If I had to summarize Future Connected in a word, it'd be "afterthought".
I'll open by saying XC1 is my favorite game of all time. While no game is perfect, none of it's flaws bother me in reality so it might as well be perfect to me. FC actually makes me appreciate it more, because it showed me a lot of things in it that I took for granted.
FC is a ~10 hour expansion made in an engine that was designed for a ~100 hour game. Monolith saw this issue and tried to fix it. I respect that, because as I'm about to explain, it is quite difficult. Skill Trees were taken out. This is understandable, as the skill trees were meant to be massive things that you spent the entire game working on. They don't fit in a short adventure. Gem crafting is also out. I get what they were thinking here, gem crafting is a time consuming process and if you replace the ore collection with just dumping raw gems into your lap, it seemingly streamlines things. This is not true in reality. XC1 has a lot of... situational gems. Resistance to specific debuffs, gems that only work for really specific playstyles, etc. Really, on average you mainly just want the raw stat boost gems. That's not a problem in XC1, because gem crafting let's you make exactly what you want to make. You have full control of your build. In this game, it feels more like arming yourself out of whatever you can find in a junk drawer rather than an armory, unless you want to grind, which goes against the "no fuss" design philosophy of this new gem system. Visions were removed. This is a very hard hit to the combat. XC1's combat is very well supported by the visions. Shulk's Monado arts and arts like Last Stand (aura that revives you if you die in the brief time it's active) are reliant on the visions to be especially useful. The game counts on you having visions in order for it to throw tough enemies at you without having to worry about blindsiding you. Removing the visions is like removing a load bearing wall, and FC introduces no new features to combat this. I will credit Monolith and admit that, with the plot they wrote 10 years ago, there was no real way of getting around this. Hence, the "afterthought" feeling. Chain Attacks were also removed. I can think of no reason why this would've happened, it actively makes the combat worse and more difficult. The replacement is not better than them in any way. XC1 combat is amazing, so even with all of this, this just brings it down to only being good. Still, it's noticeable.
The party members were weird in terms of both gameplay and story. Shulk and Melia both serve as DPS + Support in different ways, with Reyn and Sharla stand-ins joining to make the combat survivable. It is difficult to run a party without Nene. This is in contrast to XC1 where basically any party is good, or at least functional. I think this drop in functionality is caused by the losses of the previous features I mentioned earlier, which individually aren't too much, but collectively make your party considerably weaker than what a level 70 party would be in the original.
Let's segue into the writing. I'm against the choice of adding two new characters into the party, at least in the way they did. XC1's writing puts so much focus on Shulk that he's basically the only one with a full arc. If you ask me, if you wanted to do a small expansion onto the main story, we had plenty of old characters who could've used a few extra hours of screentime without inventing two new ones. If they were gonna make new characters, they could've at least given them an original moveset or two, or at least new arts. The character writing itself leaves more to be desired. Nene is fine, but she never stacks up to any of the OG characters, and contrary to his name, Kino is outright bad. It's possible to do good child characters, especially with how open they are to character development. However, in a short story, there isn't enough time to give Kino an arc, so he remains as a static character who's personality trait is being immature.
Shulk is handled perfectly. He's no longer in the protagonist's seat, he's just on this adventure to help Melia out. His dynamic with her in the Quiet Moments was one of my favorite parts of this, and he never feels like he's crowding her out of her story.
Melia was the protagonist of this, and felt very natural in that role given the focus on Alcamoth and the High Entia. Speaking of the main plot, while nothing special compared to XC1's, it still was good. The Fog King's entire deal is that it's mysterious and alien, so I'm not gonna complain about the lack of info or scenes for it. I think the real focus of the plot was on the people and their unity, and it did that very well while providing a direct conclusion to the High Entia plot.
Overall, I'd say I still enjoyed FC. I had fun running around the mythical Bionis Shoulder that was originally just known as mysterious cut content, and also spending a little more time with Shulk and Melia. It just has a lot of unfortunate problems that come from trying to fit a massive system into a short experience. Unlike with Torna, Monolith had no plans to make this game when they were developing the original, and it very much shows, but I still had fun.
