Story of 1 and 2 are nothing new but still good enough, even great. XCX story maybe original, but still lackluster and barebone as an individual. XCX story/characters maybe better in the end (who know?) but it needs at least another game or a remake/addition for the plot while 1 & 2 story/characters are completed. We are comparing each game here, and no doubt that X story/characters as a single game is the weakest

I wouldn't say call XCX bare bones at all; especially not compared to Xenoblade Chronicles. There's typically a lot more going on at any particular time in XCX than there is at a particular time in XC. In XC there's usually only one thing for you to do in the story at a time, in XCX there's always a lot of different things to do in many different areas of the city. I find XCX to be much more robust in terms of story as a result, while XC is more single-threaded and on the rails; yes, there are side quests, but they're just fetch quests with a bit of flavour text and the majority of them are independent and disconnected from anything else. In XCX, even the generic guild quests are tied into the greater context; while the actual quests are far more robust and tie very much into the development of the city of NLA and the expansion of human influence and relations on Planet Mira, or the various sub-conflicts that arise as a result of the expansion, it's a more cohesive package.

But as I said at the end of my last post, what I enjoy more about XCX is that you really have the opportunity to choose the direction of where you take the story, it's a much bigger and grander scope of a story than the linear plot spoonfed to you in XC1 and 2: you're told "go to Mechonis for revenge" or "Go to the World Tree so Pyra can go home" which is essentially tells you exactly where you're going, while XCX leaves it to you what you're going to do in the story, there's a lot more mystery about what's happening in the big picture, and you escalate the conflict by uncovering what's going on rather than by simply getting closer to the place you've been walking to.

But in regards for XC1 or XC2's story (more so XC1), I can't say I was particularly enthralled by the story of either when I can get all they offer (storywise) and much more by replaying Xenogears... which I REALLY hope it gets ported or remade/remastered on Switch.

The part of Xenoblade Chronicles that interested me was the vertical world and some of the beautiful locations which was a fairly new thing when the game first came out in 2011, but the value of that design was more fully realized in games like Xenoblade Chronicles X and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which IMO are much more interesting games.

The story of 1&2 was linear, you only have one goal most of the time but a lot of things happened in that journey, including people and their past, and the sorrow in the end of both game, especially with the addition of XC2 Torna story, the pain was even bigger. 1 had many plot twists while 2 had more tragic deaths with both good and bad side, each have their own story and reason. With X, the plot was very unique and original, but without the real answer, it only gave a big question to people about Mira and everything on that planet. What really happened in the end? Need at least one, even two more gmes to solve everything. Then as a single game, the story was quite confusing and not really gave us any moment to think or feel about it like the other games, especially XC2. In that perpective, the story of X as an individual was really lackluster and barebone. Sure, the open wolrd, the side quests and combat gameplay could be the best but for a Xeno game, the plot wasn't that good at least for now. 

I think a big part of what made XCX less engaging for me story-wise boils down to two things.

(A) The VA felt really phoned in and lacked the charm and character of XB1 and XB2's VA.

(B) The whole game felt like it was building up to a big narrative payoff that simply never came. So much went unanswered, and that felt intensely unsatisfying.

Both valid points, but where we differ is that these things didn't impact my experience even close to as much as yours.

Mostly for me, the solution to the imminent death of the colony was a pretty big payoff given that was the main conflict. But there is SO much more to Mira and the XCX Universe that remains unresolved. Many of these involve compelling questions: What is Mira's mysterious power source? How will the Samaar Federation react to this? What about other Arks? What about the danger within the human genome? Where does NLA go from here?

For me, the main enjoyment of the game came from unravelling all there was in the world, it left me both satisfied but also looking forward to more. Which is why I think it's a huge shame we've seen no indication of a continuation yet. We're nearing the 4th anniversary and no announcement on such a project.

I won't comment on the voice acting, a whole other can of worms!

See that's the thing, for me the game failing to answer all these questions itself leaves it ultimately unsatisfying. It feels like all setup and no payoff. The survival of the colony wasn't rewarding, of course they survive, the good guys never get wiped out in mainstream games. But answering none of the Mira-related mystery left the whole thing feeling like a 90 hour wank with no orgasm.

May pick this up, spent a lot of time with the original. My brother literally just gave me his switch.

Almost cried at the announcement.
Feels good to recongnize the game inmediatly, unlike the BOTW2 trailer. I failed to you Zelda.

So did I. With disappointment. 

Their "one last thing" was the final chance for that horrible, atrocious Direct to show at least one interesting thing, I was holding out hope we'd maybe get a look at Monolith's new game or something similarly exciting. A mere remaster of a Wii game I've owned since 2011 was a real letdown. :(

Now I'll have to wait until the VGAs for the next chance at an awesome new announcement from Nintendo, and even then I'm afraid to get hyped in case it's trash like last year.

Speak for yourself. I've owned the game since 2014, along with the New 3DS version since it came out, I've played and beaten both versions multiple times and I was overjoyed with this announcement. And as I'm going back to play the game again on the Wii, I can honestly say that it is necessary, because it has most definitely started to show its age and issues, and not just in the graphics department.

A mere remaster? Either our definitions of "remaster" are very different or you don't actually know what that term means. On top of giving it a modern, HD makeover, they're adding cut content from the original that fans will finally get the chance to play (i.e. the Bionis' shoulder.) And with that new content comes new areas, new story elements, new towns, new NPCs, new enemies, new sidequests, new items to collect, etc. It's documented that Monolith was behind schedule when developing the original game and they had to cut corners and content in order to meet a deadline, even though Nintendo would have been generous enough to give them more time if they asked. Suddenly, that cut content is coming back. They could have very easily just slapped the HD makeover and called it a day. But the fact that they're adding cut content like that to the game now tells me that they're treating this more than just a plain, old remaster. They really want to make this game better than it was before, they want it to truly live up to the title "Definitive Edition" and as someone who loves the original game to death, that only makes me happy. Because now I wonder what else they're going to do add to make the game grander and what they're going to try to make it better than before.

As for the Direct as a whole, they said straight up that they would primarily focus on 2019 titles for the Switch, most of which were already announced, which they did. The fact that we got 2020 titles beyond just Animal Crossing is bonus to be honest. Any feelings of disappointment you felt is mostly you setting your expectations too high. Last trailers for Luigi's Mansion 3 & Link's Awakening, SNES Online, more Smash DLC, Animal Crossing, more 3rd party and indie support, and Xenoblade. That's a solid '8' for me. 

And as for last year's Game Awards, yeah, no. Once again, speak for yourself. Joker being revealed as the first DLC fighter for Smash Ultimate was HANDS DOWN the best thing about that entire show not because of what it was, but for what it meant. It pretty much opened the floodgates for all kinds of possible characters in Smash Bros that a lot of people didn't think would be possible or unlikely. Now we've got Hero, Banjo & Kazooie, and Terry Bogard and with more DLC coming, that's just the beginning. You're letting your own indifference and apathy for Smash Bros. cloud your judgement. You may not care for the series and that's fine, but it certainly was not trash by any means.