| Wyrdness said: I completely missed a key bit in the trailer... The are vehicles in play.
This is an element that has only been in XBX via Skells, while I don't think Skells will return this element indicates the world is one massive seamless world like XBX instead of the large segments like in the XBC side of things. Either that or the segments have become so big now that vehicles are needed for quicker travel/exploration. |
The other way to look at it is by looking at Tetsuya Takahashi's full scope of games. Of the seven Xeno games, only Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 don't have some kind of Gear/Skell type things that the player can control - even if they exist in the world as Mechons and Aions. So, those two are the odd ones out. You could even go back to Final Fantasy 6 with the Magitek Armour, which is where the concept originated for Takahashi (I think he's credited as something like a map editor, but he worked as a writer, scene director, artist, and animator).
Xenoblade Chronicles actually makes sense in that regard because it was originally not intended to be a Xeno game, so that stuff was never designed. The dev team only later on wanted him to change the name to make it a "Xeno" game because they felt the game was a greater accomplishment than just the prototype he originally intended it to be. Of course, there's still the Mechons and Aions in XC1 and 2, just not a mechanism to control them as a player.
There are definitely Gears/AEGS/Skells in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, both nations warring with each other use them - Keves (which seems like Kislev from Xenogears) uses more industrial style Gears, while Agnus (which sounds like Ignas from Xenogears, this is the continent which contains the nation of Aveh and Nisan) is more Ether style Gears - which look a lot like Ethos Gears - the Ethos are the religious organization that controls Aveh - in Xenogears, the main war is between Aveh and Kislev. Below are a screenshot of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and a Gear from Aveh/Ethos used by the leader Shakhan.
While Kislev and Keves sound near identical, so far, Agnus is probably going to be different from Aveh. Aveh, as we got it, is an update of the Kingdom of Figaro in Final Fantasy 6. Figaro and its characters (including Edgar and Sabin) were largely designed by Soraya Saga and Tetusya Takahashi - you can call them the two original Monolithsoft figures since they both conceived of Xenogears, maybe throw in Yasonori Mitsuda and Kunihiko Tanaka, who Tetsuya Takahashi had worked with all the way back in his days at Nihon Falcom and had a lot to do with the artistic conception. Edgar and Sabin also have spiritual versions in Xenogears called Rene and Roni, two brothers who lived a few hundred years ago, and are in the same dynasty (Fatima) as Bart of Aveh and Marguerite of Nisan.
I think they didn't use Gears in Xenoblade Chronicles for two reasons: A. Tetsuya Takahashi originally saw the game as an advanced prototype (like T-1000), and B. adding those mechanics in were a bit beyond the scope, that's something that came in with Xenoblade Chronicles X, a world more than 5 times larger than Xenoblade Chronicles. But the story the Monado is very similar to that of Fei's Gear Weltall - they are both sacred weapons meant to slay a god. Shulk was just a remake Fei, and Fiora was a cross between Alice and Elly. The story of Xenoblade Chronicles wasn't as dark as Xenogears. Instead of Fei "accidentally" killing Alice when he took control of Weltall, they had Metalface kill Fiora. But the idea of the main character taking hold of the mysterious ancient god-killing weapon to defend his home town is all there.
Anyway, I'm curious to see how much of Xenogears Takahashi brings into Xenoblade Chronicles 3. As of May 2020, according to Monolith Soft President Sugiura, the dream is still to one day create Xenogears 2. They view all the Xeno games as belonging to the same Metaverse, and that Xenoblade Chronicles series is considered a prototype. https://nintendowire.com/news/2020/05/29/monolith-soft-was-created-to-specifically-to-try-and-develop-xenogears-2/
So, the question is Xenoblade Chronicles 3 going to be a reimagining of the Xenogears concept, or is this the last prototype before we get the real deal?
Another thing to consider. The main character that looks like a dandy version of Fei is called Noah. Project Noah was the original name of Xenogears.
The Ark in Xenogears was a 100 km long space ship that crash landed on the planet about 10,000 years earlier. Fei is the incarnation of the survivor who connected with the wave existence (worshipped as God) and has been reborn through history - he's basically the Messiah.
Last edited by Jumpin - on 14 February 2022I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
