Xenoblade Chronicles Future Redeemed is a Mess :( 

Cringe, irrelevant opinion. Future Redeemed is peak kino.

N killing his descendants and the city people was still following the original telling of it to the extent that N was doing it all for M (when really he was doing it selfishly because he couldn't handle losing M). Alpha wanted to leave aionios and destroy what's left behind. That includes N, M and the endless now he so badly desires to keep so that he'll never lose M again. That motovation is still there, just with a different perspective on all the factors at play.

I disagree overall, but think your opinion is extremely valid. I find the main problem with Future Redeemed is that its scope doesn't match its length. Future Redeemed's story is about 10-15 hours long. But it has SO MUCH ground to cover - especially compared to Torna who only needed to let you experience the backstory that was ALREADY told to you in XC2 - that it feels like many of its aspects aren't as fleshed out as well as past stories. Glimmer's and Nikol's relevancy being my two biggest examples. Still, it did the best it could. I personally thought the whole Alvis antagonist plotline was done well and recontextualized his character in an interesting way. The game never specifies why Alvis is doing what he's doing, which is a flaw that XC3's unfortunately familiar with. However, if we consider that Moebius is the embodiment of people's fears to move forward toward the future while Alvis is all about the opposite, I think the there's a motivation there. After all, why protect the people who literally birthed an entity that ideologically opposes you? At this rate, might as well reset with these City folks! At least, that's the conclusion I came to, however I do agree FR should have specified Alvis' motives better. What I COMPLETELY disagree with is "The N Problem". Nothing about FR undoes what's great about his character. At the end of the day, N still took Z's offer to destroy the city in order to live an eternal life with M. FR even restates this in Chapter 4. He just has an additional mission on top of that being destroying Alvis. Additionally, I wouldn't call what N's doing noble since if Alvis goes through with his plan, the Endless Now will cease to be, which isn't what N wants since he desires an eternal life with M that it provides. So, in actuality, N wanting to destroy Alvis is INTERWOVEN with his selfishness, making him an even more fascinating character! Overall, I don't think FR is the perfect conclusion to the trilogy as it still leaves many unanswered questions. But it's definitely a more fitting conclusion compared to XC3's ending. Nothing in FR invalidates the stories that came before, imo. Rather, it gives us a nice, if a bit messy, love letter to this amazing saga!

Before I go on, I just wanna say that you're a real one for staying true to yourself in the face of an opposite public reception. I don't really agree with most of this video honestly but I absolutely understand your perspective. Future Redeemed definitely feels like a filter of sorts for this franchise and that can go both ways unfortunately. I love all the "emotions and souls as tangible elements of the world" shit like Kingdom Hearts and all the crazy labyrinthian sci-fi shenanigans, but I know it's not for everyone and it's definitely a hard sell. With that said: I think in all of the convoluted lore and the different mechanisms of *HOW* things work, it's easy to lose sight of the *WHY* . It's easy to forget among all the goofy cat girls and silly monado boys that Monolith are trying tο tell us something about the human condition with these games. They have a deliberate purpose. Like I think the radio scene works so well not because it sets up Xenosaga or X or whatever (though I'm sure I'll enjoy those aspects once I get to those games) It works because whats actually being said on the radio, outside the references, serves in stark contrast to Na'El's perfect world that she's describing. She's basically in her own little world as the radio is describing a mass exodus to get the hell off the planet, political corruption, debates about human rights, and war brewing in the background. People turn their backs to things that make them uncomfortable and have to make hard choices. Not all that dissimilar to how things are in reality. That's just one example but both this and the base game are filled with these kind of things that you're meant to think about on more than just the narratives level. I think playing this DLC live and/or being part of internet discourse can potentially damage a persons experience. Having RU-vid chat and twitter yell at you about what you should be listening to and how this connects to that and whatever, can take your eyes off of the bigger picture. Makes it hard to meet the game on its own terms. I hope one day maybe you give Xenoblade 3 another play-through when you have the time. Maybe do some of the hero quests that help flesh out the world and its themes. But if not, that's ok too. Ultimately, we can only come at these games where we are willing to meet them.

I understand your ending thoughts on the convoluted world building. I feel like xenoblade is constantly trying to be a creepypasta on getting you to understand a story that’s not there, and the fandom is so obsessed with trying to unlock this big picture that you lose the face value of the actually story in front of you.

"The Base game was thematically unclear"???????????????????????????????????? I'd say the base game was so thematically clear it hit you over the head with it. It's about overcoming the anxieties which hold you back from the future. It's a thematic mirror to Future Redeemed where base game says "Despite everything which has happened you must still move on" Future Redeemed is saying "While you are moving on you can't forget everything which has happened"

As someone who really enjoyed Xenoblade Future Redeemed it was interesting to hear your perspective. I don't agree with everything you said but I totally understand why you feel some of these things and it makes you think differently about the series. Though in the end I can at least still agree with you that Xenoblade 1 is the best one :)

Dude your work pace and ethic is on another level. Always impressed how you’ve been able to pick up frequency while only improving on quality. Congrats on another eloquent script only complimented by everyone’s favorite signature Snugboy gags. Thanks again for ranting about this with me ❤

I can understand a lot of this. It basically becomes a "if you know, you know" kind of thing and I can see how that doesn't mesh well with a lot of people. For me it took a LOT of time scouring theory videos and explainations for everything to click and tie together the bits that I missed but that's not something that I should HAVE to do. Regardless I still enjoyed the enxperience and I think if things were explained a bit more regarding the ending it would've been an overall better experience. Also Rex is busted so it's peak by default.

Interesting to hear this. I agree some bits are convoluted, but for me it wasn’t any of the stuff you mentioned. Also I think the additions to N’s story make him more compelling. He isn’t doing the right thing because he’s trying to kill Alpha to save the endless now. He was willing to kill everyone in the city and his own descendants for his selfish desire to stay in the endless now. Even though he and the protagonists are on the same side, there reasons are wholly different, which I find adds depth without removing the original emotional weight from the main game.

I can honestly understand most of what you are saying and even agree with you In spite of having liked the DLC a lot personally. But the one thing that I don't agree with is what you say about N opposing Alpha and that not lining up with his character. I think it lines up perfectly with him. You say that it's weird for him to act that way because it's morally correct, but the thing is that he doesn't care about morality. He just wants his Endless Now alongside M and Alpha's actions were a threat to that, so he opposed Alpha. Plain and simple. He doesn't care about the morality of the action or whether or not the protagonists would side with him. He only cares about M. So I think that it really was in line with his character, even if it recontextualizes what we know about his relationship with Z from the base game. Though I can also not understand why he doesn't say anything to M when she sees that and is shocked later lol.

I wholeheartedly agree with this take. After finishing Future Redeemed I had to get into the wiki and into forums to clear up even the most basic of concepts that the dlc tries to deal with and all I found is FNAF lore levels of theory crafting, none of which is outright stated in the games. Everything is left so ambiguos, they never properly explained how Noah and Mio got back into the cycle, why pneuma is in Matthews gloves, where N got his sword and the implication that logos is in there, why do some characters in Aionios just don't age, what the fuck is an avatar, is the power of Ouroboros actually Pneuma's power and so on and so on. They even never explained exactly how Origin works, which only opens up more questions when you know in FR that Ontos is in there. And the power of the trinity core is drawn out from the Conduit/Zohar, where the fuck is it and why do these characters still have powers even without it? I feel like this story makes sense in Monolithsoft's head and that they tried to convey it, but in only 15-20 hours of gametime they couldn't properly explain all of the seemingly random retcons that make it work, which combined with the fact that XC3 story itself has a good deal of ambiguity, only means that the confusion and convoluted points just start piling up to create a mess that on the surface makes even less sense than Kingdom Hearts. Im okay with XC3 because its a character driven story, and I can accept some unanswered questions in favour of the great character moments, but FR was too much. It feels like pure fanservice for the people who have kept up with all the Xeno games throughout the decades, which I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't because this is supposed to be the conclusion of the Klaus trilogy and it absolutely doesn't feel like it. Unless they retroactively add more lore in the next games to answer everything, I don't see myself liking this dlc anytime soon.

Finally, a sane person.

I'm very grateful for this video. I felt like I was going crazy but this dlc did not do much for me, it tried to be so many things at once, nostalgic ride, founding of the city, shulk and rex being dad, ontos being a baddie, na'el and her relationship with matthew, Ns weird out of place twist of not being as bad which is just kinda dumb? Nikol and glimmer dealing with being free and even saga/gears/x connections... I feel like it tried taking on too many things that were too disjointed from each other and couldn't give enough focus to any of them. By the end of it I also just couldn't piece together... what was the point of all of this? I guess we learned of a cool god killing side mission rex and shulk has that answered a few questions but it left just as many and overall I feel like this was a journey I didn't particularly need to have...

