If you had come up to me a few short weeks ago and asked me about my favourite JRPG of all time, the answer would have come too easily – Final Fantasy X. Since I first played it as a child, the adventures of Tidus and Yuna have held a special place in my heart and every few years I like to start all over again. Perhaps it’s the combination of a heartfelt story, excellent world-building and a fantastic ensemble cast that kept me going back, but regardless no game had been able to topple it in my heart.
Until now.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 came out of the blue when it was announced in February 2022, but I honestly didn’t pay it much attention. Whilst I enjoyed the first 30 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D and the first 50 of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I hadn’t been able to see either out to the end and un-fondly remembered the frustrating quest-management systems and complex combat. They both had good stories, granted, but each had a point at which I just lost interest in seeing it through.
Regardless, I decided to give this “sequel” a shot, and I’m thoroughly glad I did, as I haven’t found myself this enthralled by a game in a long, long time.
Xenoblade chronicles 3 takes place in Aionios, where two factions – Keves and Agnus – have been at constant war for as long as anyone can remember. The population is split between Colonies, tied to giant robots called Ferronis, and they are expected to hunt enemy groups and harvest their life energy to charge their flame clocks and increase their power. The more life in your colony clock, the more effective your forces are. However, if a colony’s flame clock runs out, they’re dead meat. The people of Aionios only live for ten years – which they call terms – dying at the end of their tenth “term,” and those who survive until their natural death (or “homecoming”) are held up on a pedestal and honoured for their devotion. The storyline itself follows a group of soldiers (all within their last few terms,) who are suddenly turned into Ouroboros and exiled from the rest of society. To survive, they must work alongside their former enemies and discover what their newfound powers mean for the world at large. I don’t want to dig too deeply into the rest of the plot, but I will tell you that its central themes of individuality, fighting the status quo held up by those who benefit from it and the concept of life itself make for a truly compelling experience.
Immediately these concepts fascinated me, as did the fact that these people simply never seem to question the way of the world. Bit by bit, you grow to realise how little these child soldiers truly understand about the realities of being human, and part of the journey is watching them grow in maturity and learn the concepts we all take for granted. From the very beginning, you are immersed in the world through excellently crafted cutscenes and environmental storytelling. Monolith have honed their writing not only in terms of what they tell the player but how they show it in the world itself. It’s all too common for a developer to write tons of lore and background for their setting and then nestle it into a menu, but in XC3 they convey this through ambient dialogue, quests and world design.
The central plot is, at its heart, a classic coming-of-age tale wrapped up in a sci-fantasy setting with more than a smidge of anime-like trappings. It’s much more than the sum of its parts though, as it confidently leads the player through a wide range of emotions. There are plenty of dark segments and times of real despair and darkness, but these are masterfully contrasted with smaller moments of joviality and relationship building. The sheer number of times I was left open-mouthed at a twist or holding back tears is not to be understated, yet even in the darkest of moments, XC3 finds a way to lend you a sense of overall hope.
On internal party relationships, many players will be glad to hear that they’ve ripped out the heart-to-hearts from previous series entries and replaced them with meaningful, plot-relevant discussions and interactions that occur naturally through play. By the end, you truly feel like you know the main ensemble of six inside and out, and can see how they have changed thanks to the people around them. I became truly invested in the lives, histories, strengths, weaknesses and motivations of each of the six playable characters and actively wanted them to succeed on a personal level. As an example, the journey of Noah and Mio contains a lot of discussion of their army careers as Off-seers – those who guide the souls of the fallen to rest – and what that means to them following their defection. It’s not a discussion that is constantly hammered, but whenever it’s brought up you can see how they slowly influence one another and grow as a pair. Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 does a phenomenal job of drawing you in and keeping you invested, and did so for me in a way that no other game has done since FFX.
Like in previous titles, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 combat revolves around the use of roles, auto-attacks and Arts. Your characters attack targeted enemies on their own whenever you stand still, and in doing so charge up six bigger, customisable abilities called Arts. These naturally recharge throughout the battle and offer more powerful and strategic options mid-fight, such as increasing the aggro on a character or reducing the enemy’s stats. You can then release them on an opponent, with an option to cancel into them from an auto-attack to increase effectiveness. Each character class also has a distinct role – attacker, defender and healer. Attackers can do a ton of damage through gaining positional bonuses and crit-boosting abilities; defenders can pull aggro away from other roles and keep themselves protected; and healers can heal, revive and buff the party. Fulfilling your role charges your special, or talent art, which can then be unleashed to great effect. You only directly control one character at a time, but I found that the AI did well enough controlling the other 5/6 characters and using their arts effectively. As the player, you can always do a better job, so thankfully you can now change who you are controlling mid-battle, allowing for more finesse where needed.
