Game #1275: Xenoblade Chronicles 3

 Xenoblade 2's harem ending CONFIRMED

 Y'know, I've been here from the start, since the very first Xenoblade game released on Wii, and the struggle to get it overseas since it was a Gamestop exclusive. Xenoblade X is a Wii U exclusive, so until it gets a port, fat chance I'm playing that one. And then Xenoblade 2 came out, which for as many things it got right it also featured one of the most annoying main characters ever made as well as stupid amounts of fanservice. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out and it seems they learned from XC 3, as not only did they remove the fanservice, but they also got what's probably the best cast of characters yet and some of the most fun game mechanics in the series, for what is probably the best game in the franchise yet.

 Well, the basics remain the same as with the rest of the games in the franchise, you get a HUGE world to explore, filled with sidequests, monsters and special monsters to battle. It borrows a lot from MMORPGs, as combat takes place in real time, with you character automatically performing basic attacks and you being able to pick the special attacks and reposition them around the battlefield. Roaming through the huge lands are enemies too strong for you to handle at first, so you have to avoid triggering them, etc. If you've played Xenoablade before, you get the gist of it. It's a huge game, same as it always been, and it does feel bloated at times, by hour 70 I was already feeling a bit burned out.

 The story I felt was very engrossing, it involves 3 characters from Keves and another 3 from Agnus, two warring kingdoms, who have to make fast friends in order to survive since now both kingdoms are after them... and along the way discover that there might be yet another force pulling the strings. It's much more involved than that, as people here live only 10 years and are born in factories, so to speak. Regardless, the story was super interesting, as well as a bit tragic, and all 6 party members were very likeable, a far cry from annoying children like Rex in XB2. What's even better, the fanservice has been turned down to a minimum, which is fantastic as the female characters don't look stupid anymore. The plot was very interesting, and it has a ton of little character moments here and there to make you fall in love with the heroes. Oh! And it ties together Xenoblade 1 and 2, not that you need to play those before, so if you been playing these games since the start you'll get even more out of it.

 Combat has changed plenty, Blades are a thing of the past, and now you control a six-member party at al times, with a seventh spot for Heroes, characters that join you but feature a much reduced move pool. Combat takes place in real time, as per usual, and the AI controls the other six characters, although you can swap at any time which character you are playing as. Each character has access to seven different skills, X, Y and B are allocated to class-specific skills, the A button is your super special move and the UP, RIGHT and DOWN buttons trigger learned skills. Oh, but you see, in these game there are Classes, a whole bunch of them, divided in three categories: Healer, Attacker and Defender, and each class has their own set of 5 skills. As you level up these classes you can master some of these skills so that you can then equip them on the UP, RIGHT and DOWN buttons on another other class. It's a brilliant system that incentivizes you to have everyone try every class, plus, getting a class to level 10 unlocks it as a costume. To be fair, costumes are rather lame most of the time, as they only change the upper torso of a character, and some of these don't fit very well on some characters, heck, some are quite clearly designed for breasts, but they didn't bother removing the crevices and folds of clothes on the chest, so the boys look as if they had very, very flat chests when wearing some of them.

 How battles progress is pretty identical to previous games, in this game, positioning is important as different skills have better damage output depending on your position relative to the enemy. The same status effects as before are here: Break, Topple and Daze, but now you can finish a Topple chain with a Launch instead. Don't worry if these make no sense, they are just a way to incapacitate enemies for a little while. There's a new feature, CHAIN attacks, as you fight you fill a gauge, which fills faster if you use the status effects, and once full you can land special moves back-to-back on enemies, and it feels like a mini-game that you have to try to keep going by selecting the right attacks.

 But it doesn't end there, remember how characters from warring factions join up? Well, characters got paired in twos, and due to a certain story bit, they can INTERLINK together... which translates into fusing into a giant mecha-looking thing for a short while. These forms are very powerful and look amazing. Each pair of characters has access to two different forms, and you can switch form mid battle. This adds another neat wrinkle into the combat, as well as much spectacle!

 Combat has two small issues. One is, just like with previous games, due to the nature of the game and how it plays like a MMORPG... enemies can simply take too much damage. When I was in the level 90s, it took me more than a couple of attacks to defeat level 50 enemies. Eventually I turned down the difficulty to easy because I was spending too much time fighting enemies there was absolutely no chance they'd even get any of my characters killed. It felt like a waste of time, and the game is already long enough. And tied to this... I hit level 60 when I was on chapter 2. It's incredibly easy to over level yourself if you, like me, need to explore every nook and cranny in the game. By chapter 5 I was already on mid 90s but the story missions were barely reaching level 50. Barely. But this is tied to another issue... the XP you obtain is relative to the level difference between enemies and yourself, fair enough, but this is also tied to Class XP. If I wanted, and I wanted, everyone to obtain a new class and then level them up to 10... it meant I had to defeat stronger enemies than I had access to.... which means I had to explore and seek out harder enemies, which in turn overleveled me even more. And between explorations and the in-game mechanics that can boost experience points earned with a 700 multiplier...  it's way too hard no to accidentally overlevel yourself and screw yourself with class upgrading. And nothing in the game tells you about how earning classes works and how it's tied to Class Experience, which is ALSO tied to the level difference between you and your enemies.

 And since I'm at it, the tutorial is incredibly invasive. It forces you to go into menus, and has to have text pop up to FORCE you and tell you step by step how to do something as basic as equipping and item. There's no good reason as to why I'm not able to just skip the tutorial lesson if it's so stupid. And it forces you to equip items maybe you didn't mean to, and then exit the menu only to go back and equip it again. Ridiculous.

 But I don't want to end on a sour note, I really don't, because despite those issues.... the game is brilliant. The story was great, and combat is a lot of fun. Plus, I don't understand how they managed to cram such a massive game inside a tiny little cart, so many cutscenes, a world so large, and so much variety in environments and enemies and NPCs... it's a HUGE game, for good or bad, and I think it might be the best Xenoblade out there. It has fantastic combat and a fantastic story, with a few minor issues, but nothing too bad. 

 9.0