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.

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.

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.

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!”

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.