How Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Ending Fails Itself
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- For the longest time, RPGs have put us into the shoes of larger-than-life heroes, telling heroic tales of battling against great evils and saving the world. But as the genre has expanded, and the worlds and conflicts our heroes find themselves in become increasingly more nuanced and ambiguous, some of these standard tropes don’t translate as well as they should. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 offers a perfect example, crafting a classic story about looking toward the future in spite of our many crippling fears. Unfortunately, its ending distorts what should be a straightforward narrative into a strange, dishonest mess, pushing Xenoblade 3 into territories far beyond its scope and ambitions.
You can read the original essay here: docs.google.com/document/d/1y...
Chapters:
00:00 -- Strange Place, Strange Time, Strange Design
07:10 -- The Actual Text: The Origin of the Problem
13:42 -- The Subtext, Part I: Mixed Metaphors
19:21 -- The Subtext, Part II: The People of the City Need to Die
25:33 -- Why Are We Here?
34:12 -- Putting it All Back Together
Credits:
All uncredited footage captured by myself.
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When your channel gets “discovered” by the algorithm or some other circumstance, your new audience is going to have such a treat with a library of so many compelling videos! I’m so impressed by the depth and organization of your commentary, especially how consistent it is so early into your video making. You really have a knack for this man!
Thank you! I always try to have a specific thesis in mind rather than treat each game as a list of elements to talk about, which does wonders for organizing an essay, haha
The ending of Xenoblade 3 soured a game that was initially a contender for the best in the trilogy to a game I find extremely underwhelming compared to the two before it, but I never could articulate why for reasons other than “the game feels like it’s rushing to an ending after chapter 5 and pretty much the whole thing fell flat emotionally around then too”. The way you articulated all of this suddenly makes it all make sense why this ending completely failed to work for me, and it also just feels nice to see some proper criticism for Xenoblade 3 when it’s probably the most acclaimed in the trilogy (even though I really don’t care for it compared to 1 and 2).
Yep, it really does feel like Xenoblade 3 loses a lot of steam after the big events at the end of chapter 5. I feel like the pandemic must've had some significant impacts on development, because I find it hard to believe that the best thing they could come up with for the Agnus Castle Region was one hallway and a large room, especially compared to the fairly significantly-sized Kevesi Castle.
I dont remember where, but i remember there being something about Origin's instability. The world technically exists as a data piece in Origin. Should Origin fail, the world fails. The Annihilation Events are showing this deterioration. The City wants the war to end because sometime soon, maybe not a year or eve 100, the world is doomed to end, and THAT fate is what they want to avoid. The whole "save the world for my kids" argument. Always connected this to why occasionally a colonists body doesnt regenerate to go through another cycle (not sending off, sometimes they just dont go back), just the machine breaking down.
I may be remembering a small piece of dialogue incorrectly, or even a false head cannon. Curious if im alone on this. This also doesnt excuse not talking more about the potential lost life
This is my recollection too, but my problem is that the game doesn't establish the rules very well. Is resetting Origin and destroying Aionios really the only option? Or can Origin be repaired and maintained indefinitely? The game doesn't really answer this question, instead opting to toss away the world without exploring alternatives.
But more fundamental than that, the game should be concerned with the moral question at the heart of that choice: if we assume that Aionios really is doomed, and that Origin will fail, is deleting the people of the City and leaving them to an uncertain fate really the correct option? Should we, as a moral society, potentially kill this entire population "for the greater good"? What does that suggest about us as a people? That our existence can be justified no matter the cost? I think these are legitimately difficult questions to answer, which is why it annoys me that Xenoblade 3 basically just ignores them. Because facing the future is only hard to do when the choices ahead of you are hard.
I still just don’t understand why they felt the need to make this game sort of stand-alone-ish when it’s the third game in a series that’s fully available on Switch. All the lore that connected 3 to 2 and 1 just gets dumped on you at the end and none of it really satisfied me. What annoyed me the most though, was how the world, compared to 1 and 2, didn’t even play that much of a role at all. I kept waiting for someone in the game to comment on the environments that players recognized from the previous games, but they only ever served as set pieces for the background. (They gave us a little tease with Nia in the end but that wasn’t nearly enough for me). I just feel like they could’ve done sooo much more with connecting the two games and delivering a satisfying story if they hadn’t used characters oblivious to their surroundings as the main cast. I guess I would’ve preferred a Future Redeemed approach where the base game is Rex, Shulk and friends getting to know this world that is half familiar and half new to them. They could’ve explained their parts of the world and as a motivation of it all, tried to figure out why any of this happened at all. Maybe this way, the (in my opinion horrible villain) Moebius could’ve been left out and the big mystery would’ve been to figure out why it happened or sth. Because as the base game is now, to me, it kinda disrespects returning players and teases more than it actually delivers interesting and rewarding lore and story.
I loved XC1 and 2. Playing 3, it just... Never clicked. Everything felt so disconnected. It just feels like random groups who dont know each other even though the story at large acts like they should. Why would the best mechanic the Kevesi has, Valdi, not be a known name to other colonies? Why are the leaders of each colony not known in general?
The consuls also just show up to die. They are never an actual threat. Except for J, none of them have a connection to the main cast or do anything threatening to the main cast. The hand of the author is not something i usually see, but the game felt like things happened because they do that in games
To be honest I think the main reason the world reboots at the end was to not ruin the endings of Xenoblade 1 and 2.
Stellar analysis. Loathe as I am to admit it, the City stuff didn’t even occur to me. Maybe that’s just a casualty of how minimally the game meditates on it. I didn’t like the ending either, but for me, the final straw was allowing the worlds to ultimately reunite last minute. I actually don’t mind splitting them apart, because it felt like one of the story’s few genuinely consequential decisions. Forcing Noah and the gang to choose between their ideals and relationships with each other is interesting because in all other respects, Xenoblade 3 seems terrified of exploring unchangeable loss. Don’t like that Ethel is dead? Complete this quest to revive her! Not sure about erasing Ghondor’s entire being? Don’t worry, she believes she’ll be inexplicably reborn as a perfect facsimile! Sad that the worlds ultimately split apart? My, is that Mio’s flute I hear? And then there’s Miyabi, Mwamba… the list goes on. I’m genuinely stunned by the decision to make loss meaningless in a story about war. I love this series and didn’t hate 3, but man did that game stomp all over its narrative stakes.
Fantastic video, i understand your frustrations and 100% relate with all of them.
The reasons for the existence of the weird and poorly thought out plot points is mainly because xenoblade 3, despite being a game about moving on, is an attempt of rehashing xenogears' (the first xeno game) plot, while trying (and failing imo) to make it make sense inside of xenoblade's multi-game canon. Stuff like the neverending war, noah's psychology, the idea of ouroboros vs moebius and many other elements that id rather not spoil were completely taken from that game but with 0 understanding of why they made sense and were interesting in the first place.
Yeah, I'm pretty unfamiliar with Xenogears outside of a few references, so any meaningful connections to that game would go over my head. Luckily, I think Xenoblade 3's themes are pretty clear to parse even without that knowledge
THANK YOU! Finally someone who shares my thoughts.
I literally played Xenogears right before the release of Xenoblade 3 and when I finally got to 3, I often felt like „wow, Xenogears kind of did that better“.
Didn‘t help that on my replay a few months back, I had also finally played the Xenosaga Trilogy which Xenoblade 3 also takes a lot from (Moebius basically just being the Testaments and a certain other character from Saga) and I felt that Saga once again did it a lot better
@@AurumAlex64 i think xb3 was made with newcomers in mind for better or worse so i definitely agree. I recommend xenogears if youre curious, its one of the videogame experiences that I'll cherish for the rest of my life and it will most likely give you a different perspective behind the entirety of the xeno series because it in many ways is the core of the entire story
I genuinely have always felt like Xenoblade 3 is the weakest of the trilogy, against so many who say it's the best, and I think you put into words a lot of the issues I have with it. It sucks because I think everyone was expecting something that really brought the themes and characters of the first two games together in a satisfying conclusion, but for me I just see a game with so much missed opportunity.
I would say though 2 is probably most least favorite of the series to actually play, I think it has the most interesting and character rich story. 3 was getting pretty close, but the ending really soured it for me.
That recent interview that came out where Takahashi answered a bunch of interview questions was very interesting. So many people seem to want to see what happens after the events of XC3. But the whole idea of 3 is that the future is uncertain, and that we need to press on regardless of that uncertainty. So when so many people want *definitive* answers as to *exactly* what happens at the end of the game, it feels to me like they've missed the point. It's supposed to be ambiguous, and to remove that ambiguity is to completely undermine the core theme of the game.
