Where do I even begin here? Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is nothing short of a culmination of so many lessons learned over the previous games, so many refinements in gameplay and writing. I certainly do have fondness for 1 and 2 to be sure, but XC3 is an absolute master class.

To start off, the main party of characters are the best they've ever done. Each one of them is well written and acted, and each have a significant role in the plot. I think most people would likely agree that both 1 and 2 had main party members that were a little weaker than others, but this time around I found each of them to be really special.

The story is a gripping, emotional tale as you've come to expect from this series. While I think overall XC1 told a slightly more focused adventure, 3 certainly has plenty of strong moments. Almost every cutscene is exceptionally well directed and for the action scenes, stellar choreography as well. You can really feel they had a budget to work with this game.

For gameplay, it's another giant leap over the previous installments. The job system really keeps things fresh with tons of fun classes to choose from, and being able to switch freely during combat adds a lot of freedom. Though the AI is pretty good, you can for example quickly switch to a healer to run over and revive someone yourself if you want to prioritize it. Or maybe you want to reposition your attackers so they are out of the AoEs being focused on a defender. Maybe my only complaint is that I wish there were more instances of the chain attack music not overwriting the boss music. There's a lot of incredible boss fight tracks that get interrupted because chain attacks are a core part of the gameplay.

And then there's the side content. Monolithsoft has clearly been slowly inching towards this and I'm glad we are finally here. Almost all of the side content I have done so far feels meaningful. There are lengthy side quests with stories that serve to level up your relationships with colonies (a la the XC2 Torna Expansion), and there are hero quests which serve to unlock new jobs and are all fully voiced. There's always been so much to see and do in these games but it finally feels like most of it is worth it. I know I want to see as much of it as I can.

I feel I could go on and on about this game, and if I were to go into spoilers here I absolutely would. But overall, at this time I feel like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an essential JRPG. It does a ton of things better than a lot of the other ones out there, and I look forward to see how Monolithsoft expands upon it. Absolutely a game worth your time if you love JRPGs like I do.