Towards the late game of Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s 70-hour story, I found myself in a luridly colorful cave, its walls festooned with bioluminescent plant life and glittering gems. Xenoblade’s environments boast some top-quality walls, but these walls really took the cake. Staring at the sides of the cave, I allowed myself a moment of introspection: why did I suddenly have opinions about all the different walls in this game? Had Xenoblade somehow caused me to become a perimeter-obsessed masonry maven? It was then that I realized something: I’d been sticking to walls like glue so as to avoid the game’s excessive combat encounters.
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