Xenoblade Chronicles is one of my favorite games of all time (it's one of 68 games I've given a 5/5 to out of a total of 1135), so Chronicles 2 was an absolute nightmare to play through. I thought it was decent, but it did so much damage that I legitimately did not care when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was announced. Still, I bought it based on impressions from people who disliked 2 as much as a I did and I ended up having a great time. It's a glorious return to form. Gone is...pretty much everything I disliked from 2, and is instead replaced with a great story, a wonderful cast of characters, lovely voice acting, fantastic music, and some genuinely well written dialogue. I don't think it manages to reach the heights of XC1 (although that is an unfairly high standard), but Xenoblade Chronicles feels like Xenoblade Chronicles again, and that's all I wanted.

That's not to say it's perfect, however. The villains are perhaps the least interesting and most cartoonish in the entire franchise, and there's just...a lot going on gameplay-wise. The combat system is still good, but it feels so bloated. You've got 6/7 party members all at once, interlinking, class changes, chain attacks (XC3 has the sloppiest implementation of it to date), gems, accessories, and more. I appreciate the complexity of it all, but complex doesn't always equal fun. This is why the first game's combat system is still my favorite in the entire series, it's simple enough to get the hang of but hard to master. The environments, while still beautiful, are not as visually pleasing as the ones found in XC1 and XC2.

Otherwise, it was a fantastic time. Xenoblade is back, and I'm here for it.