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 5 of my journey through the first Xenoblade Chronicles, last week, I met Melia’s racist step-mother & Fiora’s returned. This week, I have finally arrived on Mechonis & Fiora actually returned.

Environment

Okay, before that insanity, once again, the environments this week have been so varied. Trudging through the snowy mountains of Valak is awesome. At night, this place lights up so beautifully. Navigating the terrain really felt a bit unnerving because there are so many sharp corners & thin paths that it really made this area feel like a mountainous region!

Sword Valley was the least interesting environment I’ve seen so far, but it still tells the story of the Mechons draining the Bionis of its power to create these lethal bioweapon that can disintegrate bio-organic life from Bionis. What I love most about this area were the questing popping up to have us slowly take over parts of the fortress.

Inside the Galahad Fortress is pretty cool, I love the amount of rooms full of mechons hanging on the ceiling! It really gave the vibe of a final dungeon where I’m fighting my way through all the mechons before they’re sent out to war!

Mechonis was also so fascinating! I wasn’t expecting the Fallen Arm to be so full of life, but I guess since it is a fallen arm, nature had enough time to take over the arm. I’m curious how much more mechanic we will get as we ascend up the Mechonis! Also really enjoyed visiting the Hidden Machina Village as well, but I want to talk more about them during the story portion!

Also I came across the Collectopaedia! I didn’t realize this was a feature that I had to interact with where I’m collecting items across the areas & physically placing them in this book. Luckily, I only was missing 1 or 2 items from previous areas. However, since they were previous areas, I just decided to look up the locations of those missing items & the wiki vaguely referred to the location of some of these items as “Before Mechonis Core Event”. I have no idea what the heck that is, but it has certainly got me excited that crazy stuff is still yet to happen in this game!! I cannot wait!!

Story

So much has happened between last week & this week that I wanted to briefly highlight some favorite moments in this week’s playthrough before I dive into all the Fiora story stuff.

First, I think it is really cool that Kallian is building a Bionis alliance against the Mechons! They nearly tricked me when Melia said goodbye to us. I really thought she was going to leave the party again, but Kallian having our backs & allowing her to join us to Sword Valley was so awesome!

There was a goofy quest where a high entia refused to talk to any non-high entia characters & then to complete that quest, we told her mother about it! Very funny!

I also unlocked the Eater ability for the Monado which is sounded like such an insane ability especially for one that was hidden behind a really cool world lore related quest!!

Also after the partial destruction of Galahad Fortress, there was this really quiet moment in the story where a lot of the characters were being a bit more personal. Riki imparting his knowledge as a father to Dunban. Rhyne opening up to Sharla about his insecurities. They were wonderful moments.

Mumhkar death was certainly a fun one because the writers clearly knew that they had to kill Mumhkar. NO ONE WANTED HIM ALIVE, but for Shulk’s growth to have that moment where he stops Dunban from taking his revenge is incredible. Shulk realizing that these mechons are controlled by people gave him this motivation to learn why instead of just for pure revenge. Very awesome growth for this character! Mumhkar remembering his Homs life & hatred for Dunban did open the door to me thinking that Fiora was actually going to come back. I still cannot forget about the meeting point in Dunban’s home, but I’ll talk about Fiora later because right now…

Alvis & Lothrita

Alvis continues to be more of a mystery to me. He does explain to the entire party that himself & Shulk are in direct contact with ether of the world’s existence allowing them to see into the future. At the same time, the more one is tied to the Monado the more the world around themselves can shape to their will.

Does this mean that the “Changing the Future” mechanic is quite literal & that Shulk will be shaping more than just the future by the time we fight Egil?

Also after seeing Alvis & Lothrita talking about the spears that can disintegrate organic life. It is clear they are not working with the mechons, but who are they working for? Are they protectors of the Bionis? They even bring up working with Dickson & we have seen Dickson talking with the leader of the Machina people. Dickson has a lot of explaining to do!

Machina

The Machina people have been awesome. I was so curious what life would be like on Mechonis. I was expecting something more run down & destroyed, but honestly the more I began to think about it. Seeing the machina people being so sparse, this is the least populate village I’ve seen in the game. It is clear that many machina have lost their lives & are in fear of being killed so they’ve hidden away here.

What was most surprising is that not only do we learn about Meyneth the soul inhabiting Fiora’s mechanical body being the creator of the Machina people, but that Egil is the son of the leader of the Machina people. Very surprised also Egil is so damn cool, his first appearance where all his bodyguards show up & this golden dragon mechon descends from the heavens is so freaking cool! This guy has aura & then for him to taunt Shulk to come to the Mechonis to fight him is sick!!

Fiora

Fiora, on the other hand, is also pretty cool! I have expressed that I would not be a fan of Fiora returning, but they have absolutely proved me wrong. I was tearing up seeing the moment when Shulk & Fiora embraced each other. Fiora being a backseat passenger in her own body being unable to cry out for Shulk. Shulk going through this whole journey because of Fiora. This moment was extremely well earned.

And to have her be the last playable character, was absolutely incredible! Now she does play completely different than the beginning of the game as she is now part mechon. I did find it funny that Meyneth was feeling so hot & heavy for Shulk that she flew to Valak Mountains to see him. I’m very curious to eventually learn why Meyneth “sacrificed herself” in quotes for Shulk & how Fiora is now able to take back control of her own body. I also really loved a moment between Dunban & Shulk where they truly believed that Fiora would come back. I wrote in my notes, “I hope Fiora doesn’t come back, but Dunban & Shulk will still get an opportunity to have a final goodbye.”

And after all of these, I’m happy she is back. They nailed her return.

Ending

Also I cannot believe that the last cutscene I saw was Egil wiping Gadolt’s memories. I do not know if I can handle seeing Sharla in pain once she see see Gadolt again. It is going to be so heartbreak. Please come back next week for more thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Thank you for watching!