The best-worst game I've ever played.

I originally tried beating this last year around the time Xenoblade 3 was announced but I stopped fairly quickly due to me just not really having that much fun. I didn't really understand the mechanics and everything felt like a slog to get through. I shelved the game, but I was pretty sad I didn't really like it. Fast forward a year and a half later one of my friends is in the middle of marathoning the entire Xenoblade franchise, and that inspired me to give this game another try (along with Future Connected in XCDE, which I never got around to finishing either). I learned some tricks on how to make combat less of a nuisance and took some time to understand more of the mechanics and from there I just had a lot more fun. I can happily say I like this game and I don't know if there's one piece of media I'm happy my opinion has changed on more. There's a ton of bullshit in this game, I can't and won't deny that, but I just had a ton of fun and I'm so happy I gave it another chance. Thanks @undertale2enjoye ik you don't really use this website that often but I figured i'd shout you out anyway.

I can't wait to play Xenoblade 3 you don't even know

A bit of a more personal story, if I may.

See, I got this game for my birthday last year. I started playing it around then for the first time and enjoyed my time with it... until I just kinda got stuck. It was around the third area at the start where it isn't exactly obvious what you're supposed to do. What I could uncover were some blocks that I couldn't break at the time, so my mind went "okay, guess I must have missed something back in the previous area, let me go check"

I kinda just proceeded to go in circles around the area until I found something that could help me out. That never really happened. I shelved the game after a session of doing just this. I felt lost and sorta disappointed I couldn't finish it and had no idea what to do. Even more disappointingly, this wasn't even the first time this has happened in a Metroidvania from my experience, hell, even a Metroid game in general. I tried starting Metroid Prime around the time this was announced and got lost, and even before that I couldn't figure out what to do at the beginning of Hollow Knight (though I have heard from friends that it was pretty unclear for them too, so...). Regardless, I was annoyed. I thought this genre just wasn't for me.

Fast forward... like what, a year and a half later? I'm at my friends house (who was the one who bought me the game for my birthday in the first place) and we start talking about this game. I remembered that I did REALLY enjoy what I played and wanted to return to it at some point. Then I just said "...yeah. Sure. Let's try this again." With that, I started anew. I wanted to give it a fair, honest go.

And... it all clicked. What I got stuck on was just a few blocks that I could just break with the standard beam. I was just overcomplicating it. After I found this out, I went through the whole game in a matter of days, and remembered what I enjoyed about it in the first place. The challenging, but fair difficulty. The great level and world design, and the controls. Holy hell the controls in this game are amazing. One of the most smooth feeling games I have played, like, ever?? Insane stuff.

I'm... really happy I got to finish this. I think i'm over my fear of this genre for the most part. I think I get it now. This won't be the last time I visit this series, or a game like this in general. I'd highly recommend this for a first game in this genre, if you're up for a bit of a challenge. Even then, I only played this on normal difficulty. There's an easier difficulty if that isn't your thing. No shame in that.

See you next mission, I guess.