Solidarity for the soup brains! 🙌 I was mildly panicking when I got to the end of the DLC. Why did I feel so out of sorts- confused, dissatisfied? Was my recent mental fog worse than I thought? Was I just not versed well enough on Xenolore and real world philosophy, so that what was obvious to everyone else was too big-brained for my idiot self? I keep trying to untangle the threads, and I only come back to the same conclusion: yeah, I may be missing a few screws and bolts to hold the thing together, but the DLC has its own structural problems. I enjoyed it, it wasn’t bad at all, it just also wasn’t *great.* Maybe if it had more time for exposition, and for the sort of deus ex machina/macguffin elements to be introduced subtly rather than as rabbit-out-of-a-hat magic tricks to save the day, then perhaps it would have felt more polished. Honestly, I was fine with them not answering many plot holes from base game, but what’s worse is that they made new plot holes, or else just a bunch of coincidental, unanswered information that was crucial to resolving the conflict. (Suddenly Pneuma? Suddenly probably Logos? Suddenly they’re the key to the ultimate Ouroboros and we never see any hint of that being a thing in the base game?? And I still don’t understand how the very tangible, solid swords of the end get transformed into Blades… is it just the power of the Pneuma gauntlets and Ontos sheath that allow this to occur?? Idk this is hurting my head. None of it is BAD storytelling, it’s just LAST MINUTE storytelling with little to no lead up and it feels cheap.) The thing I really cannot abide is the treatment of the two antagonists. As noted in the video, why did Alvis have this heel-face turn? The best theory I’ve seen dwells on the fact that Ontos’ driving goal is to continuously reset all things. Still, it doesn’t explain how Alvis in XC1 tells Shulk that he is the only one who can decide if his life is pointless or worth something, but Alvis in FR is all “lol no I decided you suck.” There is obviously a personality, a pocket of moral scruples (A) that has guided Ontos thus far, but A was still a part of Ontos when Shulk/Rex/Z fought it, so… Alpha was not Alpha at that time, it was more like Ontos with both its halves, Alvis and A, and Ontos with only one half is Alpha. But Ontos as a whole STILL behaved the same before and after Ghondor released A. Nothing is explained as to WHY Alpha feels as it does, only that it DOES feel what it does, which betrays the groundwork we saw laid with Alvis. Whatever causes this betrayal, no one’s told us, and that’s just… lame lol. Meanwhile N! My boy! My broken clustermuck of a spoon, who was such a PHENOMENAL villain (/antihero) in the base game! They ruined the emotional impact of the City’s ultimate destruction by making it Alpha’s/Na’el’s/Ghondor’s fault substantially more than N’s fault. And he was so bland- not crazed, not angry, not bitter, not ANYTHING- through pretty much the entire DLC. I understand that being Moebius screwed up his emotions, and Noah/N was always reserved on the whole, but like… no emotion on his face during any of the moments with Ghondor? Really? From the guy who is literally an explosive fountain of untrained emotions when it comes to his family? (Like I expected him to pop off big time at Ghondor when Ghondor invoked Mio but there was nothing????) Maybe it took a millennia for N to become the unhinged lunatic we saw facing Ouroboros, but like… there still could have been something, even despite N’s/Noah’s characteristic poise. They stripped most of his emotions (his motivation and point of empathy) AND his villainy (the point where we choose not to empathize) and left a husk (who apparently has the power to make Ouroboros greater AND WE NEVER SAW THAT IN THE BASE GAME FINALE WHY???) *cough* Anyway. Sorry. I care a lotttttttt about character motivations (a huge reason why I loved base game 3 to death), so refusing to give us context/keep the old context in felt like a rug pull. Again, I enjoyed the game, Shulk and Rex and A were phenomenal (heh), Nikol is my smol son and Glimmer is… uh… Glimmer… and Matthew is the himbo uncle everyone needs but doesn’t deserve. But like… the villains were so bad. 😭 And Z/Moebius over all was done a dirty as well. They could have not shown up in the beginning and the story would feel the same. Even my rant feels unhinged, unorganized, and like I can’t even understand my own feelings let alone the game’s intended storytelling… this is what this DLC has done to me lol. But anyway, you’re not alone, Snugboy, and I’m glad you made this video because it helps me know I’m not alone too. 😅 (Edit: also, 100th like and 100th comment! Nice! I feel like I’ve accomplished something lol.)

Hello Snugboy, I remember years back I saw a let's play for the first Xenoblade Chronicles and I watched the whole thing because I didn't have a Wii so I never expected to ever play it. Then when I got the switch and two games along with it, the new SSBU I also got the second game which I just had found out had been out for about a year at that point. When I played it, I found that I had completely cut myself out any guides, advice, reviews or reactions which I can say in hindsight, was the best possible way to experience it for me. So I did the same for the definitive edition and for three. And I agree with what you say to an extent. Across all the Chronicles games there are a number of messy moments/choices. But I find that I am almost aways willing to forgive them because everything that I love about these games are so much stronger than the mess(s). This has been some guy on the internet with a needlessly long paragraph. Thank you for reading.

I think Alvis becoming discontent with humanity after their collective fears halt the fusion of the two worlds resulting in the the endless now and aionios is a pretty reasonable argument for why he wanted to reset with just the descendants.

Oh my God. Throughout the "What's the Point" chapter, you put into words why I found Xenoblade 3, simply the backbones of its plot, so infuriating. I know this is a wildly unpopular opinion, but... it almost makes me wish that Xenoblade 3 was made separate from 1 and 2 so it could serve as its own journey, rather than a conclusion to 1 and 2 that cheapens both of their own conclusions. I don't know... All I know is that I definitely feel a similar burnout to you.

Alvis gets reset after Zanza, and Malos die. He goes back to his primary directive; create a world where the world isn’t decaying. The endless now isn’t and cannot be that. The endless now stagnates and gets continually smaller thanks to annihilation events. Alpha needs souls to restart origin. The souls from 1 and 2 created the endless now, so they are unviable to continue human existence, hence why he is using City souls since they reject the endless now. N and Alpha fighting caused Alpha to split from his conscience which had been suppressed until then. This is why Alpha wants to destroy the world. It’s what he was built for.

I personally enjoyed future redeemed not only because of all the back lore, but because of its main conflict that can only be seen from the City folk - that of whether the lives of the "previous" worlds were worth saving at the expense of their suffering. The conflict between Matthew and Na'el (and by extension Alpha) is the main topic/theme of future redeemed, and while it's much briefer than previous games (being a dlc expansion), I think it did an excellent job of exploring the two viewpoints without being bogged down by the lore and callbacks. And through this conflict between Matthew and Na'el, we can also see the theme of legacy as you mentioned earlier. Should they just abandon the old lives and move on to a future without them - or do they value those past lives and how they built up the present, recognizing their importance in the history that's been built. This concept, of course, is seen through Shulk and Rex, being the previous protagonists of the previous games and how they carry on the legacy given to them while passing it on to others. But it's also seen through Klaus' world - if there future does not remember and learn from what happened in the past, they are bound to just repeat the same mistakes. And it's why Matthew rejects Alpha's new world - it'll only end in destruction like Klaus' old world if they choose to just abandon the past.

About the N thing, I'd argue that N's interests with the party happen to line up because if Alpha destroys Aionios it means N doesn't get to stay with M which was why he went to the extreme lengths he took to maintain its current state in the first place, I get the feeling that him outright stating why he helped was left out as we already know from the base game why he'd want to save the world in this case as he wanted to save it for a different reason and forming a truce with the party on this occasion would help him achieve that more easily. I do find it weird that he was treated in an oddly redemptive way by Matthew during and after the battle though so I do agree with the way you felt about it being a bit out of place as a result.

I wholeheartedly disagree with you, because I think FR fit contextually. However! I TOTALLY agree with you about being a XC1 elitist. All of this is a symptom of retconning to keep a series going, but if you pay attention they manage to make it work. I was impressed by the time the credits rolled because if these events were SUPPOSED to happen because there were actually TWO worlds that were created as a consequence of Klaus’ bullshit, then yeah - these computers and wills and souls wreaking havoc on the victims of these worlds actually makes sense. Alvis presented godhood to Shulk because Shulk displayed the capacity for change. If Alvis was tasked with the charge of Origin it would make sense why he’d throw a fit and betray the player’s relationship with him because Origin was threatened with the Endless Now. Completely antithetical to what he was shown was possible by Shulk and co, and because he’s an AI, he reacted accordingly. Did any of this need to be told over 2 games with respective DLC’s? Fuck no. XC1 was a perfect, self contained narrative that felt complete. Am I happy I got to see more of my favorite characters, and the directors found a way to make that happen with some anime calculus? Fuck yeah. At the end of the day, the worst part of FR is that A is essentially a MacGuffin that’s necessary to make the events of the DLC work narratively. But this whole trilogy is MacGuffins, and A is my favorite character in the whole series so fuck it!

I mostly agree with the points you've made. I really like the xenoblade lore stuff in 1 & 2 but was severely disappointed with 3. After finishing fr I mostly felt confused and disappointed, I understood some of the things but felt like there were so many unanswered questions like the avatars thing and alpha's motivation (even if he didn't have a conscience, why did he need to restart the world?). I'm hoping a second watch of the cutscenes will explain things but I think xb3 as a whole has lost me. (Do still love taion and Eunie tho)

Im going to say that yeah, this is what Takahashi was always interested with it comes with XENO series. it supposed to be a franchise that focuses on the philosophical themes hell that why when it was originally supposed to be an FFVII script Square rejected for being complicated, i dont blame you for not liking it but yeah this what the series is well know for. Sorry for you not getting into but that the franchises was always about it just the first one was suppose to be a simple game for Monolith because Xenosaga failed and Takahashi was always try to revilitalize his original Xenogear sequels into Saga and Chronicles because well that his dream project aside from X because of his affinity for mechas.

Everyone is fair to have their own opinion, if you want an opinion that's literally completely opposite of yours, look at Rogersbase. Even though he did really enjoy XC3, he constantly complained about how little explanation and links it gave back to the original 2 games, and how seperated it felt. And now he's loving FR. You don't need to love every part of a series, hell so many Xeno fans I know shit on FC (including me) lol. Xeno is a series that has both incredible character moments as well as incredible and insane story moments. FR just happened to focus mainly on the latter, which may make people who care more about the former a little disappointed. I mean another example I can think of is FF7 Remake and how people felt about it, so many people were hyped about the new story developments but some were disappointed with it as well. Side note: If you wanna see a streamer absolutely lose it and cry their tears out at the ending of FR, check out Sarahkey, love her streams and her reactions to the game. Very genuine and entertaining streamer. Funnily enough she strikes me as the type to not really care about the story and cares more about the characters, yet she loved FR.

Maybe I'm just really deep into the Xenoblade lore, but nothing in Future Redeemed stuck out as not making sense to me #humblebrag No, but I can kinda understand how missing or misinterpreting certain elements of the plot could lead to it feeling like a confusing mess because they never really stop and dwell on some of the important plot points. A lot of important info is mentioned once and then left there in the background to serve as building blocks for the next set of info and if you miss one or two of them the entire tower crumbles. I'd mostly chalk it down to the shorter length of the game but there's definitely a few pieces of info they could have let breathe a bit more before piling on with more the very next minute.

Agree with basically everything, I think you summed up my feelings on the dlc pretty well. In fact I'm even more of a 'XC1 elitist', in the sense that I didn't even like how XC2's ending retconned XC1 back in 2017 (like retconning Klaus's backstory, three processors instead of just Alvis), but at least back then they didn't go as far as retcon Alvis's whole character or the entire ending of XC1. The explanations for why Alvis/Alpha is the way he is now don't really make sense either for similar reasons as the ones you pointed out. I also don't like how they tried to whitewash N and all of a sudden everyone is pretending Malos/Logos was a good guy too. It seems like the writers wanted to write XC3's main story, but didn't really know how best to fit that within the universes of the previous two games. However, because XC3 is in the same universe eventually they had to explain what happened to Alvis, Shulk and Rex, but Alvis is god so they couldn't have Moebius beat him, and it would have been unsatisfactory to have Moebius defeat Shulk and Rex too. So we ended up getting Alvis as the villain instead with handwavy and unsatisfying explanations. There are also other unexplained plotholes caused by having to fit XC3 in the same universe, like how Moebius was even allowed to happen in the first place if Alvis/Alpha is the AI in control of Origin, and he's shown to be much more powerful than Z, yet N who is much weaker than Z can now challenge Alpha...? In some ways Pyra/Mythra got even less respect because it's even less clear what happened to her beyond 'she's gloves now' and 'lol Noah threw her into the ocean at the end of XC3'. So I think in hindsight the games should really have been more disconnected, at least outside of non canon cameos like XC2's challenge mode. Maybe the Monado (or some sort of Monado equivalent 'Xenoblade' like Aegis or sword of the end) and Nopons can exist in all the games as a call back but that's about as far as the connection should go. XC3's main story would have lost very little not being connected to the previous games (the merging of worlds could have been easily replaced with another world ending threat, and Melia and Nia replaced with other substitutes, or just not needed altogether). XC2's story heavily relied on the XC1 connections in Chapter 10 to work for me though admittedly, at least without Torna to flesh it out. Though XC2 was marketed as a less serious 'anime game' so it would probably still have kept most of its audience regardless. It's a real shame because the dlc was clearly designed to be a XC1 nostalgia trip as the final victory lap to round off the Klaus saga. The dlc even ended at Prison Island with a Zanza like boss, and Alvis technically 'proclaimed the end' again too. So given XC1 is one of my favourite stories I too was hoping say this dlc is 'peak fiction'. Unfortunately, the story seemed like it was undoing the events of previous games and felt incoherent and vague that I'm left feeling unsatisfied. Overall, the dlc felt like it was trying to mimic XC1, but only managing to capture the appearance and not the substance, metaphorically like Alpha as a character compared to Alvis.

I completely agree with you, as long as Monolithsoft is focussing on characters and their interaction, I am hooked and have a lot of fun. But as soon as they zoom out, it feels too abstract, like they want to create a genesis around philosophical theories. The overarching stories feel so mechanic and not believeable, I wasn't feeling the end either!

Massively disagree with the N section. Recontextualising N destroying City as also being in part to stop Alpha is not a retcon for what happens in 3. N isn't pulling up on the City for some noble reason, he's doing it to preserve the endless now with M, and in order to do so, he still had to destroy the City and its inhabitants. The same people that he and M once loved are dehumanised as being nothing more than expendable resources for Alpha. His actions are entirely selfish with no regard for the people he slaughtered to attain equilibrium. It does nothing to undo what N did in base game 3. The base game shows him entering the City and pulling out his sword before cutting to black, and then the destroyed City. Now, if anything, it serves to make him look worse. Also, N says to old man Ghondor that everything with destroying the City is 'my burden to bare alone', so of course he wouldn't tell anything to M about Alpha or Ghondor, because he believes he should shoulder it alone.

I really appreciate the perspective you’ve shared in this video, and I’m sorry that Future Redeemed lost you. I sympathize with a lot of these points you brought up, but there are a few points I’d like to defend here, particularly Alpha and N’s characters in the game, which I think the game handles pretty artfully, despite a few stumbles. I’ll admit that the twists and turns of Alpha’s character and plan throughout this game, as well as how and why Alvis split into Alpha and A, are kind of hard to follow. I assumed the idea was that Alvis split apart because his computer half arrived at the decision to destroy to world, and his conscience conflicted with this decision but couldn’t stop him, so they split apart into their own separate beings, or something like that. Narratively and thematically though, I think those details are less important than the impact that Alpha has on the narrative as a villain. I see Alpha as a twisted parallel to the party of the main game of Xenoblade 3. Both of them see the inhumanity of the world they inhabit and come to the conclusion that the world is fundamentally broken, and must be destroyed in order to give humanity a future. The party decides to accomplish this by defeating Moebius and restarting Origin, thereby splitting Aionios into two worlds once again, sacrificing their bonds in order to give all people the chance to build a future of their own. Alpha, in contrast, doesn’t believe everyone deserves an equal chance to build the future. They believe that their ideals are the only ones that can result in a successful future for humanity, and thus handpick the specific people that align most closely with their perspective to cart off to a new world, while deeming everyone else failures. While the Ouroboros target their aggression at the entity responsible for the world’s dysfunction, Alpha doesn’t see the value in making that effort, only bothering to fight against Moebius whenever they are in the way of executing their plan to destroy the world altogether. They would rather discard everything that doesn’t fit with their exact ideals, regardless of the innocent people that would be caught up in it. Now, regarding scene of N and Alpha’s fight in the City. I don’t see this as an undoing of the plot beat of N destroying the City from the main game. N is trying to justify the destruction of the City as necessary to save the world from the greater evil of Alpha, but Moebius’ idea of saving the world is preserving the Endless Now; having the world languish in an unchanging stasis for eternity. Although N is trying to frame his actions as the noble, right thing to do, his designs for the world aren’t all that different from Alpha’s. Given that annihilation events are slowly eating away at the world, he’s just choosing a slow, drawn-out death of the world rather than the immediate one that Alpha is aiming for. The fight between N and Alpha in the City, then, is just two terrible people competing for the opportunity to destroy the world in equally terrible ways. You state that from the perspective of Noah and the other party members from the main game, the Endless Now is bad, but that they would have sided with N in this situation. However, presenting this situation as being a choice between the death of the world and all its people and the preservation of a miserable Endless Now is a false choice. What I imagine Noah and the party would really do, in this situation, would be to defeat both Alpha and N; reject the idea that only a select few are worth saving, and reject the stasis of an unchanging world, and instead choose to fight for a world that allows everyone the chance to carve their own future. And really, that is what the protagonists of Future Connected choose to do. While they do prioritize defeating Alpha in the moment due to the more immediate threat they pose, the party of Future Redeemed choose to fight Moebius as well by laying the foundations for a more powerful Ouroboros in the future, which will, with time, have the strength to defeat them. Overall, any framing here that suggests we should be viewing N’s actions as noble is just N’s own framing, in which he’s trying to justify his actions to himself while advancing the goals of Moebius. I don’t think just because he’s killing innocent people in an effort to fight against another evil character makes the cruelty of his actions any less severe. If N truly cared about protecting the world, he would have found a way to stop Alpha without murdering all of the innocent people of the City. It’s pretty convenient for Moebius that destroying the City not only would erase Alpha’s source of power, but also destroy the most powerful faction capable of opposing Moebius. It helps to illustrate that in the end, N is still just a puppet of Z, furthering Z’s own goals while pretending that his actions are righteous. I will admit, though, that I think the cutscene could have been crafted to more clearly illustrate the cruelty of his actions. It shows some of the Origin enemies hovering over the fading bodies of City folk, but doesn’t show any actual violence happening to them. If we actually saw what N did, watched him cut down these innocent people, rather than having it just implied via cinematography, only for him to go on to preach to his own son that murdering all those people was the right thing to do, I think that would go a long way to helping the player understand how delusional N truly was. I’ll also acknowledge that the scene does reduce a little bit of the weight behind this plot beat from the main game. It makes it into an act that N can tell himself was necessary to save the world, rather than a purely emotional decision driven by his desperation to hold onto Mio at the expense of all else, with no possible moral justification. However, that justification is still a delusion, and portrays N as someone in denial of his own responsibility. There’s more I could say, but this comment is already massive. I sympathize with your perspective on Future Redeemed, but I don’t see the harm in the elements of it that you dislike the most. I hope someday you can re-examine this game and come away with a different understanding of it than you got this time, and are able to see the same magic in it that I can. But if not; hey, it’s just a game, no worries. I’m sure you’ll find another game that feels as special to you and Xenoblade 3 and Future Redeemed feel for me. TL;DR: Alpha is a dark reflection of the Xenoblade 3 main party’s goals, and N is just as evil for what he did, even with the new context. I appreciate your perspective on this game, but respectfully disagree with it, and hope you can come to love this game more in time. Didn’t mean to write so much, but this video really got me thinking!

Another thing that bothered me: the Ouroboros Power makes no goddamn sense. The statues told us in base game that Matthew and Na'el pioneered Interlinking or "brought the power of Ouroboros to completion." Except they didn't. Nikol and Riku did that. And just having auras that pop out when you do Fusion Arts feels weird. I especially don't like the big 6-person Interlink at the end since it's still nothing like the Interlinks we know and love from base game. The history of the magic system is so messy when it could've just been Interlink partners forming giants again. Plus, Linka Panacea and Na'el got so fucked over. I wish you could've swapped out party members so you could play as them. Especially Na'el. She barely got to do anything. Poor girl is possessed the whole time and then when she actually joins your party she makes your Chain Attacks measurably worse. And don't even get me STARTED on the Sword of the End. What is the Sword of the End? Really? Is it N's sword? Is it Noah's? Is it Matthew's gauntlets? The story would make way more sense if N just wielded a replica of Lucky Seven or it was never called the Sword of the End. Yet Z keeps calling N's sword that even though its creator and her interdimensional book club buddy insist that it's Noah's sword. Why is it a big deal that N was gonna use it against Na'elpha like Rex said? Also, the way the 6-person Interlink happens makes no sense with what we know from base game. You're telling me that N voluntarily gave up his special power to create a force that would go on to be a pain in Moebius' ass and destroy the Endless Now and Z never punished him for this treason? Did N not tell Z? Did Z not care? And what is the Sword of Origin? Why is it special? Is its importance purely thematic since it comes from Noah's core, the place where he and Mio can share memories and feelings? Or can it actually cut through reality itself? And in that cutscene (called "Sword of the End" for no apparent reason) N clearly refers to Noah's new sword as the Sword of Origin. Then X proceeds to call N "the wielder of the Sword of Origin." Like bitch he just said he isn't! Also N says "The Sword of Origin? You are going to end it all?" WHAT?! You use the Sword of Origin to end things and NOT the Sword OF THE END? I found a Reddit thread explaining that the Swords of Origin and The End are one and the same and it was a pun they couldn't translate into English.

I definitely agree that I'm much more interested in the series' character work than its lore. As someone who started with XC2, I loved that game because I fell in love with its cast of characters and their bonds of friendship and their will to fight for a better future for one another. The game's connection to the other Xenoblade games was totally irrelevant to my experience with it. The twist with Klaus was interesting but I honestly feel nothing would be lost if the XC1 connection was removed and Klaus was just some other scientist trying to atone for his sins. I had mixed feelings about XC3 because it felt like it was stuck trying to balance telling its own story about its own characters and trying to connect to the previous games. And I don't think it managed to strike that balance. So much of the story hinges on this lore that they tried to hold back for the DLC, but it means the base game is a little unsatisfying BOTH as its own individual experience and as a connection of the trilogy. I'm hoping that the start of a new saga for Xenoblade will give them the chance not to focus so much on references to other games and refocus on character building and storytelling. But I guess time will tell if the potential X and Saga references continue to overshadow the individuality of future games.

I have to agree with you on that last bit. I don't think FR was peak fiction, I enjoyed it, but like you said they seem to be more interested in connecting the entire Xeno series together than wrapping up the story of these characters. I also believe that 1 and 2 should have ended there, the ending of 2 left the ambiguity of "did Klaus merge them into 1's world?" and I liked that. Don't get me wrong, the lore is great, I didn't watch all of Luxin's videos for nothing, but at the end of the day it's the characters and their interactions that makes me love these games. 1 and especially 2 were very focused on developing them and there's a reason 3's chapter 5 gets so much praise. This expansion seems to be the last time we're going to see them and I wanted a little more, a happy ending of what happened to them after the merge, be it a cutscene or a mere picture. I haven't played Saga or Gears and I don't know if I'm interested in what is coming next, but if this is the end then I'm a little disappointed. Regardless, 1 is still my favourite game ever and 2 is really high up there.

Even tho the dlc isnt prefect and still has some holes on the plot, i am glad monolith made this dlc so we could at least know the truth about many aspects, and besides, the fanservice was really good. But for me, now what i want to see are 2 things: more videos of you snugchad, and the second is monolith taking a new path and cutting up xenoblade for a while. Lets just hope it actually happens xd

What if you were smelly but correct?

I’ve got a lot of thoughts as someone who came away satisfied and loving FR despite it not being the thorough answers to everything. But I’ll just say one perspective that probably made it easier for me to roll with the happy ends of the previous games immediately meeting terrible disaster is that I think that’s exactly in line with the themes of the series. Aside from direct dialogue from the the early games (Shulk: I don’t know what the future holds, I’m sure it’ll be full of ups and downs. Fiora: Ups and downs?) (Also the “Gods” of XB3 are just manifestations of the collective will, individual humans are their own tyrants as in real life) But for me at the end of the day these aren’t escapism stories about happily ever after. These are stories about finding meaning and truth in real life, which HAS to be done in spite of future hardship during and after your generation. Each generation HAS to fight their own battles though they can do so by standing on the shoulders of the legacy and traditions of those who fought before (FR) while they redeem those further towards their own vision of the future (XB3).

"Except Future Connected, what did you connect to?".... Future Redeemed. Like, Fogbeasts are directly related to the final boss, under their control.

It's really interesting to hear that someone had even more problems with this DLC than I initially had, thanks for making this video. There's two specific points that I would like to provide my perspective on: 1) One point I don't feel like you about is A and Alpha both not feeling like Alvis. I think it makes perfect sense for A to be less indifferent and "neutral" than Alvis as she IS what he would have been without his logical core. She's supposed to be his emotional and empathic side condensed into one personality, and she still shows character traits that Alvis definitely had like only giving vague information about the knowledge in order to have people make their own experiences and decisions. But it is specifically BECAUSE Alpha, the pure rational "computer" side of Alvis got split from the side that was shaped by the XC1 cast in a way that she feels different and I'm personally perfectly fine with how they executed that. 2) Future Redeemed has convinced me even more that what Alvis says at the end of XC1 isn't actually wrong. Aionios is very much different from the world that he and Shulk created, so his future sight couldn't extend to it. Alvis probably also could not look into the future of XC2's world as it extended beyond the universe that his and Shulk's were in. The future he foresaw could have only encompassed what would happen to Shulk's new world without XC2's world clashing with - the way visions worked in XC1 was always to show but one possible outcome for the world that was being predicted, and although I do think it's a shame it wasn't explicitly explained in any way, I do think it's possible Alvis's abilities simply didn't extend beyond the world he was "in charge" for as its creative force. I initially had a lot of problems with Future Redeemed as well. I think that during marketing and also during parts of the game, it was heavily implied to be something it wasn't meant to be. I really expected and wanted it to be a *connection* of all three games, which seemed like the intended expectation considering how it was revealed to us with Shulk, Alvis and Rex front and center and how often throughout its story it was implied that Alpha could be counteracted by connecting Ontos back to Logos and Pneuma. I was really disappointed when in the ending, we didn't even get any glimpse at what has become of our beloved characters from the first games beyond Rex and Shulk (especially considering XC2's cast got an entire updated look & story implication at the end of XC3, I felt it's quite unjust to have the XC1 cast just forgotten about). But what I came to realize by now is that FR was likely never meant to *connect* the three games, but very much be primarily tied to XC3 and close it off *with elements from the previous games playing an important role*. Once I accepted it as purely a cap-off to XC3, I grew to like it way more than I initially did and I still feel like it's growing on me. You totally don't have to share that point of view or to even like or understand it, it's just something that made me find my peace with the ending we got. That said, as much as I wholeheartedly do not begrudge Xenosaga fans of finally getting something pointing towards what they love after such a long time, I agree with you that being required to know about those games in order to actually understand and be emotionally impacted by the very last scenes we'll ever get from the XenoBLADE series that FR is meant to conclude is something I don't appreciate as it left me feeling excluded even as a die-hard fan of the Xenoblade series ever since 2016 - definitely not a feeling I was pleased to feel during my favourite videogame series's very final moments. Hope you see some of my points, I really like exchanging opinions on these matters :)

Unrelated to the overall topic but, with regards to your Future Connected diss... I totally agree that it connected to nothing in the end, but I sorta have a soft spot for it, mostly because of how much justice it did for Melia and just how much I enjoyed the small moments shared between the main cast of her, Shulk, Kino, Nene, and Tyrea in things like heart to hearts. It was just very comforting for me to be back on Bionis. It was like revisiting old friends and seeing that after everything they went through and in spite of new difficulties, they were doing alright in the end.

