Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (2022)

Do you like sterotypical Anime, long games and Gundam?

I think this game is really bad, and also very good at the same time. The combat is complex, and leans into mobile game design where team building and build are more important than your gameplay.

Consequently the game feels pretty flat for the first 50 hours while you unlock everything. But that is enjoyable in its own way, working towards your masterpiece.

Combat

The main issue is visual clarity, characters die out of no where, enemy moves are hard to see, and there is a lot of invisible auto-attack damage.

The game is really limited by hardwear, and switch 2 is borderline mandatory for a good experience. I dropped my switch 1 playthrough.

Story

The fans of this game really like the story, I think that they did a really bad job with the pacing. There are scenes and themes repeated ad-nausium in this game. Cut 25%, and the story would feel a lot better.

It got to points where I have been playing another game while waiting for scenes to finish. I want to play the game, not watch a film. It is fine if you like that.

Bells and Whistles

The game could haven been a lot better with a few tweaks, the chracters do not fully change their clothes when swapping to their new class. The character model are all the same - why is the strong woman so skinny? Small things that could have made a big difference.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the fourth entry in the XC series, taking the best of every entry prior into one incredible package. Taking place in the same universe as XC1 and 2, but yet with connections that don't become fully evident (to me at least) until late in the game when you get that "oh snap!" eye opening moment where it all clicks together.

These games typically don't have the most exciting combat, but more than make up for them with the story. The combat is an improvement here over the prior entries, granting you a party of 6 instead of only 3 as in the prior entries. This opens up a lot of experimentation with different roles and builds. My only complaint (over the entire game) is sometimes with this many party members, is that the screen becomes incredibly busy and sometimes confusing trying to figure out where you are and what's going on.

The story here is crazy moment to moment one after another, and deep enough (with enough cutscenes) that I had to watch some video breakdowns and read up on everything at the end to fully grasp everything that happened. It is personally my favorite story among the XC franchise, telling a deep and surprisingly mature story for a Nintendo game. All of the characters you encounter are voiced well and fully fleshed out to feel like real people with their own wants and needs. Thankfully they practically eliminated the over sexualized and cringey bits from XC2 for a much more serious story this time around.

Gameplay consists of the same formula as before, but with an even larger world to explore (other than XCX) with outposts, NPCs, secrets scattered all throughout. I'm not even sure the amount of total missions within the game as my roughly 103 hour play time I tried to complete most missions I came across, but you unlock additional missions every time you level up your familiarity with an outpost/base. I didn't take any of these to the max level of 5 so I probably barely scratched the surface of total missions within the game. Even with that, I was 4 levels ABOVE the final boss when it came time to face him. Thankfully the game does unlock some more characters, stories, missions after completing the game and returns you to the world so you can continue exploring, questing, taking on the plethora of secret bosses or other challenges.

If you are a fan of JRPGs at all, or just like a really good story that can have you hooked for a LONG time, this game is a no brainer!

When I originally played this in 2022 I put in the 115 hours and then said I’m never playing this one again worst Xenoblade in the series.

Then I don’t know what happened 😂 Relentless social media pressure? Replaying the other Xenoblades? Doing XCX? Did my brain change shape? Who knows. All I know is that this run through was one of the best experiences I’ve had, it’s still not the BEST XC for me, that goes to XCX, but I was here for it and now I’m doing the DLC.

Huge world filled with things to do, people to talk to, interactions that feel meaningful, a full digital life in a beautiful if brutal world where you actually make a difference. The main story is a bit drawn out and unnecessarily dense, but that doesnt hamper things too badly. And combat is strategic and speedy as long as youre levelled appropriately.

The game is simply fantastic from start to finish. It manages to draw you in right from the start, as once again you ask yourself: "What does this have to do with the other Xenoblade games?", and the setting once again raises questions, as it's about a long, great war. You quickly learn to love the characters because they are not just "there", but are different enough and continue to grow as the story progresses. This also applies to the entire world building in the game. The side quests, especially the hero/ascension quests, are so incredibly good, tell great, different stories and give all the characters and colonies in this world so much additional charm that you won't forget them so easily. If you don't do the hero missions, you feel like you're missing half the game.

The same goes for the story: it gets better and better the further you play - right up to the climax and ending, which simply makes you break down emotionally. There can't be a single person who hasn't cried by the end...

All of this is emphasised by the music. As usual with Xenoblade, it's fantastic, but this time in a different way. It always fits the atmosphere incredibly well and definitely stays in your head. Especially when you hear leitmotifs from Xenoblade 1 and 2 in some moments...

It should also be said that the game can also be played well without having played the first two games. But there are some moments and allusions that work even better if you already know Xenoblade 1 and 2. This also applies to some of the areas. They are once again beautiful and unique. There is always something to discover and revisit later, which is absolutely worthwhile.

The battle system is different to parts 1 and 2, but it's fun and I don't think it gets boring - especially in the late game, when everything moves a bit faster. Only the class system didn't convince me 100%. It's great that it's so flexible and you can do just about any build with any character, so there's no character that's "boring" to play. But it also takes away a bit of the uniqueness of each character.

It did take me 143 hours, but that's because I did almost everything you can do before playing through the story - because it's just so much fun and gives so much background info.

All in all: definitely play this game!

As someone not particularly accustomed to JRPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was an unexpectedly engaging experience. I’ve always hated the typical “your turn, then my turn” mechanics found in many JRPGs, but Xenoblade Chronicles 3 managed to surprise me in ways I didn’t expect. Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, this was my first encounter with the Xenoblade series.

If you’re wondering whether you need to play the previous games to understand this one, the answer is a resounding no. The most captivating part of the game for me was, without a doubt, the story. Sure, I know it can feel unnecessarily dragged out at times, to the point of disrupting the narrative flow, but the overall world and the tale it told kept me hooked and actively engaged throughout.

