So… why is Xenoblade Chronicles 3 so highly regarded?

I just played a giant chunk of XBC3 as my first XBC game since I loved Xenogears and enjoyed the Xenosaga series and wow, it just gets worse and worse the further I get so I’m stopping despite being near the end.

Can someone explain what makes this game so beloved?

The pros I’ve found: The environments are really inspiring

The main cast are pretty likable

spoilers

The cons imo: The lack of variety in “towns” (can they even be called that?) is so boring to see.

Very easy to overlevel and then get stuck playing a chunk of the game without gaining any class points… very dumb design.

You need to choose between growing your classes vs stacking your team with classes that you actually want to play… arguably dumb design.

Battling is extremely slow no matter what I do and every fight feels the same (position and cancel into moves on cooldown over and over and over.)

Chain Attacks last way too long with no way of speeding them up: I constantly need to decide if I want more exp or if I’d prefer not to play the way too long and boring “cobble the numbers together then get the mech duo, then do the mech, then make sure you stack in all the healers before using the highest points character” mini game every orange fight.

Offseer fluting dead people doesn’t make much sense / is really poorly explained when you’re breaking the flame clocks anyway…

Act 5 ending and reveal in the beginning of Act 6 is just annoying in terms of thinking there were actual stakes and “Oh yeah btw she can just do that LOL”

Alphabet villains are very boring and… extremely childish which could be cool if there was a reason they were so childish but I don’t have faith that the reason will be compelling.

N as antagonist brings almost nothing new to his archetype.

Z is not mysterious, there is just zero info on him and I do not have faith the story will make him interesting.

Nopons are annoying and “LOL here is lucky 7, it nearly literally breaks the world in half, don’t forget to use it 80% of the game btw” is just dumb.

Some people say “shit” some say “spark/snuff”... I… like what is this?

Cam and Eth choosing to fight each other rather than directly help you is just so stupid and faux profound…

The stores in general are awful.

Loot in general is awful.

Crafting is completely bare bones.

The Gold Nopon coin economy is really bad most of the game.

I love long cutscenes but my goodness… “that movie could have been a text” was a common thought throughout.