9:34 Shulk and Rex are real and weren't avatars. They took on that role to substitute for Ontos.

I’m glad you made this video. After finishing FR, it felt like my brain melted from how confused I was. Seeing everyone online saying that it’s the perfect ending and trying to explain some of the concepts just made me more confused. I’ve only played the blade trilogy and know nothing about saga or gears or X, but I’m happy for those fan that have hope for the future. I still had a lot of fun playing FR but I’m trying to connect all the pieces together is just giving me a headache. (I also agree with what you said about N, idk how people can like this over what originally happened)

I have to agree with you on the story being convoluted. In fact as someone completely new to the franchise this is a complain I have for all the xenoblade games I've played so far. The first game had the best story in my opinion but even if I did enjoy it a lot, I was not able to enjoy the multiple plot twists that were happening in a row because I didn't fully understand them or why they were happening. You can say if you want that I lack comprehensive skills or that I'm too dumb to appreciate good story telling but in my opinion I shouldn't have to go on youtube to understand the basic plot of a story. I can't really judge future redeemed for the story because I have to finish xenoblade chronicles 2 but I agree that Nikkol and Glimmer should have been more developed. Future redeemed as a DLC is I think totally worth it. I love the world, characters and game play

I'm so happy to hear someone else share my views on this

I can see your points, but as a Fan of the older Xeno Titles I thought this DLC was peak Xeno for me. I love this convoluted shit. I think it is how you say at 12:04 that you think the things you fell in love with this series aren't really the priority of the creative team, I think you are right about that. Xenoblade 1 was never intended to be a Xeno game, as it was originally called "Monado: Beginning of the World". And I think just after release Takahashi and his team realized that they might have another shot a his Perfect Works (The Timeline of a greater Narrative since Xenogears) Xenoblade 1 sadly felt like a watered down Xenogears for me, striped down to a simple JRPG story, and while that isn't a Problem per se I was surprised by how complex and deep the older Xeno titles got and loved that about the series. The developers hinting at the future and that the Blade series might get closer to the OG Xeno-feeling and whole chapter 5 being Takahashi winking at the Fans, was just insane to me. But all in all I can understand why that might not be everyone's jam, though I would like for you to maybe try out the different games in the series and not just directly write it off. Though I do agree with you the retcon of N's character was very bad and they should have stated his original motivation (they still could have kept Alphas identity secret) in the base game instead of saying "oooh- uhh- Kill your own kin for cat GF". Side note: I also really like that Alpha gives me Karellen vibes from Childhoods End

I feel like there were things they needed to elaborate on and flesh out in the DLC but everything I took away from it I loved. I just wish we could have seen more of Glimmer and Nikol since we didn't get too much of them in the main story. And while I liked Matthew as a character, I feel like there were some bits that were forced because it was a shorter game. Him being the main character...I dunno it just didn't feel as though he was super important outside of the fact he had the gauntlets and was the brother to the avatar of Alpha and descendant to N. None of it was really because it was him. Narratively the base game had a goal for the group and Noah pushed for doing things because it was what he thought was right, he wanted to help people, the things he had he used to help pursue that purpose but Matthew felt more like the other way around if you ask me. The gauntlets needed a wielder, Na'el wanted to bring him because he was family, Matthew was just sorta there. When Alpha asked Matthew at the end of the game what he wanted, it didn't feel like it held much meaning because throughout the story he had simply two goals, find the survivors of the city and his sister. He didn't push to do a whole lot past that. Sure he helped people on the way too and killed some Mobius but both of those stem from other sources, the city tried to fight back against Mobius and he showed Glimmer and Nikol that there were better things out there (Though this ended up being handled more by Shulk and Rex later) just like the city had done prior for the soldiers. But I don't feel as though it is because of them omitting it, I think it was because they had to design it as a shorter experience, it wasn't supposed to be another massive game that would fully flesh out everything. I think may be where all of my gripes with the DLC comes from, that if they made it a stand alone with more time invested into working on lengthening the game to better elaborate on certain points and work on the characters themselves, it would have been a masterpiece. I still love the DLC to death and hope it leads to a Xenoblade/saga 4 (Hey look, both games end at 3 currently and the events of the two are beginning to connect) and before that they make a Xenosaga HD remaster so I can go back and experience that story. But for now, I am content with what we have. I am happy with the conclusion to the Klaus story and look forward to what they do next with the two IPs. And if I had a request for the next game, give us all the playable characters of Xenosaga and Xenoblade in a Trails into Reverie style game with multiple routes that converge later on. I need to see Noah and Mio reunite and I still need to see Mythra's kid and I want to see the conversations between all of their characters and the Xenosaga ones.

its the character that why people love this series

Another banger, I agree with how confusing it's getting, I didn't have as many problems as you do but it feels confused, what I love is the characters in these games, that's why that chapter 5/6 bit of Xenoblade 3 was incredible. This reminds me of how metal gear started getting super complicated for the sake of being complicated instead of everything serving a larger narrative like in the the original trilogy. Well now I got to go replay Xenoblade 1. Anyway dude loved the video and can't wait to see what you do next.

While I agree with the majority of opinions presented, as possibly one of the biggest fans of the "Xenocar" series, I ask that you try to be more respectful regarding the character of "Glup Shitto." It is utterly heartbreaking to see the naivety, and disrespect surrounding this classic character, as he is among some of the greatest villains the Xeno series has to offer.

(English is not my first tongue, sorry if my prattle is strange and difficult to understand.) You are not alone. I didn't enjoy the story of Future Redeemed at all. Gameplay-wise I don't have complaints, it's very satisfying and relaxing. I really love XC1 and XC2, and I really liked the way how XC2 is connected to XC1. But, oh boy, XC3 is a total mess, imo. They're threading water instead of moving on. It's a perfect filler, the exposition of story felt hollow and totally manufactured and insincere, and, in my eyes, there is nothing gained at the end of XC3. I agree that it has really good and emotional moments, but overall it was a big let down for me. The music was disappointing too. Future Redeemed continues the main campaign's trend of insignificancy. The choice of its time period leaves no room to add any meaningful thoughts and ideas. It's another filler, again. But now it dares to feed on XC1 and XC2 legacies and, yes, undermines them greatly.

What a good video. While I do disagree with some parts of the video, I can understand why you feel the way you did. But this video was entertaining, much love man 🔥👍

I'll admit that I actually enjoyed it, but completely agree with it feeling like a mess. It felt like it had so many balls to juggle all at once and didn't have the time to properly juggle them all. I think your point at 11:34 resonated with me hardcore; it was the same issue I had with 3 and FR just exacerbated it. Glad to see someone is willing to step into the ring and try to critique it instead of more "peak fiction" talk.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I felt the DLC served it's purpose in tying all the games together. But that's about it, really. I wouldn't say it's bad or peak fiction. I agree it's not fully clear what happened in the case of Alpha. I couldn't tell if his conscience was fully on board or if it was just being suppressed until the attack on the City. And while I realize Alpha's presence adds a layer to the story, it also felt like an attempt to make N more sympathetic. I'm all for multiple truths but it was like they were trying to make N seem "not that bad" for attacking the City to preserve everything (instead of simply fulfilling the terms of his contract with Z, as we were originally told). Thankfully, N stayed true to his character and didn't disappoint. As for why N didn't tell M, I was under the impression M wouldn't have supported N preserving the endless now, even if he had told her the whole truth.