The gameplay revolves around a real-time combat system where positioning party members and setting up the most logical skill compositions is key. As someone who hadn’t played previous Xenoblade games, I found this system incredibly fun—at least for the first 40 hours.

The game consists of seven chapters, and I completed the first four on standard difficulty. However, I started growing tired of the combat system and worried that the lengthy battles might pull me away from the story. So, I reluctantly switched to easy mode—a decision that turned out to be the best one I made. This game is massive, detailed, and seemingly endless. Just when you think it’s about to wrap up, it throws another 10 hours in your face.

As for the graphics, they’re muddy even by the standards of the time it was released. However, I must emphasize an important point here: while the graphics are subpar, the art design is among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. The developers have crafted a breathtakingly illustrated universe that captures the journey of six friends traversing an endless world. I lost count of how many times I used the screenshot button on my Nintendo Switch—a button I previously thought I’d never use.

This game is a testament to how art direction can surpass graphical fidelity and how a strong story can make up for rough edges in gameplay. That said, I must mention that the gameplay starts to feel repetitive after Chapter 4. While the story becomes incredibly deep at this point, the layered complexity in gameplay seen in the first three chapters doesn’t carry forward as much.

Despite these flaws, I’m incredibly happy to have stepped into the Xenoblade universe. I now understand why this game is so beloved. Its art design, unique combat system, narrative depth, and the way it keeps itself fresh with various mechanics make it a true classic. This game will undoubtedly stand out among my Switch reviews as a title JRPG fans will adore.

I’ll end my review with this:

“Hear that, Noah? Lanz wants something a bit meatier!”

The story DLC was just announced for next week! Not posting the trailer because there's HUGE spoilers for the base game in the trailer. I was hoping to get some time to play a few smaller games between now and Tears of the Kingdom... Guess not, back to the giant RPG grind we go! Part of me wants to hold off for a bit just in case they decide to put out a standalone physical release, though. It would look mighty nice next to the rest of my Xenoblade collection.

Possible spoilers: I'm really glad this seems to be greatly expanding on the events that led from 1/2 to 3. I felt like Xenoblade 3 really left WAY too much unexplained. Also, the Future Redeemed title makes it seem like there will be some sort of connection to Future Connected. Hopefully it'll explain the whole Fog King thing too.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 improves on a lot of the issues I highlighted when reviewing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, its Torna DLC and the first game's definitive edition:

• The story seemed easier to understand, insofar as it illustrates the various players, their conflicts and motivations more clearly.
• The tutorials no longer overwhelmed me, yet no critical mechanics felt under-explained.
• Sidequests seemed more interesting, with fewer fetch quests and more story.
• Its portrayal of women felt more respectful to me (though it could still use greater representation of different body types).
• They seemed to reign in the nopons’ baby talk a bit.

There are still opportunities for improvement:

• On the whole, there are a lot of little moments that could be more respectful of the player’s time. A lot of the game’s traversal and cut scene pacing still feel like deliberate runtime padding.
• There are whole mechanics I just plain ignored without apparent consequence. Is it all necessary?
• It hits on a lot of very familiar JRPG tropes. Defeat a god with the power of friendship, etc.
• The character's voice lines are ridiculously repetitive. "It's good to keep a record." "I'm the girl with the gall!" "You hear that, Noah? Lanz wants something a bit meatier."

But as with the previous entries, I loved playing it. The series does such a great job at establishing a believable, lived-in world filled with an uncanny amount of collectibles, challenges and surprises to discover. I grew very attached to the game’s swashbuckling cast. And while it took a long while to complete, it’s a journey I was happy to surrender that time to.

12/28/2022: I'm going to redo this later, but for right now: This was a 5-star game for me, until the ending.

That's not really a specific spoiler, but hiding it just in case.

12/29 Edit: I feel like I can't really review this game because the entire review would be a massive spoiler to justify my rating/reasons for feeling how I do. I mostly review for my own remembrance purposes, but I still don't want to ruin things for anyone who hasn't played it yet. Obviously I would just mark it as a spoiler, but I'm still working out what it is that I want to write in order to still give credit to the fantastic aspects of this game.

1/09/2023: Actual review below. Most of it is marked as a spoiler because my initial feelings about some aspects were very different from how I felt in the end, and I can't go into detail without spoilers.

Total Play Time: 170ish hours

Completion: I did every single quest in the game minus 1 Hero Quest and one other more post-game-focused quest before I went into the final area. I have not touched the game since I hit the credits, so there's some post-game stuff that I have not done.

Combat: I enjoyed everything about the combat in this game, aside from how long chain attacks took. You have your entire party from basically an hour or so into the game, and all six party members are used at all times. This made my longtime RPG-fan heart happy because I didn't have to bench party members that I really liked in order to build a three- or four-member team.

Each party member has their initial class (all under three main umbrellas of attacker, defender, and healer), which can be raised up to rank 10 (at first). They can also switch over to any of the other party members' classes. As you move through the game, you have major characters, dubbed Heroes, from various colonies join you, which nets you new classes to learn. Each of those has a "class inheritor," which is one of your party members who automatically unlocks that class. Everyone else slowly unlocks it based on a few prereqs, such as their particular affinity with that class. You can have one Hero active with your party at a time, so you almost always have seven characters available. The vast number of party build options is incredible. It was a ton of fun to mix things up every so often, as the rate of unlocking classes meant you weren't overwhelmed with options from the get-go. You get a good feel for each class as you play, so by the time you get new ones, you have a better idea of how to rearrange your party.

You can change your active character at any time, while on the field and even mid-battle. I loved this.

Music: It's Xenoblade. The music is exceptional.

Quests/Colonies/General Worldbuilding Stuff: This is where I have to start hiding things. If you know anything about this game, you probably know that there are two major groups of people constantly at war with each other. Once you really start on your journey and interacting with colonies, you experience the truth depth of this game.