I'll open by saying XC1 is my favorite game of all time. While no game is perfect, none of it's flaws bother me in reality so it might as well be perfect to me. FC actually makes me appreciate it more, because it showed me a lot of things in it that I took for granted.
FC is a ~10 hour expansion made in an engine that was designed for a ~100 hour game. Monolith saw this issue and tried to fix it. I respect that, because as I'm about to explain, it is quite difficult. Skill Trees were taken out. This is understandable, as the skill trees were meant to be massive things that you spent the entire game working on. They don't fit in a short adventure. Gem crafting is also out. I get what they were thinking here, gem crafting is a time consuming process and if you replace the ore collection with just dumping raw gems into your lap, it seemingly streamlines things. This is not true in reality. XC1 has a lot of... situational gems. Resistance to specific debuffs, gems that only work for really specific playstyles, etc. Really, on average you mainly just want the raw stat boost gems. That's not a problem in XC1, because gem crafting let's you make exactly what you want to make. You have full control of your build. In this game, it feels more like arming yourself out of whatever you can find in a junk drawer rather than an armory, unless you want to grind, which goes against the "no fuss" design philosophy of this new gem system. Visions were removed. This is a very hard hit to the combat. XC1's combat is very well supported by the visions. Shulk's Monado arts and arts like Last Stand (aura that revives you if you die in the brief time it's active) are reliant on the visions to be especially useful. The game counts on you having visions in order for it to throw tough enemies at you without having to worry about blindsiding you. Removing the visions is like removing a load bearing wall, and FC introduces no new features to combat this. I will credit Monolith and admit that, with the plot they wrote 10 years ago, there was no real way of getting around this. Hence, the "afterthought" feeling. Chain Attacks were also removed. I can think of no reason why this would've happened, it actively makes the combat worse and more difficult. The replacement is not better than them in any way. XC1 combat is amazing, so even with all of this, this just brings it down to only being good. Still, it's noticeable.
The party members were weird in terms of both gameplay and story. Shulk and Melia both serve as DPS + Support in different ways, with Reyn and Sharla stand-ins joining to make the combat survivable. It is difficult to run a party without Nene. This is in contrast to XC1 where basically any party is good, or at least functional. I think this drop in functionality is caused by the losses of the previous features I mentioned earlier, which individually aren't too much, but collectively make your party considerably weaker than what a level 70 party would be in the original.
Let's segue into the writing. I'm against the choice of adding two new characters into the party, at least in the way they did. XC1's writing puts so much focus on Shulk that he's basically the only one with a full arc. If you ask me, if you wanted to do a small expansion onto the main story, we had plenty of old characters who could've used a few extra hours of screentime without inventing two new ones. If they were gonna make new characters, they could've at least given them an original moveset or two, or at least new arts. The character writing itself leaves more to be desired. Nene is fine, but she never stacks up to any of the OG characters, and contrary to his name, Kino is outright bad. It's possible to do good child characters, especially with how open they are to character development. However, in a short story, there isn't enough time to give Kino an arc, so he remains as a static character who's personality trait is being immature.
Shulk is handled perfectly. He's no longer in the protagonist's seat, he's just on this adventure to help Melia out. His dynamic with her in the Quiet Moments was one of my favorite parts of this, and he never feels like he's crowding her out of her story.
Melia was the protagonist of this, and felt very natural in that role given the focus on Alcamoth and the High Entia. Speaking of the main plot, while nothing special compared to XC1's, it still was good. The Fog King's entire deal is that it's mysterious and alien, so I'm not gonna complain about the lack of info or scenes for it. I think the real focus of the plot was on the people and their unity, and it did that very well while providing a direct conclusion to the High Entia plot.
Overall, I'd say I still enjoyed FC. I had fun running around the mythical Bionis Shoulder that was originally just known as mysterious cut content, and also spending a little more time with Shulk and Melia. It just has a lot of unfortunate problems that come from trying to fit a massive system into a short experience. Unlike with Torna, Monolith had no plans to make this game when they were developing the original, and it very much shows, but I still had fun.