@@AurumAlex64 Right. But at that point things are just as ambiguous as when X1 and X2 had their own endings. It just feels like all the work you do to help people with sidequests and saving the world pays off in the first two games whereas in 3 none of those things matter in the end, so what's the point?
I'm also in the minority who really likes 2 and I feel like having all the different blades actually in the party with their own objectives and skill trees was far more engaging than the heroes in 3. The fact that only 1 hero can be in the party at a time and that they don't really do much other than unlock more classes for the main characters makes them less interesting in my opinion. And even the main party becomes less unique when anyone can be any class.
But yeah I know I'm in the minority. I'm not looking for a direct sequel to 3 but I'm hoping for another Xeno-style game eventually with the same depth of characters and story that the first two brought
@@4backpack1 Yeah, I agree with pretty much all of this. I really like 2's combat more than 3's, I think it's the field skills combined with the randomness of the blades that really annoyed me playing 2.
okay unsure if I totally agree with all the things
but holy shit you finally put into words that little irk I had in my mind ever since it ended. Especially with future redeemed showing two lights seperate the worlds in two then get back together again I just... wondered whatever the point is?
It feels like the writers wanted a dramatic farewell despite everything we do going against it. My biggest enjoyment in the game was when I went around saving colonies, helping the lives of people. The potato quest was tedious but I just thought... thats what it takes... it takes real work to make this war ridden world a place to live. And when we got quests like zeon and junpier coming together and learning about farming despite previously being on two sides of war it was the most. It felt impactful these relationships we helped build. Unlike you I didn't particularly feel the game rushed through them I was very satisfied with getting attached to most of these guys but that just made things worse here. It felt like... why did I bother with all that farming? Was it worth spending so much time helping these people with maintaining colonies? After all we just beat the bad guy and all these guys get reborn into their homes as kids so no problemo.
This goes into the triple realization for me realizing how deterministic this game is. I got the sense from the start of this but chairitably ignored it for the sake of the game. Its been ages since I played so I might be wrong but I think vandham says human lives should be 80 years or so I just asked myself... "why?". Seriously why? The human life expentancy just keeps growing. Different races in this world should differ in their lifespan. Why is there some "way the world is supposed to be"? And then in future redeemed when A repeats Alvies words from the end of xenoblade 1 about seeing things clear as day. So is that to mean... what alvis saw the peace the characters fought for here... or after this in close past of noah and the crew? Or even further? How long can we expect that all of this, is predeterminedd? Isn't that what the point of the story was to break free of this restraint? That all goes down to the city of course. If they really will just reincarnate as they were in aionios then everything until we catch up generation wise just has to be stuck in destiny.
I also felt that this thing with the city was too murky. Xenoblade 3 does it a lot it throws in something with a line or two to justify that they won't die and I have seen so many people defend it that its on the players to pay enough attention. But I don't think so, like you really well express this isn't the problems of players being confused but rather the game dropping something into the world with massive implications and not wanting to follow up because it might accidentally muddle the themes its trying to express.
In terms of the story I got the sense that mobius are the endless now so destroying them automatically must end aionios so I didn't particularly think like you about reasons for it to persist. But at the same time I also felt like the world splitting came kind of out of nowhere. Yeeah Nia kinda mentions it but before we get to the ending the characters don't tackle all the implications and that's what makes this ending feel rather weak. It's why when we get to it the best writers can do for the people of the city is say "they'll be fine trust me" and offer no reasoning really.
I do still really love the game but I cannot lie... it just would feel better and made a whole lot of sense as the story for the characters to stay in this connected world... which once again future redeemed just kinda... gives and impression they are gonna be back together in like a second passing which ultimately I think makes this farewell less bittersweet and more just... awkward. Like the party running together to the emotional music got me at first but now I just think to myself oh its not a problem they'll just be back almost right after it. And the game sure won't touch the way the city can live at all. I would have felt better if they got to look at all of this, the world once ridden by oppression and war and be able to say that now, they can all march together towards a bright future within it... not just go back like it never happened to try again and then I guess few seconds after getting back together again.
