Awesome / Xenoblade Chronicles 3

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Main Story

• The very first battle of the game, where Noah, Lanz, and Eunie help achieve victory for Colony 9 by destroying a Colony Sigma Levnis. It serves to illustrate the scale of conflict in Aionios and how capable Noah's unit already is.
• Eunie thwarting two Agnians who try to ambush her from a cliff in the opening battle, only for her to reverse-snipe them without even looking.
• The entirety of the battle that begins with the Keves trio meeting and fighting against the Agnus trio and ending with them becoming Ouroboros:
  • Each member meets their respective match against their counterpart and manages to keep them in a stalemate until Vandham interrupts. Extra props to Noah for figuring out Mio's fighting style based on the rhythm of the Agnian off-seer melody.
  • Even before becoming Ouroboros, the team goes full Enemy Mine once D shows up and manages to stall him long enough for Vandham to activate the Ouroboros Stone, showing surprising synergy considering the fact that they were trying to kill one another just a few moments prior.
  • Vandham himself managing to stop the fighting between the two teams by shoving Noah and Mio to the ground then, even after getting a hole blasted through his torso, fighting off D with a Levnis before activating the Ouroboros egg. He still lasts long enough even after D retreats to give the team its initial objective before passing on peacefully.
• The battle against Consul K is all kinds of epic, especially once the rest of the party achieve their Ouroboros forms for the first time. The destruction of Colony 4's Flame Clock is wonderfully cinematic, with K's This Cannot Be! reaction dialog icing on the cake.
  Moebius K: The Flame Clocks cannot be broken! Who are these people?!
• The liberation of Colony Lambda is another series of awesome moments:
  • Taion becomes the first of the Agnian team to unlock a new Ouroboros form. He proceeds to drive Isurd into full This Cannot Be! mode courtesy of his countless illusions, including preparing to drop a giant boulder onto the Ferronis.
  • Sena takes charge in Interlinking with Lanz to unlock her own Ouroboros form and uses her strength to lift and knock the Colony Lambda Ferronis onto its "back" akin to a helpless turtle.
  • Mio uses her new Ouroboros form to run circles around the Colony Lambda Ferronis and its Beam Spam.
  • Even as Noah prepares to destroy the Flame Clock, the Ferronis tries to shoot him down, only for him to turn his Blade into a gauntlet and block the shot before stabbing Lucky Seven into the Flame Clock.
• When Consul O tries to brainwash Cammuravi into attacking the party, Cammuravi gouges his left eye out to destroy his Iris and free himself from O's control. Cammuravi and Ethel then go from attacking the party to fighting each other in a final duel, not because they're forced to, but because they want to, culminating in a Mutual Kill. Despite being rather tragic, both of them are clearly thrilled that they can settle their rivalry the way they always wanted.
• After Consuls O and P turn into their Moebius form and fuse together, they engage in Evil Gloating about how much stronger they are than the party before suddenly being sent flying by Mio in her normal form. Mio proceeds to give them a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech calling them out on how disgusting they are for the way they toy with people's lives, followed by the rest of the party, including Noah, declaring with an uncharacteristic calm fury that they're going to make them pay for their vile actions.
  Sena: Mimi's right! I've got no idea who you truly are. Though I hate to admit it. However, I do know one thing. You guys really make my sparks fly!
  Eunie: You there, in the back. Feeling lonely 'cause you haven't been punched yet? Well enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause I'm about to rearrange both your mugs.
  Taion: Usually, I'm not one for outward displays of emotion. But not today!
  Lanz: Noah, you'd better not stop us!
  Noah: Oh, believe me, I won't.
• The subsequent battle between the party and Moebius O & P. Even though the latter earlier boasted that their Interlinking was superior to the heroes', the resulting cutscene shows the protagonists displaying excellent teamwork as they coordinate their attacks in their Ouroboros forms, allowing them to land several good hits while Moebius O & P can't hit them at all.
• Eunie using the fact that D knows she's scared to death of him against him to distract him with an illusion, giving her and Taion the kill against the Annihilator in the climax fight of Chapter 4.
  • As a bonus, you can see D panic and show fear for the first time when Eunie traps him with Taion's Mondos. It was perfect karma for a Jerkass who was doing the exact same thing to her mere moments before.
• N gets a moment at the end of Chapter 4 by cutting down machine gun fire aimed at him for several moments during the Lost Numbers raid.
• The battle near the end of Chapter 5 is one for the animation team. When Ouroboros is manipulated by Consul M into fighting each other in a free-for-all, the resulting cinematic is 40 seconds of an amazingly choreographed fight scene that is done in a single camera shot.
• M's scheme to die in Mio's place via a "Freaky Friday" Flip, singlehandedly saving the party, extending Mio's flagging lifespan, escaping from N's possessiveness, and giving the Lost Numbers time to evacuate from Swordmarch a month in advance. Props to Mio too, who only discovered this plan a minute before the swap, and played The Mole perfectly, even down to playing the part of a cruel Moebius as she fought her friends without hesitation.
  • It bears detailing that while it was arguably reasonable enough (if still a big undertaking) for M and Mio to act out each other perfectly (since they are parts of the same person and now have access to each other's memories), what is most awesome perhaps is how M knew N so well at this point that she was able to predict every major thing he was going to do and plan accordingly (namely that he would not kill the party immediately but would instead go for the "sideshow" that Moebius so value for entertainment).
  • Noah delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to N afterwards. After watching him torture the party for a month and try to Kick the Dog further by letting Noah know that Mio wouldn't be reborn and mock his position as an Offseer, it's immensely satisfying to see Noah rip into N and even forsake his usual vocabulary to tell him that he's "full of shit" in regards to trying to change their fate.
  • This leads to the pictured above moment where Mio and Noah interlink (overcoming X’s Power Nullifier) and break the Power Nullifier letting all of their friends break out of their bonds, fight off their captors, and interlink in a scene oozing with awesome and smug catharsis which ends with all of Ouroborus (plus Riku and Manana) interlinked and ready to kick N’s ass.
  • Then it turns out that you stay interlinked after the cutscenes over right into the boss battle, meaning if this is a New Game Plus your fully upgraded interlinks will utterly destroy N. How's that for Catharsis Factor?
• Joran's Dying as Yourself moment also being a Dying Moment of Awesome when he hijacks the Interlink with D in order to force them both to self-destruct.
• When the party is traveling through Origin, they're almost overwhelmed by mecha before Monica uses her airship to break inside and crush them under it.
• The final battle:
  • Z starts the battle by sealing away the party's ability to Interlink and perform Chain Attacks while manipulating the field to do terrain damage and erects a shield to heal any damage they do to him. After attempting to break the party by showing them images of their lowest moments, each pair breaks the Interlink seal after a Rousing Speech and hits him with a small Chain Attack to break his shield.
  • After depleting Z's energy bar, Noah stabs the floor the amphitheater with Lucky Seven to destroy it and the illusion it's generating, causing Origin to reveal its true form and transform into a Giant Mecha. But the heroes are able to counter that thanks to not only the City in its Ferronis battle form already in the fray, but Melia and Nia reveal that Keves and Agnus Castles are also enormous mechs and join the battle. All of this is on top of every liberated Colony on Aionios already having united in the fight against Origin up to this point.
  • During the second and third phases of the second battle against Z, he separates the party and starts beating them down until Melia and Nia again intervene and summon reinforcements in the form of all of the Heroes the team has recruited up to that point. If all of them have been recruited, they absolutely shred through the life bars in those two phases.
    Alexandria: Cold of you to leave me behind.
    Ashera: We were saving the best for later!
    Cammuravi: Forget me and you'll pay the price.
    Ethel: Sorry to keep you waiting!
    Fiona: I'll fight with you!
    Ghondor: You owe me one, OK?
    Gray: This is the last mission!
    Isurd: I pledged myself to you, after all!
    Juniper: I'll back you up!
    Manana: Manana make open path!
    Miyabi: All our hopes are one... They always have been, and they always will be!
    Monica: This fight is nothing but an honor...
    Riku: Riku add power to mix!
    Segiri: Commencing final mission.
    Teach: Now, to stamp out this evil at its source!
    Triton: This is the real deal, the final punch-up! Let's make it one for the ages!
    Valdi: Ta-da! Thanks for waiting!
    Zeon: I won't be defeated... Not here, not now!
  • The icing on the cake? During the final phase, Melia and Nia don their battle gear and join the fight directly, giving the two of them some very well-deserved payback.
    Melia: I have long-awaited this moment... I too shall join the fight!
    Nia: Just a bit more! Give it everything!
  • During most of the final battle, triggering a Chain Attack does not change the music as it normally does — the theme stays the same as the rest of the battle... until you trigger it during the lower half of Z's final form. Hearing that heroic theme once more, for the last time, is enough to get the blood pumping as you finish the mudder off.