Gotta start off by saying although i heavily heavily disagree with you on this your opinion is absolutely valid and doesn't hold less value than mine 💚. I preface with this because i have some thoughts I would like to share regarding this. For me this had one of my favorite Casts in the Xeno series. Loved them way more than base 3 personally. Another thing im gonna say is i disagree with you in saying What N did is a retcon. Cuz the other characters explain what they think happened we never saw N himself do it. Also i personally in the base game really really hated the ending of chapter 5 and beginning of 6 it felt like cheap emotional oscar bait with a plot twist. This fixes that for me somewhat now because i feel bad for N. He kept the real reason why the attack on the city happened which makes his sadness sting way harder for me in the base game. Also with you talking about how XC1 felt the most complete i would absolutely agree the thing is with the Tetusya Takahashi he tried to make 6 game long epics twice in a row and it failed both times. so when it came to XC1 he focused on 1 complete game. By the time 2 was in development the series had become successful enough to where it could become its own saga. Which is why 2 retconed things and further elaborated on the lore to give more depth to both 2 and the orginal. Then they wanted to finish off the Klaus saga with 3. When 3 first came out I was upset a story set after XC1 existed because i felt it ruined the ending of the first by default. Then as time went on it made sense to me it mirriored real life. Although in real life we make steps towards the future the world always has more problems to send our way. So to me it felt like a parallel of real life that evil returned cuz its basically the same thing. Future redeemed gave me my second favorite ending because it finally gave everyone their happy ending. Cuz personally i always thought 2's ending was pretty wack but now i got this ending to think of for the casts. Theres some stuff I could elaborate on with Alpha but this is getting long enough and im sure a full essay would be too much lol. Ill end by saying That although i loved this dlc a lot and it gave the Saga the closure i wanted i can understand why you wouldnt be as satisfied with it. Hope you have a great one man sick video and i hope it does well 💚

To be fair, every N flashback in the base game is coming from M’s perspective. N says that he doesn’t want M to know what really happened in the city so it makes sense that you would never know about Alpha.

oml am I the first to comment? and yes u are completely right, I don't know Xenoblade lore, and from the looks of it, it would take me a good afternoon to understand it all lmao another banger video though!! I think your complaints are valid, stories that include different universes can easily become confusing and overcomplicated imo. I'm on the same boat as u when it comes to the story being jumbled af. Great video Snug!!!! sending love!!!! ❤❤❤

Snug, I could listen to you talk Xenoblade forever.

Felt exactly like this. I finished it recently and live streamed the whole thing and had a bunch of people ask why I wasn't smiling or crying by the end of it despite being a huge fan and part of it was just because I saw everyone else calling it the greatest ended to a trilogy ever so I may have over hyped myself a bit but even then, I was confused. "Fists of the end?" The worlds go back together as soon as the end of xc3 happens? Ontos not acting at all like how Alvis would act? And it was just when I was learning to appreciate base Xeno 3 and it's as you say, undoing the parts that I was finally content with and loved in base 3. A bit unrelated but before this DLC came out, I finished Octopath 2 and it reminded so much of how much I love a self contained story. It had nothing to do with the original game aside from mechanics and 1 or 2 nods to the original and it had a beginning to a very satisfying end and I loved it and then I play this right after I finish octopath 2 and I start to notice the key jangling begin to ware off and the retcons piling up and the random BS "fists of the end" moments that kept appearing. Hell I still don't even know if they will ever explain what fogbeasts are and this was there one chance to do so and makes me laugh so much. Definitely need a break from this series but I will always love what Xeno1/2 did for me and I will replay them until the end of time. Really happy for people who are happy but I have to agree, this wasn't for me

They Kingdom Hearts the fuck out of this story

glad that someone is pointing out the bad things, not because i agree with the all the points you made, but because sharing perspectives and trying to understand them is important

Your editing style is HILARIOUS Anyway, i agree with you that I really dont like how 3 just refuses to explain a lot of crucial plot points. And when they do get explained, the jargon is often really vague and weird. At one point noah goes "we are still alive" and lanz is like what do you mean, and then Noah just. Doesnt explain and stares at the sky?? Oy vey However, i did just want to clear up a few things you were unsure of, bc once i understood i did appreciate things a bit more. Alpha: After the worlds failed to merge, ontos was not happy with how humanitys desire for the endless now froze time and created moebius. He thought that it would be better to purge all of it and only spare the city folk as they are not part of origin and werent involved in creating moebius. Out with the old, in wity the new. Combined with logos and pneuma not being there to be like "bro wtf", alpha said fuck it we ball and went ahead. As for N. While yes, destroying alpha is a shared goal between N/moebius and matthrew group, their methods differ. N wants to kill all of them to protect his endless now with Mio. While Matthew still wants to kill alpha, but does NOT want to kill the city folk in tbe process (including Na'el). This here is a difference in ideology. N wants to destroy the city completely to protect his now, while Matthew wants to save the city from alphas clutches (including na'el), to both protect the now and build off of it into.the future. What Ns doing is still wrong, bc he just wants to kill everyone and be done with it, while Matthew firmly believes theres another way to solve this. Ns actions are still wrong. Its just that now, we know Z didnt order him to purge the city for pure shits and giggles, and moreso did it to protect aionios as a whole. N is still an ass. Its just 1000 years before 3, and this N hasnt completely succumbed to his delusions of him doing the right thing and still clearly feels regret (the same regret that would become Noah.) As far as A being a callback to Alvis: the reason any of this conflict came into existence at all is bc the worlds were going to destroy each other due to klaus dying in 2 and the conduit, which was keeping them apart, disappearing. Alvis was still right about his vision of the future, its likely that the vision was just way farther along then we origibally thought. As vision is implying that the cast of 3 does save the day. Their hope does pay off and materialize. In the end, bc both worlds wanted to walk hand in hand together, the worlds do merge at the end of 3. Sorry if that doesnt make sense, im typing on my phone and my hand is cramping krkwkfkwkkdkwkdk But yea. Just some.stuff i thought i could add to help you out. I def get a lot of your frustrations, i feel them.too. but others explanations has def helped me appreciate this series a lot more. I hope i can do the same if only a little:)

you’re so correct and every point you made was true and real and I like your opinions!

I like to hear different opinions, even if they are the opposite of mine, so I really appreciate this video! I think I see why you felt that way while playing Future Redeemed: the game throws a lot at the player, so many stuff happens and a lot of important information is said by important characters, so it’s hard to understand everything the first time you see it. From this perspective, FR pays the price of being an expansion instead of a full game, but overall I think that Monolith did a good job with the story. Rewatching the cutscenes helps a lot in a situation like this imo, I too didn’t understand some stuff that was told in the story, and rewatching the cutscenes allowed me to connect all the pieces I was missing, and made me appreciate FR even more. Give it a try, maybe it will be the same for you (that unintentionally sounded a lot like the last words Matthew said to N lol).

Great and awesome with the vid Snug. I’m really sorry you didn’t have the best experience compared to others, but that’s really okay, and I can really understand where you’re coming from. I guess I personally liked it because of both the complexities of the lore and the character interactions, but it’s okay if the overarching lore is not as intriguing as its more standalone stories. Still, I pretty much loved your video and your gags, and don’t worry so much of being on other opposite popular opinion. Every work of art can be interpreted in many ways and its always interesting hearing other people’s opinion in good faith. Stay cool man, and I’m excited to see where you go from here. Cheers! -Love, PSIUser XOXO

Interesting perspective and very well-put. I relate in more than a few ways. Also, great editing. Made me laugh out loud a few times.

Nothing was retconned. I just have to watch anothe video to makes sence of the dlc. Its actualky really good

YOU'RE WRONG, WRONG!!! I am the Xeno man and let me monado bust your chops buddy you cant just stand there and tell me you didnt get the thematic reference to Pyra when A was swinging her cake, I could feel the icing hitting me from here.

Future Redeemed isn’t peak or perfection but I really liked it. All the callbacks, references to x and the sage games were nice, but I was mainly satisfied with how this game felt like comic book style crossover with these Xenoblade characters. At least that’s how I thought about this game after playing it.

Great video Snug.

Truly the Dark Souls of Xenoblade stories

I agree with a lot of your criticisms especially Alpha, that said none of those were detrimental to my enjoyment of the dlc. I wish there was more pertaining to the ending of base 3.

It's pretty cool that even though your opinion is wrong, your video is well worded and you expressed your thoughts clearly and concisely and that the comment section of this video, full of people with the right opinion that this story was excellent, disagree with you but still respect the validity of your take. I wish all fandoms were as accepting and level-headed like this. Wait, nevermind. People were being dicks to Pyra's voice actor because she had the audacity to talk about her headcanon. Solid video all around, by the way.

Pretty much agree with all of this. I loved XC1 and XC2 so much and I enjoyed XC3 for what it was. I didn't hate it; XC3 had a strong start and amazing ending but everything in between was all over the place. I thought Future Connected was alright. As a standalone adventure in the XC1 world it was entertaining. But Future Redeemed was trying to do a lot and also not at the same time. I really wanted to like it but I just felt overwhelmed with all the lore dump it was doing to answer questions I really didn't care about which in turn made me feel underwhelmed over the smaller things I wanted to see (i.e. the rest of the cast) but didn't. To me it seemed like it cared too much about wanting to be the center piece to everything to tie it all together when it could have just been a more personal journey to complement XC3 instead of the ENTIRE XENOBLADE CHRONICLES TIMELINE! But oh well. It was still fun gameplay-wise.