This already got way too long but man I can't be the only one who thinks the entire premise of annihilation events happening due to two worlds merging is kinda bs? Like these used to be one universe that got split apart why now when it tries to get back together its rejecting itself? I kinda realize I didn't really brought too much to discussion here besides "I agree" but whatever I have time to type... I guess I just want to say it sure feels like the game fights against itself by making me spend so much time saving and helping people through the lives they can live in this world after we free them and then go "nah we gotta reset everything anyways"
Yup, this sums up my thoughts pretty well. I'm also a little frustrated by the annihilation events, because I don't really understand them either. It feels like the game is working backwards here, like they've already decided that Aionios needs to go, and the annihilation events act as the symbolic manifestations of that argument. But if you don't agree with the game about what Aionios' fate should be -- and I think there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical about that argument -- then the annihilation events are just the game begging the question.
I've also seen some xenotubers claim that understanding the ending of this game is a "test of media literacy," and I really can't agree. I think so many people were caught of guard by the ending because they were accurately responding to how unintuitive it felt.
Excellent video analysis!
Thanks! I imagine this isn't a particularly popular interpretation of the ending, so I'm glad it resonated with someone!
I personally disagree, the game wants the melting pot of cultures to happen, it's just the circumstances of how it happened making it not healthy to be sustained
After Origin resets the worlds we can see Noah remembering agnus' melody, symbolizing him remembering Mio and that shows that the worlds still yearn for each other
Of course, with future redeemed we know that this view is confirmed, but I think that even before the dlc released we could interpret the ending like this
And of course the view that the ending defeats the whole point of the adventure is a mute point, since if the adventure didn't hapoen in the first place, the ending wouldn't happen, letting the characters of Aionios continue living in the endless now
I think my issue with this reading is that it falls into the "the world just isn't ready for change yet," which I don't feel is much better than what I suggest in the video. Change isn't like that. There is never a perfect time, or even an ideal one, for people to come together and make change happen, social or otherwise. The game can say it didn't happen in the best way, sure, but the answer is never to scrap it and start over. The answer is to take stock of what you have in the moment, and try your hardest to make the best of a messy situation. That's the only thing we can do, and that feels like the most emotionally honest answer to me. So when Xenoblade 3 deletes Aionios at the end, it feels like the game is taking the easy way out.
I think my fundamental problem with the ending is that I don't really buy the argument that Aionios is the endless now. I mean, it is literally stuck in time, but metaphorically, it very much represents an unstable, uncertain future. And isn't it worth trying to see that uncertainty through to the end, instead of tossing it out with the bathwater? In that sense, I don't really like that Future Redeemed basically confirms the two worlds will merge again. The entire point of the story was to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, not to embrace it only contingent on if you get a definitive answer later on. We should, on some level, be content with not knowing what will happen to the two worlds.
But those are just my thoughts. I appreciate the comment!
Xenoblade 3 is too unhealthy apart of my identity to watch this or any video that doesn't go "OH MY GOD ITS SOO GOOD AND LANZ IS SO HOT HES GONNA MARRY ME". But i will return in 6 years when i see my current self as an embarrassment so i can finally enjoy your analysis. :D
Well the good news is that there is absolutely no critique of Lanz in this video, because Lanz is great all around
@@AurumAlex64 HES MINE!
Very cool video!
i know nothing about xenoblade besides a few considerations of playing it back when i still thoroughly enjoyed being a nintendo fan. despite this, this video was very in depth on this ending i have zero clue about to the point that i found myself agreeing that the ending was silly and that the side quests were more interesting, though this is entirely through the lens of not actually playing the game myself lol. i was also interested in the looping having repeats. also, not a fan of time travel mechanics or time loops conceptually as a whole and i admire this video mentioning how time travel is unethical in multiple ways that i feel people dont think about enough in stories like this.
great video, presumably great points, still an enjoyable watch with no context. on to the next
Yeah, it's a shame too, because the story of this game's actually pretty great right up until the last few moments. I get what they were going for, but... man. Glad you enjoyed the video, though!
28:37 I’m curious but what would you say is a time travel story which is done properly?
I think time loop stories like Majora's Mask and (especially) Outer Wilds are pretty good examples. Generally, I think time travel stories wherein the characters choose to time travel (rather than accidentally stumble into it) are where the most problems tend to arise. And that's because the characters are forced to consider the morality of their actions in a way that otherwise wouldn't need to happen if the time travel was forced upon them.
