finally finished Future Redeemed last night. I liked it! I don’t think it’s as ‘essential’ as Torna was (probably because I don’t think 3 needed fixing as much as 2 did) but on the whole I think it did a good job tying everything together. I liked the characters and the writing, and it was very nice to see Shulk and Rex again hehe.
Nice! Yeah the characters are great, Matthew is definitely up there with being one of my favorite xenoblade characters period.
And now you’ve got me wanting to replay Torna…
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I’ve come round to 2 since I first played it, but I was pretty down on it at the time. Torna really saved that game for me LOL
Matthew is a sweetheart for sure.
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I never played 2 so I remember thinking “oh no not this asshole” a lot whenever Rex was on screen. He was the strongest party member there by a mile though.
Looked up my old post about Future Redeemed and I still broadly stand by the stuff I said at the time
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Yeah I used to be really negative on 2 and I do still think it’s the weakest of the series but my girlfriend Vi is xenoblade 2’s (and especially rex’s) biggest defender and she is definitely starting to win me over. That and also Future Redeemed Rex have made me realize that Rex being naive and optimistic in situations where any reasonable person would be cynical and world-weary is like, the point of the character, and the point of the whole story even. As much as I liked to joke about how it’d be better if Rex actually did die at the beginning and Nia became the Aegis Driver, that actually just doesn’t work, she’s too cynical and couldn’t save Pyra/Mythra from wanting to die, and in fact is ‘saved’ by Rex herself (my gripes about how forced that actual romance is aside, I think the “you taught me to not be afraid of who I am” thing works pretty well)
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agree with the absurdity of the Lore but I do have to defend Nikol. Shulk is very much just a stereotypical “tech genius who’s bad at people skills” whereas Nikol is very blatantly very autistic. And it was very heartwarming to see him be supported by Matthew, A, and Shulk. And it’s kind of just a me thing but the friction between him and Glimmer is extremely (and honestly, painfully) similar to how my sister and I interact…
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I feel like I’ve seen this often enough that I (personally) want the optimism to be at least tinged with cynicism so that it feels like a conscious character decision rather than like, This Anime Hero Is So Dumb And Pure That They Win Over Everyone With Their Kindness, you know?
(it is possible Rex actually is that and I am making snap judgements based on my personal biases and clips I have seen)
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He does get tempered at a few points and actually at one point is like “okay I give up” (and it’s one of his best moments tbh)
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yeah I definitely have come round to Rex enormously. somewhat spoilery ramblings about the XC2 cast: I kinda feel like everything that’s come since 2 regarding its cast (so broadly: Torna for Hikari, 3 for Nia, FR for Rex) has been machine gun author saving throws on their characters (which are not broadly well-written in the base game imo) but the thing is… it kinda worked? I loved Hikari after Torna, I think Nia is great in 3 and I am genuinely fond of “Northern beefcake dad who loves his wives and kids and loves to cook and knows about nonbinary people” Rex, which I cannot say about the Rex that exists in 2 LOL
eta spoilers for the end of XC2: also, I (like pretty much every other person on planet earth) was very grossed out by the Rex Harem Implication and by That One Photo in 3 to the point I just went on to headcanon it as a Healthy Polyam Relationship between a dude and three ladies, so I think like… the fact that Rex likes to cook and is apparently an equal partner in his relationship(s) and isn’t just Harem Man With Three Wives was quite nice for me. like it made me more fond of 2 in retrospect.
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I wish I could headcanon that hard, I was furious about other implications of the XB3 ending for months until the DLC explicitly told me otherwise
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(this is a xenoblade thread now, I’m sorry mint you knew the risks)
Oh yeah the picture was super gross at first but looking back they’ve done so much to contextualize it as like. An actual healthy relationship (and perhaps even a polycule) that I really can’t be that mad about it.
(And I mean it was pretty obvious just from looking at 2 that Nia’s bisexual and into Mythra, that’s not even a reach at all, and like. She’s got the aegis swords on her back in xc3. Why would she have those, that’s not “girl best friends” that’s an entire bisexual woman please) (im normal)
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it’s called wilful, delusional denial and you too can cultivate it as a skill by investing so much time into something that ultimately disappoints you that the alternative is being angry for years 
@catgirl-real yeah no fr all of that. like agreed up and down LOL
eta: anyway last thing I have to say about Xenoblade for now. I’m pretty fond of Kingdom Hearts and I think ultimately a lot of what I like about XC is stuff I also like about KH (albeit that XC is broadly more grounded, which is a wild thing to say lol), but I think one place where I outright prefer Xenoblade is that there’s always been a strong theme of the power of community in those games. I really liked the NPC web in XC and I was glad to see that carried through Torna and XC3/FR. the way community is consistently reinforced as the strongest power for good (in a way I don’t think you see in a lot of JRPGs, where normally you focus on a core group of heroes and don’t pay much attention to the communities they come from/around them) is very heartwarming imo.
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No one’s in trouble BTW I just wanted to see how splitting topics works on discourse. Pretty simple!
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Anyways I want to rizz morag up (get on the floor and yell PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE)
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Oh that’s a cool feature.
that’s super neat! discourse has so much cool functionality…
I still need to play the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 but I love the series.
I wanna go back and play XCX too, it’s a blind spot for me and seems like something I’d really enjoy. Sad it’s trapped on the Wii U.
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yeah I will never play XCX at this point looks like because I am not acquiring a Wii U just for that. shame bc it looks sick 
IME it emulates pretty well. I don’t remember what emu I used tho
XCX whips in a lot of ways and is really unfinished feeling in others. I love it but somewhat in spite of itself and it has some really, REALLY annoying aspects to it.
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