Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected

I'm going to keep my thoughts about Future Connected short, because I don't have too much to say since this is sort of a small epilogue included to make people who already played OG Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii to double dip. The story is pretty simple, Shulk and Melia fight off the Fog King and that's about it, which was a little disappointing after beating the original game. It's nice to see where Shulk and Melia are after the end of the game, and that's about it. The whole plot about the Fog King was pretty generic and would fall flat if this was the main plotline of a actual game, but it's fine for being something small. It takes place on the Bionis Shoulder, a new area of the game that wasn't in the original Xenoblade Chronicles, and I'm glad it's here in Future Connected, because if it was the same world from the base game, my score would probably be lower. It's a nice-looking place, and unique enough to keep me engaged with Future Connected.

The Ponspectors are a new group introduced in Future Connected, and they replace chain attacks and deal passive damage as well. These little guys were a nice addition to keep things fresh, but I'm glad they were only included in just Future Connected, I don't know if they would work out if they were in the base game.

Overall, Future Connected is a decent time to spend if you love the main story of Xenoblade Chronicles, but not really a necessary expansion to play. It's good, but you're not gonna miss much if you decide to skip it for whatever reason. I forced myself to complete it, and glad I did. Now, I'm just get to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 later on.

Xenoblade 1 was a part of my top 5 games of all time for years after I played it. I pushed off playing this post-game side-story (I guess it can be called that?) to jump into Xenoblade 2. I'm glad I came back for it, because this is amazing! I love all of these party members as much as I did the original game's members, and the ponspectors are such a fun addition to the game. Lots of good moments, and the only real gripe I have is with the voice acting for some of the characters sounding off, but otherwise phenomenal expansion!

It has a character named Kino...

Future Connected takes place one year after the events of Xenoblade Chronicles and takes Shulk and Melia to an unexplored region of the Bionis, where they stumble upon two stowaways who help them against the seemingly untouchable Fog King terrorizing the local people. Yes, this premise is pretty basic, but it's more of an expansion to round off Melia's character arc than an actual story expansion.

The highlight and key aspect of Future Connected is the exploration of Bionis' Shoulder, a previously unreleased area that has been planned ever since the original release of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but never made the cut. Now it has been repurposed as the central setpiece of the epilogue and I'm quite glad for this decision, as it's easily one of my favorite areas in the game now and I had a lot of fun exploring it. There are many great views and it looks particularly cool during thunderstorms (even better when there's a cutscene playing). Fairly early on you're introduced to the Ponspectors, a group of archaeologist Nopon, who have lost their boss and now are scattered all across the Shoulder, where you can pick them up (most of the times you need to do a short quest beforehand) and add them to your own personal Nopon army. This literal army of furball companions not only deals passive damage during combat, but also replaces the chain attacks with some QTE combos, which can be upgraded by adding more Ponspectors to your squad. They're also masters of taking a toll on the framerate, as things can get seriously laggy when there's a dozen Nopon hammering away on a bunch of enemies during a thunderstorm while several other flashy animations are playing. Despite this, I thought the Ponspectors were a fun change of pace in terms of combat usage, but there was something else I disliked instead in terms of combat, and that's the removal of vision attacks. This sounds insane at first, considering vision attacks only make your life harder, but the thing is that they're still in the game, you're just not informed when the enemy will hit you with them anymore. Always a pleasure to see a boss hit you with "Attack VIII" without warning just to survive with a mere sliver of health, so the existence of the Shield and Impulse Monado Art hardly justify themselves in Future Connected, as they are practically useless - you're better off using the Armor Art instead.

I don't think the story present here is that bad, just considerably weaker than the main narrative, which is to be expected from a free expansion that released 10 years after the source material. For me the main issues are the underwhelming villains (the fate of one major villain here is literally revealed in a sidequest) and the lack of any real stakes here, so the true highlight are the character interactions instead. The heart-to-heart mechanic from the main game has been rebranded to "quiet moments" and is now available anytime after certain points in the story have been passed, as long as the time is right and the party members you need for the support are in your current party setup. They're also fully voiced and do not require any previous affinity building between characters, which is something that would be very cool to see in future Xenoblade games (or atleast Xenoblade 3, considering 2 released before Future Connected), as voice acting alone in these moments can make them a lot more impactful and memorable already. While Kino's and Nene's supports help characterize Riki further, Melia's are particularly interesting as she as a person had to undergo significant changes after the events of the main storyline. Shulk takes the backseat here and is more of a mentor for the Nopon kids, which is sweet in its own way.

