Every single week, I’ll be chronicling my first time playing through the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy on Switch 2 in anticipation for Xenoblade Genesis.

This is Week 4 of my journey through the first Xenoblade Chronicles, last week, I got two new party members the snooty Bird lady, Melia & the hero we don’t deserve, Riki! This week, WE LEARNED THAT FIORA IS FLYING THE FREAKING WHITE MECH!! H O L Y!!!

Also as I begun to edit my other Xenoblade Chronicles videos, I noticed I said maybe Melia might have bird wings underneath her hat, not realizing that the guards that were with her had wings on their heads. So I guess it wasn’t as crazy of a theory as I thought.

Environments

Monolith Soft is just on another level, ascending to the Eryth Sea is incredible. I realized upon writing this that Eryth doesn’t have an “L” so I have no idea how it was pronounced because I have been calling it the wrong thing for the last several days. Either way, such a cool visual to appear on a beach where you see the capital on your left & the prison island on your right! Also some of the larger monsters in Makna Forest are now small, curious if that was because there is a lot less food in this area.

I cannot imagine exploring the sea without a Ether Jet, but knowing how stubborn of a player I am. I imagine that I would still swim across the sea to get to places rather than just take the teleporters.

The capital itself is so fancy. It is such a cool progression in the story to see this futuristic floating capital at the top of the Bionis’ head. I thought of the High Entia as being more religious & grounded to the earth, but we’re in high future society here! Very cool!!

The High Entia Tomb is another location that was absolutely gorgeous! Seeing this pristine ancient tomb filled with so many automatons was a lot of fun to explore!

Lastly, is the Prison Island, which looked so grungy & rundown and that’s what makes it so good because this island hasn’t been visited in centuries that even the emperor didn’t even know that the great secret behind the prison island! What a cool place!

Story

Which leads me right into how incredible this story continues to be & right now so much has happened, I’ll try to give you all the highlights!

First, I love Shulk’s speech to Melia after she decides to give up on fighting the Telethia. It is such a cool moment because in other games, we would agree with Melia & get strong to fight the enemy later, but what is so powerful about this moment. Is Shulk knowing full well the pain Melia feels for losing her guards. Shulk’s motivation to make sure that no one else feels that same pain is so powerful in this moment.

I love that fact that the Chief makes up some BS to force Riki out of the village! Also the random drop of lore that Riki is a 40 year old father of a ton of kids is so hilarious! What a wonderful character!!

We’re also getting some crazy mystery with Melia’s racist step-mother who not only wants Melia killed, but is eager to make sure no one has a drop of Homs blood. Also I’m pretty sure she killed Melia’s birth mother.

And if it couldn’t crazier, Lorithia, step-mother’s right-hand is also working with Alvis and the both of them are working with the mechons.

I love how quickly the allegiance are forming. We’re not living the chill Homs life now. However, Alvis does seem to genuinely want to help Shulk. He has even explained to us that although he is Homs. His lineage is very complicated including how he has the ability of seeing into the future; however, his abilities are not as strong as Shulk. So I’m curious where his true allegiance is.

Speaking of complicated lineages, Melia is 80% Homs & this we learned from an AI version of the first High Entia emperor. And what shocked me the most wasn’t just that Melia will be the last High Entia ruler, but the goal set by the first emperor was to essentially eliminate this unknown curse tied to High Entia blood by having babies with Homs.

I am just so happy playing this game realizing how many questions I am so excited to get answered! It really is such a wonderful story!

And the story continues to get more intense as the Mechons begin attacking the capital, but they don’t stand much of a chance against the might of the High Entia. The emperor using the power of the Giant to fend against the Mechons was such a cool moment! I remember hearing a small glimpse of giant’s lore while doing a quest in Satori Marsh. So it is really cool to see that they are actually real.

To then lead into Shulk accepting the power of the Giant & Melia bringing up a good-ass question about there must have been some reason why the High Entia originally imprisoned this giant. And we don’t get an answer, which is just such a chilling moment because yes I want the power to destroy the mechons at the same time, what the hell is this power.

With the way, Alvis spoke to the giant, it makes me think that Alvis is genuinely wanting Shulk to use the true power of the Monado, but for what purpose. How much danger is Shulk in.

Lastly, we gotta talk about Fiora showing up again. Now I did mention that I would not like Fiora coming back, but how I am interpreting this moment is that the mechons are using the bodies or DNA of the people they killed to either remake them as fodder for the war or implant mechon souls into these bodies. Of course, as I pull up the clip you are seeing now, they clear mention a soul transfer so I’ll just give myself a high-five now.

Also the guy who fought alongside Dickson & Dunban is Xord so clearly this soul transfer tech is a bit depressing. Why do they need the body of Homs for soul transfer…or better yet are they lacking people to even repopulate the Mechonis. So much mystery lies over there so I cannot wait to travel there. I mean come on, with the amount of stunning visuals this games has, we have to run across the swords at some point, right!? I would be so disappointed if that was not the case.

Anyways Please come back next week for more thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 1. This is truly such a special game series, I cannot wait to play more!