It’s probably worth stating that this is the first time I’ve put my hands on the mythical Xenoblade, hence the ‘beginner’s’ tag in the header. And it’s not hard to see why the series has garnered a considerable following alongside critical acclaim, it nails the soap-opera like elements of classic JRPG stories in addition to creating a world that is as awe-inspiring as it is mysterious and strange.

Here two warring nations, Keves and Agnus, are fighting an endless war looking to steal each other’s life essences to power up a Flame Clock. Everyone is born into service, where a life is measured in ‘terms’ or military service versus years. No one grows old, they simply ‘expire’ right when they’re all DTF and are then sacrificed for some reason or another. The greater good and all that. It’s baffling and cool in equal measure.


Xenoblade Chronicles began with a tale of heroes, fate, and fluffy little Nopon creatures back on the Wii in 2010 (it was recently remastered for the Switch). As depicted by the numerical value in the title, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the third game in the popular RPG series, and we’re weeks away from Monolith Soft and Nintendo delivering what fans are no doubt expecting to be an epic third installment. This hands-on preview covers the first big chunk of the experience, specifically the first Chapter of its story, and it’s safe to say it’s going to live up to the hype.

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... it nails the soap-opera like elements of classic JRPG stories in addition to creating a world that is as awe-inspiring as it is mysterious and strange.

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And we say epic on the account of it not taking too long for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 to deliver the goods and hook you in terms of story, spectacle, and mysterious mysteries involving the sort of threat where ‘once mortal enemies’ need to drop their oversized swords and band together. To take on a new threat clad in shiny, angular, and admittedly very cool looking armour; glowing eyes and increased physical stature included. Fight choreography and even the cinematography in the cinematics are all wonderful, well realised, and backed by a great soundtrack.


Like with Final Fantasy and other JRPG franchises we’ve seen over the decades, you don’t need to have played the first two games to jump in. And with that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is quite generous in slowly doling out the complexities of its real-time battle-system. Which begins with standing next to enemies and watching your character auto-attack, through to taking direct control and chaining Arts, combos, and looking at changing classes and playstyles for different bonuses a few hours later.

The story, as it is, is connected to the first two Xenoblade outings, with Monolith Soft hinting that it will bring all three together in some way. Even so, the setting, main protagonists, and immediate narrative are all new. As with most writing in the JRPG space, there’s a spiritual undertone and a matter of fact presentation that isn’t all that interested in explaining the scientific ‘why’ even though there’s a big sci-fi element. Here, at least in the first half-dozen or so hours, it’s character-driven, with motives and backstories laid bare. There are archetypes aplenty, but it’s all classical and grandiose in the way an single-player RPG should be.


Xenoblade Chronicles 3, like the first two outings, features anime-inspired visuals, with clean-cut big-eyed character designs and no real indication of gender until you hear pronouns and voices. Speaking of voices, and this is an initially strange one, all of the characters feature British accents of the “cor blimey” variety. Loud, brash, subtle, and gruff gulps of Earl Grey everywhere you look. Outside of some heavily repeated post-battle chatter it’s charming to a fault, and adds quite a bit of character to what is a very distinct world and place.

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Fight choreography and even the cinematography in the cinematics are all wonderful, well realised, and backed by a great soundtrack.

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On that front, even though this is running on the now aged Nintendo Switch hardware the open-world environments feature impressive scale and scope, not to mention some impressive art direction when it comes to man-made structures, ruins, and giant swords wedged into the surface Excalibur-style. Except it would require nothing less than a giant God-sized Arthur to extract.


When it comes to the combat, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 offers up real-time party-based battles that carry the torch from the turn-based days of old with strategy placed front-and-centre. Every character auto-attacks at a regular clip, but with that charged up Art Combos and Talent Arts act as special attacks and abilities to trigger. For a straight up DPS dealer this might require moving to the side or behind an enemy to deliver a critical strike, or having a defensive character throw down some an AoE next to a big-bad, a shield buff, and then using a strike or two to take aggro so Healers and Attackers can do their thing.

Pacing-wise it’s a little glacial, in that even small encounters can drag on longer than you’d expect fighting a small bunny creature would take. Still, it feels great for the most part and with the option to skip most open-world encounters with monsters and smaller creatures it doesn’t get too grindy. XP and bonus XP is doled out generously. As we’re talking about a big epic JRPG where even at the 10-hour mark you still feel like you’re only scratching the combat and story surface, the beauty of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that the initial hump is fairly minor and the story progresses in such a way that episodic chunks are all meaningful and impactful.


Even though there are side quests and things to discover out in the world tied to the narrative there is a bit of a disconnect between the setting and running over glowing collectibles to add all manner of silly things into your inventory like ‘Chewy Radish’, ‘Paste Bean’, ‘Purple-Ring Pine’ and dozens more. Some of which you can sell, others you need to fulfil work orders and shopping lists for others seemingly too lazy to walk a few metres outside of base-camp. And when you throw in the appearance of cute Nopon creatures, one of which follows you around and adds cutesy commentary (albeit in a deep British accent), the nonsensical notes that make up the traditional JRPG buffet can be found everywhere you look.

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Pacing-wise it’s a little glacial, in that even small encounters can drag on longer than you’d expect fighting a small bunny creature would take. Still, it feels great for the most part and with the option to skip most open-world encounters with monsters and smaller creatures it doesn’t get too grindy.

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In the end though, even after playing through a small portion of what is destined to be a much larger tale (things really kick into gear by the end of Chapter One), Xenoblade Chronicles 3 already has all of the hallmarks of a memorable experience. One where the time invested feels well-spent thanks to the lack of any sort of pacing issues. And it has that rewarding quality a great story can bring, where you begin to feel for the cast and the stakes as they slowly become clear. With its robust real-time combat system that offers up challenge and time to breathe in equal measure, not to mention performance and presentation that is slick and polished for a Nintendo Switch release, this has got ‘epic’ written all over it.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out July 29 for the Nintendo Switch.