see deal Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Nintendo Switch $59.99 on Gamestop

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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 follows a protagonist named Rex as he searches for a world called Elysium. Rex and his companions are known as “drivers,” and the weapons they carry have manifested into personalities called “blades.” In battle, a driver can cycle between multiple different blades to perform different types of elemental damage.A separate meter will show whether your blade’s attacks (or “arts”) are ready to use or whether they’re currently charging between uses. Arts can be various types of attacks, HP potions, or other actions you’ll want to perform in battle, and can be selected using the Switch’s face buttons.As you use standard arts, a more powerful elemental art will also begin to charge, beginning with level I and ranging up to IV. Using arts increases this charge meter, and as you’d expect, the higher its charge level, the stronger the attack will be. If you use it at level I, it means you get to attack sooner, but if you wait for it to be level III, you’ll have a much stronger attack. In other words, this means you have to decide whether you want to go for more frequent, weaker attacks, or hold off to use a much stronger one.This is where things start to get complicated. Depending on the element of the blade you’re using (such as wind or flame, for example), yet another meter will begin to display a potential chain. For example, you might see three flames lined up with “Seal Self-Destruct” written next to them. This means that if you use three consecutive flame arts, you’ll get the bonus of sealing the enemy’s ability to use an attack called Self-Destruct in battle.However, once you’ve earned this bonus, the enemy will gain resistance to flame, so your lower-level attacks will now do even less damage than they did before, unless you switch to a different blade that uses a different element that the enemy isn’t resistant to. Otherwise, you’ll have to fill yet another meter that you can use to break an enemy’s elemental resistance.On top of all of this, your character’s actual movement in battle plays a bigger role this time around, too. Unlike in previous Xenoblade games, if you’re moving during battle, you’ll stop attacking. Instead, you’ll only attack while you’re standing still. This is because the angle you’re attacking an enemy from gives you a strategic advantage, with certain attacks dealing more damage from behind or from the side rather than head on.This is just the tip of the iceberg of the battle system, which also features a stagger system that allows you to “break” enemies and follow up with topple, launch, and smash attacks for damage bonuses. But the point of all of this is that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has massively evolved its combat to allow significant variation for players who master it.There are lots of exciting games coming to Switch with robust experiences across multiple genres, and even Skyrim is on the way for players looking to scratch that RPG itch. But Xenoblade seems to finally be the brand new, massive hardcore RPG the system has been lacking.As we wrote about at Gamescom , Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has a massive, gorgeous world to explore, and plenty of story secrets that will surely be revealed. But for anyone who’s been waiting for their next huge timesink after Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade is an incredibly exciting option that seems to be Monolith Soft’s most ambitious entry in the series yet.

Andrew is IGN's executive editor of news and really likes a good battle system. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter