How Future Redeemed Fixed Xenoblade 3's Biggest Problem 

Future Redeemed almost felt like a Collectathon game at times, as someone who loves fighting everything in these games I loved getting rewarded even more for fighting almost every normal and unique enemy!

Can we talk about how, in a series known for tons of enemy types and large areas and crafting materials, Future Redeemed is the first game since X to actually have a proper enemy encyclopedia? I don't know how it took them this long to realize that maybe players don't like having to either look up a guide online, or remember where to get a material dropped by specifically the level 60 version of enemies found only in one location in the entire game which you haven't passed through in 15 hours.

I really love the affinity system, but I did not like the unlock kits, I wouldn't like them in a big game like base 3. But the whole list thing was good, hope they implement all the qol of 3 and FR in the next game.

offseeing raises your affinity with the nearest colony(s) of their alignment, alongside world building, which directly works towards you getting stronger since passive buffs go up with area affinity

You hit the nail on the head. It feels like Monolith is piloting world design for a possible Xenoblade X2, given the Klaus trilogy is over, yet the series will keep going. Add it what will inevitably be a bigger world map with potential affinity for skells if they return, and you have even more for the player to sink their teeth into.

The real question now is why the hell the fanfare is so loud for whenever you complete an affinity goal. Like was there a need to make these trumpets blast that loud for killing 2 gogols 😂

I totally agree. The affinity system is great, though part of me wonders how well it would work outside of FR's smaller, more condensed structure. Giving every chest and enemy a point reward tied to progression works great in this 20 hour game, but I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't feel tedious in a main line game with 60 hours of content in the main story where the amount of chests to open and enemies to kill would be several times more.

FR would be the best in the series if it was a full length game IMO. Just really fun to play that I kinda felt sad after I was done with most of the side content. The only issue I had was that it did felt like some characters fell behind even if you were diligent with exploration. Some of the unlock kits were really out there and it’s not like 2 where they account for you missing some.

The systems of Future Redeemed worked because the world is compact enough to make it feasible to do while keeping it enjoyable. Those same systems would not work in the base game because 3 is just too huge. Really, a lot of the issues with the world of 3 is that it's too big while the options you have for movement aren't enough for it. It's a beautiful world, but it's kind of a slog to constantly move across it and I think that's where a lot of the complaints for the world center around

One thing worth mentioning is the aether masts, it’s though to find them at times, but if you do it significantly cuts down on finding everything you’ll need

This is what I feel when playing the DLC. There is also one other thing I love about the DLC, you don't need to choose the daytime (morning, afternoon, night) when fast travel, which always has 'morning' set as default in the main game.

It is pretty difficult to go back to base game after Future Redeemed and I’m not sure if I’ll ever 100% the map ever again after it turned out to be such a slog the first time around. I literally had several times where I’d just pop in headphones and listen to something else while I mindlessly filled in the map. I never did this with Future Redeemed because everything contributed to something and I felt engaged the whole time. Containers became so ho hum in base game because I knew that it would rarely be Nopon coins, but they were exciting in FR.

I completely agree with you!

I enjoyed completing all the lists so much! Instead of progressing the story that I was dying to see, I would make sure to run around and find all the items for the collectapedia before moving on!

Agree 100%, sometimes it felt useless exploring in 3. So glad they fixed it for DLC and here's hoping that they will use it for future entries.

while I prefer the Future Redeemed method the fact that Breath of the Wild and now Tears of the Kingdom sold so well will probably influence them to go to a listless system again. Honestly I do not think this was a problem in base Xenoblade 3. What I found to be the problem was the lack of towns or cities since the story demanded that they do not exist and any character tied to the history of that world. If they left Vandham around that could have worked wonders for the story.

