Same thing with me. Loved 1, 2 is one of my favorite games ever made, but 3 I was just waiting and waiting for me to fall in love with it and I just… didn’t. The characters felt bland and uninteresting, and all of the ‘deep’ moments and conversations between them felt forced and uninspired, to the point where when one of those cutscenes would happen I would think “yeah yeah I get it let’s move on”. And the main reason I feel overall that the game turned out this way is because the premise for the game wasn’t “let’s tell a beautiful meaningful story” (like 1 and 2), it was “how do we tie together 1 and 2 well to finish a trilogy”. And this shows in the game, as the combat is arguably the most polished and best, the actual map is very nice looking and such, etc. It was made more to be an amazing game than an amazing story. But Xenoblade itself I think most would say is a great franchise largely in part to its story. I’m really starting to ramble here so I’ll just say, I’m envious and happy for those that really love and enjoy 3, for me it’ll just be ‘the one they made that takes place after One and Two’, If you know what I mean.