games

Oh yeah, Xenoblade, let me piggyback off that.

1 is very very good, best story, but there's a bit of a plot lull in the midpoints of each of the Titans that can feel like I'm going through the motions. Due to how extensive the areas are, it exacerbates the needed downtime a bit far for my liking. As well, too many placeholder quests that just serve as padding/easy XP. Also, if I have to look for Black Liver Beans again, I'm reaching through the screen and killing Juju myself.

2 has my favorite combat (I miss step-cancelling ;–;). However, even though I do genuinely like the story and characters–I'd die for Nia–it's hard not to cringe recommending it to other people, especially people who aren't desensitized to animeisms. A lot of moments that feel like they're there to hit quota, a lot of things I think just feel awkward. Some of the character designs are just straight-up egregious (my go-to on this is Dahlia) and it sometimes has the aura of "we were making a gacha game specifically for that demographic but then Nintendo told us to remove the monetization so we just nixed that specifically." I love this game but with a large asterisk on it.

3 is rather polished gameplay-wise and probably my favorite in sum but it's a bit all-over-the-place due to having to accommodate both returning and new players from the outset in the story. It's the most disjointed feeling one for me, feels like it kinda scrambled to tie up a lot of ends. It's still a good story, It just doesn't have the unfettered cohesiveness of, say, 1. Best main party overall in the series though, IMO. Named my cat Mio.