While personally I didn’t have an issue with XC3’s map because I find the act of exploration itself to be rewarding, i will say that FR still fixes my biggest issue with 3, being the class points system. I’m the type of person who wants to do literally everything when i’m playing a game, which includes tedious tasks like getting max rank in every class for every character. However, grinding monsters for class points also means you get hella EXP, so then I just wound up 10 levels higher than whatever boss i’m about to fight and then there’s no challenge. Not having worry about that with FR was great, i never felt guilty about fighting an enemy out of concern that I was removing an aspect of challenge from the game

This feature was so good that for the first time I’m gonna 100% a xenoblade game because I have done literally everything but the overleveled superbosses

I wish this system would come back in future games but with two quality of life features. 1. A way to track down those last few things you're missing. Looking for certain enemies that only appear in one spot at night in the snow was not fun. Tears of the Kingdom lets you pay to unlock a random thing in it's encyclopedia, that would allieviate a lot of frustration here too. 2. When there's only like 4 or 5 unlock kits left in the game, just put them on the map. Hunting those last ones down was also a chore, and by the end of the game you've already got most of your party optimized.

I will stay tuned I do indeed want to see future content :)

I definitely think FC was an improvement. My biggest gripe is it doesn't make sense from a story standpoint to have character skill progression locked behind the ap system and random chests. Easily solvable by having 2 different skill tress, especially because I think the series could still use more options. Feels too straight forward most the time.

The AP system feels like a greatly expanded version of the nopon coin system for classes in the base game. The major difference being the depth (which works great with 6 classes, a lot worse with 20 per character) and the fact you can't just grind them up by killing the same enemy group over and over. Honestly, i think thats great. Whilst, again, i don't think the full system would work in the base game due to just having way more classes, being able to grab levels on your classes by exploring was the major driver for much of my exploration in Xenoblade 3, and making it so fighting every enemy type, collecting all the various items, intwracting with all the pieces jn the world, and killing the various unique monsters all worked towards getting you levels on all your classes could add a lot to the exploration.

While i think that FR's Affinity Goals are a big step in the right direction, it's going to take some overhauling in some areas and fine-tuning in others to make a checklist system that rewards you for completing goals work in a game longer than FR. Maybe they could scale down each individual area, or split the tasks up into smaller ones that are more approachable? Lord knows I haven't found every container in base XC3. I didn't bother much with max level gems, either, though I could see myself actually going back and trying to get some to challenge myself, and maybe get some stronger builds. Even in FR I already experienced some problems cropping up in trying to fill out the Monsterpaedia for example, where I just had no idea how to get a certain enemy to show up even after changing the time and weather repeatedly. Similarly, it's not always clear where items spawn out in the world, when the only info you're given is just the general region they appear in and a rarity. You can do some inferring that a certain type of item will spawn in a location that it would seemingly come from, like machine parts near a ferronis wreck, but that doesn't work for all the items if you're not scouring every single spot in a given region (not to mention that randomness is at play in spawn rates, which can mean you just miss out on a certain item for no other reason than bad luck). I also want to note that monster drops ARE listed in the Monsterpaedia and I could not be more grateful. Combine that with the ability to track a material you need to do any kind of crafting or upgrading which I also heavily appreciate, when I had to go search for a monster drop, I was rarely rolling my eyes the way I would in previous games where I would almost always consult a wiki in such scenarios. If theses systems are carried into the next Xenoblade game and can be improved upon, I am going to be very happy with whatever comes next. I think there needs to be a way for the game to give the information about what time of day or what weather is required for a monster to appear before you encounter a monster, as well as allowing for alternate map views that show what monsters spawn in certain zones and marks the type of items that spawn in certain zones. This would streamline that final bit of cleanup of the list immensely. Maybe they could make any information on locations and time/weather conditions you don't know unlock once you find all landmarks, locations, and secret areas in a region? Since it can be assumed that once a player has done all of those things, they've already been to every area in a region and explored pretty thoroughly. That means that anyone invested enough to thoroughly explore the world is rewarded with making anything they may have missed and still want to do less time consuming to figure out. As an overall experience, FR was a joy and you really only ever truly lost it when the game became unclear about how to do the thing to fill out the checklist. If future games can make the process of exploring as fun as FR and then allow those tail end hours of finishing up collecting and exploring to be even smoother by providing more information to the player when they put in enough effort, it'll be like the best open world game ever.

