Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the last installment on the Xenoblade Chronicles series so far, a franchise which didn´t have the best begining, having poor sales since its first game on the Wii. Finally, after many tries, this franchise has been recieving some love from Nintendo and its users, I have the feeling that this will be the best-selling Xeno game in history, but we´ll have to wait for that.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the darkest and most depressing Xenoblade game that I´ve ever played, haven´t played Xenoblade Chronicles X yet sadly, but I highly doubt that game reaches these leves of sadness on its narrative. Anyways, keep in mind that this is a game with adult themes, from everything I´ve played this year, this is probably my GOTY so far. Let´s begin from the begining, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 serves as direct sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but you don´t have to play said games to actually enjoy the experience, obviously, it´s better if you do it, but not necessary.
This time, the world of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is called Aionios, a world where two factions coexist, these being Keves and Agnus: Keves is a faction where technology predominates, let´s say they have that technology advantage; in the other hand, we have Agnus, a nation which is not too much into the technology, instead they use Ether to their advantage, thing that Keves doesn´t have. These two nations are in an endless war which they can´t escape.
The people from Aionios since their birth are trained to fight until their death, they don´t know anything more than war and kill other people in order to survive; they are allowed to live 10 years only -called terms in the game- since their birth, once they got to their tenth year, they are able to see their ¨Homecoming¨, a celebraion for them to get to their tenth year, once in the Homecoming, they die and well, let´s say the vital enery you had is sent to the Queen from her respective nation, so, once you die, you return to your Queen, in order to give her more energy.
This might sound a little fucked up and more if you take into account that they are actually children, but, the Homecoming, as I mentioned before, it´s something like a celebration to them, to actually die by your tenth year and being sent to your Queen it´s the the highest honor you´ll get in Aionios, well, that if you get to live thaat long, they are on a constant war, killing each other is their day-to-day, so most probably, not too many people reaches that goal, in other words, most people aren´t allowed to even live 10 years.
In Aionios, every person gets to live in their respective Colony, for example, a part of the protagonists live in Colony 9, they don´t live in houses or something like that, just a Colony full of soldiers. Every Colony has something called the Flame Clock, this Flame Clock is fed by the vital energy of the fallen enemies on battle, for example, if you are a Keves soldier, your Flame Clock will be filled by the vital energy of Agnus soldiers and viceversa, what if the Flame Clock isn´t filled? Well, the soldiers from their respective Colonye die, as simple as that, even if they didn´t want to fight, they have to do it.
The protagonist of this story is Noah, a Keves soldier which is an Off Seer, he has the duty to play the flute at the end of every battle, the song help the fallen ones to rest in peace, every colony has an Off Seer and it´s something of like a tradition to send off the dead. Besides Noah, there are Lanz and Eunie, Keves soldiers as well Noah´s best friends, these three people will meet Mio (she is an Off Seer too), Taion and Sena, Agnus soldiers. I won´t say why they are actually together, but let´s say they have to join forces in order to stop the system.
The combat system of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a thing, to me, the best combat system in the whole franchise, let´s get deeper to that. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is something like an Action RPG, which means we won´t be tied to a turn-based combat system, we´ll we able to move in the battle field as we are fighting. Characters have an automatic attack which is executed by doing nothing at all, the characters they´ll do that attack by theirselves, though, don´t think that automatic attack does too much damage, because it doesn´t, the thing on the battlefield is using the Arts.
Every character has their own Arts, they´ll be filled from time-to-time until we can select them, if you are a Keves soldier, the Arts will be charged little by little automatically, in the other hand, if you are an Agnus soldier, the Art will be charged by every little automatic attack the character does to the enemy.
At the moment of using Arts, the position in where the character does the hit to the enemy is important, I mean, some Arts inflict more damage if we attack the enemy from behind or maybe if we hit on the sides, the position when we do the attack is important, some arts can do buff or debuffs only if we are on the correct position agains´t the enemy. In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, we can see the position with accuracy thanks to the little arrow that´s in on the HUD, that arrow will tell you if you are behind, or in the sides of the enemy, or maybe in the front.
When in the battlefield, you have to take into account many elements, you can even block attacks in this game, but for me, one of the most important mechanics are the combos, there are like two combos I think, and basically, these combos are useful to stun the enemy, break their position, or launching them in the air, also smashing which can do a lot of damage or maybe burst, this is realized thanks to the Arts, some Arts make the function of Break, or Launching, or Smashing, well, I think you get the idea, more or less. There are paths to these combos, for example: If you do the following path ¨Break>Topple>Launch>Smash¨, you´ll be making a combo which can Smash the enemy, it´s up to you if you want to do the whole path or if you don´t want to do that in the first place.
