Past Posts
***** SPOILERS THROUGHOUT POST *****
Growing Colony Alliances
A theme with the sidequests is how the colonies you liberate begin to cooperate. This is especially true between Keves and Agnus colonies. Like the six heroes, the colonies gradually begin to work with former mortal foes. They’ll begin to trade supplies with each other to make up for no longer being supported by their castle. You’ll even see NPCs from one nation at one of the other’s colonies.
But there’s also turmoil. One quest involves an Agnian traveling to Kevesi Colony 4 looking for her friend’s killer. She finds the killer was already killed in a different battle. She also finds the killer had friends of his own he was fighting for, helping her empathize with him.
Alexandria is another commander whose colony (Iota) you liberate. She invented the Collectopedia Cards which all colonies use to request and send supplies. She purposely leaked Collectopedia to Keves with the idea it’d help Agnus spy on Kevesi supplies.
But as she analyzed the data she found that Keves and Agnus were always deadlocked when it came to supplies. This made her suspect something was pulling the strings of the forever war. She ends up requesting Ouroboros destroy Colony Iota’s Flame Clock. She’s one of the few to work out on her own that something is manipulating the world.
More Classes
Most of my team is able to use all the classes from before mid-Chapter 4. Getting classes after that has been a slog. Reason is you get Class Points based on level. Now that I’m always 20 levels above the enemy CP is scarce.
It kind of reminds me of Dragon Quests 6 and 7, which would also halt class growth if you were overleveled. XC3 isn’t as harsh though. You need to be overleveled to auto-curbstomp proportions to hit the cap. And Unique Monsters and Elites still give some CP. Plus, Overkilling the target on a chain attack boosts battle rewards.
Here are some more classes I’ve unlocked:
Defenders – Finally, some more Defenders. Lone Exile uses a double bladed sword and excels at counterattacking to send the pain back where it came. Lost Vanguard uses a mace to Smash foes that have been Launched to do huge damage.
Attackers – Alexandria’s Incursor wields a cool broadsword. It has a high crit rate, many buffs to crits, and gets better the longer the battle.
Healers – Signifer is a pure buff class. It’ll generate random buffs for its wielder and then the Signifer can share buffs. Can’t do much else but your whole team will be swimming in buffs.
Quests and Bosses
Liberating Colony Iota – You get a run in with Colony Iota midway through the Fornis Region. After that, four high ranking squads of Iota can be found in Fornis and Pentelas. These fights are optional but beating them removes the squad leader from the fight with Alexandria, which is required to proceed. The quest ends with a fight against Moebius E, who loves to inflict Blaze and can bind your Defenders.
Storming Keves Castle – I heard XC3 has a level down mechanic like XC1:DE did but for some reason they locked it behind New Game+. Could’ve used it here. This is supposed to be a tense and awesome storming of an enemy stronghold. But being overleveled made it an overlong curbstomp.
The boss is the Queen of Keves. Her identity is given in the Plot Section below. Her identity is familiar to XC1 fans as is her moveset.
Erythia Sea
Holy shit, this place is massive. I’d been OCD about filling the map until I got here. It’d take forever to fill this map. Instead, I looked up where the islands were. There are a ton of islands to explore. Some have quests, some just have treasure and Unique Monsters. Thankfully, you get a ship that cruises fast.
End of Chapter 5 – Chapter 5 ends with a boss rush. First you fight a large Levnis called Gyrinus. Next is Moebius M. M can possess one of your characters and have them fight the others. It’ll happen suddenly and can be confusing to identify. It reminds me of Wrexsoul from Final Fantasy VI. Thankfully, XC3 is more forgiving. Unlike FF6, you don’t need to KO a character to snap them out of it.
The last fight is against Moebius N. He has an attack called Shred the Strawman and I love that as an attack name. He can inflict Bleed, Topple, Defense Down, and Evasion Down. Again, less serious due to my levels but I see how a drawn out fight would get difficult.
***** PLOT SECTION *****
Attack on Keves Castle
We left off with our heroes preparing to sneak into Keves Castle to destroy its new Annihilator before it could take out Colony 4. All goes according to plan until they get to the Annihilator where they are confronted by Consuls/Moebius D and J. D was the first Moebius that the group faced and also killed Eunie in a past life. J is Joran, former friend of Noah, Lanz, and Eunie thought killed years ago.
D and J Interlink. Eunie initially freezes in combat and D and J get the upper hand. She recovers and her and Taion, Interlinked as Ouroboros, use an illusion to fool D and J into thinking Eunie is still hesitating. This turns the tide and Ouroboros force the two to retreat.
The Annhilator is destroyed in the fight. The group proceeds with their escape plan. However, their intel was planted and they’re led to the Keves throne room.
The throne room is filled with the pods that all people are grown in. They’re shocked to see a familiar face: Ethel’s! She’s been reverted to her first term (physically 10 years old) but the group knows her enough there is no doubt. This and Eunie’s memories of being killed suggest there is some cycle of rebirth going on.
Next the six are confronted with the queen of Keves: Queen Melia Antiqua! Melia was a main character in XC1 and star of Future Connected. I guess the trailers showed the queens’ identities but I was surprised. The group fights Queen Melia until she conjures a ball of fire so large it breaks her. This queen is revealed to be a mechanical puppet.
