< Continuing my Xenoblade journey >
I'm so glad I didn't play this right after finishing the original game as it would just lead to a burn-out.
Thanks to that, the experience felt like a reminder of why I love XC1 and the overall franchise.

Gameplay : Bionis Shoulder is a treat to explore with its ridiculous amount of fetch quest as usual and the 12 nopon to search for. In terms of Nopon BE PREPARED I used to love them but they crossed the line of my tolerance there. The NPCs are even better written than in the original game so I didn't understand why they removed the sociogram. There's lil differences here and there but overall it's mostly XC1.

Story : I can already see how it's linked to XC3 but at the same time I didn't feel like I learned a lot. This game might just introduce the concept.
It focuses and develops the character of Melia a fan's favorite character. It achieves that pretty well, especially on developing her relationship with a certain character. Please DON'T SKIP the quiet moments especially those where Melia is in it they are as important as the story itself honesly.
Except from that, this DLC suceed to explain in a great way the different human reaction to crisis moment.

OST : Some new tracks from Yoko Shimomura that are still excellent. Honestly they fit so well that I wasn't sure if they weren't from the XC1.

CLOSING THOUGHT:
In every aspect future connected does suceed. So due to the quality I can't rate it lower than 4 stars.
But overall it just lacks of the 'grandiose' of the serie. I didn't cried, felt angry or had chills in every cinematics as I used to. The story is a bit lacking I wanted to learn more about Fog King.
I'm glad this existed and had fun time with it but I don't know if I will remember it for long...

After 4 years of pushing myself to finish this cause my autistic brain can't deal with lefting a game unfinished I'm officialy giving up. This isn't that bad, I still put 60ish hours into it which I wouldn't do if it was insufferable but man the transition with trio of town was BRUTAL.

Main reason I love HM/Sos games is for their overall vibe : running around in cozy lil your town with your cozy ost meeting your quirky villagers while stressing out with the clock is best feeling <3
Idk if this is because of the town amenagement mechanic (which didn't add anything for me) but this one lacks of charm. The graphics are real bad and the art direction is so cheap I feel like I'm playing the sims 1 but worst. Ost is still solid and villagers are still quirky though.
Also, what the hell was the garden tour (???), I feel like most of the new features just sucks.
But what made me mad and reason I dropped this, is the game stupidly blocking you (oh you have to ship 30 yams but it won't unlock until Fall year 2 so good luck spending 3 seasons with little to no objectives !) I still don't know what they were thinking.
(Okay I also gave up because I was mad that I was already dating Allen when Soseki aka the hottest bachelor of the game decided to show up but that's for another story...)

Expect for those complains it's your usual HM drugs, you'll be busy running around all day but still be unable to finish your never ending tasks.
But there's one of the biggest highlight of the franchise in this game imo : dancing in the festival while the intro theme of the original HM DS play made me cry and feel so alive. For that moment alone I knew the game was worth it :')

Okay so I might have the worst playthrought with this (stopped it midway cause TOTK hype) but it didn't prevent me from loving this game. While the start is kinda slow when you get to Folsense you get hooked for real. The vibe of this city is immaculate I loved running around and solving puzzles there. Talking about the puzzles they were great, your average Layton quality (except for the last one, broken mic iykyk). And of course the ending made me cry uncontrollably. But while I'm a sucker for those ending it would be nice to stop abusing this plot twist. The ending got me way more emotionnaly invested than in strange village but to be frank it was kinda rushed and a bit easy, I still have so many questions left unanswered. It's kinda like the game told us "go cry and stop thinking too much". But I'll forgive its flaws cause god this game has my heart, it was everything I wanted : epic and tragique scene, amazing character, peak ost and just the overall vibe...
So after being a bit dissapointed by strange village this trilogy is getting real good I cannot wait to play unwound future