I think the problem with xenoblade is that it doesn't fully commit to being a new story or a continuing story. One Takahashi is always saying it's ok to start with the latest rather than telling us an order to play them because now scenes like the *radio scene* will not make any sense if you never played saga. Two, important stuff gets left out like pneuma reverting back into core crystal and rex being upset out what happened to pyra/mythra not being alive and not fully explaining it is just plain bad storytelling. Nier and Nier Automata did it in a very well done way where the story can be enjoyed even if you've never played the drakengard series. Now that other IPS will start getting involved with Xenoblade 4 and Takahashi continuing to claim it's ok to play new games without any prior knowledge this will already pose problems. My biggest hope is on nintendo's next system xenoblade 2 definitive edition will happen and we get a new dlc story that explains what happens to pneuma and why she chose to revert back to being a crystal as well as something else that carry on to 4.

So you brought up an interesting point in how XC1 and XC2's ending feels pointless because that peace lasted maybe 15-20 years before it all went to shit again, in part because of some kind of interstellar cosmic horror of Klaus kind of redeemed himself but then his mistake was going to cause another catastrophe from the worlds exploding when they re-merged, and in part from humans being collectively too afraid to move on which spawned Moebius. So I would like to point to Rex's speech in Xenoblade 2 against Jin where Jin directly says that eventually things will go to shit and what will happen when Rex physically cannot be there to fix it. Rex points to two things. One, the blades, two, someone else later on will fix it and that is exactly what happens. But as for a very brief explanation for at least my interpretation of Alpha is that his order from Shulk was a world that would move forward into the future without gods. Those people created the Endless Now which goes against that objective, so that was the reason Alpha wanted to abandon humanity with the exception being the new life that did not commit that sin. And the Conduit/Zohar stuff started in 2. The origin of 2 mirrored the origin of Xenosaga. This was thought to be fanservice, but it's clear that was instead intentional. So basically the Zohar is a higher dimensional entity that can do all kinds of whacky stuff which was the basis for how everything happened in 1 and 2. One lone scientist guy by himself can't re-start evolution from scratch. One super powered computer can't make a pocket dimension by itself. And one can't simply make a giant SSD that holds the life data of all of humankind for two worlds. And specifically the reason for the Klaus's experiment was to open the gate to other dimensions. So he did that and also caused a whole lot of other shit that probably won't be fully understood for a long time. N I think N and M and Moebius were handled kind of clumsily, but I think the point was showing that N did regret his actions, not just M which was how they came to be put back into the cycle.

I very much agree with the rushed and convoluted point of view. Xenoblade as a series(until 3) always explained the major points. If you missed something, it'll make sure you understand it before the end. But in 3 and it's DLC, they kinda just throw around these concepts with zero explanation or even questioning of it. I'm expected to just believe that N's sword had Logos in it and Pneuma was in Matthew's gauntlet... but why? Why are they there? How does that make any sense and why is it never even slightly divulged? I overall liked the DLC, but think it needed more time in the oven and a better conclusion. The lack of a post credit scene of the characters made it all kinda feel... pointless? I think I could forgive the rest of it, if it just did that gracious thing to end the "Klaus" saga. However they couldn't even bother to give us another image of the casts? Nothing, I did all that to see a possible Kos-Mos falling to the new planet, as if that matters to none saga players? They can't even give it a "happy" ending after all the casts and players have been through. From a gameplay point of view, I did like the affinity points system. However, I still hate XC3's 6-7 party member system, it's simply too much that doesn't benefit the gameplay in any way. Maybe Xenoblade 4 can be a fresh start and a return to a more contained story and gameplay, like the original was. I fear though that Monolithsoft has kinda fallen into the trap of just "add more, more more more, that's always good". I half expect the next game to be an RTS with like 100 characters, at this rate.

Your points about Xenoblade 3 as a whole I agree with. Whats been weird is that there's some people in the fanbase who wanted the game to be its own thing and have 0 connections to the previous games and I disagreed with that- until they tied it in one of the most depressing ways you could by practically deleting the progress they made. So at the end of the day it definitely shouldn't have been apart of the first or second game, but because they were I really liked future redeemed. Also agree that A didn't feel like alvis that much but I supposed that can be attributed to losing the computer part? The Avatar stuff really confused me as well but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter since in the end everyone comes back? I still don't know lmao

Xenoblade 2 is a masterpiece

Future redeemed is a perfect ending for everyone that played every xeno game. The title itself doesn't refer to the xenoblade or the game itself but the fact we are going to get the ending of saga. Takehashi has finally got up to what would be episode 5 of xenogears. Now in a weird way xenoblade are episodes 4,5 and 6 of xenosaga. Future redeemed was always gooding to be pure fan service. Some people weren't going to like that. Other cried because their Future is certain.

I totally have the same feeling as you. Xenoblade series is a miracle JRPG to me, and I can't deny it. I miss the completeness of XC1, everything is just perfectly done. But in XC1 FC, XC3, and XC3 FR I can't feel that thing. Monolith Soft is ambitious about something more like MCU but cannot do it well, the plot in those games is just a half-baked cake, with a lot of unanswered questions eventually. XC3 FR is a great game, but it is not a great game to close this Klaus saga imo.

awww man... the future was NOT redeemed 😔...or was it????

I disagree with you, DLC has to offer what the fans expect from Xenoblade 3; get old characters for previous games and links and explain a lot of things were remain only in the lore of the universe. I understand you won't be able to follow the story with full details, but in my opinion, I love the game that doesn't explain everything that happens and let me think. And even the things that seem unsensible or unexplained in DLC, maybe the next games will answer us. In the end, we don't need the writers to explain everything unnecessarily. For example, the main game didn't explain how Noah was able to rebirth (even though he become a Moebius), but that didn't affect our experience and understanding of the game. And yet the DLC comes and explains Noah Rebirth. The same go for DLC, we don't need to know why Alpha(/Alvis) wants to erase the old world, the most important thing it's stopping him. And how know, maybe the next games will explain why........

This video was really hard to stomach as someone who loved this game and my first instinct was to shame this idiot poop face for dissing peak goat raw fiction but then I turned my brain on and can come to terms with the fact that you explain your points pretty good and while I still vehemently disagree (largely on the N thing, I think the game wanted to basically provide further fuel for his own justifications on why mass murdering his descendants was good actually when it really isn't, that's part of why they show M appearing, they wanna drive in that despite his horribly conflicting actions, in his broken mind he still deludes himself into thinking it all is correct if it's for her), I honestly understand your main thesis and am sorry it didn't click for you. Hope the Xenocar remaster is good!!!!!1!

Dude honestly this is how i kinda feel love all the games but if this is supposed to be the last connecting piece to the klaus saga i dont have the answers i need

The Xeno 1 cast in lucky 7, and Malos in N’s sword is new to me

I'm definitely the opposite so I will try to understand where you are coming from. The scene with N actually made N's character better for me because Noah turning completely evil never sat right with me. I mean even in the base game Mio says he wasn't mistaken for choosing this path and his "redemption" makes now way more sense if it's just for choosing the moebius path and not for him killing thousands of innocent people. As for the connection stuff I can't really help convince you there if you really didn't like all of them being connected. It is one of the most beautiful things in the series that you can play one of these games alone and have a full story but if you dig deeper they are all connected. Maybe the things you don't really understand yet hinder you from fully enjoying all the overall universe this series is trying to forge. If that's the case I feel like it might come with time when you replay the games and see how perfectly they all connect.

To an extent I totally get this! I to, love all these characters and what they bring to the games. It is quite literally the best part. But I also thrive off of making sense of convoluted stories. That's why I'm such huge fan of these games and games like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. After I played this DLC I fell into like a 3 day "lore dump" hole where I was trying to make sense of several different things that didn't make sense to me, like how in the world Shulk and Rex are there if decades are supposed to have passed. I have all my answers now and I fully understand practically every bit of "lore" that was throw at us, even if it was a bit messy. But once I gained that knowledge, it only heightened my experience with the game and the series as a whole. Great video as always! You're writing and editing is always an inspiration!

