in Satorl Marsh, why the Bionis has a beating heart, or why are the High Entia ancestors so advanced. In 2 it would be how the characters would be the reaction to the warships, the bustle of Gormott, the poor land quality of the Mor ardain, the lack of crops in Tantal, and everything about Morytha and Torna. The areas just felt respected as real places with History.
All of Aionios in comparison just feels like some nameless routes, without any interest to them, like nothing ever happened there, with the exception of Makna/Morytha and right before Urayan mines where Eunie had her flashback. Nothing of note ever happened in any other area EVER as far as I'm concerned. I get that's kind of the plot of 3, where Mobius are keeping the Soldiers unaware of everything and hiding history, but like, did the story had to make them so flawlessly successful at it? No Records? No Failed sites? No hidden labs trying to fix broken Sirens or researching the Mechonis? Not even a really nice area of Uraya's tail or remains of Garfontt village as a second city? Rant over, great video, made me want to express my biggest issue with this game
I Believe that the problem with what you wanted Is that the big reveal about Who you and the mobius really are comes Just before the Sea.
At that point you have a HUGE map to Explore and tbf there are many hidden things that call back to previous games, but at that point the only Maps you have to explore are that and the mountain and the only exploration skills you get are the boat (which tbf you can't bring in other places and doesn't really do much) and poison walk.
They could have added more poison areas to cut off exploration to Hide stuff, but that would get the game called a poison swamp simulator.
I think that adding One other exploration skill would have helped a lot in hiding stuff in old Maps
@@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 What do you mean by "who you and the mobius really are"? We've known they're bad guys orchestrating the war, messing with the soldiers perception of reality and obscuring facts since the cast becomes Ouroboros. I don't think the ideas I have for making the continuity from the previous games more present in the world had to be necessarily tied with exploration that's blocked off from the player, in fact the opposite really, it should've been a constant reward for the players exploring as far as I'm concerned.
@@Adam_Zielinski no, I mean about the fact that moebius are ex soldiers and all work under Z and that they are doing this shit since time long past.
this stuff is all discovered between eunie's quest, the castle of keves and the meeting with the people of the city.
the party discovers who they are and the fact that they have been living a lie only when meeting with the people of the city, before they were still seeking answers.
having too many hints around the map or worse, a hidden camp making research that knows what's going on but doesn't tell the gang, would make the revelation a little bit redundant and lose a lot of impact, and since the whole section of keves castle and the sword is one of the one I like more, I'm afraid changing it around all those hints may work badly.
but who know, we can just say "if" and on "if" nothing was ever built
"if you see something you want to go to you're going to have to find a specific path on unlike Xenoblade one and two"
I definitely disagree with this sentiment. Especially with xc2. Umon shipyard, the broken down factory in mor Adain. That's not even mentioning the side quests. Xenoblade two had so many parts in the game where you had to go through a very specific path to continue going and checking things out. In fact I thought it was very annoying and too. So many times I had to look up guys cuz I could not figure out how to get to a certain area I saw from a distance
Not to mention the many field skill checks that stop you from exploring interesting paths until you grind the gacha mechanics enough and rearrange your entire party
When I said going along a specific path, I meant more for general exploration. I actually quite like those moments in 2 because they feel like hikes more so, while still offering multiple routes. I was more talking about the general exploration in 3, rather than linear story moments
I think the main thing that should be taken away from this video is that not having enough skip travel points is a huge problem, especially in certain Xenoblade games.
The more fast travel points you think you need, the more you're just admitting that manual travel through areas is boring.
@@maynardburger I don't personally have a problem with it and i wouldn't add very many new skip travel points anyway, (if i could) so that isn't true in my case. But in general, don't be ridiculous, there's a reason that skip traveling exists! You manually travel your way to a certain landmark, and you can skip travel back there quickly, whenever. It's a convenience thing.
Just because people want more skip travel points does NOT at all mean that they don't like manual traveling, especially since manual traveling is what unlocks skip travel points in the first place... 🤷♂️🤦♂️
It sounds like you'd prefer there to be NO skip travel points... that, or you're just blindly hating, for... some reason???
Neither of these games got anything on Xenoblade X's maps and traversal mechanics. They are so much inferior I can't even replay Xenoblade 1~3 without getting bored and turning Xenoblade X on instead.