Truth is, the combat system in this game is pretty deep and extended, even so, it´s easier to understand it, more than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, still...don´t get me wrong, I´m not finished yet, let´s talk about classes. Every character has it´s own class, Noah is an Attacker, Lanz is a Deffender, Eunie is a Healer, the same way, Mio is a Defender, Sena an attacker and Taion is a Support as well, I don´t think no one knows about these terms, basically if you play any MOBA or RPG, they are pretty known if you are a person who plays often.
You can rank up every class, meaning the classes can level up as well, when you level up a class to its max level you learn a new skill from it, the most interesting thing is that classes can be changed from character-to-character, I mean, if Noah is an Attacker, he can aqcuire the Deffender class as well, this happens with every character of the game, so there is maybe too big variety, you can play as the class that you like the most, this is optional of course, if you don´t want to do it, it´s up to you, but it´s way better if you do it, the variety of options is insane, this way you can learn skills that normally you won´t be able to learn them in your own class.
New skills are shown on the left of the HUD, you can change them anytime you want, when it´s time to fight, just use the respective button to use the Art, if it´s an Agnus Art, it will charge by the automatic attacks you do, doesn´t matter if you are a Keves soldier and viceversa. Not only you can use them, but also mixing them with your own Arts pressing ZR, this way they´ll do more damage and they´ll charge our Ouroboros bar, which is the Interlink on the left.
The Ouroboros skill is something like a technique where two users fuse themselves, in body and mind, if we were to fuse by the Ouroboros thing, I´ll be able to see your thoughts, traumas and feelings, your being is ¨naked¨ to the other person and viceversa, when you do the Ouroboros thing, you´ll become in a weird creature which can do a lot of damage, why you ask? Can´t tell you that, play the game and you´ll know. Anyway, every character has its own Ouroboros, and every Ouroboro has its own skill tree which you can ¨level up¨ too by points you get at the end of the battle.
The Ouroboros form can be used only for a short ammount of time, so better use it as an emergency or something like that, when you become a Ouroboros, the debuffs you get or have, they´ll affect you once your Ouroboros form ends. Also, there is a level in which you can active the Ouroboros, I mean, level 3 is the maximum, when you are on level 3 you can do things like Break your enemies.
The Ouroboros bar is not the only one is going to be filled through the battles, there´s this mechanic called Chain Attack which is used in every Xenoblade game I think, I´m not sure if in Xenoblade Chronicles X there´s a Chain Attack mechanic, but in Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2 and 3 there is one, and I thank the gods that the Chain Attack isn´t as hard to understand as in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which was way complicated to fully understand. First thing firsts, the Chain Attack bar is localized to the right on the HUD, it´ll be filled little by little by every attack we do, until it´s fully filled, press the + button to start the Chain Attack.
Once we are in the Chain Attack, a short amount of cards will be shown, we can choose any card we want, said cards will have a short description on its effects, it´s not as complicated as it sounds, trust me, just choose the card that is more of your liking, depending of the situation of the battle.
When we choose the card, all of the characters will do a single attack, the characters we´ll be controled by us, think of it as a turn-based combat scenario, we won´t be able to move through the combat, it will be like time is stopped. We have to use attacks until certain bar is filled at 100%, not doing so, the Chain Attack will be canceled, you can do more than 100%, I recommend to try a combo to stun an enemie so the damage will increase, for example using the path ¨Break>Topple>Launch>Smash¨, just with Topple is enough I think. As a side note, Healers won´t be able to fully reach 100%, they´ll get stucked at 99%, I recommend using two healers reaching 99% in order to do more attacks, then using an Attackers or any class you want to increase the bar.
Once the 100% bar is filled, the character which is stucked with the card we choose, they´ll release an attack with enough power to damage the enemy, that´s it, that´s whe whole chain attack, of course, this process can be repeated depending of our performance on the Chain Attack, the better you play on the mechanic, the more tries you´ll have to use it. We can use Ouroboros in Chain Attacks as well, it´s the same principle, just with Ouroboros.
In order to increase our stats as much as we can, we can use complements, as the word says, they are complements to increase our stats, they are something like the accessories you´ll find in your every JRPG game. You can use special gems to increasing stats too, you can craft them by yourself thorugh enough materials you´ll find in the game. If you use the Attacker class, you´ll have to use Attacker gems (if you want) but if you are Deffender, well, maybe it´s better to use Deffender gems, as you can see, there are a lot of possibilities.