I cant believe its been a year since this game, i remember being excited for it to launch...

I love your videos!!!Keep up the good work!!!

I personally didn't really like the art, and slot unlock system. I like just getting that trough leveling. I do agree that the exploration could give more rewards. Busted items and stuff. I did like the affinity unlock system. Only complaint there is that you need exactly all of the affinity points to unlock everything. Which is at a point that you probably wont be using it seeing as you have everything

Think the only problem about future redeemed was that some unlock kits are not in chest which means they wont show in the check list which makes it pretty hard to figure out where the last one you are missing is.

I loved the affinity system and unlock kits, but I think scaling this system up to the size of the main game would make character progression/leveling far too tedious. Instead I think they should apply these systems to a unique mechanic that is optional but still rewarding for completionists. For example, I found grinding to unlock and master classes to be pretty tedious, especially when it came to maxing out every class for every character. The affinity system would've been a great way to handle class progression. People could earn enough CP to unlock/master a few classes for each character through their normal gameplay, and completionists would have their complete exploration rewarded with fully maxed out classes on everyone.

THANK GOD there is someone who understand level and game design! 😭 But in all sincerity exploration and gameplay outside combat was 1 BIGGEST issue, than with 2 exploring was very pleasant with lots od density, verticality and interactions on the maps. The only problem was the low engagement with some quest design issue and too few qol. XC3 FR solve those problems and its the pinnacle of the series exploration wise. (everything that stops the dlc from being perfect are the quests and xc3 base structure. That's why I'am so angry at monolith bc with XC3 they pointed on making "BIG" areas and as result we have good maps, with good level design but almost empty and without enough interesting interaction or puzzle or games AND without cities.

While the FR system is great for FR itself, I don’t think it would work with how base XC3 is designed without tweaks to the system or tweaking the levelling system for the non dlc and dlc classes in the game. However it definitely could be implemented as a nice way of powering up the casts ouroboros forms (perhaps even reward players with additional traversal options with the ouroboros form to make navigating the world feel less daunting) but the system would have to be somewhat simplified a bit to accommodate the games larger worlds.

I found use for the money to a point where I have to sell stuff early in game using the money you earn from everything once the Affinity of the coloney is up to 2 stars Nopons appears in every coloney and you can purchase ingredients for food ls that help you like class points or monster drop. I always use it for ingredients for class points. I have 33k in terms money that I earned for battling like unique monsters and Sidequests. I'm on Chapter 5 by the way.

The thing i was happier about, was the kit you get from chest in redeemed. Actually having progression linked to them makes exploring actually useful. And once youve beaten it, you'll know where they are and get the best gear

Good article but you ignored UMs, being quick travel and soul hacker arts

Future redeemed is going to start an avalanche of heavy criticism about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 map design and details that would've enhanced it The DLC really fixed up things I never thought of as detriment to the world

I love specifically how XC3FD had a definitive 100% to it that was easy to track. As somebody who has officially 100% every XC title with NG+ (including 7 NG+ on XC3 for the 7 rings for each party member lol), this meant a lot to me and helped so much.

It would be cool if the dlc unlocked the infinity goals system to the base game so you had a reason to go back and explore the world/fight the enemies even if you've done everything else

I would still do the collectopedia stuff to raise colony alfinity to max.... but mostly for the first time rewards

Future redeemed has done an amazong update for the map. If base game had this mao, and the encyclopedia for various things, it woold make it much better

Having a reason to kill and collect every single thing on the map is something that I really liked

A lot of the systems in FR felt like a scaled down, but improved system of what X did. Really well done.

Future Redeemed is the actual GOTY of 2023. Exploration is soooo smoth thanks to all these enhancements. This gameplay loop is just perfect.