Much of the side quest focus is either on obtaining the Heroes, or building colonies back up by aiding their interactions with one another, teaching them life skills that aren't war-focused, helping them to live real lives, etc. Colonies have ranks, and your donations of items, completion of quests, etc., add to the star ranking, which goes up to 5. I had a couple at 5 and the rest at 4 when I finished the game. All of that said, the quests in this game are some of the most meaningful, story-driven, and heartfelt of any game I've ever played. There's purpose to them; they're not just fetch quests there to take up your time. You're teaching one colony to farm potatoes, and then seeing how their efforts affect other colonies. You're encouraging trade, travel between colonies, helping someone from one side learn to be a doctor from someone on the other side. I absolutely loved the depth to this aspect of the game, as it all felt real and meaningful.

Then you beat the game, and all of that effort, all of your real-life time, all of EVERYTHING about rebuilding the colonies is completely and utterly pointless. Nothing matters. It's all gone. All of their lives, their histories, ability to learn from what they have been through is gone. It was a monumental waste of your time and emotional attachment to the characters and story. I'm sure the intent was to focus on the whole "we broke the cycle!" thing, but no. The ending was already garbage, but then you realize this impact of it and it feels even worse. Guess everyone from the City is completely gone, too, so there's that punch to the gut. Fuckin' insane, man. It's been weeks and I'm still pissed about this garbage.

Overall Story: There is a good deal of fresh lore in this game, but a lot was still left unexplained. We learn about the two worlds from the first two games and how this world came to be, eventually. Apparently all of the different races from the first two games/worlds are just "human" now; I dunno, might have missed if that was ever explained, but pretty sure it wasn't. I just kept expecting all of these "connective" ideas and Easter eggs from the previous games to be explained or to have some deeper meaning, and none of that ever happened. Then you hit the end of the game and it's all pointless anyway, so. Overall, I enjoyed the story, until the ending. I was emotionally invested in the world, the lore, the characters, the journey. It felt like we were building up to great things, and then it all just got trashed, kinda haphazardly tied into the lore of the first two games but barely, and inflicting misery on all involved. Even if the upcoming DLC story is an epilogue and not a prologue (ugh), there's no real salvaging it to me. It felt like everything I did to save the world(s) of the first two games was supposed to be truly resolved here, come to some true conclusion, and then we get this shit, which still hints at, "We're probably still fucked in the future!"

This would have been one of my favorite games of all time, if it had ended well, if it didn't feel like everything I spent time building up and fostering hadn't becoming utterly pointless, if it wasn't such an enormous letdown of an ending that felt more like it was there for shock value rather than an one that made sense after the first two games. From 5 stars down to 3 because I just can't.

I honestly expected my two closest friends who also love XC (and who finished it before I did) to have some difference of opinion regarding the ending when we were discussing it, but the fact that we all just felt annihilated by this ending says something.

THE POTATOES ARE GONE.

Also, the map sucks.

The biggest game I played this year is finally over, and my feeling is a resounding "meh".

Xenoblade 3, to be clear, is a very good game. If you are playing it strictly for the combat, the world building, the music, that stuff... You'll be a happy camper.

But the story is where this one really fails to stick the landing. It's well told, with great cinematics, acting, and set pieces. But the overall story, the force that should drive the game forward... It's just kind of a mess. Tone is not consistent, lots of questions go unanswered, and without going into spoilers, the game sets up some pins and fails to knock them down. The pacing is odd too - they spend great amounts of time focusing on characters that wind up having a minor impact on the plot, but major story beats are waved off as unimportant and the player is hurried through.

The priority of the characters is constantly shifting too, and main character Noah is intensely frustrating and inconsistent, as he's wise in some moments but an oblivious dummy in others. I found Noah to be an intensely unlikeable protagonist overall, and I was waiting for him to grow on me... Never really happened.

Xenoblade 2, for perspective, is my favourite in the series. That game is focused. You know what characters want (not you, Jin), you know what the goals are, you know why you're chasing the ending. You care about these folks, you want to be along with them on the journey.

In XC3, I was never completely clear on what the goals were. It was all over the place. You could simultaneously cut like 40 hours out of the story and still arrive at the same point, but it also fes like it needs another 20 hours of development to make its point.

Alright, enough negativity. The story was a huge disappointment for me. But what's good here?

Graphics and art direction: The Switch is a potato, but this game looks great. It's not trying to be a PS5 game, of course not, but it looks fantastic in its own right.

Music: While the soundtrack is up and down and overall not as strong as XC1 and 2, it's still fantastic, and it was criminally snubbed for awards this year.

Gameplay loop: It honestly never gets boring. I don't understand what's happening mechanically sometimes, but it's fun to look at!

But yeah. Overall, I can't recommend this one to everyone. If you demand a strong story, you won't find it here. It has its moments and emotional highs, but the complete package feels undercooked. But if you play your RPGs for the systems and mechanics, I think you'll have a good time.

Still workin' on this one!

I'm desperately trying to finish before Scarlet/Violet on Friday, but after not playing for a month because I was going through Temtem, and then a week of being really busy shortly after I picked it back up, I am behindddd.

In Chapter 6 (of 7), but just barely into it. I also don't want to rush when I've taken my time exploring every inch of this game up to now. I have 130ish hours on this so far and it's been fantastic.

The devs learned a lot from the previous games and basically created the greatesy version of their vision that they have ever done.

Meaningful side missions? check No more annoying gated elements? check Great Pacing? Check...Okay to be honest I found 90% of the game to have great pacing and keeping things movin, but oh boy was the last dungeon a drag.

Until this point all the dungeons/missions have been a short affair, go in, kill a few enemies, go to the next area kill a bit more, kill boss.

