Episode 171 - Every Time They Do, It Makes Me Laugh - Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

I’m feeling full of beans. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Future Redeemed. This is an expansion type DLC which gives you a full new party of characters, starts you at level one and makes subtle but meaningful changes to the mechanics and has you set out on an entirely new story set in the same world as the base game. This is probably for the best given how long it’s been since we’ve played the original, so we don’t have to deal with high level enemies while forgetting all of the mechanics, but as is usually true with Xenoblade games, what is probably the most interesting development in the DLC concerns the story. The DLC features characters from far flung parts of Monolith’s trilogy, and the ways and reasons they interact with your party take a focus in the narrative. Because of this the DLC focuses a bit more on the overarching narrative, which is on the more complicated side, but it still puts a decent focus on character stories, just maybe in a less impactful way than the base game. Mechanically, the new classes are largely fun and well designed, with some hitches here and there, and the new systems give you something novel to sink your teeth into if you are so inclined. All that said, the game plays mostly very similar to the base game so if you were a fan of that, you’ll probably enjoy another 20-30 hours of this as well. We’re going to be talking about how the mechanical changes affected our play, the characters and what archetypes they fill both in the story and as narrative devices, and we realize that maybe we’ve been the dumb guy all along. Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game that we really liked originally and probably wouldn’t have gone back to for the expansion for a long while if we hadn’t done this DLC theme, so I’m happy we got the chance. If you’ve been through it, how did you feel about the changes from the base game? Did you feel compelled to fill out your affinity goals to level everyone up? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to finish out DLC by talking about Echoes of the Eye, the DLC for Outer Wilds, so we hope you’ll join us then!