From early in the game your party gains the ability to fuse certain characters into a crystalline Megazord-like form for a short period with different arts and abilities, and by doing fusion attacks (using two arts at once) outside of this form you can improve how effective they are. Using these was a highlight to me, as each form is as well designed as they are powerful. For the most part, these forms are accessible at will, and thankfully they never stop feeling special.
There’s also a chain-attack system which, once charged, gives you a chance to use arts over and over without any recharge. I loved these, as they pause the action temporarily and give you a chance to evaluate what’s happening and build combos to deal ridiculous amounts of damage.
There are also two arts combos which can be built during battle if your party have the right abilities – Smash and Burst. Returning from previous entries, these are built upon the premise of breaking, then toppling the enemy, giving you a brief window of increased effectiveness, dealing improved damage, temporarily stunning the enemy or increasing the number of enemy drops. Whilst in previous entries I found myself struggling to pull them off, the improved AI and class/arts systems make them more accessible than ever and I ended up building my party around their ability to pull them off.
The final, and arguably most important element of combat is the class system with in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. As you earn exp and cp your characters become better at their jobs and eventually can switch into the classes of their allies. Your first three arts are always tied to your current class, but gaining levels in others unlock certain skills and arts which can be assigned to the three “master arts” and “master skills” slots, allowing for a deep level of character customisation. Whilst I would never advocate for straying too far from the roles, this does allow for a degree of hybridisation – such as adding a heal to a defender. With over twenty classes there is a lot of scope for playing around with how each works, and one of my favourite aspects was how I could tweak the party to my taste. All in all, the central combat of XC3 shows a clear refinement of the systems seen previously, brings some new and fresh ideas to the table and comes together to make a vastly satisfying and rewarding experience that goes beyond any other class-based JRPG system I’ve played with before. Once you’ve grasped the web of inter-connected systems you find a sense of fluidity and flow to it which keeps it both engaging and compelling throughout. Don’t let the auto-attacking and almost MMO-like look of it fool you – there is plenty for the player to do during fights and a surprising amount of strategy to it.
If this all sounds a little overwhelming – and I can imagine it will – thankfully how all of this is introduced is far better than in previous titles. A big criticism I’ve seen on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is how long the initial tutorial section is – around 15 hours – but in all honesty, I’m glad that the systems were drip-fed over such a long period. By the time you gain access to a new element, you will have mastered what came before, meaning that it never feels like you’ve had a wall of mechanical text dropped on you. If you ever do feel like that, there’s a training section in the menu which gives you short, focused battles teaching each element practically alongside smaller text tips. I only felt like I needed to dip into these a couple of times – such as when they introduced ouroboros chains and I got confused on how to pull them off – but somehow the complexity of the overall combat system is masterfully taught and eventually comes together into a glorious weave.
In many JRPGs you can find yourself, despite having a pressing narrative hanging over you, running around doing busywork for random strangers. “Yes, I know that the evil wizard is trying to turn all the children into ducks, but I really need you to go and fetch me some milk and eggs for my breakfast pancakes!” Thankfully, the vast majority of Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s side quests feel complementary to the main plot and have their own urgency. Yes, none of the quests are time-sensitive in a mechanical sense and I am not aware of any being missable, but the majority feel like they are as valid, meaningful and important as the main questline. As an example, relatively early on you encounter a colony freed from its flame clock (partially thanks to the actions of the party,) having to survive for the first time without the support of the castle. They have next to no resources, can’t rely on hunting enough to feed their people and (thanks to the very limited and purely combat-focused training they receive,) have no idea how to cultivate the land and grow their own food. In addition, many members of the colony have no sense of purpose without being forced to wage war, leading to an internal power struggle. Granted, these issues are small in comparison to a world-affecting plot, but their plight is shown to be significant. You COULD walk away and continue the main story, but the party have strong motivations to help – after all, the value of individual lives is a central theme to the game. The majority of quests are linked to one colony or another, and in doing so you’re compelled to assist. It also helps that the side content feels almost as fleshed out as the main quests, keeping the repetitive “go here, kill that, fetch these” busywork to a bare minimum and instead giving you interesting and unique tasks to accomplish. A favourite of mine comes late in the game linked to a hero character – an additional party member from whom you can learn a new class – as you help them to recall their lost memories and fulfil the wishes of an old friend.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of “fetch quests” in XC3, but they’re handled through the collectopedia system – originally designed to allow different colonies to pool resources. Travelling throughout the world you will pick up a lot of items, many of which are desired by somebody. Thankfully, once you’ve engaged with a character you may start to see requests coming in from them in the collectopedia, and once you’ve collected what they need you can simply send it over without returning to them. It’s unobtrusive and non-essential, but handing items over in this way can reward you with powerful new items, experience and colony affinity. The fact that this is all handled in the background is a stroke of genius, as it gives you a reason to collect endless amounts of junk without ever forcing you to backtrack.