Next up is Consul N, the one who looks like Noah. Noah begins to get a headache. Before the fight begins a bunch of Levnises shoot their way in. The group recognizes they’re the same model as Guernica’s from way back when they became Ouroboros. They steal some pods and shoot at N. The group uses this as a diversion to escape.
After we see a scene of Consuls N and M talking. They take their masks off. N indeed looks just like Noah. We hadn’t seen M much but she looks just like Mio.
The City
Finally, the six are back on track to Swordmarch, the base of the Great Sword where Guernica said they would find the City. The Great Sword is the Mechonis’s Sword from XC1.
They are met by a militia from the City led by the City Elder, Monica. Monica takes the group to the City where they see a whole different way of life. The City is six times the size of any colony. The streets are filled with humans younger and older than the physically 10-20 year olds that are all the six know. People do not have to fight in the militia and can live lives without war.
In a great scene, Monica brings them to see a newborn baby. None of them have ever seen a baby before. The baby grabs their fingers as they stare in awe. Even the stoic Taion has a giggling fit when the baby holds his finger.
The beginning of the game showed us how hellish life on Aionios is by showing us firsthand. Now we get a refresher by seeing how the group reacts when they see how life is supposed to be. There are a lot of good scenes as the group processes what they see. For example, the group has no concept of parenthood as nobody in their colonies have parents. They’re constantly tripped up by words like “daughter,” and “father.”
The City was founded by six descendants of the original Ouroboros and a mysterious seventh. The City has no Flame Clock to bind people too. Those produced by normal reproduction grow like normal humans and are not subject to the 10 year lifespan. It is said that the Ouroboros Stones were created by the true queens.
The Lost Numbers are the City militia. They’re sworn to fight Moebius. Monica says that Moebius sustain themselves with the life force of the forever war. That’s why they keep it going.
The Agnus Castle Operation
The Lost Numbers are trying to find the true queens. One member, Ghondor, found some info but was captured. She is being held in an Agnian prison. The Ouroboros six join an operation to get her out. Included in the operation is Shania. Shania was an Ouroboros candidate (the Lost Numbers were training to become Ouroboros before the Stone was used on the six protagonists). Shania and Sena bond over their hard work that always seems to not be good enough.
Infiltration works as the team sneaks in and poses as prisoners. They find Ghondor who turns out to be the foul mouthed daughter of Monica. She calls her mother “Bitchqueen.” Ghondor has a talisman that’s the key to finding the queens. Ghondor, Ouroboros, and the rest of the Lost Numbers team plan a prison breakout.
The breakout leads to an ambush. N, M, and a legion of Agnians surprise them. Shania was the traitor. As Sena looks up to Mio, Shania looked up to Ghondor. But Ghondor was a poor mentor that tore Shania down. And no matter what she did Shania always seemed to come up short.
The six give Ghondor the key back and decide to mount a last stand to cover Ghondor’s escape. Here M and N reveal their similarities to Mio and Noah. M attacks first. She can possess a person to have them attack their allies, such as having Mio attack Noah. This confuses the heroes until Taion comes up with a way to have his Mondo point out a possessed person.
M is beaten back and withdraws. N goes next. He’s far too powerful and fast for the group and gets the upper hand. He severs limbs from their Interlinked forms. While Interlinked Ouroboros can regrow limbs it takes a lot of energy and forces them to delink quickly.
Lanz and Sena decide to stay Interlinked past the danger warning, as O and P did. They surprise N, grab him, and fly into the air. Their goal is to explode and take N with them. But their Interlink is cancelled with the arrival of Consul X. X seals the groups powers: they can’t Interlink or even summon their Blades. They’re powerless.
Ghondor escapes during the battle. But the six heroes are captured. N considers executing them on the spot but decides there’s something more entertaining…
THAT Scene (End of Chapter 5)
Everyone but Mio is put in one cell. Knowing she has only a month left, N puts Mio in her own cell separated from the others. His intent is to keep everyone until Mio’s Homecoming. He states that those that are sent during Homecoming are not reborn as Eunie and Ethel were. This will be it for Mio.
For a month the heroes are held in captivity powerless to do anything. Noah is especially devastated. He breaks his knuckles punching the bars. We see a montage of the grief the group works through as they alternate between futile escape attempts, impotent rage, and sobbing. N and Shania come by to gloat several times but there’s nothing the heroes can do. Mio, from a cell over, tries to calm her friends but there’s no disguising she’s afraid to die. Through all this the somber A Step Away plays.
Shania willingly lets herself be brought into Moebius’s system. She makes an interesting point: as hellish as the system is they always get reborn. Since she now knows this she intends to kill herself at Mio’s Homecoming to give herself a fresh start.
Back at the City, Ghondor wants to rescue the heroes but Monica talks her out of it, saying Ghondor would squander their sacrifice. Then a mysterious figure approaches.
At Agnus Castle, Homecoming arrives. Mio is led before the Agnus Queen, though the group doubts she’s real. The queen is supposedly Nia from XC2. The other five heroes are made to witness. As Agnian off-seers begin sending Mio, N cruelly gives Noah his flute, telling Noah to participate.
Mio offers some final words to Noah and disappears. Mio is dead. I expected Mio’s death could be “that scene” but the way they pulled it off was amazing. The month long incarceration, the acting by all the heroes, it made it still hit me even though it was one of the options I thought was coming.
After Mio’s death N approaches Noah. N draws his own version of Lucky Seven. He brings the blade down to execute Noah. Fade to black.
That’s the end of Chapter 5. It lived up to the hype.
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