I don't like the ending of Xenoblade 3
(Originally posted August 22, 2022)
I'm cool with bittersweet, "now we must go our separate ways" type endings. Not a problem when done properly.
I was under the impression that beating the bad guys and fixing the problem would lead to the true reunification of the two worlds back into one. The City was meant to be the thematic example of what the world would return to once the villains were dealt with, where everyone could live together in peace and work towards a shared future. Z was formed of the apprehension over the idea that perhaps allowing the two worlds to merge would cause them to cancel each other out and destroy each other, or otherwise result in a Bad Outcome.
Instead, beating the bad guys and pushing the big red button that says "an uncertain future is preferable to indefinite stagnation"... causes the two worlds to split apart once again and revert to their states immediately prior to their crashing together, because they're fundamentally incompatible or something? What the spark fuck is this shit?
They went to the pains of explicitly saying that nobody from The City was contained in Origin's data banks, so all of those people are dead / never existed in the new world. They talked up all this "you must abandon the draw of the endless now, we must seek a new future" stuff, but then the ending is a reset button that makes things how they used to be before the events of the game. There isn't even a new future! What the hell were they thinking!!
Just, gosh, if your ending gives me Mass Effect 3 vibes, you probably screwed up somewhere. I'm not sure the DLC can fix this.
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