As I said, gems can be crafted, but only in camps, these camps will be like our safe place if you get my meaning, you can talk with our mates, washing your clothes and in this case, you can craft gems. In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the experience you´ll get by exploring zones or completing side quest, can be used in camps only, meaning, you are able to level up defeating monsters or enemies, but all of the additional experience is only used in camps, so it´s important find them, it´s not that hard to do so, they are everywhere.
Now that we are talking about camps, I think it´s cool enough to talk about the whole Aionios, it was confirmed a time ago that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has a huge world, 5 times larger than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and that´s a lot, thing that I can confirm, this world is just as big as someone would expect, since the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise it´s known by it´s massive worlds, for example, Xenoblade Chronicles X world map is a bit larger than The legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild world map, not even jokking about this, even bigger than The Witcher 3 or Skyrim.
No matter how big your world is, if it´s not fun to explore, why bother? Well, as I expected, Aionis is great to explore, is fun and getting lost on it is amazing, I genuinely enjoyed exploring Aionios world, I mean, every Xenoblade Chronicles game is fun to explore and I´m glad this third installment is fun to explore as well. There´s always a secret area, monsters to find out or side quests to complete which are actually interesting, there´s always something to do in the game.
Through Aionios, you will be able to interact with other colonies, even free them from the Flame Clock so they won´t have a need to fight anymore, without Flame Clock there is no need to even fight. Not everything is that good, when you were slaved by the Flame Clock, you didn´t need to worry about food that much since the Consul (the one in charge of certain Colony) brought the food and the materials to fight, but, there is no more Flame Clock, so no more Consul and no more support, no more food, no more material, they get freedom but at the cost of no help.
When you free a whole Colony, you are able to interact with other people, you can get side quests from them, completing them will increase your affinity with the Colony, the more affinity you have, the more trust people will have in you -just in colonies-.
There are certain ways to increase your affinity with a Colony, as I said, you can just talk to other people, completing side quests or bring eternal rest to the fallen enemies on the battlefield. Whenever you see a corpse in the game, it´s recommended to play a song with the flute, so they can rest in peace, doing so will increase your affinity with colonies. Yes, being an Off Seer it´s not only on the name, it´s a mechanic.
Side quests on Xenoblade Chronicles has always been a curious thing, in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 side quests are pretty boring not gonna lie, there are some others which are ¨interesting¨, but nothing remarkable you know, same thing happens with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, only, certain missions are actually to do and really interesting, expanding the story a little bit. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 doesn´t suffer this and I´m glad, sure, not every side quest is that interesting, but they are more interesting to do in this game, they actually expand the whole lore of Aionis, many of them even interacting a little bit with the main story, or interacting with other side quests, expanding characters and stuff.
Yes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has the best side quest on the main series (not counting X), you could say they preferred to do the ¨less is more¨, as there are not that many side quests as Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 did. The best side quests are actually the Hero Quests. Normally, in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 there are 6 characters always in movement, in battle, but you can add a seventh character in your party through Hero Quests. Do, their respective side quests and you´ll be able to add them in the party, you can just choose one though. Hero Quests are the one that are the most well designed.
Most of them are up to you to find, though there are a few that the story makes you to unlock them, only a few.
Last thing I´d like to to talk about is its performance on Nintendo Switch, I mean, it´s 1080p on tv mode I think, 720p on handheld mode. Xenoblade Chronicles performance on Nintendo Switch has always been complicated, the first installment, the definitve edition, looks cool but suffers from dynamic resolution, plus the game looks horrible on handheld mode, of course it looks better than the New Nintendo 3ds XL port, still looks bad, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 suffers the same, only the dynamic resolution is even worse, more in handheld mode, on tv is beautiful and cool, but handheld mode in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sucks too.
I´m glad this doesn´t happen in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I think there is not dynamic resolution, I didn´t notice something like that, the performance is amazing taking into account that there are six characters on the screen, counting seven with the Heroes. The 30fps are constant in handheld more the game looks great, stable 720p, doesn´t suffer as Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or 2.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has a great story, not sure to say if better than the first game, but they are at the same level, as I said before, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the darkest and most depressing on the franchise, it boards themes like the meaning of life, death, our purpose, even suicide sometimes, the consequences of war, and well, just touching the tip of the iceberg here.
For example, there´s this character called Mio which is one of the protagonists, Mio has reached her tenth term, in the game, she only has three months left, some of the life and death theme is put on her, having internal conflicts on her situation and wishing she could have more time, it´s actually hearthbreaking to progress on the story and to realize she has even less time.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an amazing game, really, I´d recommend it to anyone who plays JRPG´s, and this entry is actually good to start, I know the combat system might sound complicated but trust me, it´s not. The story and its themes are heartbraking and loved the adult approach this one. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a Nintendo Switch exclusive only.
All of the screenshots were taken by me while playing the game