I’m a bit baffled by Xenoblade Chronicles 3. What’s set to be a climax for a trilogy that started off so spectacularly with the 2010 original – and following on from the stuttering start of creator Tetsuya Takahashi’s infamously stunted Xenosaga series – this JRPG epic has an awfully slow start all of its own. The dozen hour mark is fast creeping up and the training wheels remain firmly in place, while perhaps more frustratingly so too are embargo restrictions that mean I can’t tell you much about the really interesting stuff.
Still, I can tell you some of the pertinent stuff. If you’re a returning fan, know this: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 takes the best bits of the preceding games, folding in a fascinating evolution of Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s broad and brilliant combat, the more defined fantasy of the original (and ditching some of the more embarrassing anime excesses) and some of the more open-ended elements of Xenoblade Chronicles X (though sadly I can’t really go into any detail on them just yet).
Xenoblade Chronicles 3Publisher: NintendoDeveloper: Monolift SoftPlatform: Played on SwitchAvailability: Out July 29 on Switch
Perhaps most importantly, it’s technically far more impressive than the clearly compromised Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That was a launch year title for the Switch way back at the tail-end of 2017, of course, and in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 you can feel the five years of progress and familiarity that Monolith Soft have built up with the hardware – this looks simply sublime playing either handheld or docked, with the impossible vistas of the world of Aionios stretching to the distance (it bodes well for Breath of the Wild 2, too, with Monolith Soft’s epic topography so key to the success of Zelda’s open world outings). It’s seriously impressive stuff, and Digital Foundry will have a deeper dive on the details closer to launch.
For newcomers to the series, too, it’s worth noting this is effectively another standalone entry, and if indeed the various strands of the Xenoblade Chronicles storylines do come together it’s likely it won’t be until much later in the game as more of a payoff to those who’ve stuck around than an essential beat. You don’t need any prior knowledge or experience of the series; indeed, the way the opening chapters are structured seems like this is leaning towards embracing players who’ve never encountered a Xenoblade Chronicles game before.
Which can make those opening hours a bit of a slog if you’ve ever played a Xenoblade Chronicles game before. Or if you’ve ever played an RPG before, for that matter – I’m not sure I needed an in-depth tutorial on how to equip an item, but then again I’ve been playing games like this for far too long and should stop whining and appreciate the need for approachability. It can sap some of the momentum of the opening, though, with familiar systems being slowly drip-fed in over the first half-dozen hours.