Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Review (Switch)

The third major installment in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, not counting “X” which was launched on Wii U only, takes place in the world of Aionios, with two warring factions – Keves and Agnus, battling for supremacy.

Despite the fact that they share the same name, Xenoblade Chronicles, they don’t have anything in common story-wise. Their universes are interconnected, but each Xenoblade Chronicles game tells its own story within the flow of a larger time and space.

One major thing that all Xenoblade Chronicles game shares is the real-time action-based battle system, which focuses on positioning your character to inflict various statuses and debuffs to the enemy. However, since the original game was launched back in 2010, the battle system has evolved to become a unique and solid mechanic that players can experiment with to their hearts desire.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 iterates upon every system and mechanic in the series and does it with style. If you’ve played any of the previous titles, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the amount of upgrades and the variety of new mechanics the latest entry in the series comes up with.

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Still, what Xenoblade Chronicles 3 does better than any of the other games in the series, in fact, I’d say most of JRPGs, is to completely remove the need for grind. More importantly, 99% of the side missions in the game make perfect sense and aren’t just the usual “fetch missions” that we all know and hate in equal measure.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 tells the story Noah, Eunie, Lanz, Mio, Taion and Sena, as they become super-powerful beings called Ouroboros. Despite the fact that they come from the two different nations warring across Aionios, they team up to prevent a common enemy from maintaining the status quo of the world.

The fine folks at Monolith Soft have come up with an incredibly interesting plot where every member of the two factions, Keves and Agnus, is born to fight and only lives for 10 years. Each nation is split in colonies that fight for a higher ranking that would guarantee them better resources from the capital.

Although this colonies are typically led by a commander chosen from the ranks of either Keves or Agnus soldiers, they are in fact ruled by a Consul, which have the ability to transform into lifeforms similar to Ouroboros, called Moebius.

Throughout their journey, our six heroes will meet a slew of interesting characters, which will help them in the fight against Moebius. Most of them can be recruited to your cause by completing their respective missions. Getting to know these heroes before they join your team, learning about their strengths and weaknesses, makes a huge difference. Ultimately, you’ll start caring about everyone in your team, not just about the main characters.

Adding an extra character to the party is very important because you’ll basically have a party of seven all the time. Unlike in the previous games, you can actually control and play with whichever character you want, but some missions require that you have a certain hero in your party.

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Although all characters automatically attack the enemy, it’s up to you to use their so-called Arts, which special abilities that can inflict various statuses and debuffs. Most of them require certain positioning like attacking from the front, side or back to inflict those statutes, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use them from whichever position you want. The main goal of using these Arts is to temporarily stun the enemy by successfully finishing a Break / Topple / Daze combo.

Another important combat mechanic is canceling attacks and Arts, which will replenish the Chain Attack gauge faster. Also, with the right equipment, you’ll be dealing more damage when canceling attacks and Arts, or even inflict statuses on the enemy.

What’s great about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that each chapter you’re introduced with new mechanics to keep you interested in the battle and upgrade systems. You get new stuff up until the last chapter of the game, so nowhere during the game you’ll feel that it’s a chore to get to the end, even though this is a pretty massive game.

Although I finished the game in about 80 hours, I took my time to finish all the hero quests and improve relationship with the colonies. Even so, I’m pretty sure that there were still things to explore that I didn’t find, but I reached a point in the game where I really wanted to know where the folks at Monolith Soft are going with this story-wise.

Speaking of which, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 starts a bit slow, but immediately ramps up the stakes from chapter 3 (out of a total of seven) going forward. Every subsequent piece of the plot will start to make sense once you reach a certain part in the game, but nothing will prepare you for the ending.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has some very dark, heavy moments that I’ve never experienced in a JRPG. It’s one of the few games that literally broke me, and not just once, multiple times (and I’m not an easy to impress person). Also, don’t skip the post-credits scene, it will all make even more sense after watching the ending.

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The Good

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