Three titles in, the developers are more comfortable with working with British accents, and now they’re there with a nod and a wink where once the efforts were overly earnest. The performances, meanwhile, have built on beautifully from both titles. It’d be easy to chalk that up to a relatively soft approach to fan service (in comparison to XC2 which was… not light on it at all), but the characterisation and general dynamics are more akin to that game too. In terms of storytelling tone, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is closer to the original than the second. Once you see that you won’t be able to unsee it.
Even if one of them is a dead ringer for Moss from The IT Crowd. In short, you really do come to care about this mob. It draws you effectively into the group dynamic and encourages you to play on just to see how that all plays out. That’s just one throwaway example, but the deepening relationship, from military ally to a friend (and potentially more) that occurs over the course of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 allows for a lot of touching, amusing, and dramatic interactions. Suddenly, however, it occurs to the women to be embarrassed to strip in front of the men, so they take off to find a tree to hide behind. A simple scene early on highlights this where once women bathed with men (and it was all completely non-sexual), the newly liberated group discover a change of clothes that allow them to cast off their oppressive military uniforms. Once liberated from that oppressive society, we can see that they start to explore a broader range of emotions within their relationships… with the added quirk that half of their companions were, formerly, enemies.
At the same time, so long as they exist within their communities, it’s a utilitarian relationship, designed to allow them to fight effectively together, and little more. Early on in the story, we see that their teams are bonded from the youngest of ages to fight as a unit, and this comradeship informs every part of their lives. However, as I noted at the start, it’s the relationship between the characters that I found most appealing this time around. From the overtones of fascistic militarism that our heroes’ lives work organised within, through to themes of fate, determinism, and environmentalism that are touched on throughout the narrative, anyone that saw the deeper meanings in the previous Xenoblade Chronicles titles will find this one equally evocative. There is so much to unpack in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Now fugitives from their former comrades, they uncover some truly startling revelations about the world, and their role in it. The core group of heroes in the story are three people from each side who, through events, realise that there is something deeply wrong with this conflict and both of their sides, and so embark on a quest for answers. However, the crux of it is this there are two rigidly-militant factions that are in a state of perpetual war with one another, and the world around them is dying for reasons that people seem unaware of (and uncaring of in the face of the more immediate conflict). You’ll still be able to follow along with it, but it’ll be like trying to read the final third of The Lord of the Rings having only been given a vague summary of what happened in the preceding chapters. Indeed, if you haven’t played Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (with DLC), then you’re going to miss a big slice of what this third game offers. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has a narrative that is difficult to talk about in the context of this review, as the major plot points are tied into the way the game relates to its two predecessors. This was much the same with the two immediate predecessors, but with this latest title the developer, Monolith Soft, has somehow managed to refine the narrative strengths while also broadening the already-epic scope of the franchise. There are a lot of big, world-shattering things that go on in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and yet the best parts of it are the interactions between the small, close-knit group of characters that form the core of the story.
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