The last dungeon is section after section after section after section after section, with more enemies than you probably have seen on the entire game.

I got lucky to have found a broken combo that allowed to breeze through this area, but if i had to spend so much fighting to get to the final boss i would have gone insane.

the final boss is also a snooze fest, he has so many stages that are not particularly interesting, and pray to the heavens that you have a good setup because if you die on the last stages you have to do the whole thing again...did I mention that it took me more than 20 minutes to do it one try? So yeah don't die.

So the games gets minus points for its last section, it truly dropped in steam there. Thankfully for me it didn't sour the expeirence as I found an efficient way to navigate it and didn't die to the last boss.

Anyways, the story was wonderfully told, the characters you meet are memorable, although i still prefer the cast from XB2.

but I did enjoy that you stick to 6 characters for the whole game allowing you to fully get familiar with them.

The combat has also been streamlined and it is pretty fun like its predecesors.

My only advice to veterans of the series is to play the game in its hardest difficulty and not to use the "free leveling" spots as it is very easy to over level.

It’s funny to reminisce that the original Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii almost never released in North America. Nintendo was convinced the game would be a bust, fortunately they were completely off the mark. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the culmination of the best of Monolith Soft and is easily their strongest work to date. With Xenoblade 3, Monolith Soft have solidified Xenoblade as a mainstay franchise, a 1st party title that Nintendo should be proud to stand side-by-side with their other legendary franchises.

Xenoblade 3 immediately hooks players in the opening cutscene as Noah, the protagonist, narrates that the people on Aionis only know one thing: “living to fight and fighting to live”. The two kingdoms of Aionis: Keves and Agnus, are in constant war. The soldiers on both sides aren’t fighting for raw hatred for one another or for political purposes, but literally for their very lives. The Kevesi and Agnian soldiers fight for their colony’s Flame Clock, essentially an indicator of their colony’s health. When the Flame Clock is depleted, everyone in that colony dies. The only way to replenish it, is to kill foes from the opposing faction.

It wouldn’t be a constant war without a constant stream of recruits. Both kingdoms are each managed by their respective Queens. The Queen is responsible for growing new recruits out of test tubes. These test tube babies are rapidly aged and born equivalent to ten year olds. While these beings act and age like regular people, they only have a lifespan of ten years before passing away. At first thought, it would seem fruitless for them to fight, why fight only to inevitably die? However the recruits are taught that reaching the tenth term or “Homecoming” is the greatest honor they can have. People who make it that far, get an audience with their Queen and be sent off peacefully, rather than dying on the battlefield.

Noah is a Kevesi off-seer, whose role is to send off the dead. He is a strange fellow in this world because he plays his flute for both Kevesi AND Agnian soldiers as a sign of respect for the fallen. After vanquishing an enemy Agnus colony, Noah’s team is assigned to pursue a mysterious airship. Surprisingly a band of Agnian troops led by an off-seer named Mio, are also pursuing the same vehicle. A member from the mysterious 3rd party, Guernica, reveals himself, shocking both parties that it is possible for people to grow well beyond ten years.

The parties are suddenly struck by a powerful being known as Consul D from a faction called Moebius. D comments that they know too much and must be eliminated. Guernica activates a device that powers our heroes granting them the power of Ouroborus. Noah and Mio fuse together into a being that looks eerily similar to Consul D, granting them otherworldly abilities to repel the foe. Guernica with his last ounce of strength, explains that they are now Ouroborus, freed from their Flame Clocks, but the enemy of both Keves and Agnus. He informs them that they must travel to Swordmarch to find the answers they seek. Noah and Mio’s teams hesitantly pair up, realizing that their “normal” lives have been upended and the only way to survive is by working together.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will irk some players who are accustomed to more traditional JRPGs.The game is an epic road trip with Swordmarch as the final destination. The early chapters are especially desolate. There are very few NPCs encountered in the wilderness. The first “town” Noah visits after the tutorial area takes more than ten hours to reach. Most of the time, Noah and friends will be resting at campsites or at abandoned Ferronis Hulks. It can feel monotonous going from one monster-filled biome to another without other activities to break up the tedium. Fortunately, the combat in Xenoblade 3 is spectacular and is worth the price of admission alone.

The combat in Xenoblade 3 is similar to the MMO-style combat featured in previous Xenoblade titles but introduces a blend of mechanics from the past two games. In combat, all six characters and a guest Hero character fight at the same time, but they play differently depending on their faction. Kevesi soldiers Noah, Lanz and Eunie have Arts that run on a cooldown like in Xenoblade 1, while the Agnian soldiers, Mio, Taion and Sena have Arts that charge each time a hit lands like in Xenoblade 2.

An emphasis is placed on the classes “playing their role”. Each class has a Talent Art, a super move that charges based on their type. Attackers charge their meter by dishing out damage. Tanks charge their meter by receiving aggro. And Healers charge their Talent Arts by healing and buffing the party. In addition, Healers are the only class that can revive fallen teammates. As Noah and his friends travel through Aionis, they will gain new classes by encountering Heroes through the main story and side quests. There are a total of 25 classes (as of this writing) making for an almost limitless amount of team compositions.

Things get more interesting once our heroes gain the ability to use other classes. Mio, for example, can adopt Noah’s Swordfighter class and learn his Arts and Skills. While Mio is a Swordfighter, she can access the abilities she learned previously as a Zephyr. While class swapping isn’t revolutionary in this genre, what is unique is that our heroes can simultaneously use both Kevesi and Agnian Arts. The Swordfighter class has a high damage Art called Air Slash, but draws aggro. Meanwhile, the Zephyr’s Wide Slash Art grants evasion at the cost of a low crit rate. By using both the Air Slash and Wide Slash Art at the same time, called a Fusion Art, Mio can dish out damage and avoid getting hurt at the same time.