I have THOUSANDS of hours doing on foot parkour in XCX and I STILL discover new ways to get to new places, some of which were thought impossible even almost 10 years after the game's release.
Basically, XCX is the premium vertical open world experience with the finesse of mechanics not unlike Super Mario 64 or old school Tomb Raiders. I wish MonolithSoft would give us something like this again otherwise I'm done with the mainline games and their clunky, sad little jump without any stakes.
Comment for the algorithm
The whole time watching this I just kept thinking “all these problems are fixed if you play Xenoblade X” lol
It blows this whole trilogy out of the water in terms of exploration
Xenoblade fans when they forget that the objective best game in the series, X also exists
I honestly think one of the biggest things that makes Xenoblade 3's areas *seem* less exciting is the more subdued soundtrack. If you took away Gaur Plains GOAT-level theme music, it really wouldn't hit as hard. Even moreso if it wasn't your first Xenoblade game. It's big and beautiful, but also soooo much empty space and a bit of a chore to actually explore or backtrack through. But that music carries it so much, my god.
Those maps would be better if the game had better movement like SMT V otherwise they don't work too well. That's why I can't stop thinking that those maps will be better for something like Xenoblade X. Suddenly you get more verticallity with the Skell's jump before being able to flight
I definitely agree with the funnel design to the maps, always felt like your always on the run Needing to get through the area fast to Mach the story. Personally I think the story has for more to criticize than the world design when directly comparing to 1&2. Would love to hear that 2hr review!
Actually, the story was my favorite part of the entire game, and probably the only part I’d potentially put above 2. But believe me I’d love to discuss that as well!
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 My main issue was it had too many missing details left out until the DLC, where 1 and 2 had a complete story without requiring DLC, though that may be my preference for full stories without required DLC to fill the holes
@@robertwallen1582 even with the dlc 3 still has too many holes left open for a sequel, I prefer how xenoblade 2 has actual closure to everything, especially with torna. 3 didn't surpass any aspect of 2 whatsoever for me. 2 still has the best combat system to me, has the best maps, most beautiful and memorable locations, best exploration where you can find chests everywhere, best worldbuilding, best story, best main cast, best villains, best character development, best overall music soundtrack with shared motiff, etc, and I've played all the xenoblades and their dlcs, including xenoblade x. also I know alot in this comment section are trying to claim xenoblade 3 has better exploration because its challenging, thats false, theres no point in making the exploration challenging if theres no big rewards to find in every hidden spot on the map, and xenoblade 3 had none of that in base 3, all you could find was supply drops and nopon containers and it was lame, future redeemed felt more like xenoblade 2 where you could find chests everywhere. xenoblade x also is more like xenoblade 2 than 3, while its true xenoblade x gates alot from you with walls til you have the flying skell, it also has hidden items and other treasures everywhere like xenoblade 2, x and 2 both reward you more for your exploration, whereas base 3 does not.
I think you pose some fair points here, but I personally find comparing Bionis Leg to JUST Millick Meadows to be a bit of a disingenuous comparison. Personally, I don't consider Millick Meadows to be the real "Bionis Leg / Gormott" area in XC3, but rather that should go to Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland (combined, because of how similar they are and how they practically overlap, in the same way the upper and lower parts of Bionis Leg and Gormott are). Sure, Millick Meadows is the typical "first open grassy area" that you explore, but comparing it to Bionis Leg and Gormott is a bit unfair; Millick Meadows is one of the smaller and more simplistic areas in XC3, whereas Bionis Leg and Gormott are some of the larger and more expansive areas in their respective games. It's like if you tried comparing Bionis Leg to Cliffs of Morytha. Furthermore, if we are going to compare to Millick Meadows, why are we constricting ourself to JUST Millick Meadows when it's connected directly to other areas in the Aetia Region?
I wanna be clear that, even though XC3 is my favorite game in the series, I still do think the areas are generally a bit of a step down from XC1 and XC2, at least in specific comparisons. I mention comparing Bionis Leg / Gormott to Ribbi Flats & Rae-Bel Tableland instead, but that doesn't mean I think it's *better* than those areas. And I can't help but feel a bit sad that the absolutely stellar Urayan Titan in XC2 is so dull and limited in XC3, even if it is for lore purposes. Probably my biggest issue is something you mention: the general lifeless feel of Aionios in comparison to Bionis and Alrest. I think just adding more flora to many areas could've gone a long way to making Aionios much more fun to explore. For example, Syra Hovering Reefs might be my least favorite area in the whole game because sure, I guess it's SUPPOSED to be pretty lifeless, but just imagine how gorgeous it would've been if we had floating islands full of grass, trees, and other flora as opposed to a bunch of barren rocks.
