#skells

Ok so the combat. Overdrive, is a completely balanced mechanic that doesn't allow you to completely take the main game’s difficulty and snap it over your knee like a fucking twig. Except it is. Like, it is honestly comical just how trivial almost everything becomes with the right arts on your build. And if you throw really busted arts like Ghostwalker/Ghost Factory or Blossom Dance into the mix, literally nothing can stand up to you bar the literal endgame superbosses, and a big part of that is just because a lot of them, Telethia in particular, are in positions where you literally can't fight them on foot and realistically survive without a highly specialised build. But with that proper build, that probably takes a lot of grinding, you can still beat them fairly quickly, save for Levael The Terminus, because it's literally in the middle of the ocean. All because of this funny counter gear.

Going along with Overdrive, is the amount of customisation this game offers you. Almost every weapon type offers you at least a couple arts that work really well alongside Overdrive. The build I ended up with at the end was a Knife, Dual Gun combination, mainly because Smooth Recovery, is an amazing art for Overdrive, and Black Butterfly and Full Specs are great compliments for an Ether Build with Executioner as the main Damage Art. Yeah sure I ended up using Ghostwalker/Factory like most Endgame builds, but hey that shit is comically busted, and I absolutely love abusing stuff like that, intentional or otherwise. Plus I do enjoy the idea of my Cross, Coraline, using the arts of Irina and Elma, her immediate superior officers in BLADE. Which actually brings me to,

I was honestly surprised at how much thought I ended up putting into my Cross this time around, but it was fun. Not just deciding on a good look both when creating her and finding what gear she'd wear, but also thinking about how her character woukd respond to the situations and dialogue options presented throughout the game. It's to the point that Coraline's basically become my first OC, depending on how you count Milton the Mythrakid I guess, since he's an interpretation of a character we know exists but we haven't seen or heard about. Either way I definitelywant to do more with Coraline. Probably gonna draw her some more as time goes on to get a better feel for the design as well as drawing her skell too just because.

That actually brings me around to the story. I'll be the first to admit that overall X's story falls short compared to the trilogy andveven Gears and Saga but it still has a lot of solid stuff that really git me thinking, in addition to stuff I only picked up the second time around, something Xeno stories have been fantastic with since the beginning with Gears. Obviously spoilers ahead as I talk some notable stuff in the plot

This moment really stuck out for me after simmering on it for a while. Because this idea that memories and the continuation of a person's consciousness are what make them who they are would continue as a prominent thematic plot point in the following games. Xenoblade 2 emphasises it the most heavily with Blades losing their memories with each reawakening, thus they lose their "contuity of consciousness". It's quite literally the central source of conflict for Blades and is everywhere in the main story and side content with characters like Praxis, Theory and Vess. Xenoblade 3 has this too, albeit as a more subtle background element with the Agnian and Kevesi Soldiers effectively being reset upon death as they are reborn, however there are still cases where things slip through the cracks, most notably with Eunie and Ashera. Yet despite that, Monica asserts to Eunie that whatever her past life was, it wasn't her and she didn't make it, all because soldiers simply don't have that continuity of consciousness.

Thinking about it now X has plenty of thematic ideas that 2 & 3 would go on to pull from. Things like a cycle of death and rebirth, something that Blade and NLA are trying to achieve with finding the Lifehold Core. As Lao puts it, they're the lucky ones who can come back as many times as they want. Lao's arc is particularly well done all things considered. A moment early on that stuck out to me was when they were discussing how Lin got her spot on the Whale as a way to repay her parents who were crucial in getting the ship going in the first place. Lao, whether he shows it or not, would have some misgivings about that, and Elma seemingly picks up on that and is quick to point out Lin's own skill were crucial in her getting her spot and that it wasn't just pure nepotism. It's really interesting to see Elma pick up on Lao's misgivings so early. If we do ever get an X sequel, which I do think and hope we will sooner or later, I'll be very curious to see where Lao's character goes from here. Speaking of characters who I really want to learn more about,

Elma is a really interesting character honestly despite the many unanswered questions surrounding her, it just has me more intrigued to learn more about her. The question of what her species and planet are like is one i really want to see explored someday. Funnily enough, 2 actually gave us a breadcrumb of that. Elma has a line when receiving a Seafood pouch item, one of her favourite categories, where she expresses fascination with the concept. "Making meals out of marine lifeforms, fascinating" which I've always taken as her species just straight up not having a concept of seafood. Idk why, it's such a minor inconsequential detail that isn't even from X but I always found that super interesting. Her designs are also two of my favourites in the Xeno series, especially dince they double as subtle references to Kos-Mos and T-Elos. I think I lean a little more towards Alien Elma though, something about the crystal hair is really cool to me.

A few other Miscellaneous things I can think of:

The sidequests are fantastic. While many are a little tedious, they do a really good job of building the world and fleshing out the natures and cultures of the different alien species that come to inhabit NLA.

The Affinity Missions go hand in hand with this, they do a great job of fleshing out all the different party members all the while giving you an avenue to learn their unique abilities. Most of those party members are also really well developed abd mostly compelling characters. Even the most if the ones who seem like assholes at first, like Boze or HB, do get better as their affinity missions progress. They clearly knew it was a great concept as it came back in 2 & 3 with the Blade Quests and Hero + Ascension Quests.

The ost is fucking incredible, I've been adding X music to my personal playlist over the course of my playthrough because there's so much good stuff in it. It's honestly criminal how much you end up missing because the Overdrive and Flight themes override 90% of them.

Skells are incredibly cool and a brilliant way to bring in the concept of mech combat systems from the previous Xeno games.

Phew, I think that's everything I've had to say. I've called out many of this game's flaws in other places and most of that I do still stand by. The game is in desperate need of an actual tutorial and QoL improvements. The game's draw distance can be quite frustrating at times trying to find specific things or characters and getting certain materials can be a really annoying grind, (Neinail Materials), but if you can put up with that there is a hell of a game there. I don't know if I'd consider it better than the trilogy, just because it has more complete stories, but it's quite close.

Overall I'm so happy I gave X a second shot and now I'll definitely be there waiting for a port or sequel. It's easily the most underrated game I've ever played. I'm confident it'll happen at some point but either way I'l likely have more Xeno stuff to play in the meantime if whatever's next is Xenoblade 4.