Chain Attacks makes a return in Xenoblade 3. Chain Attacks can be triggered after charging the meter when the party is doing well in combat. Activating a Chain Attack, pauses combat and initiates a mini-game where players strategize what order of actions to take for maximum effect. The goal of the mini-game is to fill the Chain Attack gauge to 100%, with further rewards the higher the percentage is. Attackers are the best initiators, while tanks allow for follow-up attacks when used last. Healers on the other hand can cap the total percentage to 99% allowing players to maximize the Chain Attack meter. Successfully executing a Chain Attack can easily fell bosses in a single turn and grants bonus EXP for overkill damage.

The one mechanic that doesn’t feel as useful are the Ouroborus forms. As you progress through the story, Noah and Mio, Lanz and Sena, and Eunie and Taion respectfully can interlink with one another and become the Ouroborus. Fusing as an Ouroboros grants temporary invincibility and devastating Arts, up to roughly 30 seconds, followed by a lengthy cooldown. To power up the Ouroborus meter, the respective pairs need to execute Fusion Arts in succession. Battles with normal enemies are too short to use the Ouroborus, so they are only useful in longer fights against elite monsters or bosses. The Ouroborus forms are incredibly powerful, but they also hamper the flow of combat. It is sometimes detrimental changing into an Ouroborus form especially with healers and tanks, since players lose a party member with the ability to revive allies or draw aggro respectively. In addition, each of the Ouroborus forms have their own skill trees which feels superfluous given how seldom these abilities can be used.

Xenoblade 3 is the most accessible game in the series and perfect for new players. The game provides extensive tutorials. There is a battle mode where you can practice executing each combat mechanic. Players can enable Auto-Battle where the AI will help fight monsters except against elites and bosses. The difficulty can be tuned in the menu. There is an option to optimize equipment, Arts and Skills. There is a customizable shortcut menu to make things like Quick Saving more convenient. Navigation is a breeze with an easy to see breadcrumb trail for both main and side quests. These quality of life improvements contrast with the systems in Xenoblade 2, where there are no reviewable tutorials and navigation was a simple arrow that pointed to the objective.

Exploring Aionis is a wonderful delight with a few caveats. There is an impressive amount of optional vistas to visit with large draw distances. Despite the aging and underpowered hardware of the Switch, Xenoblade 3 remains artistically beautiful. Xenoblade 3 technically looks worse than Xenoblade 2. Compared to its predecessor, the open worlds are more linear, have less foliage and have less impressive lighting and particle effects. Xenoblade 3 does not match the sense of scale and dynamism in the environments of Xenoblade 2, but for good reason. Xenoblade 2 is close to unplayable when the Switch is undocked. The resolution can decrease to such an extent that the screen would be a blurry framey mess. Xenoblade 3 makes concessions in graphics for playable framerate in handheld mode.

Ironically Xenoblade Chronicles 3 can look surprisingly better than Xenoblade 2. Monolith Soft employs an extensive amount of pre-rendered cutscenes with smooth transitions to real-time gameplay which helps disguise the Switch’s graphical limitations. They also employ a new upscaling technique which makes real-time cutscenes sharp even on 4K displays. Character faces are remarkably expressive. Their hair moves in a realistic manner. The curvature of their eyes are accurately portrayed when they move their heads at an angle. Their lips sync to both the English and Japanese voice-over options. All of these subtle changes improve the immersion of the game.

The main cast of characters in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 propel an otherwise great game to an excellent one. Each of the six characters occupy a stereotypical archetype to great effect. Noah is the stoic leader. Lanz is the meathead. Eunie is the hothead. Mio is the reserved one. Sena is the cheerful one. And Taion is the tactician. Each member of Ouroborus gets their moment to shine. I found Mio’s character especially intriguing. Mio only has three months to live which adds a greater urgency to the rest of the party. She says a very memorable line that tugged on my heartstrings: “I will keep on living while my flame still flickers”.

The localization for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 exceeded my expectations of a typical Nintendo title. Not only is the writing poetic, but also full of spice and sass. The game includes British slang like “muppet”, “tosser” and “snuff” but also invents new words like “spark”, “mudder” and “Queen’s wings”. I thoroughly enjoy this type of writing because it adds another layer of nuance to the dialogue. For the record, it seems like people from Keves, especially Eunie and Lanz seem to use these words every chance they get… and it rocks.

Speaking of rock, the soundtrack in Xenoblade 3 is diverse. The game uses a wide spectrum of instruments and music genres. Somber sequences feature piano and flute scores. While battle sequences feature a range of synth and orchestral rock notes. The game can get cacophonous, especially one battle theme where it sounds like they are playing a dozen different instruments and your 7 characters (six from the main cast and 1 guest Hero) all shouting at the same time. The music is good, but it doesn’t meet the same highs as the music in Gaur Plains or Mor Ardain in Xenoblade 1 and 2 respectively.

Xenoblade 3 is far from perfect and its flaws are most apparent with its story. Ironically this over 100 hour JRPG feels too short. Several story elements and vital characters foreshadowed in the first half are either abandoned or rushed at the end. Sena isn’t given the same extensive character development as the other party members but instead used as a prop to develop other characters’ storylines. The writing can get painfully repetitive, such as the numerous instances where Noah and his friends try to convince a character to stop being evil. The Nopon characters Riku and Manana, are underutilized. They are like extras on a set, present in almost every cutscene but don’t have any lines. When they do speak it’s either to serve as a plot moving device or as comedic relief.

