Nintendo shares the basics for the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 combat system

Nintendo of Japan is doing a solid job sharing tons of details for Monolith Soft’s upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and we’re taking in every little detail, especially when it comes to combat.

That Xenoblade The series is known for having a plethora of systems to delve into, and more and more layers have been laid on top with each entry. So Nintendo gave us a little insight into the basics of combat. This gives us some new details and expands on the information the company shared with us last week, although much of the information will be familiar to Xenoblade veterans.

First up in the blog update – helpfully translated by RPG Site – is the mention of Blades. Xenoblade fans will remember the Blade system from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Nintendo actually tweeted about it late last week.

Soldiers of Keves and Agnus can materialize the weapons they use in battle, known as blades, at will. Each soldier’s blade is a reflection of them, so they can take different forms such as swords, guns, shields or spears!

We’re sure this will puzzle some fans – some people are already drawing comparisons between the Blades materializing from fire and Pyra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – but it will be interesting to see how the blade system translates into the Class of the game influences system.

Speaking of classes, similar to its predecessor, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 brings back the roles of attacker, defender, and healer. These pretty much do what you’d expect them to do, but we’ll go into more detail below this cute little chart that shows what the assumed starting role is likely to be for each character. Noah and Sena are attackers, Mio and Lanz are defenders, and Eunie and Taion are healers.

The Attacker role is obviously best suited to dealing heavy damage from both the side and rear – it’s always been valuable to exploit in Xenobalde’s combat, so it’s no surprise that it makes a return here. An attacker’s most important role is to make sure they deal a lot of damage while avoiding enemy attacks where the next role comes in handy.

Defenders – think Reyn and Dunban from Xenoblade Chronicles – are good at guarding and dodging. Your job is to attract enemy aggro and take the brunt of damage or dodge enemy attacks to keep them alive in battle. As a result, many of her abilities focus on stunning enemies and getting their attention.

Of course, there’s always the role of the healer, working to support the party with healing spells and buffs. Healing can attract enemy aggro so they should stay on the fringes of combat as they’re a lot squishy than other roles.

Nintendo also dived into some other familiar systems present in previous Xenoblade games, but these are fond memories for fans and nice little introductions for newcomers.

The first is the aiming line, which shows who the enemy is aiming at. If the line is red, it means it’s targeting an attacker or a healer, but if it’s focused on a defender, the line is blue. That’s what you want.

Some healing skills only heal within a limited radius, one of which is Eunie’s Healing Circle. When used, Eunie places a circle on the ground that gradually heals the health of all allies within it. In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, healers are also the only role that can revive fallen party members, so you might want to have two healers in your party just in case one falls.

We now return to those adorable diagrams to talk about what Nintendo calls “flexible formation”. Really, this is just advice to make sure your defender is in front of the enemy and your healer is close to the group – but not too close to take aggro or damage – so the attacker gets the most of their best damage can skills and damage bonuses.

One extremely cool new feature is the ability to sheathe weapons during combat. When you have your weapon drawn, your character will run slower. So to move a little faster, you can temporarily (and magically, as the clip below looks) sheath your weapon to perform a “quick move” that looks like a small dash.

The last little tip Nintendo shared was something we touched on yesterday – the ability to switch between characters at the touch of a button. This beautiful quality of life feature is available almost instantly, so you can switch at will.

phew! That’s a lot of information. Thanks to RPG Site for translating the information. It looks like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 builds on the foundations of the three previous games while adding little things like quick character changes and faster combat movement options. And that is just the beginning! We haven’t seen much of the class system or what the ouroboros will bring, but even these familiar little glimpses are enough to get us excited.

Check out more clips from Nintendo of Japan’s latest blog update below. Otherwise, let us know what you think of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in the usual place!