Bittersweet Brilliance: PETER HOSKINS Reviews Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Nintendo Switch, £49.99)

Verdict: Bittersweet Sparkle

Rating:

If you showed this game to a normal person for five minutes, it – and you – might look crazy. For starters, there’s the name: Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a hodgepodge of words bordering on parody.

Then there’s what would actually happen: wide-eyed characters who joke with each other before unsheathing oversized swords and using them to whack what looks like… recalcitrant rabbits?

But anyone who spends more than five minutes with Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will discover one of the best games of the year. It is arguably one of the best games of its kind ever made.

It helps that this third Xenoblade Chronicles game doesn’t require any knowledge of the previous two. Sure, it follows them in design: you lead a group of friends through a green future landscape and an epic, apocalyptic story over tens of hours. And it’s true, there are moments of overlapping stories for, er, Xenoblunatics like me.

But overall, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a model of self-control that’s more like the first installment in a new series than the third in a ten-year-old one. Everything is introduced as if it were from scratch.

This is especially noticeable in the case of the battles. A lot happens when you encounter an unfriendly animal (or worse) in the wild: special moves, tactical positioning, hard combos, commands for your other group members… the screen becomes a jumble of icons and colors.

It could all be very confusing, especially if Xenoblade Chronicles 3 didn’t take the time to explain all its systems one by one. As it is, though, the fight soon becomes instinctive — and a joy.

But don’t worry: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 isn’t too straightforward. It’s welcoming, but that’s something else. The gameplay offers plenty of challenge for veterans, and the story is, in very deliberate ways, challenging enough too.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention: the characters in this game are basically child soldiers, made to fight in a never-ending war. They have a shelf life of ten years, after which they simply disappear. For all its beauty – and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 certainly looks gorgeous on the Switch – this is a dark, sad world, defined by death. That’s what you fight for. And against.

So: sad, beautiful, challenging, welcoming, crazy… somehow Xenoblade Chronicles 3 manages to be all these things and a lot more. Just watch out for those bunnies.