Who doesn’t love a fully thought-out fantasy world? Xenoblade Chronicles 3 offers up a wonderfully thoughtful option, though it starts as so many tales do, with two opposing nations in conflict. Keves and Agnea are at war and it seems like it’s always been that way, but there’s one particularly unique aspect to their ongoing hostilities. The driving force behind the constant fighting is that the life force of fallen soldiers is harvested to feed the Flame Clock of the opposing nation, including its war machines and soldiers. Each Flame Clock provides energy, and without it, you collapse. Soldiers can no longer function, mechanical vehicles fall apart. The Flame Clock is everything.
The soldiers of each nation also have a limited lifespan of just ten years, with each of these troopers aiming to make it to the end of their service, at which point they’ll be released back to the universe in a Homecoming ceremony. In the case of Keves, their Queen is the one doing the welcoming, with the life essence returning to her. It’s an intriguing setup, and one that immediately captured my imagination – it’s a bit Logan’s Run, isn’t it?
Your main protagonist is Noah, an Off-seer. This musical sword-wielder plays his pipe for the fallen, releasing their life essence back into the world. He’s thoughtful and conflicted, and he’s driven by the desire to keep those around him safe. He’s also not entirely one for following the rules, with an early cutscene showing his willingness to be driven by his own moral code, piping the souls of enemy Kevesi soldiers back to the universe, despite the protestations of his comrades.
Your early party is made up of Lanz, the Defender, Mwamba, the Sharpshooter, and Eunie the Medic Gunner. They’re followed around by Riku, the instantly recognisable and surprisingly deep-voiced Nipon. Like most Nipon, he’s not interested in fighting, but he’ll certainly provide you with some guidance or a friendly/annoying word or two. This group quickly expands, drawing in another threesome from Keves, with the alternate nation’s differences emphasised by their own slightly unique gameplay mechanics.
Each class offers a range of different Arts to use in battle, and characters can become proficient in multiple classes over the course of your playthrough, giving you an array of options and Arts to choose from. That’s far from it, though. Drawing on the MMO-esque combat systems of the previous mainline games, there’s a great deal of emphasis on positioning and creating combos, and it all flows together with the kind of coherence you’d want when you’ll be spending many many hours with it.
The group’s party trick is the Ouroborous. This allows two characters to Interlink, binding them together and becoming one larger, more powerful creature that houses the two intellects. It also does some serious damage to anything that gets in its way. In the fateful battle that this initial merging happens you encounter Moebius, a viciously toothy-grinned behemoth who uses his final moments with you to turn the whole world against you, which is… unfortunate. He then returns to his shadowy brethren, opening up a host of questions that we’ve yet to answer.
While the action remains thoroughly engaging, it’s the epic storyline that will keep you playing into the sixtieth hour. During our preview time it’s clear that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is firmly set on cementing the series’ reputation amongst the top JRPG franchises. The cutscenes are more dramatic and action-packed than ever before – seriously, the edge of your seat will be well behind you as you’ll be stood, drawn in awe towards the action unfolding on the screen.
Monolith Soft has tightened up the drama to truly top-tier anime levels, with air-punching moments and soul-crushing emotional beats nestling next to each other. The series’ UK-centric voice cast are also present and correct here too, and as Eunie proudly proclaims that what another character is saying is ‘bollocks’ you can’t help but feel right at home. It’s like a night out in Croydon. Well, maybe it’s a than that.
Xenoblade has always had a penchant for pickups and Collectopaedia Cards are the new way of dealing with it. Someone places a request – generally these sound like an unhinged shopping list – and then you head out into the world to try and locate them. They might be lying around on the ground, or you might have to defeat a particular enemy type that drops them. Doing so raises your affinity with that particular area, as well as lavishing some useful rewards on you as well.
There’s so many of these glowing pickups that they do begin to distract, and detract, from the immense world that Monolith Soft has built. In the opening hours you encounter towering cliffs and deep canyons, as well as misty, mysterious forests, and they stretch off into the distance, beckoning you to explore. It’s best to be careful about that mind you, as the world is populated with enemies that are much higher level than you. While you can sallie forth into these areas and try to avoid them, if they get a hold of you, you’ll soon be heading straight back to your last save point. It’s often a lot of fun to try though.
After years of tweaking this engine, Monolith Soft has managed to avoid the obvious technical hangups that plagued Xenoblade Chronicles 2 at launch, though they’ve done so by dialling down the game’s resolution. It’s certainly a soft image that you’re presented with, but it’s not unattractive and the game’s distinctive art direction still shines through. The closeups and cutscenes don’t suffer the same fate though, and these are crunchily crisp, making sure you’re not distracted from the drama.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 already feels like another huge step for the franchise, building on the series’ open world DNA with new ideas, compelling characters and an intriguing story. I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will be out on 29th July 2022 exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
