I grew up on games that often fell into the camp of "big on text, turn based in gameplay," especially if they happen to be some form of JRPG. I've spent plenty of time by that fire and roamed around the JRPG genre with its prominent representatives: the modern Personas, Fire Emblems, and Golden Suns; Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Radiant Historia and Final Fantasy X. I've thus become well acquainted with a lot of the standard tropes these narratives rely on: often feudal settings, young adolescents, power of teamwork, magic swords, the final boss is god. This is a well-worn path that I have made my way down many times.
In 2015, through strong encouragement of a friend, I picked up a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles. The footprint of Xenoblade mimicked ones left by the other games I've played in many ways: the Monado, key symbol of this game, is one of the most magic of swords; the final boss most certainly is some sort of divine; many monster designs could be supplanted fairly easily into a more traditional high fantasy setting. The bones of Xenoblade was not something wholly unfamiliar to me.
And yet, when I played it, I found these tropes transformed in ways that were as yet unseen to me. The game's cast starts out as a handful of 18 year olds, sure, but the average age grows steadily with party size, ending up with a well-rounded group of characters each with unique perspectives on the narrative's events. While "the super power of teamwork" is certainly present within the story, its use is elevated from a cliche to a message about what it takes to break recurrent cycles of violence. Even the Monado wraps itself so tightly into the foundations of Xenoblade's worldbuilding that writing it off as a basic trope discredits the work as a whole. From a ten thousand foot perspective, I find that Xenoblade uses all the JRPG tropes to their utmost potential. I have a very hard time finding ways to speak higher of it.
It comes as no surprise that I was ecstatic when Xenoblade then evolved into a series with the release of its sequel and its subsequent critical success. As of now, there are three main games developed by Monolith Softare, each of which is predictably named Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2 and 3. While my appreciation for the other two entries is a little rockier compared to the first, I'm confident in saying that each of these games are more than worth your time. Beyond each game's core experience, side campaign a year or so after its launch that further develop the narratives of their respective game as well as tie together the three seemingly-disjoint mainline entries: Xenoblade 1 has Future Connected, Xenoblade 2 has Torna: The Golden Country, and the most recent game, Xenoblade 3 received its side story Future Redeemed just this past spring, in April 2023.
Compared to the other two side stories, Future Redeemed stands somewhat separate than the other two. Instead of enhancing solely the narrative of Xenoblade 3 as the other two do with 1 and 2, Future Redeemed focuses on a much larger scope. It is less an expansion for Xenoblade 3 specifically as it is an expansion of the entire series up until that point. It weaves together plot threads that were first laid back in the very first game, closing the book on the overarching narrative built up over the past decade. While there may be more to come , Future Redeemed serves as an impeccable ending to the past ten years of storytelling.
As such a passionate fan of the series I decided to take the entire year of 2023 and examine the broader context of the Xeno franchise. While it is complete unto itself, the Xenoblade series is really only the most recent incarnation of a recurring spiral of science fiction, high fantasy, and philosophy directed by Tetsuya Takahashi. Starting back in 1997, Xenogears began a wild ride melding together Freudian psychology, Kabbalistic mysticism, hard science fiction and Christian religious inspiration. While future Xeno entries reduce their scope somewhat, judeo-christian theming blending into science fiction remains a staple of the series.
At the time of writing, there are now seven games under the Xeno umbrella: Xenogears, Xenosaga Episode 1: Zur Wille dur Macht, Xenosaga Episode 2: Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Xenosaga Episode 3: Also Sprach Zarathustra and the four Xenoblade games. Since I'm already intimately familiar with the Xenoblade games, I'll be focusing my attention on the four games that come before it. As I work through each, I'll be sharing my thoughts, opinions, criticisms and congratulations in dedicated blog posts, just like this one.
The header at the top of this page helps facilitate moving back and forth between the different blog posts. You can also get started with my discussion on Xenogears right here.