The game was building up to liberating aionios from Z, not destroying aionios, something that would have happened eventually anyway.
Except Aionios' inevitable annihilation would have taken the other worlds with it. I'm not sure how you can suggest that abandoning everything from the entire series to oblivion is equivalent to ending the artificial world in which copies of everyone in the original worlds just lived in suffering so that the real worlds could live on (after a momentary blip which could technically be called not living on, but given that everything about them persists through it, that's not a technicality with much practical merit).
YoukaiSlayer posted...
I also quite liked xenoblade 2, just not the ending or really the last 3rd of the game.
Uhh, the last third of the game is when all of the story's actual value shows up. Everything up to that point is just an extremely generic "rawr we bad give us ur girlfriend" "oh noes don't take my girlfriend" that only qualifies as an excuse to keep playing because they periodically drop hints about more interesting worldbuilding to come later. It's really only after the end of chapter 6 that it starts actually delving into the characters, the world, and the themes of existentialism that underpin it all and make it a really interesting story. It's extremely back-heavy on the exposition and character development (mostly on the villain side of things) that it needs to be engaging, which is probably it's greatest flaw (and, and being a really slow start mechanics-wise as well).
YoukaiSlayer posted...
Xenoblade 1 was similar but it's jump the shark moment was closer to 50% of the way through (stuff with mumkar or whatever the claw guys name was).
... You mean when the story developed into more than just a straightforward revenge story against the evil robots? I'm starting to think you just don't like stories with villains that have any depth to them. Prison Island was a major turning point for Shulk's character and shifts the story in a way that really elevates it to be something great instead of a pretty straightforward "beat the bad guy" story that you can get from any Mario game.
YoukaiSlayer posted...
The only xenoblade with a solid ending is X,
Okay, what? X doesn't even have an ending. The story stops after what feels more like a midgame boss than a final one (story-wise. Gameplay-wise, it was definitely final boss material), says "wow, this planet sure is mysterious," then rolls the credits without resolving any of the myriad questions that arose throughout the game and in those final cutscenes. It's blatantly half a story, clearly set up for a sequel that has yet to materialize. X very emphatically does not have a good ending.
YoukaiSlayer posted...
I understand the dynamics of so many people striving their best to survive in this world and make it liveable and peaceful in a place that had only known war. That's why it feels so s*** to just crush all that work and say "actually, you don't need to pick up the pieces and strive to find a way to make things work, we'll just delete it all".
Except all of that is what it took to defeat Moebius. Killing all those consuls wasn't just beating up bosses for sidequests, it was a matter of helping everyone rise above the despair that had gripped them and feel hopeful for the future. It's because they didn't have that hope that Moebius arose in the first place. Kindling it in the people of Aionios in turn kindled it in the copies of the corresponding people from the original worlds stored in Origin (again, Origin is shown to store data from Aionios), allowing them to overcome their collective fear that Origin would fail.
Riku's "world is supervillainpon" line carries more depth than it might seem to at first glance. Not only is the endless war a product of how the world works, but it's the world and all the people who live in it lacking the will to rise above it that perpetuates the suffering. Every colony you liberate is a blow against that world because you're giving people the opportunity - and by extension, the will - to fight back. This is why the final battle is not just the party punching the big bad in the face, as was the case in 1 and 2. It's everyone in the world fighting against Moebius because they've decided they don't want anyone else to suffer as they have, and that collective decision is what allows Origin to move forward. That they might not know that they're bound for oblivion (putting aside for a moment the question of their memories and experiences being preserved and passed on to their real-world counterparts) doesn't actually take away from this: they've decided to give up their lives if they need to for the sake of the cause for which they've chosen to fight. As it happens, they do need to, but they've already committed to that.
Is it sad to put that work into securing bright futures for people that are only going to be around for a few months? Absolutely. Again, though, if the party failed, most of those Commanders would be dead within 1-2 years anyway, so it's not that big of a difference. Otherwise, you can think of it as a sort of palliative care, making sure that they can enjoy the small amount of time they have left. Sad, but still meaningful and worthwhile (even putting aside the role it plays in winning). I'm okay with that.
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