'Xenoblade Chronicles 3' is just spectacular: review
There’s a unique commentary behind "Xenoblade Chronicles 3," and it grabs you from the very start. In the world of Aionios, soldiers are bred to be killed, and they live preset, finite lives. And when they do die, their deaths serve a purpose: Their souls power the machines driving the war on their respective sides.
"Xenoblade" lays all this out for you from the very start, setting the stage in full-on JRPG fashion, with a series of cutscenes. You see firsthand what the world is like, and you see how the entire lead party was bred for war, see them facing off against each other in a flashback scene. And you know all of this by the time you’re working through battles that you can actually control.
It’s this instantly captivating narrative that powers "Xenoblade Chronicles 3," the new Nintendo Switch game and the third title in the "Xenoblade" franchise. The latest "Xenoblade" does plenty of good things, delivering terrific visuals and voice acting and a deep combat system, too, but it’s the thrilling story that hooks you and holds you. It’s a seeming message about war, perhaps about how society today uses the deaths of fallen soldiers too — and how to stop the cycle.
And it’s a story you can’t avoid. The 45 minutes or so has you sitting back and learning about this story in cutscenes, with little snippets of early battle system tutorial laced in. And by the time that’s done, you fully understand the premise of the game. You’re introduced to Noah and Mio, the respective “off-seers” of their squads, both of which are on different sides of the war. Both play a unique role: “sending” off the souls of the dead on the battlefield by playing their flutes.
"Xenoblade" has no intention of running from weighty topics, either. Your party of six (three characters from each faction) grapples with the fact that their tools of war, and each character sees the life of war from a unique perspective. They’ll share throughout, giving you constant food for thought.
It’s all that much more engaging because of how well the world holds together. Visually, "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" is an absolute feast, a detailed and vibrant world that balances brightly colored backdrops with well-drawn characters. You’ll travel from grassy plains to mechanical cities to canyons in a title that delivers a variety of landscapes throughout its massive runtime. It delivers all of this fluidly on the Nintendo Switch; I never ran into any framerate hitches at all. The game gets the little things right as well; you’re never fighting the camera, always focused on the mechanics of battle.
You’ll fight a variety of different baddies too, many of whom are large and powerful. "Xenoblade" loves throwing large mech-style enemies at you, too. If there’s an issue with the game, though, it’s that the battling system takes awhile to get going. Early on, battles are simply a blend of auto-attacking and spamming art attacks whenever you can, and there’s little penalty for a complete lack of tactics.
But that changes as you play. Eventually, you’ll be able to switch the classes of everyone in your party, and things get truly fun once you unlock the Ouroboros mechanic, which lets you combine any two soldiers into a mech. Suddenly, the tactics of the game graduate to new heights, as you combine soldiers to gain attacking power, or to protect near-death party members. As the game wears on, combat grows increasingly fun and engaging, especially as "Xenoblade" ramps up the overall challenges you face.
In the end, it winds up being the perfect complement to that absolutely spectacular story, and just another part of "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" that forces your mind to be completely engaged. From the deep combat to the thought-provoking tale to the development of terrific character relationships throughout, "Xenoblade Chronicles 3" is a game that wants you to think.
It’s, quite simply, one of the best titles on the Nintendo Switch, and one of the top role-playing games of 2022.
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'XENOBLADE CHRONICLES 3'
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch OLED
5 out of 5 stars