There are other nitpicks that bugged me as I played. Inventory management is barely existent and it is frustrating to parse through hundreds of items due to the lack of useful sorting options. It is too easy to be overleveled. Having an overleveled party makes it impossible to improve existing classes and learn new ones. A few cutscenes swap between pre-rendered and real-time rendering so character outfits would change between their in-game canon clothes to their class outfits which is immersion breaking. The Affinity Chart from Xenoblade 1 is back in Xenoblade 3 and it is still pointless. I think I glanced at that screen for a total of 5 minutes throughout my entire playthrough. Some Hero quests and side quests can only be triggered by hearing rumors, but they are not highlighted on the map so they are easily skippable. Lastly, one particular character silhouette in the Class and Hero selection screens is a huge spoiler.

In public interviews with Mr. Takahasi, the creator of the Xenoblade series, noted that Xenoblade 3 is the merger of the worlds of Xenoblade 1 and 2. Unfortunately outside of a few cameos, monster designs and environments it can very well not matter. As someone who invested the time completing the other Xenoblade games and their DLC, the conclusion to the Xenoblade trilogy left me feeling bitter and disappointed. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 can be treated as a standalone game similar to the Final Fantasy series.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an unbelievable epic, with large environments, hundreds of quests and countless memorable characters. It is rich with complex gameplay mechanics that will keep players challenged. The game’s plot is serious, somber, yet tells an optimistic tale of a group of characters making the most of their limited existence. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a contender to be my most favorite JRPG of all-time. Even though the game has numerous flaws especially in the last act, it is still a phenomenal achievement. For a game of this length, very few parts of it felt like filler. The game kept me thoroughly entertained for hundreds of hours; and that is not an easy accomplishment.

Even though I will probably keep on playing here and there, I am calling it played after a bit more than 150 hours. As every other game in the franchise, I got completely sucked by it. It is, for me, the mixture of quick reward mechanics, the feeling of like there's always something there to do, and the vast scenarios that you can explore however you want. It is lovely that feeling of revisiting some areas where you were before just to know that your progression made some evolution in the whole world and opened a few bits of dialogue and quests that weren't there before. Helps you to feel that the world is alive.

Story wise, probably the one I liked the most. In terms of the actual plot I think I liked it less than XC2 but the characters were absolutely more likeable, better written and the game feels for a more mature audience than the previous one. It's like a slightly worse song but played by way better musicians. Some of the secondary characters were plain dislikeable for me, and I wouldn't be mad if moebius just completely destroyed colony Mu, for instance, and Nico in particular, but hey, nowhere in the world you will like everyone so disliking some people is also part of the experience.

Music wise, good as always. Probably the weakest one of the three but mostly because the other games had incredible sound tracks, especially 2 for me. Still a very good atmosphere.

If I had to pick a dark spot, I would say that the exploration in this game is not as free as it could be. They definitely enhanced what, for me, was a huge mistake in XC2, forcing you to change blades everytime you faced a terrain obstacle. Here you just learn skills and that's it, no more issues. Why change your hero to be able to move across a swamp if the only difficulty is actually pausing the game and swapping heroes? That's good design on my view and I loved that they went back. Still, exploration sometimes feel a bit clunky in terms of what you can do vs. what the environment calls you to do. I remember saying that XC1 felt like a BotW predecessor and that for me was a huge compliment, considering that it was published 5 years before BotW. This game also feels like a BotW predecessor, not the best compliment considering that it was published 5 years after it. Sometimes you have to rely on jumping on the edges of some terrain hoping that there is some ledge where you can stand, even fighting against the graphics. Maybe it's the style of the game and I got used to what BotW allows? It could be, but still...

And the map, what a downgrade it was compared to XC1. I believe I haven't explored the whole map but only because I can't tell which paths are above or below my height level. Everything on the same plane, while realistic in terms of what an actual map is, feels just wrong.

I mean, the game has its dark spots (like the decision of putting so many pointless animations, why would I like to see two party members opening a door for the 100th time?), but I guess it is just a style choice from the developer team. And after putting so many hours in so little time, I can't not give it 5 stars. Is it the best game of the saga? Not sure, Torna was incredible, so was XC1, but this one is definitely up there too.

So I finally finished the main story after 140 hours or so. I really liked how it ended, mostly because I have a thing for bittersweet endings. Main characters are also quite charming and pretty well written. heros are mostly ok but a few are insufferable, Ghondor's voice particularly. All in all, a really good game, probably my favourite in the whole saga.

And after 140 hours I managed to connect the both sides of the map by foot! Finally!

There's no way at all I'm starting a new game + but I do want to finish all quests before calling it quits.

Look, I know I'm late to the party, but I've started Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

Wish me luck! For a do not have much spare time.

I want to play this one properly too, not skipping over some of the key sub plots and character stories like I do in some games just to get through them.

With that in mind, is it worth playing on Easy for the sake of a faster playthrough? Or would that take away from the experience? I know some people on here recoil in horror at the very notion of selecting a less challenging mode than intended, but there's also others who recognize my plight of adult matters getting in the way of playtime.

4/5

This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

I'll start with characters. I loved the main cast here. With the exception of Sena, I thought they were all written and voiced brilliantly. Top tier localisation and casting which Xenoblade is known for. They were extremely likable, and multidimensional, and were able to lead the story convincingly. The actual story was also pretty interesting. I don't think it was as good as Xenoblade 1, but definitely a compelling tale, with some interesting (and belaboured) themes. There was a certain lack of Klaus which I was disappointed by in the ending however.

The writing and script was also solid. Particularly in reference to the parties interactions, they were really charming. I think the writing around the stories main themes - freedom of choice, regret, resilience - was fairly clunky. They articulate these themes over and over again, and not subtly. This is pretty par for the course for Xenoblade though. The cutscene direction is great - there was some cinematography used that you don't typically see in JRPGs.

Unlike my completion of Xenoblade 1, I actually managed to get through this one in one stretch - which says something about an improved pacing. But I definitely felt an urge to put it down towards the latter chapters due to it dragging on. This game is too long. Took me about 90 hours for my hard and normal difficulty play through. I think easily could be edited down to a tidy 60 hours and move some of the extra stuff to optional content. Classic stitch up.