Side and Hero Quests

• Ashera may be known as "that suicidal maniac," but she quickly proves to have the skills to back up her Crazy Is Cool attitude by being willing to single-handedly redeem Colony 11 even without Ouroboros's help, and the presentation makes it feel wholly believable that she could and would have pulled it off all on her own.
• While the party initially proposes taking down the Captains of Colony Iota one at a time by defeating them out on patrol, it's also entirely possible to storm Colony Iota directly and fight Alexandria and all of her captains at the same time. Is it reckless? Perhaps. Is it awesome for both the party and the player? Very!
• Segiri gets her moment in her Hero Quest when she willingly disobeys Consul F's orders and mortally wounds him, allowing Sena and Lanz to finish him off.
• Kyrie gets one during Teach's Ascension Quest where, despite being separated from her squad thanks to her No Sense of Direction and getting taken hostage by the Avenger, she gets back onto her feet and joins in the second fight against him after showing she had taken Teach's lesson on fighting without enmity to heart, reminding him that he still had plenty to learn too.
  Kyrie: I am a warrior of Colony Gamma! I'll fight you with everything I've got!
• Recruiting Melia and Nia for Post-End Game Content is this, especially for fans of their respective games, providing the strongest and most satisfying links to the worlds of Bionis and Alrest and letting the player witness and harness the power of the Queens for themselves. Both Queens also quickly demonstrate how different they are from their evil robotic counterparts that all of Aionios grew up worshipping, becoming good friends with the Ouroboros, willingly going on adventures with them and helping those in need.
• During the final battle against the Nopon Eater in Ino's Ascension Quest, Noah and Ino both give off the same golden glow and finish the beast with a Level IV Blade Special, effectively proving that Noah has indeed become Ino's Driver.
  • To add to this, instead of the normal battle theme, "Battle!!" from 2 starts playing as Noah and Ino arm themselves.

Shared Moments and Game Mechanics

• Every time Noah unleashes Lucky Seven to destroy a colony's Flame Clock, he's able to slice through it like a knife through hot butter. There's always a brief little cutscene of him doing this, showing the group's efforts in fighting back against Moebius and freeing the Colonies from their control.
• The evolution of the Chain Attack system starts off as awesome with its means of dishing out obscene amounts of damage to a single enemy with the characters going all-in with their moves, and only gets even better as Ouroboros Orders are unlocked, allowing each pairing do dish out even more pain.
• When the player manages to raise the Technical Point gauge in a Chain Attack far over the required threshold for the biggest rewards. 200% Amazing is awesome enough, but planning things out and using specific Heroes (such as Fiona or Segiri) to make that number unnecessarily large? It just feels good.