#xbcde

Like, while one of the most frequent complaints that I have seen about Xenoblade 1 is the sheer number sidequests, I never really saw that as a negative. Sure, there a whole bunch of really rather basic quests, but I didn't have too much of an issue with those, as they are easy enough to complete, and the bits of flavour text you get with them give some insights as to how the people of Bionis and Mechonis and Mechonis interact with a given type of monster, material or collectible. And the quests given by named NPCs I think are just downright great, because while plenty of them start simple, the absolute vast majority of them are only parts of longer chains, that all establish complex relationships between NPCs in not just a specific area, but across multiple areas all over the world. The NPCs in this game feel like genuine people that you can get to know, and with the branching quest system, like someone you can actually have an actual impact on.

Games like X and 3 of course also have an Affinity Chart, but I think that by the very nature of their story premises, these games both don't really have the same kind of grounded feel to it that 1 has. In both games, you can't really get the sense that you are getting to know someone who is just living their life normally because they either already survived the destruction of their home planet (in X) or have a fundamentally abstract way and understanding of life that I find harder to relate to (3, which honestly even applies to people in the City). In 1, by contrast, there's of course the entire war against the Mechon, but even with that, the way in which it affects people comes off as more of a disruption to everyday life of these people, rather than something that is fundamental to their entire being as you get to know them. There's a reason why the fate of Alcamoth after Mechonis Core hits so hard, and why I find it difficult to even care for what happens to Indol and anyone on it towards the end of 2. Anyway, also doesn't help that in X and 3 I find it fundamentally more difficult to actually keep track of the Affinity Chart because there isn't really a good way to view it in its entirety or anything that's designated as a proper "middle point" for it.

Either way, this whole grounded appeal also manifests itself in the party for me. Admittedly, when you just judge them by the main story, the only real characters that truly receive proper development are Shulk and Melia (and sort of Dunban), but I think their backgrounds (as well as the Heart-to-Hearts focussed on one particular dynamic) do a whole lot of work in still making them work. All four characters from Colony 9 have their childhood friend dynamic that gets explored in Heart-to-Hearts, and the people in the colony actually know them and acknowledge them. Sharla likewise only really has the refugees from Colony 6, but she does have a similar dynamic to them. Riki of course got his family, and also gets some interactions with the Nopon of Frontier Village. And the only character that isn't really grounded, Melia, is acknowledged to be a bit out there in comparison to the others, but gets integrated nonetheless. Contrast that with the party in 2, where outside of Driver and Blade relationships, no one really knows each other before the start of the game, and Rex explicitly hasn't been in his actual hometown for a literal third of his life, the other party members are either royalty, beings with an inherently different way of life from humans, or Tora, and everyone either has these over-the-top personalities or backstories. . . even if I didn't have all of my other issues with 2, I don't think I ever could really get attached to the party there the same way as I do in 1. And while I think the party in 3 is better about this, there's still the fundamental issue of the core concept behind their lifespans and how it affects them making them just inherently a bit more difficult to relate to, even if the childhood friend dynamic between Noah, Lanz and Eunie is appreciated. X meanwhile doesn't even really have a party dynamic for the vast majority of its main story mission runtime, which admittedly just isn't what the game is going for, but I still kinda miss whenever I review the cutscenes of the final chapter where that sort of thing does briefly pop up.

And even beyond that, 1 just has all these little things that flesh out its setting, like proper descriptions for both materials and collectibles (with everything in the strange category even being explicitly named by party members, which is just such a nice little touch!), which for some reason no other game in the series actually has?? Like, I can understand it for 2, since that game had a somewhat rushed development with limited staff to make it come out in the Switch's first year, but 3 still doesn't have either of that, and X only ever had descriptions for collectibles, but not materials.