For those who might miss the heart-to-heart conversations, there is also a dialogue system in place for use at the various camps scattered around Aionios (…and as a side note, they’re all available for fast-travel alongside a myriad of other fast-travel locations. Backtracking across vast distances really isn’t a thing in this game.) once you’ve overheard certain ambient conversations during your travels. In these moments, your party discusses what they’ve encountered and you get a chance to explore their budding friendships more deeply. Occasionally, these even lead to side-quests of their own, so I would highly recommend taking the time to camp out with your buds. These moments of downtime remind me heavily of Final Fantasy XV, as you can also build items together, cook food together and even clean your constantly-dirtying clothes.
Visually, Aionios is a stunning place to explore, filled with beautiful, almost-alien landscapes to discover and a wide variety of wildlife. It’s truly a massive game and one which feels like it wants to be explored. Whilst you can’t just walk off in any direction at will you do find yourself looking over vistas and realising that you’ve travelled over most of the world you can see. It’s all interconnected and feels like a truly living, breathing world full of varied environments and wonderous sights. Characters are well designed too, with a slightly cute anime aesthetic that both contrasts and complements the world as a whole. It clearly draws more from XC2 than the other titles in the series, but also manages to bring elements from the first game into this look without them feeling out of place. Personally, I’d say it does a great job of merging Xenoblade’s various worlds together.
The audio design of XC3 is generally fantastic, with flawless voice-acting throughout and a wide variety of epic background tracks on offer to complement the overall feel of the title. Some may take issue with the classically Xenoblade dialects on offer and the Welsh cat-girls, but I loved seeing so many accents represented in such a well-executed manner. My only quibble is with the seeming lack of variety in incidental dialogue, as each scenario only seems to have one or two lines which end up repeating to an annoying degree. It’s very memeable, with Eunie’s “Hear that Noah? Lanz wants something a bit meatier,” and Sena’s “I’m the girl with the gall!” repeating after every other battle. At this point, it almost feels like Monolith Soft made a conscious choice to have so few options, especially considering how many other voiced lines there are in cutscenes and quests, but I suppose it gives me at least one negative thing to say about the game!
The only other negative I have to share is the overall graphical performance of the game. For a Nintendo Switch game, it looks absolutely stunning, but unfortunately if you look too closely you will notice a lot of blurred edges and a varying resolution. This isn’t as much of an issue in handheld, but on a large 4k TV it becomes pretty obvious. Thankfully, the overall aesthetic does a lot to remedy this, but I can’t help but wonder how much more beautiful it would look on more powerful hardware. I won’t be taking this into account for my score though, as honestly I feel like the developers did everything they possibly could to improve this issue and at the end of the day it isn’t the game’s fault that it’s exclusive to outdated hardware.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an absolutely fantastic experience and with the Xenoblade chronicles 3 expansion pass there will be more to come. Granted, there are a few small issues in its execution, but in the scheme of things these problems simply melt away. Aionios is a vast land, and to fully complete everything I would guess you’d be looking at upwards of 180 hours of total playtime, so the value on offer here is immense. Thankfully, unlike some games with inflated run-times, XC3 is a joy to play from start to end, with enough depth to the gameplay to stay fresh and enough narrative oomph to compel any player to see it through. Plus if you are struggling there are plenty of Xenoblade chronicles 3 walkthroughs to dive into.
At the start of this review, I mentioned the legendary Final Fantasy X and its epic journey with friends through a world steeped in deep melancholy. I love that game not for its combat, but for the overall feel of travelling through a broken world bringing specks of light to the people and offering them hope. I get that same feeling playing Xenoblade 3, seeing how people are affected by their lot in life and being able to help them to improve it. Like FFX it’s a truly phenomenal journey to change the world in which you grow to love your merry band of misfits. You see them grow, you face ridiculous odds with them and encounter perspective-shattering revelations time after time until you can finally bring them peace. By the time the credits roll to a satisfying conclusion, you feel like you’ve known them forever and don’t want to let your time with them end. To me, Xenoblade 3 is everything a JRPG should be and more, and I can easily say that it sits up there as my (joint, if only due to nostalgia,) favourite of all time.
Developer: Monolith Soft
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Publishers: Nintendo, Nintendo of America Inc.
Grab your copy here https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Xenoblade-Chronicles-3-2168340.html#Overview
Enjoy the review? want to read more of our reviews? then click right here to be whisked away to the realm of our opinions.
You must be logged in to post a comment.