I totally didn’t even think of the flora, that would have helped me too. Also, thinking back to Ribbi Flats, that area has a lot of similar problems too millick meadows, you basically go straight forwards, climb up the mountain, do a loop at the top, and then move on. I just specifically chose millick meadows because to me that was the games first big area. That was the area they had been building up to too wow me. Ribbi flats is so much later in the game I basically consider it gaur plains attempt 2, or millick meadows 2.
I don't think that comparing those 2 maps is really fair.
True, both are the big field map with the huge monkey (jingoist gigantus ain't shit tho, rotbart supremacy), a staple of the series, but just like you said it isn't really good, espacially compared to gaur plains.
However, can you say the same about other xb3 areas? This theory works here, alright, but on the rest of the game? Just take the map before with the cliffs and the lake and the red grass zone and the sand and all that or the one next with the arid enviroment and the desert.
Both are really good map, with tons of exploration and tons of activities.
I know of many people that ended up exploring so much that they ended up level 40 before reaching the saffronia tree (which in itself is a problem about this game, but that's a different question).
I think this analysis ended a bit quickly and didn't really question itself on its validity.
@@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 fair enough, I personally think the red grass area also felt very hallway like but I didn’t mind it then because it was part of the intro. I would say every level felt very linear and wall heavy, even the desert and forest areas. As far as the essay not answering itself, I just suck at writing lol
@@skullkid-kazooie8277 not Just the intro, but the colony and other areas like the lake Just below the mountain.
It feels like a big enough area.
It's Say that makta feels Linear if you Just do the story? But there are many optional areas, a good distribution of levels from enemy (both on the bridge and in the separation tree/ground) and a good mixup of nature and Urban. I think that One really isn't Linear.
But don't worry, everyone gets Better by Just doing stuff, this Is a stepping Stone.
An advice I can give that comes from One of the greatest philosophers Is to Always think what someone trying to disprove your argument would Say and see if you can refute their claims; that Will build up your argument into a strong One.
I enjoy the story of this game but I really couldn’t care less about exploration or fighting the monsters in this game.
After playing Witcher 3 and games like that, I just don’t care about the open world here
Xenoblade 2 the best
Got an 80hr chap5 save file I left behind because I was so bored with the exploration and tired of the characters monologuing at one another, and fed up with chaos of the fights that end with the tedium of the combo. But I already bought the game, so why not try again from the start because I don't remember the mechanics anymore. My god, the environment really is boring.
You do realize Aionios is supposed to be the worlds of xenoblade 1 and 2 mashed, or colliding together, frozen in a moment of time right? They aren't going to be the exact same way you remember them because they aren't supposed to be. I get some of your overall criticisms of the visuals, but it's really not fair to try and hold one particular area's structure in Xenoblade 3 to how they looked and functioned in the past games, heck, I was just happy to reminisce around "Colony 9" again in Future Redeemed.
Wouldn't call 3 the black sheep that is a take.
@@Crest_Expert I wouldnt go as far as to call it that but it definitely felt very non Xenoblade my first time playing it, and it’s the one I have the least emotional attachment too
@@skullkid-kazooie8277that’s valid. 3 is my favourite and i have a more emotional attachment to it than the other 2
Though I think it's a given that 1 and 2 are praised and debated on their stories, worlds, music, and battle systems (with fans of 2 saying it's the best due to its complexity). And yeah they're older so inevitably they get discussed more compared to 3, which is now 2 years old
Sorry but this is a pretty bad analysis of the world design in the games. if you look more closely at the trilogy as a whole you'd find all three of them tend to funnel the player down a particular path. every game has its tunnel linear areas, but even the most open ended areas have their beaten paths and when you get around to continuing the story, you're going to end up on that beaten path many times. and you're giving 3 a hard time when the other games are just as guilty of it. for instance, you criticize Erythia sea for its islands being linear but take no consideration that the areas that one is a combination of are both largely made of tiny islands connected by single linear paths. Both Eryth sea and Leftheria are be no stretch "non-linear" in their design or exploration. To justify one dead end having bunnits as being good, but not consider anything at all in the other comes off a bit disingenuous too.
