My gut reaction on finishing is that I liked it a lot but maybe not as much as 2. This is the best party of the series by far and the character writing in hangout cutscenes and sidequests really shines. I'll probably get in a lot of arguments with people on the internet over the years about this game. But especially as the game goes on you start to feel as though time crunch was setting in.
There are still interesting themes about creating and consuming art, franchise media, and human development, but the act of actually playing the game gets less and less interesting. Big ending fatigue starts to set in especially in the last dungeon.
At the same time this is the only Xenoblade where two women, one of them a main party member, make a romantic promise to murder each other, so it's impossible to say it's a "bad" game at all.
There are still interesting themes about creating and consuming art, franchise media, and human development, but the act of actually playing the game gets less and less interesting. Big ending fatigue starts to set in especially in the last dungeon.
At the same time this is the only Xenoblade where two women, one of them a main party member, make a romantic promise to murder each other, so it's impossible to say it's a "bad" game at all.