In my opinion N really isn’t shown as doing the right thing in the city, since it’s similar to how Egil in 1 kills people from the Bionis to stop Zanza from growing stronger. Here, he kills citizens so Alpha isn’t stronger despite the fact that this clearly isn’t the correct way of defeating Alpha. But the main difference here is that, contrary to Egil, his reason for defeating Alpha isn’t the same as the main party. Where Egil had good intentions but wrong methods, N still had the desire to keep the endless now by defeating Alpha. I actually think this new element brings 2 things that make the city incident even better: First, the fact that there is another reason for killing the city outside of being the resistance for the endless now helps for a good gateway between N becoming completely disassociated from any emotions, since I felt like that was somethinh that was missing from base 3 The second thing that it added was that moment with Ghondor, where we see that he is still feeling something at this point in time, and that he really doesn’t want this but it was the choice he made to stay with M. I can see where your opinion is coming from and I respect it obviously but I personally think that everything FR added about N aligns perfectly with base 3, and it never treats him as a good guy, instead as a layered individual that has a bit more humanity than how we see him in the base game

i respect the video but the only thign i agree with here is they severly underutilized Nikol and Glimmer as actual characters and not just proxies to reintroduce elements of aionios and peopel who don't know the true history of the world. even with all the optional content involving them

Xenoblade 3 would have been fine on its own without the tries to the past games but I think it's this that makes it messy. I think the scope and timescale were too big for the game and a lot of stuff just wasn't explained, like where are Pyra and Mythra, why does Nia have holograms of their swords? Almost like they connected it to those games so they'd be able to use assets and landmarks but never really goes into the connection to past games beyond that. Speaking of, how can the Torna desert area exist in 3? It was long gone even before Xenoblade 2 main game Maybe Takahashi is playing 4d mind chess and we are supposed to feel confused in this messed up merged world? Future redeemed confused me too. Like where did Pneuma's core crystal come out of nowhere and end up in those gloves and why are people talking about Logos? Why did they rename Alvis? Why does he look old? I thought blades didn't age. It seems like they want to keep pushing new casts of characters (note how everyone has a child now) but the old characters still have much unfinished business

I didn’t really know what to think about the game after I beat it, but the more I thought about it (and looked up the Reddit conversations) I loved it more and more. I think everyone is rushing their analysis here, good and bad. The game just came out a couple weeks ago. Everyone needs to go back through not only this game, but Xenoblade 3 and The trilogy as a whole, then come back to this to re evaluate it after ruminating over it for a lot of time. That’s how much complexity it has. It’s the ending of the entire story and the culmination of the themes the entire franchise has been exploring. Rushing knee jerk reactions is fine, but let’s call them what they are, first thoughts. I know everyone is very excitable right now, but we need to realize that it’s going to take quite a bit of time for everyone to understand it. Also, the thing I love about the Xeno franchise is how brilliantly it balances and weaves together macro level high sci fi concepts, philosophy, large scale plot and themes with micro level characters and their relationships, struggles, development and psychology. That’s why this DLC was both, and pushed the high concepts and explanations more, because the base game focused on characters and themes. I love both but I also care more about the characters. That’s actually why I like the first game the least. It felt like they spent too much time on the admittedly very cool and well thought out plot and neglected the characters a lot. Having played Xenogears, I expected a lot more in depth psychology, especially with the dramatic introduction. It’s still a really good game, and I’ve since come around to appreciating it for what it is, though I much prefer 2 and 3.

I'm sorry to hear that this was your experience of Future Redeemed, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't share some of your feelings deep down myself. I don't believe anybody ever wants to be "the guy" who doesn't enjoy something, and I just hope you know that any reasonable fan of this franchise should be able to see this and be understanding of the fact that you obviously don't revel in your lack of enjoyment of this DLC. I kinda felt you on the "connections to other games isn't what made me love Xenoblade" spiel. Having played 2 first, I didn't know, and didn't need to know how it connected to XC1, and it didn't take anything away from the catharsis of that game's story conclusion. Tying all this stuff together is cool, and clearly seems to be Takahashi/Monolithsoft's flavor, they love building rich worlds with a lot of history and connections, and that's all cool. When THAT becomes the focus though, it doesn't necessarily lead to the thrilling emotional journeys I feel most of these games take us on in some facet. I'll put it this way: I understood when people cried during the credits of all the other games, but for me in Future Redeemed I wanted to cry, but I just didn't have enough there to make me the way the other games did. As always, appreciate hearing your perspective and I hope nobody gives you shit for anything you say in this video. I know this fanbase loves to 'challenge' any kind of criticism(s), but your experience is 100% valid and deserves to be heard and appreciated the same as any fan who adored everything about Future Redeemed. Keep up the great work and thanks for the quality videos to rewatch ad infinitum.

I think its about the future and how nothing actually matters while what you are doing is the right thing and it does not matter if you fail or if you can't get it done, you can always try again or you can pass the torch, at the end everything is going to be gone so then life was for nothing? no, you can find meaning in everything you do and find a reason to keep going, I think that is basically the perfect conclusion to both games, one is centered on creating our own future and the other is to find meaning and reasons to keep going.

I disagree, but only because I prefer the journey far more than the destination. I dont play video games to pick apart every detail (I do that enough with music). So, in many ways, I agree with almost all of your points. However, because my enjoyment of video games is fundamentally different, I consider Xenoblade 3's DLC to be the best DLC I've ever experienced.

Another thing. Not trying to convince you here but I want to give my take on an aspect of the game: the radio scene. I think this moment represents perfectly what you said about xenoblade being great games that revolve around characters and the lore and conveluded stuff are the fundation and not the only thing carrying (even tho I agree this game goes a bit further in that department but I allow it since its the end of the saga) I think the radio scene works is because it has the references and canons those other games in the background, while if you don’t reallyunderstand what they are saying it still fits in the character driven narrative since this radio is there to contrast this perfect world na’el is describing with war and the awful things we hear in the radio. It’s pretty clear the radio is hinting at stuff like that and one can understand that without needing to understand reference. This was just my take on that and in my opinion is a moment that still shows that even in a crazy game like this one they still care more about the characters and their internal conflicts than the conveluded lore, and it balances both pretty greatly imo. Although that’s definitely the aspect of the game I can understand the most for people disliking :)

How dare you not like it the fanboys are never going to let you hear the end of this.

You just missed details about A and Alpha and the role the Ontos core plays in the larger meta narrative. Which is understandable because its a whole lot of jrpg nonsense. Alvis foresaw how the two universes would ultimately merge hence the retconned meaning of their "hand in hand" comment at the end of Xc1. They leave to see the higher universe xc1 and xc2 will merge into and leaves a half of their core behind to assist in the creation of origin. Origin is something they know will be required for life to persist after the two world merge. A is the personality, obviously. But they are mobius, or rather they are Origin taken over by mobius. Ontos innately acts to fulfil the desires of others and innately connected to Aionios like they were with the world of Xc1 they foresee that maintaining origin will ultimately see the cycle come to and end and the two worlds merge successfully. Alpha is the 'logical' half of the ontos core that universe hops into what we now know is almost certainly the xenosaga world. This is important for two reasons. First is that this separates them from their two siblings and the second is that they almost certainly come to understand the importance of the earth returning because of heavy xenosaga spoilers. Alpha, a calculating machine. Needs to end aionios and have the two worlds merge. The old life (the soldiers) empower mobius and prevent this from happening. The logical action is to discard the old life and bring only the new (city) life into the combined earth. Origin is attacked by Alpha but manifests Shulk and Rex as avatars to combat them, this fight ends in a draw but with the two men injured. Alpha seeks an avatar of their own and choses Na'el. Origin is seized and the end of the world begins. Its important to note that Shulk describes the liberators purpose as "to protect the world", not end the cycle. Z, now trapped sends N to the city to complete a task and in doing so M will return to him. N's objective is to kill Alpha's avatar and slaughter the new (city) life in the process. Origin's departure from Aionios seems to require the direct consent of Na'el which explains why she wants Matthew to come with her. She wont leave if there's nothing to take. Mobius tries to exterminate both threats to the world at the same time. N is stopped by Ghondor, ultimately failing but the city is still destroyed. I think this adds to N's character rather than a harmful retcon. It shows just how far he is willing to go to to protect his eternity, but it also shows the exact moment Noah and Mio's reincarnation becomes inevitable. Born from regret and all that. N killing his own son adds this sickening personal layer to the tragedy. TLDR: I wasted way too much time typing this up.

Great review! It's always great when someone gives some genuine criticism. I do not agree with everything you said but I do understand all your points.

i overall disagree with this video but i do understand some confusion: Xenobalde 3 basegame's messege was not being shackled to the past but not throwign it away either; beign able to accept your failures and to use them as a lesson on hwo to move forward. A actign like how she does makes sense and coincides with how Alvis acted in xenoblade 1, especially since their relationship wiht Matthew is how i feel Alvis would've acted more in game he interacted more wiht Reyn or had heart to hearts with him i disagree with the whole "N retcon" thing i felt it was clear that Z was killign two birds with one stone by having N slaughter the niche of humanity that he himself carved out alongside the rogue AI that was hiding there and plannign to wipe everythign out from aionios (this is complete conjectureo n my part) i'd have to assuem that when Riku gave Noah the lucky seven he may have also secretly altered the blade to make Matthew's old blade be the sheath of the new lucky seven thus having pnuema with him.

Matt: I'm freezing my balls off 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Yeah, I've felt similar over Future Redeemed. It's been confusing to me watching the overwhelmingly positive response to FR (and I feel even that is underselling how much people love it) and I just... don't. Love Xenoblade 1, X, 2. Had issues with 3 but was hopeful for FR. And I just... really don't like it. It feels like a giant mountain of retcons. Plot contrivances that corrupt what I love about previous games to create this grand high-concept narrative that does nothing for me. What did they do to Alvis? And... why??? It makes no sense to me, for many of the reasons you stated and more. The new stuff about N also just... no. They made him a less interesting character for me, muddying the waters of his narrative in 3's base game. And I dunno, 3 already felt like it kind of undid the beauty of the endings of 1 and 2, but FR just took that even further. Anyway. I'm really happy for people who enjoy it. I really am. But man, this so did not work for me, on any level (aside from a few isolated character moments. There are always good character moments to be found in Xenoblade)