NGL as much as I get where you are coming from and agree with a few of your points especially for the first part about side quests are structured. I disagree with a lot your interpretation of the ending mostly cus I disagree with two of your interpretations of the themes themselves. I feel like we got something very different out of the games narrative. Honestly the DLC doubling down and being like “yes the worlds are connected in the ending” feels very interesting to me.
I’ve been meaning to try and get into this series for a while. I got Xenoblade Chronicles X on my Wii U a little while ago. I should really play that eventually
My Xenoblade hot take is that I think X might be my favorite. But it's been like 8 years since it's played, so that it not an updated opinion at all
Ironically I think there's still an awkward unintended race metaphor if you keep the City, because all of its residents are regular homs/humans. There's no machina, no entia, no gormotti, no indoline etc. If this is what the future looks like for the rest of the colonies, which is likely because the City stemmed from the intermingling of former Kevesi and Agnians, then there's still a massive loss of racial diversity, and the implication that the remaining homs/humans are superior through natural selection.
Anyway, has your opinion changed with future redeemed?
Yeah, I'm not really sure why all the people of the City look like humans. It seems like they should look more diverse than that, but maybe I've missed something where they explain the reason.
As for Future Redeemed, I don't think it really changed my mind about the ending. For a second, I thought they might actually address it, because Alpha's entire goal stems from only wanting to save the people of the City, the new life of Aionios. But in the end, I thought Alpha kind of fell flat as a villain; the game gives his argument no credence whatsoever, and he feels more like a computer program gone rogue than someone with an actual perspective.
I thought Na'el in particular was a truly tragic character, and she has some of my favorite scenes in the DLC. She definitely becomes increasingly isolationist, and perhaps a bit naïve, but there's something a little bit cruel in the game suggesting that Na'el is gullible to believe in Alpha's promise of a better life for the people in the City. Because, fundamentally, Matthew is asking Na'el to fight a battle in which she is to be forcibly displaced from her home, her history erased, and her existence left hanging in the air as an open question. I think it's totally valid for Na'el to deny that as the only worthwhile future for her, for her to think that grossly unfair. But the game just doesn't really want to engage with the uncomfortable tangles of the base game's ending, so Alpha and Na'el must inevitably be closed-minded and ultimately stuck in the past.
Liked the expansion overall, though :)
@@AurumAlex64 Yeah, I see that. Even though they reversed some of themes in FR (base game being about letting go of the past and dlc about the folly of completely discarding it) they ended up with the same problems, and it's the same characters who suffer for it.
Anyway, I really appreciate that you replied to a comment on a video this old. More CZcamsrs ought to do that. Also this was a really good video essay, how on earth is your channel not bigger?
Thanks! The entire reason I wanted to make this channel was to discuss games with other people, so I try my best to respond to comments. In fact, Xenoblade 3's ending was the very thing that finally pushed me to start making video essays, so I'm excited in particular whenever someone comments on this video. I'm honestly glad the reception seems to be mostly positive here, because it seems like the ending of this game is pretty precious to a lot of the Xenoblade fanbase, but maybe I just read the room wrong.
@@AurumAlex64 You're welcome! I'll be honest, I hadn't noticed much of the problems with the ending when I first played, and I do disagree with some of your points about time travel, but a good analysis is a good analysis.
@@AurumAlex64“and he feels more like a computer program“
That‘s because he literally is. Alpha is the machine part of Ontos while A is the more human side, Alvis, which we saw in the first Xenoblade
I haven't even played this game but I can tell you're spitting straight facts for a video with less than 1k views.
49% RS
Loved this video!!!!
For me, the main issue I had with the XC3's ending was that I had somehow missed any and all signs and hints that the worlds were going to be separated after they collided OTL So I was going along my merry way thinking that the worlds were simply combining wrong and would combine correctly once we beat Z, and then became really confused as everyone started saying their goodbyes in that clearing afterwards. And after the euphoria of the surprise XC2 character cameos faded I was just kind of mad because what did i spend all those hours running around doing almost all the sidequests helping people and forging connections between them for, you know? All that potato farming, wasted :(
Thanks for validating my dislike for the way this game ended, haha, and then adding more really good reasons for doing so on top of it! I will be sending this video to my brother immediately (XC1 is his favorite and he was similarly disappointed with XC3's endgame).
(Also I was writing this comment as I watched the video and I love that you mentioned disliking DQ11's third act for the same reasons because I also disliked DQ11's third act for the same reasons!!! Same hat!!!)