this is how you tie up everything and end off a Saga? Well, Chronicles I guess, certainly not Gears.

But yeah, I really enjoyed this DLC, Matthew is such an brash idiot (affectionate), he felt so refreshing as a lead. the combat just flows so well, might even be the best combat we had. the music is such a step up compared to base game. the fanservice is so perfect here (for the most part), and a lot of the new (and somewhat improved) ideas and mechanics, I don’t have much to comment on, it was neat.


But yeah, this certainly was the Xenoblade Chronicles

TAKAHASHI WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU COOKIN'

A victory lap for the entire series for sure. Absolutely peak fiction. HOLLLLLY SHIT.

I have nothing but praise to give this. Best piece of "DLC" I've ever played.

I was unsure on how to approach reviewing Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed, the long-awaited conclusion to my favourite release of 2022, and one of my all-time favourite games period. In spite of how easy it should be for me to sing its praises, I was left torn at how I should approach this review, between one of two different approaches.

One half of me wanted to take a much more in depth approach of my review of Star Wars Battlefront 2, and make an incredibly sappy retrospective on what this series means to me and the tough times it's gotten me through, and how bittersweet and exciting it is to see the Klaus Saga of this franchise come to an end, with the review part of the DLC coming secondarily.

Another part wanted to gush about how much I loved FR's cast, gameplay, story and world every bit as much as every other title in the series in full detail, spoilers be damned, as I've previously done with Dragon's Dogma earlier in the year.

In lieu of such a dilemma, I will instead take the easy way out, and copy-paste my review of the base Xenoblade Chronicles 3, written about an hour after beating the game and being utterly floored by it in every sense of the word.


We can't let Monolith Soft keep releasing masterpieces like this, it's unfair on every other Nintendo studio.

Real solid, streamlined experience that complements the main game really well and adds all the lore/fanservice that fans were bitching about not being included in 3 even though that's really not the issue I had with that game's story. That fanservice really did work on me though - seeing this cast come together and send off this saga ended up being really rewarding, and I think it was smart of them to choose not to answer some questions.

A few knocks though - Glimmer and Nikol feel underdeveloped which is a real shame because the potential was there for some great moments with them. The game also feels extremely weirdly balanced, presumably because they had to account for the fact that they locked even the most basic functionality of the battle system behind optional items found while exploring, which is great for encouraging said exploration but also means they probably had to account for you rolling up to the final boss with a team of characters that had basically nothing in terms of gems or skills. Also is it just me or is the cutscene direction a pretty big step down from the base game? Slight disappointment there.

One final note: Good god, Monolith, hire some audio staff. Ever since Xenoblade 1 the audio mix, sound effects, default sound levels etc. have been majorly fucked in every single release and even tinkering with the settings on the user's end won't improve things much. Honestly my biggest wish for this company as they head onto the next generation of Nintendo hardware.