Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a good sequel to the original game, and it improved a lot on some of the flaws of the original (mainly combat). It has an incredible soundtrack and great worldbuilding (though all xenoblade games do). This game probably has my favourite main cast in the series (barring Tora). While ultimately this is my least favourite game in the series, I still think its an amazing game.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is one of my favourite games of all time. The soundtrack is incredible, and it looks about as good as physically possible for a switch game. The story (while the weakest in the series IMO) still managed to keep me hooked. I loved every main party member and felt that they had good chemistry with each other. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an amazing endpoint for an incredible series.
Octopath Traveler II is a fantastic game for fans of JRPGs, and an amazing starting point to get into the genre. The characters never felt stale or disinteresting, the combat is fun and intuitive and the visuals/music are absolutely beautiful. Where I feel this game falls short is writing, where it's fairly simple and not too exciting, but I never thought it was bad either. This game improves a lot on the original game, but still captures the same charm.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are a disappointment to the franchise of Pokemon, which has already not had a god game since the 3ds. The visuals in this game look like they were made in ms paint. The landscapes just look like blotches of colour since they have no texture, the animations are disappointing (though not surprising), and despite looking like it comes from 2001 it runs at an average of 5 fps. The game constantly crashed for me, and I fell through floors/walls a concerning amount of times. The game gives you the illusion of freedom and non linearity, but the levels not scaling means 90% of players just did it in the same order anyway because they couldn't do it in any other order without grinding. I also think that the gen 9 Pokemon kinda look bad (excluding the treasures of ruin), though this is just a me thing. I do NOT recommend this game as a starting point, because it poorly represents the series as a whole, and I don't recommend it for fans of the series because It's the worst Pokemon game we've had for almost 30 years.
