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Episode 802: Rejecting Your Family Portrait - Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Spoilercast

by James Jones, Greg Leahy, and Syrenne McNulty - December 24, 2022, 6:23 pm EST
Total comments: 4

We're going deep on Xenoblade Chronicles 3, FOR CHRISTMAS.

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We've promised it for a while, and in the spirit of the season we offer you a gift: The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Spoilercast.

This episode features Greg, Syrenne, and James talking: plot, gameplay, art, music, and the larger series.

I shouldn't have to say it, but this podcast is chock-full of spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 3. However, given 3's ties to the larger series, the remainder of the Xenoblade universe is also fair game. Xenoblade Chronicles 2's plot is discussed at length, and both Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X have some spoilers throughout. Consider yourself warned.

This is by far one of the longest episodes we've ever released, clocking in at a whopping 3:45 and took a heck of a long time to edit. Throughout, musical inclusions tie to the content being discussed or are demonstrative of the extensive musical conversations. If you would prefer to listen to the show without the interlude music, you can download it here.

If you'd like to jump around the episode, I've done my best to bookmark the major topics in the RSS feed without spoiling plot via the titles.

Next week, we have a pre-recorded Listener Mail show with Jon and Guillaume joining Greg and James. We'll be back in the new year, but don't wait to send us any questions you have.

Happy Holidays.

This episode was edited by James Jones. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See what he's up to at his website.

This episode's music is mostly from Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It additionally featured music from Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2, and X. All rights reserved by Nintendo Co., Ltd. It additionally featured Engage the Enemy (Xenoblade Chronicles) from Project X Zone 2.

All rights reserved by Nintendo Co., Ltd. and Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

Talkback

LemonadeDecember 24, 2022

Finished the episode. I had been looking forward to this since finishing the game. It was very good, very entertaining, especially the discussion of the babies.

Xenoblade 3 is definitely my favourite in the series.

Back when 2 came out, I decided not to play it because I never finished 1 on 3DS or X because of late game difficulty. Then 1 DE came out with the easy mode and that really made me love the game. So yes, I played 3 on easy and I still loved it. I plan to start playing 2 very soon and I will be using whatever easy mode it had.

Also, the girl with the gall is my favourite.

Evan_BDecember 25, 2022

This game sucks so bad.

Will respond with my thoughts on the episode after I’ve listened.

M.K.UltraDecember 25, 2022

Quote from: Lemonade

Back when 2 came out, I decided not to play it because I never finished 1 on 3DS or X because of late game difficulty. Then 1 DE came out with the easy mode and that really made me love the game. So yes, I played 3 on easy and I still loved it. I plan to start playing 2 very soon and I will be using whatever easy mode it had.

I think the trick to these games (and many RPGs that seem difficult) is do one of 3 things:

Learn the systems and optimize them
Do every side quest so that you are OP for the difficult boss battles
Grind to level up enough that you can brute force the difficulty spikes

1. is the tough to figure out for games like Xenoblade since the systems are so complex. 2. is my preferred way to tackle these games but stretches the playtime considerably. 3. works in a pinch and is what I did on X, but ends up feeling like busy work.

Evan_BDecember 31, 2022

Circling back to this, I’m not surprised that the majority of this podcast was dedicated to outrageous things that happened in Xenoblade 2 that unfortunately found their way into Xenoblade 3. The repercussions of that game are unfortunately still being felt.

Very light discussion of mechanics, but I can’t agree that Xenoblade 3’s combat is an evolution of 2. It takes no positive steps forward from Torna- but I’ve already stated that, so I won’t beat a dead horse. It is evolved in that it is markedly more coherent, but that’s just about it.

Again, I can respect this game’s narrative decisions, even if I was rather dissatisfied to realize it’s Matrix similarities. But I do agree that Chapter 5’s prison sequence is a bold decision, and one that pays off in the first run through. I also appreciated the music discussion- this soundtrack is the best of the three Xenoblade games, no question.

A minor correction, though: in what world was Xenoblade 2’s expansion pass more than 29.99? I was honestly baffled by this claim and had to double check myself. The reason Torna was marketed at a similar price point as a separate title was because you could transfer its DLC content to a copy of base Xenoblade 2. We can and should expect a similarly-sized story installment in Xenoblade 3’s pass.

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