Gameplay is where I have really mixed thoughts. At first, I loved it. I'm a sucker for a class system where you can master, then mix and match, skills and abilities. I started on hard mode and it was a great challenge. At some point though, the unique monsters and bosses get ridiculous. I'm talking overlevelled by 6-7 levels, but they still AOE all three of your healers and your done for. Then I change it to normal and steamroll them - and of course I can't level down my characters. In the end I played probably 75% on hard, then just wanted to steamroll the rest.

The combat is a bit too chaotic as well. Xenoblade 1 had that awesome system where it would slow down time and you could mitigate big attacks. In this game there's 6 characters and a baddie to keep track of, it's kind of a mess? There's too much shit going on. I think the real gameplay is in battle prep (setting arts, skills, classes, accessories) and what you do during battles is less important. I really miss that tightly designed Xenoblade 1 gameplay. It kind of reminds me of my frustration with FF7 Remake's combat. In that game I felt like the dodge rolling and guarding were incompatible with the command based gameplay. What attacks can you dodge? Which can you guard? The characters you're not controlling don't do either so what's the point? Anyway, I digress. When I was steamrolling at the end I had a ball arts cancelling ad infinitum, and that counts for something.

Overall - a really solid JRPG, with a few flaws. Way better than Xenoblade 2, not as good as Xenoblade 1. I love Welsh accents.

Time played: 64 hours

Completion: Finished the main story, reached end credits

A world comprised of the decaying body parts of fallen titans. A war without cause, with no beginning and no end. Soldiers bred for battle, their short 10-year lives lived for the purpose of feeding the ominous Flame Clocks of their nations. The Xenoblade series has always excelled at creating imaginative and creative RPG worlds to explore, containing philosophical headiness and anime camp in equal proportions, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is no exception. This new entry quickly distinguishes itself as one of the most compelling games in the series, not only for its relatable characters, but because of how it distills the best gameplay elements of the previous games into a witch's brew of addictive RPG goodness.

STORY

Xenoblade 3's world of Aionios is the stage of an eternal war between the nations of Keves and Agnus. Our six protagonists consist of two trios from both nations, who end up in a tenuous truce after a certain event in the beginning of the game turns them into enemies of both nations. The protagonists were one of the best aspects of the story, and the game is at is strongest when we watch them deal with some of the curveballs that get thrown at them. Each character has their own cross to bear, whether it be Sena's lack of self-confidence, or Taion's guilt over an event in his past. The looming specter of death is a huge theme of the game, as the characters are faced with rapidly depleting life spans that imbue a sense of urgency into their quest.

I have nothing but praise for the story's overall pace, which really got me invested in the world from the beginning. Xenoblade 2 has an infamously slow start, and I remember it taking well over 10 hours before that story started to get compelling. I don't doubt that there are many potential fans who simply couldn't make it through that huge barrier. By contrast, Xenoblade 3 does everything it can to hook you from the opening scene. You are immediately dropped into the thick of an exciting battle between Keves and Agnus, and are set free to explore with relatively minor guardrails.

I do feel a bit disappointed that Moebius, the game's villains, are pretty poorly developed in comparison to the villains of Xenoblade 1 and 2. I won't dive into it any further for fear of spoiling the plot, but I felt a little underwhelmed by the game's ending because of this. The game also tends to overexplain plot points and themes a lot, but this should be par for the course if you've played any Xenoblade game before. What I'm most happy about is that Xenoblade 2's "cringy anime" moments are totally absent. Don't misunderstand me--Xenoblade 3 is anime as hell--but the tone is much more consistently serious and you don't have to deal with the whiplash of watching an awkwardly horny scene right after some philosophizing about the role of religion in people's lives. If you've played Xenoblade 2, you know what I'm talking about.

If you've played previous Xenoblade games, the game does reward that knowledge by drip-feeding you references to locations and characters from past games. If you're thinking of making this your first Xenoblade game, though, don't be put off by that. While the game does take place in the same universe as the first two games, it takes place in the distant future, and you aren't expected to know anything about the events of past games.

GAMEPLAY

One of the reasons I think this is a great place to start with the Xenoblade franchise is because it has the most approachable, but insanely deep gameplay mechanics the series has presented thus far. Much like in previous games, Xenoblade 3 is a massive RPG where you traverse through open-ended areas, fulfilling quest objectives to advance the story. It isn't fully open world, as the world is split into separate loading zones, and your progression is gated by the story. However, the zones are so massive that you always have a wide variety of options for what to do. You can tackle the main story, or you can spend time exploring and collecting materials. You can complete side quests, work on increasing your affinity with the game's many colonies and tackle challenging unique monsters.

The areas of Xenoblade 3 are mind bogglingly huge at times. There are zones in this game that feel like 5 Gormotts or Bionis Legs stuck together in size. Even within these zones, there are distinct regions with their own biomes, enemies and characters to see. Many are not even required for the main story, so going off the beaten bath is highly rewarded in Xenoblade 3.

This is especially so because of the game's quests. The quest log in Xenoblade 3 is an unspeakably vast improvement over Xenoblade 2's mediocre quest system. Quests finally have recommended levels (Thank god) and are split into several categories: there's the main story and standard side quests, but there are also specially marked hero quests which unlock hero characters that accompany you as a seventh party member. Then there's the optional collectopedia card quests, which serve as simple gathering requests that award you items or colony affinity. Because collectopedia cards exist, it's almost always safe to assume that a standard side quest will consist of a side story that fleshes out the world, rather than someone randomly asking you to gather six turnips.