To wrap it up, it's a nice little bonus campaign after the grand scope of Xenoblade's main story and I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants more of the same. As far as I know, Future Connected is ultimately skippable, but there's no harm in giving it a try atleast - else you're missing out on some fantastic tracks like the Bionis Shoulder battle theme or the Fogbeasts encounter theme.

The story may be a bit of a whatever excuse plot (fog king? more like fog "doesn't connect the future" king), Kino and Nene are just Reyn and Sharla reskins, but hey, we get to see more of Shulk and Melia, a peek at a post-XC1 final boss world, and we finally get to explore the cut content of Bionis Shoulder that has actually been refurbished since its unused debut, and it's more of the same Xenoblade 1 combat we all know and love, so that's awesome

WE MEASURE FIND TREASURE PONSPECTORS TIL WE DIE

< Continuing my Xenoblade journey >
I'm so glad I didn't play this right after finishing the original game as it would just lead to a burn-out.
Thanks to that, the experience felt like a reminder of why I love XC1 and the overall franchise.

Gameplay : Bionis Shoulder is a treat to explore with its ridiculous amount of fetch quest as usual and the 12 nopon to search for. In terms of Nopon BE PREPARED I used to love them but they crossed the line of my tolerance there. The NPCs are even better written than in the original game so I didn't understand why they removed the sociogram. There's lil differences here and there but overall it's mostly XC1.

Story : I can already see how it's linked to XC3 but at the same time I didn't feel like I learned a lot. This game might just introduce the concept.
It focuses and develops the character of Melia a fan's favorite character. It achieves that pretty well, especially on developing her relationship with a certain character. Please DON'T SKIP the quiet moments especially those where Melia is in it they are as important as the story itself honesly.
Except from that, this DLC suceed to explain in a great way the different human reaction to crisis moment.

OST : Some new tracks from Yoko Shimomura that are still excellent. Honestly they fit so well that I wasn't sure if they weren't from the XC1.

CLOSING THOUGHT:
In every aspect future connected does suceed. So due to the quality I can't rate it lower than 4 stars.
But overall it just lacks of the 'grandiose' of the serie. I didn't cried, felt angry or had chills in every cinematics as I used to. The story is a bit lacking I wanted to learn more about Fog King.
I'm glad this existed and had fun time with it but I don't know if I will remember it for long...

Mar 2024 Comment: Future Connected debatably does more harm than good existing, but part of me is still happy it does. While its a mess in many ways, theres a lot I enjoyed about. I like the new character designs and they were able to bring back the old og va's, I also think the 2 kids accompanying Shulk and Melia is fun! Still its a sequel or ig epilogue to XC1 and it was not planned out fully so the va's sound older than they should as its ten years after the original release, it sounds goofy when mixed in with their old 2010 attack yells. For the positives, im glad Bionis Shoulder is brought back in playable form and included in the story. The new music is peak like always and im happy I can revisit the world, see old characters and some more modernized through voice acted heart to hearts or old npcs getting a voice actor. Still XC1's ending was peak and it kinda got ruined cause of Future Connected, and its not that there cant be a sequel, XC3 exists, but it definitely seems like an add-on for more people to buy the game. The combat is a lot worse and while I enjoy the new prospectors thing, Chain Attacks, Visions, and Party Trees are removed making it very limited in freedom. Dosent help that the new Nopons play exactly like Reyn and Sharla so they arent even new. Still I think the overall story helps out Shulk's arc to be an inventor, Melia's royalty arc, and Riki's dad arc. Still this is all obvious stuff the characters would perfect on, especially looking at XC3 so theres still no justification for FC existing. The worst part is the ending, it is so rushed for no reason, they immediately beat the boss and it feels like the credits roll? Theres no celebration or down time! Its so rushed. I do enjoy this game as it gave me more Luxin Xenoblade Theory Videos though and its still fun to run around in, but definitely the worst Xenoblade arc.

A pretty average experience overall. A shame since the first game is my favorite. It has a great premise, using a skeleton of an area that got cut from the first game. It has some good character moments with Melia, with great music.

The story is pretty haphazard with one of the worst villains of the franchise. Also, 90% of the characters are Nopon and it is just overkill. This dlc will make you hate Nopon.

Gameplay wise it's also weak. Shulk sucks a lot to use, and the ai partner for one of your allies will always be bad since you can only control one at a time.

If you're a megafan like me, there's stuff to enjoy, but otherwise this was a pretty hollow experience. Take it from someone who will praise 1 to death, this dlc was not it.