The base game's world being kinda empty and "meaningless" as you put it only helps reinforce the game's themes even further though, which I think is really interesting. Like the entire point of Aionios is that it's a bland, uninspired world created by a petty desire to preserve a meaningless state of "now" to delay the inevitable.

I loved exploring the world but I'm the type of guy who wants to go somewhere cool and I couldn't care about rewards, but they do really help. I think the affinity goals need to be tweaked for a larger game, but they are still an improvement over random items! Xc3 has an open world as big and varied as elden ring but it's so squandered with no rewards and no better means of exploring than walking.

Nice

my goat

For the most part, I agree with your points. I still think there needs to be a more "free form" kind of system that achieves the same goal without turning exploration into just checking marks because at some point it feels more like busywork than actual exploring the sake of curiosity. The system should reward player's initiative and not demand it. Also, growth kits were the most frustrating part of the system.

In general I don't think anyone really fights enough enemies for random materials in the whole series (maybe in X, never played it) since you can get overleveled pretty easily if you just fight everything. I really wish that expert mode would make a return from definitive edition when starting the game so you can just lower your levels whenever you want, I don't understand why this is a post-game feature when it should be always available. Future Redeemed making you kill everything until they have a checkmark keeps you leveled up and you won't go over unless you grind for no real reason after that, it just makes it that much more satisfying to play and should be added in the next games as a system.

I loved the affinity point system, but i hope the art kits accessory kits don’t return. they were a massive part of progression but weren’t listed anywhere, and were tiring to find. the rest of the exploration is the best in the series tho

Is it’s just too dang good

Something I hated about base xc3 was how many automated cutscenes there were

Só is a ubisoft open world?

I didnt think noah as bland protagonist we cannot blame him because he has been born as a soldier afterall in this His personality is pretty much the same to yu narukami inside persona 4 they look bland at first but in the later chapter he show how he is the best MC for xenoblade because how much life for him as a character in the story Sometime i cry to when show his alter ego backstory N blud just solo moebius thousand times and become broken as a character

We can all agree, that the quests have been the best by far. Xc2 helped, but they didnt feel as important, xc1 was better imo for this, because you can grab a bunch of quests and theyll likely be done by playing the game. Byt xc3 has quests even i cared about. And hero quest are mega good content

I use the collectopedia 😢

I don't understand the first 2 complaints of base 3 that you made, but overall, pretty good video.

on every xenoblade they always perfect the dlc with more and more content which is always missing in the main game, this has always been something I never liked

The equipment system is so bad that I was never excited to find anything,

I ended up 100% the dlc.

i like affinity goals but I hated the constant fanfare notifications (sound and on screen popup)

Havent watched the whole vid yet but just wanna say that yeah the consuls were kinda bland but im pretty sure N made up for it

I disagree. Pyrha/Mythra/Pneuma never showed up and became Ouroboros which I feel goes against 2's ending. I don't really think they would go back to being a crystal after Rex gave them hope and forgive themselves and move. I'm hoping on the next system Xenoblade 2 definitive edition happens and we get a new story that will give us closure on everything leading up to Rex losing his family and the worlds merging. It could be called Future Reunited. Please understand

The villains are the reason 3 is my least favorite xenoblade. Even their very best villains are worse than the side villains in 1 and 2 lol. Yeah the world is empty but I still loved just walking around exploring and looking at stuff though. Hero quests literally carry this game from being mid though lol

The base game just missed a REAL collectipedia and other base things the previous games and FR had. EDIT: OH AND Triton's class should never ever exist in the way it did... like wtf did they think hide a huge part of the game behind menus and have it that bad unlocks like kill that rare 20 times... why ... just no.

Funny how people mention how XC3's open world is ''empty''.. when there's so much activity and wildlife to be seen. You want a TRUE empty open world game? Look no further than Zelda Breath of the Wild.

The Affinity Growths System is amazing as it not only gives incentive to explore but also helps players find a way to become stronger besides leveling if they ever get stuck