I recently picked up a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in a sale and don’t have enough time to play all the previous titles at the moment. I know that playing the games in a chronological order would be beneficial in terms of background story and lore, but is it possible to follow the story without having played one and two before?
You can play the main game without playing any of the previous ones. There are certain things (in main story / plot) that you will enjoy more if you have played the previous two mainline games though, but for the majority of game, it has nothing to do with any other game.
As for the DLC, Future Redeemed, it brings all 3 games together, and I don’t think you’ll enjoy it without playing all the games.
Thanks for your input, I think I’ll give it a shot then!
The story is technically stand-alone, though there is a significant connection to the previous games near the end. You can definitely play them out of order and still understand the story of 3.
I would say though it may be hard to go back to the older ones if you play this first - 3 added a bunch of quality of life adjustments and refined the battle system.
Whatever you do, they’re all amazing games. I think 3 is my favourite.
Just to add to your last point: Personally I think 3 is the weakest of the bunch overall, although still amazing. You can probably play them in any order without any problem gameplay wise. They all have their flaws and they mostly come from systems exclusive to the entry.
My order of preferred is 1 > 3 >>>> 2. 3 dumbed down character customization too much, IMO. For gear you only get 3 accessories (I think, haven’t played since it launched) for gear and your mech skill trees are fairly straightforward. The first one felt more like a traditional RPG where exploring rewards you with things to get better gear. Plus each character felt like they had different skills and couldn’t all be the same.
I couldn’t overcome the second one’s fan service and utterly confusing combat system. I’ve been meaning to try it again since it’s been ~6 years from when I tried it and it was the first of the series that I tried (besides original Xenogears on PS1). I did enjoy it 2’s story, but the gacha mechanics and big boobed weapon girls or whatever they were, were quite off-putting. Same with the annoying Furby looking creature.
No one ever mentions X
Probably because most people haven’t even played it. They should have ported it to Switch.
I didn’t get around to it before the Wii U gen was over. I have been meaning to try emulating it, as I am curious to try it out. Although, I’ve read mixed reviews, it seems fans either really love it or find it quite boring without much middle ground. I love mechs and RPGs, so I’m definitely willing to give it a try with an open mind.
if you get past the confusing combat system in 2, you are rewarded with… a boring combat system lacking in any agency, just a lot of busywork. so it’s not even like it’s misunderstood but good, it’s just not very good.
they made something much more enjoyable with actual agency in the standalone dlc for 2, but it’s still not anything to write home about, just far more enjoyable.
and yeah all the fan service is nothing but embarrassing
2 was the first one I played, and my introduction to “Xeno” series. I enjoyed the overall world and story, but I agree with being annoyed with the gacha system and the fan service.
Not sure why you’ve been downvoted! What did you dislike about 3 out of interest?
It basically comes down to the class system and overall level scaling. I like to do a lot of side content, which meant I was always overleveled. I also like to max out all classes. Since class EXP is tied to the level difference between you and your enemy I didn’t want to waste any class EXP and never used a maxed class again. I could have fought even stronger optional enemies to max out all available classes first, but then I’d be even more overleveld. In combination this resulted in me running the most janky class combinations possible all throughout the game up until the very last boss fight. I know that’s kinda on me, but the game basically punished me for my play style since it would have been more fun to plan and use an actual party setup with enemies around my level.
The worst part is that all of this could have been solved by leveling down my party, which was an option in the Xenoblade 1 remake.
Also, while I liked the story overall, unlike the other two games the final boss was kind of a let down. 1 and 2 kind of peaked in the final stretch while 3 peaked during a certain sequence before that.
spoiler
Namely the prison sequence. I’m also not the biggest fan of erasing everything that happened in 3 by the end of it. It’s kind of a “It was all a dream” resolution since we’ve gone back and other games couldn’t possibly refer to anything that happened. All people born after the merge ceased to exist and any character development was for nothing. While Future Redeemed has the best gameplay overall, it did not address any of the open questions and future stories like it would have to omit Xenoblade 3 characters since the iterations we know of don’t exist. It’s frustrating, especially since 3 was supposed to be the final conclusion for the Klaus arc but we are left with the same state as before 3.
Yes that’s a fair point - I did find myself overleveled quite a lot, and it was sometimes frustrating having to balance class options between characters (personally I was trying to level classes with the characters that got the most benefit from that particular class, which became a juggling act). I find that all the Xenoblade games struggle with overleveling (like you say, 1 remake had the option to level down). My initial thought would be to tie side content to your current level (i.e. the quests level up with you) so it’s always the correct level of difficulty, but that makes levelling up pretty pointless. Instead maybe level caps until you reach certain parts of the game? Hopefully it’s something future games can improve upon.
I feel like they have this already solved, they just don’t want to do it. Either give me the option to level down or to bank a percentage of all EXP and not just quest EXP. If they don’t want us to cheese the system to power level, just lock this EXP away until the post game.
It’s really annoying that there IS a level down option, but it only unlocks after beating the main story. :/
Yeah, I forgot to mention that. 3 is probably the best of the bunch, and my favourite among all of them, so might be difficult going back to previous games.
Thanks for the explanation!
While I do think 1 is great (and my favorite until 3 came out), playing 1 and 2 will take LOTS OF TIME, and if you don’t want to churn out a couple hundred hours on both I’d suggest watching some videos on YouTube about the stories. I know there are a few that recap 1 and 2 that came out before 3’s launch.
I think 3 is absolutely worth playing, though. That game hit me with emotions I hadn’t felt from a game in a long time, and I still can’t listen to some of the music tracks without welling up. For me it was easily the best game of 2022.
Thanks for the explanation! Just watching a recap of the story on YouTube didn’t even come to my mind, might be a good idea!
Yeah, for sure!
Here’s a link to one I found. I think I watched this a couple years ago because I myself wanted a refresher about the story before the third one.
Here’s a tip because you say you don’t have a lot of time (which I mean who does) there are four like movement buffs that you get (it’s been so long I forget what they call but you’ll know it when you see it). Follow the main questline until you get the first three. The fourth one comes much later in the game. Once you have the first three then that’s a good time to start exploring.
you can, but it’s the end of a three part arc so you might not really understand everything. Though honestly the story is fairly incoherent at the best of times so you might not understand everything anyway.
xenoblade 2 is … bad (with the occasional good moment). so honestly just jump into 3 if you want to play it.
if you just want a high level overview you can reveal this spoiler and I'll give you the basic setting - but to be clear this spoils 300 hours of the previous games
In earth’s near-future there’s a scientist on a space station who has a “destroy all life and start again” button he can press, and he presses it even though there’s another scientist in the room that says “hey don’t press that button”. Pressing the button creates a new universe that half of the bad-scientist gets sucked into and the other scientist also gets sucked into.
That event creates the world of Xenoblade Chronicles which follows a kid that gets a sword that is a special sword and he through trial and tribulation eventually gets the choice to become a God or not and decides to just go live with his friends in the world of Xenoblade Chronicles
Meanwhile, on future earth, the other half of the bad-scientist floods the earth with nano-machines to rebuild it in a “better” way. But the kid in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sets in motion events that cause the space station he lived on for millennia to explode and all the nanomachines went away which allowed all the humans to live on the land again as they couldn’t because of nanomachines
This sets the stage for Xenoblade 3, two universes, one with future earth, the other with just some other universe.
