Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Tips And Tricks

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a massive JRPG, filled with different systems, resources, and classes. While the game does offer tutorials for most of its systems, sometimes it can be overwhelming or certain bits of information are left out. In order to get the most out of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, it’s important to know which systems to engage with which ones you can gloss over. Here are some tips to help you through Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

Classes and equipment

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 asks you to manage six main party members, along with a seventh hero character. There are six interlinked skill trees to manage, along with accessories and gems for each character. Here are some tips to help make these menus a bit more manageable.

First, make sure you are constantly switching classes once they are maxed out. A major system in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is that you can change each party member’s classes and that each character has a number of Art slots reserved for moves outside of their current class. In order to equip these arts, you need to “Master” the arts by using the other class. On this same note, you should pay attention to the letter grades for each class. This tells you how each class fairs in the four slots, Attacker, Defender, Healer, and Tactics. This information will allow you to balance out your party a bit more than just selecting two of each class.

As for all of the options in each character’s menu, you will need to manually set each character’s Arts and Master Skills, although when each slot is unlocked it will be autofilled. As for accessories and Gems, pressing the Y button will auto-build each character. This will apply gems and accessories that make sense for the character’s class. It won’t be the perfectly optimized build you can make yourself, but it will certainly get the job done.

Crafting, cooking, and resources

Another important aspect of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is resource management, along with the cooking and Gem crafting systems. When it comes to collecting items and materials, it can be a bit random. Certain materials are dropped by specific monsters, but a large amount of resources are just found scattered in the open-world. The best way to approach this is to collect anything near your path, but don’t go too far out of your own way. There are ways to bypass the required materials for cooking and crafting.

As for exploring the open-world, it’s important to learn the visual cues of Xenoblade Chronicles 3. The important things are, beams of green light are ether, yellow light are resource containers, red is a fallen soldier, and blue is a rare item. Each monster has a level above their head, but there are extra visuals to indict certain things. Gold sparkles indict a rare monster, blue flourishes an elite monster, and yellow flourishes indict a unique monster.

As for cooking, check out GameSpot’s cooking guide for an in-depth breakdown. The two most important parts of cooking is to do it regularly and to make sure you always have a meal bonus running. Second, make sure to eat at every Colony’s canteen at least once, to make sure you unlock new recipes.

On the gem crafting front, gems give specific stat bonuses. Each gem requires a gemstone, some ether cylinders, and a random assortment of materials. It’s important to check the higher gem levels, because you don’t have to upgrade them to each individual level. If your gem is level 1 and you have the materials to upgrade to level 4, you can go straight to level 4.

Other tips

Nopon Coins, which come in both Silver and Gold, are a special currency used by Nopon Coin traders. These coins however have a hard cap of 99, so any collected after that are automatically sold. These coins have a ton of uses, like bypassing materials for cooking and gem crafting, as well as leveling up a class for a specific character. Make sure to use the coins so frequently so you never hit the cap.

It’s also important to know which type of quest each one is. Story quests are red, side quests are green, and hero quests are yellow. The hero quests are important because they can unlock new classes and heroes to roll with you. Ascension quests, which up the class level cap from 10 to 20, also appear as hero quest Yellow.

Other tips:

• You can move faster during combat by dodging with the right stick.
• Try every new class you unlock, you never know if you will enjoy it or not.
• Keep a balanced party of two Attackers, Defenders, and Healers, otherwise combat might become unnecessarily difficult.
• Increasing your affinity with the different Colonies will give permanent passive bonuses.
• Pressing plus will show you your current objective on the map, where you can see if you can fast travel somewhere nearby.