-- Gorgeously rendered open world with clear thought put into it's design that is still actually pretty boring to traverse
-- Great music
-- A guitar riff plays in the cutscenes when the main characters start doing naruto shit and it's sick
-- Mostly boring sidequests with one or two bizarrely hidden really good ones
-- Too long
-- Some truly loaded language that it is not interested in or capable of discussing in any meaningful way
yep, it sure is xenoblade!!
if xenoblade chronicles is a mostly pretty brainless but highly entertaining shonen anime, then future connected is the non-canon movie spin-off where nothing really happens but it gives you a bit more time to spend with some characters you like, and it's an ok one of those. unless melia is your wife you're really not gonna get much out of this, and in true Takahashi fashion the character of Gael'Gar evokes some really heavy stuff that the game doesn't really have the capability or interest to handle accordingly. but, y'know, if you're deep enough into the xenoblade well to be playing the epilogue OVA, you're probably used to monolithsoft taking wild careless swings.
i think i'm mostly disappointed by how conservative it is. not in the weird kind of "reclaim-the-empire" honor and duty of the nobility thing, that's conservative in a different way, one that i already kind of expect from these games. i mean conservative in the sense that that future connected is wholly uninterested in doing anything remotely interesting, even as it charges past the point where the story really should have Ended. monolithsoft seem determined to dull whatever thematic impact the original ending of xenoblade 1 has, first with stuff in xenoblade 2, and now with this, showing that whatever infinite horizons and new futures await us, they're going to be the same people doing mostly the same things in the same places. and if future connected was about that, it would be interesting! but it isn't. in fact, it seems keen to insist that this is, in fact, a New World despite the fact that basically nothing has changed. if we had to return to this world, I would have liked for them to get creative or ambitious with it, to do something to justify it's existence, because as it stands, all future connected really does is hang limply off the body of a game that was already perfectly fine.
if this really is the Definitive Edition of xenoblade chronicles, when what does that say for what shape it will take place in history? an awkward appendix clinging on to a game that never needed it and arguably suffers from it's attachment? it doesn't even succeed at being more xenoblade gameplay, because you're working with a constrained and hampered toolset that's much less interesting to play around in. it's just a worse, miniature version of xenoblade chronicles. what's Definitive about that? have we learned nothing from Persona 3's The Answer? i doubt future connected will have much impact on history at all, except as a slightly unsightly asterisk on xenoblade chronicles' place in it.
however, it gets an extra star for two reasons. first: it was nice to enjoy a new bit of xenoblade content after my relationship with xenoblade 2 ended up so deeply fraught. i used to consider myself a xenoblade fan and 2, in not just being (imo) a really bad game but also something that held a perspective i found really triggering, kind of killed that part of me. so it was nice to just Enjoy this! two: they made nopons good again. oh my god. it's taken them two games and two expansions but they are finally great little guys we all love again. it's a fucking miracle!! kino forever!!!!
-- Great music
-- A guitar riff plays in the cutscenes when the main characters start doing naruto shit and it's sick
-- Mostly boring sidequests with one or two bizarrely hidden really good ones
-- Too long
-- Some truly loaded language that it is not interested in or capable of discussing in any meaningful way
yep, it sure is xenoblade!!
if xenoblade chronicles is a mostly pretty brainless but highly entertaining shonen anime, then future connected is the non-canon movie spin-off where nothing really happens but it gives you a bit more time to spend with some characters you like, and it's an ok one of those. unless melia is your wife you're really not gonna get much out of this, and in true Takahashi fashion the character of Gael'Gar evokes some really heavy stuff that the game doesn't really have the capability or interest to handle accordingly. but, y'know, if you're deep enough into the xenoblade well to be playing the epilogue OVA, you're probably used to monolithsoft taking wild careless swings.
i think i'm mostly disappointed by how conservative it is. not in the weird kind of "reclaim-the-empire" honor and duty of the nobility thing, that's conservative in a different way, one that i already kind of expect from these games. i mean conservative in the sense that that future connected is wholly uninterested in doing anything remotely interesting, even as it charges past the point where the story really should have Ended. monolithsoft seem determined to dull whatever thematic impact the original ending of xenoblade 1 has, first with stuff in xenoblade 2, and now with this, showing that whatever infinite horizons and new futures await us, they're going to be the same people doing mostly the same things in the same places. and if future connected was about that, it would be interesting! but it isn't. in fact, it seems keen to insist that this is, in fact, a New World despite the fact that basically nothing has changed. if we had to return to this world, I would have liked for them to get creative or ambitious with it, to do something to justify it's existence, because as it stands, all future connected really does is hang limply off the body of a game that was already perfectly fine.
if this really is the Definitive Edition of xenoblade chronicles, when what does that say for what shape it will take place in history? an awkward appendix clinging on to a game that never needed it and arguably suffers from it's attachment? it doesn't even succeed at being more xenoblade gameplay, because you're working with a constrained and hampered toolset that's much less interesting to play around in. it's just a worse, miniature version of xenoblade chronicles. what's Definitive about that? have we learned nothing from Persona 3's The Answer? i doubt future connected will have much impact on history at all, except as a slightly unsightly asterisk on xenoblade chronicles' place in it.
however, it gets an extra star for two reasons. first: it was nice to enjoy a new bit of xenoblade content after my relationship with xenoblade 2 ended up so deeply fraught. i used to consider myself a xenoblade fan and 2, in not just being (imo) a really bad game but also something that held a perspective i found really triggering, kind of killed that part of me. so it was nice to just Enjoy this! two: they made nopons good again. oh my god. it's taken them two games and two expansions but they are finally great little guys we all love again. it's a fucking miracle!! kino forever!!!!
Woodaba
1 year ago