Just played through the first hour, so far it's excellent.

Matthew and A are a likeable duo with fun chemistry, and the new system of rewarding practically every activity with AP is a good way to incentivise a more thorough and varied style of play; I already find myself going out of my way to kill specific enemies and explore every nook and cranny.

British VA became part of the series' identity since Nintendo of America initially declined to localize the first game on Wii, leaving Nintendo of Europe to handle the English version instead. Xenoblade 2 and 3 carry this on as a tradition.

Got through the first Chapter of the game and went up the elevator to the 2nd area.

My thoughts are mostly like yours.

Like usual, didn't know how I'd react to the first couple of interactions between the main duo but just like Jin and Lora, they are almost instantly lovable, albeit in a different way. 

Matthew clearly is experienced (in the same way as Vandham), but is also the goofiest Xeno protag out of the bunch. His first interactions with Nikol and Glimmer being the proof of that lol

Already got to play ten hours (always nice when a game's release coincides with days off from work) and I am pleased with this expansion. The main story is a lot meatier than it was in Torna which makes it work better as a standalone game.

The biggest change in terms of gameplay is certainly the completion obsession where pretty much everything gets tracked. Instead of this being a cheap achievement system, it's all tied into the game's actual progress through the reward of affinity points which can then be freely spent on improving your characters. This is similar to how things have been done in a bunch of games in the Atelier series where you were encouraged to do a bunch of things outside of your normal playing habits by offering a variety of rewards for it.

Speaking of Atelier, I've noticed on the eShop's Upcoming Games page that a remake of Atelier Marie (the very first game in the series) is set to release in July. Not quite what I had been hoping for next in terms of Atelier remasters on Switch, but better than nothing. The older games don't have the excessive length of the more modern iterations, so they fulfill their role as feel-good RPGs. And just as important, you get complete games instead of the DLC shenanigans. For this reason I haven't bothered with the latest games (Ryza 2&3, Sophie 2).

Holy moly, Aurora Shelf!

The

is one of my favourite images from the series since Xenoblade Chronicles X. Great music too!

I also like that Matthew is cut from a different cloth than Shulk/Rex/Noah in that he's a less of an typical JRPG hero and more rugged and impulsive, but in a way that's balanced out by a willingness to admit his mistakes and not let anger get the better of him.

Though you can argue his recklessness and lack of forethinking is prolly gonna cause a rift at some point. 

Anywoo, I'm glad how they've been able to balance out the fan service elements so far. Like it doesn't simply feel like a big Xeno best-of-all parade. They definitely want to do something with these characters.

Also holy moly ! They got Joanne Hogg, the original singer in Xenogears, to sing for the lyrical song in this DLC as well. Truly, everything has come full circle now with this title

I've reached Origin after 18 hours, but didn't attempt to tackle the final boss because I've barely managed to beat the boss before that. Three characters dead, including the two healers, so the only real option I had left was to pull off a chain attack that would rack up enough damage to finish the job. It seemed self-evident that I would have to upgrade my weapons a bit more, as well as my characters on the whole.

Standing at 20 hours now, I've completed about 80% of the affinity tasks. I am disappointed that the endgame content is lacking similarily to Torna, only this time around the normal enemies top out at level ~55 instead of ~50. But at least there are more unique monsters with varying high levels, unlike in Torna where the jumps were hefty, going from level 50 to 65 to 75 to 85 to 100. Therefore the grinding process to level 99 should be a bit less tedious and more manageable. Still, some better scaling would have been appreciated. My party is at level 53 now, so I'll soon enter the phase where unique monsters are all that's left to increase my levels. Most likely I'll face the final boss at level 55, then finish up the remaining % afterwards.

I like that ether that is more scarce than in the main game. Here you have to make considerations if you really want to build something right away or rather save it up for a more promising location. Overall, it's nice to have smaller Xenoblade games that are more like normal games and are over after 25-30 hours. Still a shame that Future Connected in the first Xenoblade didn't manage to be something like that.

On a related note, the expansion pass content for the main game was really light. XC2 got tons of additional content, but in XC3 it's not even a handful of new quests, plus a challenge arena. Nevertheless, the expansion pass is worth its money. It's just that this time around Monolith Soft wasn't as generous.

I love that we live in a world where where a character calls someone an "arsewipe" in a Nintendo developed game lmao. The swearing combined with the UK accents is glorious.

Just started chapter 3 and seeing

return was great fan service.

I just finished it.

The end credits will break you. That's all I'll say.

As well as this:

Thank you, Monolith Soft.

I wept a little after the credits passed and seeing the Monolith Soft logo again.

Wat a crazy journey I unexpectedly embarked in 2017 when I picked up Xenoblade Chronicles 2 just thinking it'll be a cool game to play because of all the good things I heard about the first game. 

I wasn't thinking about it before, the more it goes, the more you can take time to actually think about the thematics represented in series. Despite about the grandiose world and set pieces, the grand conflicts, the thousand of years represented there. The human conflicts have always been the main interest of it, especially because it simply feels ... So human.

Also, when it comes to the hints of where the series will go next, welp they were pretty obvious and I'm glad we'll all be able to pass on something else narratively. Takahashi and his teams prolly are too since this story has been an epic spamming almost three decades now lol

Managed to finish it just in time for Zelda!

In terms of gameplay, this is honestly the best the series has ever been in my opinion.
The new AP rewards system is so satisfying, the tweaks to the base game are smartly implemented, the new areas are awesome, the soundtrack kicks arse, and its handling of the series characters and lore is worthy of its legacy.

In particular, seeing

near the end was exactly the kind of crazy masterstroke that makes the series so great.
When the credits rolled and those scenes from all three games played alongside that song... just wow.
What a ride it has been, ever since I first set foot on the Bionis back in 2011.

Thank you Tetsuya Takahashi.