The game's UI is generally full of great quality of life improvements that I was really missing in Xenoblade 2. You can customize shortcuts that are accessed by holding the left trigger, which let you quickly access important menu items such as the map or the quest log. You can micromanage everything about your character's skills, arts, accessories and gems, but you can also just let the game auto-build a character for you if you don't feel like being mired in menus. The map is pretty functional, although it no longer displays height levels in a distinct way. I didn't mind this at all, because the game's handy quest route option always reliably nudged me in the right direction if I was unsure of how to reach a location.

Like Xenoblade 2, the game tends to over-tutorialize things that don't need to be explained. Do we really need our hands to be held through the concept of buying items from a store, or how to equip an accessory? At the very least, I felt pretty safe in speeding through these tutorials, as the game lets you revisit them at any point in the System menu. All in all, I think Xenoblade 3 is the most user-friendly Xenoblade game by a long shot.

Now, let's get into the combat, because, hoo boy, is there a lot to talk about. The game employs a new variant of the series' MMO-like auto-attack system. This time around, you control six (!) party members, double the amount of both Xenoblade 1 and 2. You can now freely swap from one character to another during battle, which is a feature I've been longing for in Xenoblade since the first game. The star of the show here is, without a doubt, the new class system. Each character can learn any class, and mastering one lets you use some of its arts while playing a different class. This lets you, say, give healing arts to a tank, or some evasive arts to your healer. This unlocks a vast amount of gameplay, and you're actively encouraged to swap classes all the time. Switching characters also lets you focus on directly playing what you find fun. If you love the Swordfighter class, but want Noah to learn some moves from the Medic Gunner class, you can assign the Swordfigher class to Eunie and play as her instead. Classes are unlocked by doing hero quests, meaning that a huge amount of the game's 24 classes are completely optional.

Another wrinkle to combat is the Interlink system. As Ouroboros, your party members are able to fuse with one another to create a single, powerful mecha-monster. Your characters are able to take on these powerful Ouroboros forms at any time, and they are particularly devastating. Once you activate the form, you are essentially invulnerable, but you have only a limited span of time before you split back into your original forms. Additionally, it's not always the best idea to Interlink, since you are removing a character from the field. For example, if you are going to be temporarily removing one of your healers from the board, you best be sure your group composition can take that hit! Because of this, the Interlink system gives the battle system a welcome sense of strategy and variety.

Xenoblade 3's combat is far from flawless though. With six party members--seven if you have a hero with you--things get chaotic on the battlefield. Too chaotic if you ask me. There is something so elegant about how easy it is to read Xenoblade 1's combat. Xenoblade 2's combat was far more complex, but once you mastered it, it felt like a skillful juggling act. Xenoblade 3's combat has so much going on at any given time that it becomes pretty difficult to parse what is going on, especially if you're fighting a bigger group of enemies. While the ability to switch heroes is great, the party AI is still pretty wonky, and I found myself having to babysit tanks who don't know to get in healing circles, or healers who don't know how to stop drawing aggro.

Then there's the game's new Chain Attack mechanics, which are totally revamped. Chain Attacks consist of you choosing an attack order with a specific effect, and then choosing your characters' moves one-by-one in any order you like. Each character grants you a specific amount of Tactical Points. Once you reach 100 points, the attack order is completed, potentially letting you try again if you have enough remaining attackers. The system works well enough, but with seven characters, the length of these unskippable animations make Chain Attacks a total misery to use. They completely halt the pace of a battle, and after 60 hours, I was completely sick of it to the point where I chose not to use Chain Attacks.

PRESENTATION & AUDIO

If you've played any other Xenoblade game, there really are no surprises in this category. The music is incredible, because obviously it is. Yasunori Mitsuda, ACE and co. have teamed up to deliver yet another transcendent soundtrack that stands toe to toe with the all time greats. The overworld music often isn't as bombastic as it was in Xenoblade 2, but I feel it fits the game's tone much better this way. There isn't much more to say--just expect to be blown away by the music.

I played with the English dub, and I was pleasantly surprised. The main cast does a fantastic job, and it's pretty much on par with the dub of the original Xenoblade game. I especially liked how accents were pretty consistent with how they were used in previous games. There are spots of poor voice acting in some of the voiced side quests, but it's never as bad as Xenoblade 2's voicework could get.

Graphically, it's a bit of a mixed bag, much like in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. Xenoblade 3 reaches for the next level in terms of visual presentation, no doubt. The world is bigger, and as such the sense of scale and distance have increased accordingly. There are more characters on screen than ever before, and the models are more detailed. Cutscene animations are way more detailed than ever before, and fights are excellently choreographed. All of this is let down by the Switch's aging hardware, which unsurprisingly struggles to keep up.

The game looks good enough while docked, and the visuals can actually be pretty crisp in handheld mode during less demanding moments, but just like Xenoblade 2, it can get pretty damn blurry when it's firing on all cylinders. Frame rate also tends to be an issue some times, although I've heard it could be due to a memory leak issue that can be fixed by restarting the game. Either way, Monolith Soft's ambition is clearly bigger than what the Switch can handle, and I hope that whatever Xenoblade game comes next can benefit from some new hardware.

CONCLUSION

Xenoblade 3 is a vast improvement on Xenoblade 2, and pretty much on par with the first Xenoblade for me. It tries and succeeds to bump up the scope of the world and gameplay mechanics, resulting in the one of the best blends of the Xenoblade formula so far. However, the pitfalls here are significant enough that I don't think the series has really reached its potential apex, and I hope Monolith Soft can continue to improve from here.

That said, I'm really happy that Xenoblade exists. Nintendo properties can be pretty risk-averse at times, but games like Xenoblade 3 that really push the boundaries of its system and its genre are what make Monolith Soft one of the best developers under the Nintendo umbrella. This game is an easy recommendation for any JRPG fan. If you're a Xenoblade veteran, you'll be enamored with this display of how far the series has come, and if you're a Xenoblade newcomer, there's never been a better time to jump in and get lost in the madness.