A game I have been playing
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for the Nintendo Switch
Live to fight. Fight to live.Join Noah and Mio, members of the two opposing nations of Keves and Agnus, on a heartfelt journey through a warring world with a dark secret. Traverse massive, fantastical landscapes and master seamless real-time RPG combat as you expose the true enemy pulling the strings.
I am calling anything with the Xeno on front of it, as part of the overall series, I am not sure (or remember) how accurate that is, but these have been around since the PlayStation One days. Starting with Xenogears in the late nineties, I still have my copy somewhere in the house. don’t remember much about it other than it was a great game.
In the early 2000s on PlayStation 2, Xenosaga (I, II, and III), I also have my copies in some box somewhere. Those were fun to play, and I remember the story being slightly complicated and open for discussion and interpretation.
Now here is where I got lost in the whole thing. I think then we had Xenoblade Chronicles X, on the Wii U, which I probably purchased but never really played it. I was never a Wii U player, to be honest. Then comes Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, and this one I think was originally released on the Wii U then the Nintendo 3DS, and eventually we got this remastered version for the Nintendo Switch, which I do own and played only about an hour or two before dropping it. Next is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on the Nintendo Switch and that one I did get excited about, and once again, played for like 4 hours before dropping it. Tried once or twice to get back into it but for whatever reason, I could not get into it or had the patience.
This brings us to Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and when this game was announced I didn’t even bother to watch its announcement, trailers, or looked into it in any way. Actually, I was a little fed up with it because Nintendo was pushing this game very heavily on social media and that made me despise the game a bit. Until, release day, guess there was a little bit of FOMO.
So how is it going? Well, I am close to ten hours into it and I am not yet feeling bored or overwhelmed. In fact, I can’t seem to be able to put it down. In lieu of that, I felt like I needed a Xenoblade Universe crash course. Although I was always under the impression that these games aren’t directly connected, there seems to be some lore. Even though each game has its own set of characters and overall story, things do connect in some way. So I have spent quite the amount of time watching YouTube videos to kind of get into the Xeno-lore.
I like how the game slowly but steadily introduces you to all the mechanics, the ins and outs of the battle system, crafting items, abilities trees, etc. It doesn’t just throw all the information in one single tutorial battle at you and then you figure it out. In fact, I’d say, the first ten hours, are the tutorial, or so it did feel like. I mean I just had my first “big” battle and hopefully, there is nothing else to introduce me to as far as something else to explain game-wise.
The battle system does get some used to, or at least to me, auto-battle it’s weird to me and I believe Chronicles 1 and 2 have a very similar battle system. So you have your regular auto attacks but your greatest damage, or heavy attacks, come from arts and these have a cool-down system. Each character has its own class and arts but these can be learned and shared among all the characters and leveled up, that’s a kind of nice system.
The graphics are great, and so is the voice acting. The world of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 seems huge and a lot to explore without feeling like it’s a chore, so far. There is so much about this game and I already feel like I am rambling too much about it.
I am really having fun with this one. I read it takes about eighty hours to finish the game. So far I feel as if I was reading (or listening) to one of those fantasy/sci-fi books. I am very intrigued by the story and the main characters so far. I am very curious about where this is going. What did this game do that the other did not? I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I got into its lore and “backstory” that now I am intrigued?