Its not that Xenoblade 3s areas are designed badly or that there isn't anything to find or do in them. there's a fair bit actually. The reason why I find its a worse experience comes down to a couple of reasons that aren't the fault of its map design.
The first being the general story structure of 3. In 1 and 2, there would be lots of points where the story would make you take specific paths and head toward certain points of interest across its areas, especially its more open ones and often times you'd get some additional story peppered in. take for instance Uraya in 2 where after reaching Garfont it sends you down a path towards the blowhole before bringing you back then sending you towards the capitol. which the path requires a detour in order to remove a blockage. the path itself is fairly linear but its sending you to a wider range of locations in the area. In Xenobalde 3, it doesn't do this as much. most of 3s story is unloaded at the beginning or end of the chapters leaving a bulk of the time between just getting through the area to the point of interest. it won't as often lead you towards several different corners of its areas to progress the story as much as 1 and 2 did.
This leads into the second point i think where 3, base game that is, doesn't incentivize you to explore its areas. compared to 1 and 2 where growth of your characters or abilities were more dependent on exploring and doing things out in the world. 1 practically forced you to do sidequests if you wanted to keep your level up and through beating unique monsters you could find especially powerful gear and more importantly manuals to improve your arts further. 2 had the blade system and affinity charts which required you to go out and do various things in the world if you wanted to improve your blades or get more of them. and everything you accomplished in these games would also translate to points you could use to power up abilities in what order you saw fit. Base game 3 in comparison provides barely any incentive to explore. The gear you could acquire was never really as good as what you could simply buy, expanding and improving your characters was now entirely relegated to leveling them up and the big thing to find, the classes, were always found by these big glowing yellow markers on the map telling you to go there and no where else. even powering up those classes had nothing to do with really exploring or doing anything other than fighting enemies. which if you spend too much time doing so would be easy to find yourself overleveled thanks to the level curve of the game.
Its why FR is so much better in its exploration compared to base 3 despite their area designs not being all that different. because FR gave you all the incentive to explore and do things in its areas because everything relied on it. from expanding arts and accessories, to powerful chain accessories, to leveling up and learning arts and skills. it required investment into its world.
This is a really interesting perspective, thank you for sharing
You apologize for your opinions way too much lol
I get it thoughm the internet can be ruthless
@@WhitePaintbrush I don’t want to seek rude or hateful, the last thing I’d wanna do is start an anti Xenoblade 3 renaissance or something stupid
Yo
I'd argue that this game was designed, beginning to end, in such a way to grab new players to the franchise (people like me who started with 3). I appreciated the linearity of the story as that was what I was most interested in. After I'd gotten hooked on the story at the end of Chapter 1, I just wanted more story. By the time I met Valdi and Colony 30, I was finally ready to backtrack, do sidequests, and explore a little. Sure the world is a mishmash of 1 and 2, but new players don't know how Millick compares to Gaur or Gormott. Neither the brand new player nor the characters know anything of what came before. A brand new player exploring Aionios really feels like Noah and the gang.
In contrast, I believe Future Redeemed was designed especially for fans of the franchise. You *can* play FR before 1 and 2 (as I did), but you miss out on so much context.
What I think XC3 does well is make a brand new player who finishes the game go, "Why did it have to split apart? What are these two worlds the queens were talking about? How did this all start?" I played 1 and 2, but did not really connect with some of the design choices like Machina or rare Blades. I'm rambling now, but I think maybe exploration suffered in 3 because it was designed for new players with story first in mind.
You miss the point where Aionios is a simulated world within origin. It was designed to look constraint and stagnant.
Yeah a lot of xenoblade 3s “problems” are just designed a certain way because of the story I know that doesn’t make said design good but there is a reason for it
It' was a poorly developed game, I finished it just because I stupidly paid for it
Let's face it, XC3 was disappointing in every aspect of the game. Dull exploration, corny story, lame characters, boring battles, &c.
None of these 3 games is in the same league as XCX, the best of the franchise by miles.
I dunno I just liked Xenoblade 3 a lot more, never put any further thought into it
Only thing that distinctly was better for me was I never felt like I was playing a borderline porn game, which 2 made me feel like a couple times
you have bad taste. the maps in xenoblade are mid.