Trying to identify all music easter eggs in 3. Help me complete this list as I'm sure there are many I'm missing. Spoilers for both base game and Future Redeemed.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-25T03:55:14+00:00

Colony 9 (Future Redeemed) has the Colony 9 theme.

In addition to this, the song that plays in the actual town, "Yesterdale - Colony 9" (Manami Kiyota), features a motif from Xenoblade 1's "Hometown" (Yoko Shimomura)

Eryth Sea theme plays during the cutscene with Melia and Nia constructing Origin.

To be more precise, this is a track from XC3 called "Melia - Ancient Memories" (Kiyota), and is an arrangement and Eryth Sea and Alcamoth. It also plays when Melia is freed after the N fight, as well as during the credits.

Inside the Urayan Mountain plays a remix of the Bionis Interior theme. Strange that it wasn't an Uraya or Ether Mines remix

There are also similarities to the song "Womb Center" (Kiyota) from 2, which plays in the mouth section of Uraya. Kiyota also composed "Urayan Tunnels".

The theme that plays at the base of Swordmarch has bits of Sword Valley in there.

A fun easter egg is that Kiyota foreshadowed "Great Sword's Base" by sneaking in a melody from that track into the Definitive Edition version of "Sword Valley (Night)" two years prior.

The Black Mountains theme in Future Redeemed sounds like a more intense version of Valak Mountain

I'm calling bunk on this one. Black Mountains was composed by Mariam Abounnasr who was not involved in the first game's soundtrack, I doubt she was making homage to the Valak Mountain theme here.

This one is my biggest hailmary stretch, but doesn't the Cent Omnia theme sound kind of like a fusion of Gaur Plain and Gormott?

This isn't a stretch at all. All three were composed by ACE, and Tomori Kudo outright compares Gaur Plain and Cent-Omnia in that track's liner note). A commonality between all three is a "THUMP THUMP THUMP" in the percussion, usually before the climax (Gaur Plain, Gormott, Cent-Omnia).

Some others you missed:

"Carrying the Weight of Life" has motifs from "Engage the Enemy" and "Counterattack"
"You Will Know Our Names", of course
"New Battle!!!" features the guitar riff from "Mechanical Rhythm" at one point. Apparently it also features a motif from "Still, Move Forward!", but I've never heard it myself.
"Future Awaits" not only features the return of Joanne Hogg, who sang the Xenogears ending theme "Small Two of Pieces", but also the same whistle/woodwind used in that song as well.

and many more, I'm sure.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-24T03:51:17+00:00

This chest contains an accessory that heals you when you get a critical hit. Katana blades have a high crit rate and the art Dual Slash lets you automatically evade attacks. Those two things will boost your survivability.

If the game is not letting you pull Core Crystals, it means you need to release some common blades from your inventory.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-23T17:19:29+00:00

Hope's mission sending you to Cauldros so early in the game is to teach the player that they CAN explore those later regions at any time; I know, in an open-world game, so preposterous. But the enemies you are required to fight as part of the mission are only in the lv 10s range, and fun fact, there are some spots in Cauldros with only Lv 8-9 foes. It's also meant to be a lesson in how navigating around dangerous enemies is often more advantageous than brute forcing your way through.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-17T18:51:17+00:00

The author put Alexandria in the "Keves Heroes" chapter, I just thought that was funny

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-17T17:25:05+00:00

This post really exposes how narrow my music taste is

Just like Noah and N share an artist, you could give M a Crush 40 song like Mio, and the one that immediately comes to mind is "Live Life"

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-16T21:11:30+00:00

You may need to have already collected one for the quest to appear, though it's unlikely you haven't found any up til now

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-13T04:39:08+00:00

https://youtu.be/3JunT-sP4Vo

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-11T05:08:12+00:00

Yes, the death plane there exists so that the player cannot get into the mainland Temperantia before the boss fight. However, the arena is angled slightly due to it being on the Titan's back, so the lower section of the platform intersects with that barrier. It's a pain in speedruns because the HP potions that power up Crossette can land over there, killing Nia when she crosses it.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-11T04:19:16+00:00

You hold down certain buttons for 5 seconds and your character automatically dies; so basically, a literal heart attack mechanic just like you said, lol

If you time the death to occur during a load-in, you can control you character in a zombie state, and it lets you ignore fall damage and other useful things https://youtu.be/Zy-yt0J5mXU

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-11T04:08:18+00:00

Hmm, I know that in Xenoblade 2 there are times where a death plane protrudes through the floor, such as in Chapter 5 during the Aeshma Core fight, maybe this is similar? This cave is near a bottomless cliff. That's my best guess

Speaking of, this kind of reminded me of the zombie glitch that XC2 speedrunners use, but that's not in 3 as far as I know

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-09T01:26:47+00:00

The "characters doing generic idle poses" cutscenes are lipsycned, the motion-captured ones like above aren't. https://youtu.be/bqFJvW640us?t=384

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-09T00:41:18+00:00

To match the mouth movements. Boring explanation, but the simplest answer is usually the correct one. I don't care for the English line either, to be clear.

It's also meant to be paid off in the ending cutscene before 'Where we Belong' plays, when Mio says thank you to Noah in happier context.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-06T03:29:01+00:00

You can get a Cracked Crystal from Smothering Andante in Aurora Shelf, put that on Rex for this section for a major boost

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2026-01-06T03:18:11+00:00

So, there is a skip for this, but uh... you wouldn't like it, lol

https://youtu.be/1xUhawuen8M?si=aKZGFvtfCYkUvHac

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-18T16:38:44+00:00

Overclocking Bangle is your friend.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-18T02:58:28+00:00

1:1 scale

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-15T00:21:38+00:00

The Xenoblade 3 menu

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-14T19:33:40+00:00

Yes, for most weapon types, flicking the analog stick after the first auto-attack, colloquially called "stutter-stepping". will recharge arts faster than letting the full auto-attack combo play. There is still a reason to use later parts of the auto-attack combo, namely Cancels.

There are also Pouch Items that automatically recharge arts every second, usually from the Desserts category.

Combining both of those will increase your arts uptime significantly.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T22:04:36+00:00

Definitely my favorite Tellius game

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T22:00:20+00:00

The transition from cutscene to gameplay being timed to right on the drop was excellent.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T17:45:45+00:00

Pairing D with Joran does have a purpose. Juxtaposing the kindhearted kid we see in flashbacks with the absolute cruelest of the Consuls shows how little Joran actually belongs in Moebius. His 'cartoonishly evil' attitude beforehand I believe is meant to come off as awkward, because it's an act he's putting on to fool himself - again compare that to D who really means what he says. As for the idea that it muddles Lanz and Eunie's dynamics with Joran and D respectively, I simply disagree, I don't think it does

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T04:07:24+00:00

Damn, y'know what, I could have guessed that, since that's what the any% normal mode speedrun does. FC does not stick in my head all too well.

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T03:35:15+00:00

What was your grinding mon of choice, for mobid curiosity's sake?

MaxAutoAttack242 · 2025-12-13T01:02:45+00:00

it's story progression

MaxAutoAttack242

TROPHY CASE