Prologue: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjOZdaQg6QbRd1EXtg
Chapter 1: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjQTcjhzuEOUi2SwO8
Chapter 2: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjSiYohTIDnuf0jEzA
Chapter 3: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjUd1czlgC4vLbYsoi
Chapter 4: https://detroitriotcity.com/notice/AjWnoeNNeXJsPU1bNY
Chapter 5: Peak Fiction
1/8
Despite getting Xenoblade 3 at launch and playing the game quite intensively ever since (even taking out a few vacation days when it first came out), plenty of people had already finished the game before I was even halfway done. And while I was generally careful about avoiding Spoilers, there was one piece of XB3 info that there was no way for me to avoid, namely Chapter 5 being fucking wild, and extremely emotional. Thankfully I was in the dark about WHAT exactly it was that made this chapter so special, I just knew that I was in for a treat once I reached it.
And the chapter gets going quickly enough: after exploring Sena’s backstory and her relationships with Mio and Lanz a bit, the party finally manages to actually reach the Great Sword’s Base area, a gorgeous, colorful wetland – and by the end of the area, towering in front of them is the ginormous Mechonis Sword, which stuck in the ground like this is taller than any mountain on earth. This has been the destination of our heroes for so long – but before they can traverse the last few miles and finally get their answers, they find themselves surrounded by a group of heavily armed men and women!
Thankfully, these aren’t actually a hostile faction, they are the Lost Numbers, enemies of Moebius and the City’s military force. Far from wishing our party harm, they were responsible for bailing the Ouroboros out during their Keves Castle crisis, and now they’ve come to guide Noah & friends to the City, after taking the necessary precautions; the party are given eyepatches to block a signal emitted from Ouroboros irises that the Moebius use to track them (which also explains how the party has gotten ambushed so frequently, despite all their precautions). The Lost Numbers, all connected to the Ouroboros, are also wearing eyepatches.
Among the Lost Numbers introduced, two characters stand out: Monica Vandham, the City’s leader, a certified MILF *and* daughter (still a meaningless concept to our heroes) of the Vandham who set all these events in motion, and Shania Reid, a pretty, petite 18 year old girl who has been keeping the Ouroboros under surveillance ever since they were granted their powers. Monica temporarily joins the party as a Hero while Shania guides them to the city. As I touched upon during the last chapter, this is the only section of the game where I actually feel taking away the music can be somewhat justified: as you keep climbing the colossal sword, going up what’s quite frankly an absolute GigaChad of an escalator before traversing an area that’s so high up that it’s covered in snow like a regular mountaintop, the anticipation just keeps building as I keep speculating about just what the City will be like, and how many of our questions will finally be answered.
…and then we’re finally there – a massive, indoor structure dwarfing any of the colonies we’ve been to, dotted with lights and Levnises, with permanent housing in the background. The entire City is enclosed by the hollow bulge at the hilt of the Great Sword, which helps hide the place from its enemies. Its atmosphere is surprisingly somber, arguably even sad, but there’s also a sense of resilience, of long having resisted against overwhelming odds.
Most importantly, the City is a place of Life – real, human life like it was always meant to be. For the first time ever, our party is exposed to young children, and to loving couples. People even older than Guernica Vandham can be seen walking around. And, in one of Xenoblade 3’s defining scenes, our party is taken to a maternity ward and bear witness to an entirely new life that has just been brought into this world, reacting with awe as well as sincere excitement and joy. The tiny, defenseless little baby gives a glimpse of an entirely different world that our heroes never even knew existed, a purpose far greater than forever fighting for fake queens.
Additionally, our heroes are taught by a friendly doctor how babies are made (the game obviously cuts away from the actual explanation), which Noah and Mio in particular find to be…interesting information, to say the least (note that Monica can already by now tell that these two love each other).
And of course, now the Ouroboros also learn the truth about what the Moebius have done to Aionios - how they grow and reuse soldiers over and over again for their war:
Monica: “You were conscripted from birth, trained to kill one another ruthlessly and steal each other's life. That life energy pours into the Flame Clocks, becoming the fuel that feeds Moebius.”
…
“In order for Moebius to exist, they must continue to claim life energy.
And these "cradles" right here... They're used to recycle your lives. You live your lives in servitude so that Moebius can exist. And even in death, there's no release. You'll just keep getting recycled.”
...
“Soldiers bound by Moebius's shackles are destined only for mutual destruction.
Those who lose their lives in battle, they're reborn anew...
They wake from a Castle cradle, a blank slate without a scrap of their former memories.”
However, there are people who have successfully taken on the Moebius before – above all, the City’s founders from 1000 years ago, who also harnessed the power of the Ouroboros to give their descendants a fighting chance. Looking at the statues of Founders and reading their short bios, I felt like I was finally starting to peer behind the Moebius veil of deceit, and witness the true origins of Aionios. The true identity of the Founders was also a genuinely tantalizing mystery – after Future Redeemed, we of course know all about who they are, but back then, they were these truly mysterious figures, and the fact that at least some of them seemed to be old Xenoblade party members (the long-haired man wielding a red sword even after losing one of his arms DEFINITELY sounded like Dunban from Xenoblade 1!) just raised all sorts of questions.
No *actual* Xenoblade legacy characters can however be found in the city, though something very important IS confirmed: Melia and Nia DO still exist in this world, even if their current location is unknown. Having now finally reached the City, our party’s new mission will be to track the queens down. Good news, there’s apparently someone who *does* know where to find the queens. Bad news, this person (named Ghondor) is currently locked up in an Agnian prison where the Moebius keep captured Lost Numbers, and is due to be executed during an Eclipse one month from now. Our party, along with a select group of elite Lost Numbers, will need to infiltrate the prison, pose as prisoners and break Ghondor out. Prison Break is about to get another revival!
Despite all the things we’ve learned, one hope ends up brutally dashed: Turns out the people of the City don’t actually know of any way to extend a soldier’s lifespan past the designated 10 years. The people *born* free are able to live full lives, but even freed soldiers are still subject to the cruel 10 terms-limit. This means that starting from when the rescue of Ghondor begins in earnest, Mio really will die in just over 1 month. Looking at how the game has been paced so far, that should just barely be enough time for the catgirl to complete this adventure, resulting in one of two outcomes: The game ends with the party finding a way to break their cruse (it IS revealed that two of the City Founders actually did do just that, though nobody knows how), or that Mio will die by the end of the game in a truly heartbreaking finale.
On the whole, the City definitely lived up to my expectations, and going back down to Aionios and its colonies, I felt like the prisoner in Plato’s famous allegory returning to the cave after having witnessed the outside world – my stay in the City having brought home just how truly small and limited the perspective is the soldiers is, and how deprived they are of so many things we take for granted. Ironically, the plight of the soldiers in Xenoblade 3 is in some way similar to how Blades lived under Indol’s regime in Xenoblade 2 (a dismal enough state of affairs to be invoked as justification for Torna’s terrorism), only much worse. This further raises the stakes: Somehow, someway, we HAVE to liberate this world from the clutches of Moebius.
#Xenoblade3Writeup
