Xenoblade 3: Hero Characters Review & Rating

During the course of Xenoblade 3 you’ll encounter a number of characters referred to in the game as “Heroes” who can make up a 7th “Guest” spot in your active party. While you can’t control these characters directly like you can the other six main party members, they will contribute in much the same way as the AI already does for your non-active members in battle.

Most of the Hero characters in the game will be involved in the main story in some way or another, but there are others who are optional. They each come with a unique Class that can be inherited by your main party members, and each one of them comes with a recruitment quest of some kind, as well as an “Ascension Quest” later on to wrap up their stories and raise the maximum rank of each class.

I thought it would be fun to write up a small review of each of the game’s Hero characters and assign them a rating based on a few factors. The character themselves, their design, and finally how much I liked their Class. With a final overall evaluation score at the end.

Keep in mind these are just my opinions, including my thoughts on the classes themselves. And fair warning there will be some spoilers. Not heavy spoilers, but not exactly light spoilers either. Just keep that in mind.

Ethel — Flash Fencer

Ethel is your introduction to the Heroes system in Xenoblade 3, and she was an early favorite of mine. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite live up to my initial expectations, but she is still a pretty cool character. I love her character design, and her story actually goes in some surprising directions by the time all is said and done. It also doesn’t hurt that her Class, the Flash Fencer, is one of my favorites in the game, and one that seems to be thought of as being pretty powerful.

Character: 7/10
Design: 9/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: A

Valdi — War Medic

While Valdi might be one of the worst looking Heroes on the list, he’s actually one of my favorite characters. It’s hard not to love this endearing engineer. Colony 30 and its game spanning quest line are one of the more indepth side quests to partake in the game, and as an added bonus his class the War Medic is perhaps the best Healer in the game.

Character: 10/10
Design: 4/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: B

Zeon — Guardian Commander

Zeon kind of does it all. He’s got an amazing character design, one of the best Tank classes in the game, and also one of the best (and most unexpected) side quests in the game. Zeon is probably the Hero I brought along with me the most during my playthrough and it’s hard to find any faults about him.

Character: 10/10
Design: 10/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: S

Teach — Thaumaturge

Despite turning into a meme later in my wife and I’s playthrough, Teach is one of the less fortunate characters in the game. His class is one of the worst, his character design isn’t particularly good, and he’s kind of a boring character. It also doesn’t help that Colony Gamma is among the worst quest hubs in the game, and Teach’s English voice actor sounds like a dork.

Character: 4/10
Design: 5/10
Class: 3/10
Overall: D

Riku & Manana — Yumsmith

Riku & Manana are the building blocks that helped me come to actually like Nopon in the Xenoblade series. They’re always with you throughout the journey even if you don’t have to use them in battle. They’re two of the best characters in the game. And I love the Yumsmith class, even though it’s one of the worst looking classes in the game.

Character: 10/10
Design: 6/10
Class: 9/10
Overall: A

Gray — Full Metal Jaguar

Winner of the dumbest class name in the game is Full Metal Jaguar. But aside from that Gray is another personal favorite. He’s a really interesting character with one of the more intriguing side quests in the game. He looks cool, and his class isn’t too bad either.

Character: 9/10
Design: 9/10
Class: 8/10
Overall: S

Isurd — Strategos

Isurd is one of the more integral Heroes in the story all things considered. He’s a bit of a nerd, and he has a hilarious and ridiculously overused animation that he does. But he’s still a pretty good guy. One of the best Ascension quests in the game, and deep ties to Taion give him fairly high marks. The Strategos class is pretty decent too.

Character: 8/10
Design: 8/10
Class: 7/10
Overall: A

Juniper — Stalker

Juniper is a bit of a slow burn. She’s cute, though her Class outfit is a travesty. But she isn’t very interesting until later in the game where there are several really good quests involving her. My opinion of her definitely went up as I got further into the game, even if her Class Stalker is among my least favorites.

Character: 8/10
Design: 6/10
Class: 4/10
Overall: C

Ashera — Lone Exile

Oh boy. I do not like Ashera one bit, lol. She and her Colony are also among the worst in the game, and I hated her side quests. She isn’t the worst looking Hero on this list, but she’s not great. And about the only saving grace she has is that her Class Lone Exile is actually really, really good.

Character: 2/10
Design: 5/10
Class: 9/10
Overall: D

Alexandria — Incursor

Alexandria is close to being my favorite Hero in the game, but unfortunately, she’s kind of a bitch, lol. To be fair, part of her character arc goes into this, and it helps smooth things over by the end. But she’s very abrasive. Lucky for her, she has an excellent character design, and her Class the Incursor is close to being my favorite in the game.

Character: 8/10
Design: 10/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: S

Monica — Lost Vanguard

The Elder Monica is perhaps the most important Hero character aside from Riku & Manana as she is a major presence throughout the entire game, but she’s not the most interesting character around. I’m half & half on her character design too. Sometimes I like it, and other times I think it’s a bit much. Her Class the Lost Vanguard is another amazing Tank Class and that certainly helps her overall rating.

Character: 6/10
Design: 6/10
Class: 9/10
Overall: C

Fiona — Signifier

Fiona is just okay. She has a cute character design, and her Class Signifier is one of my favorites. But she’s a pretty bland character, and I hate Colony Mu quite a bit, lol. I will say her Ascension Quest left me with a number of things to consider about the nature of the game’s primary antagonist. So that counts for something at least.

Character: 5/10
Design: 8/10
Class: 9/10
Overall: B

Triton — Soulhacker

Triton is a walking spoiler, and if you know, you know. But that also gives him one of the lowest Design ratings by default. However he more than makes up for it by being one of my favorite characters in the entire game, with one of the best questlines in the entire game, and the most interesting Class in the entire game. It’s just too bad about that outfit…

Character: 10/10
Design: 4/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: A

Ghondor — Martial Artist

I hate Ghondor so much that it’s actually kind of wrapped back around to “loving to hate Ghondor”, I dunno man! There’s basically nothing to like here beyond that. An obnoxious character that looks like trash and has a pretty mediocre class too. Last place every time.

Character: 2/10
Design: 2/10
Class: 4/10
Overall: F

Miyabi — Troubadour

For as important as she is to Mio’s story, and actually sporting a good recruitment and Ascension quest, it’s kind of easy to forget about Miyabi half the time. She’s kinda cute, and Troubadour is an alright class. But yeah, just kind of the definition of middle of the road!

Character: 5/10
Design: 7/10
Class: 6/10
Overall: C

Cammuravi — Seraph

Cammuravi is my dark horse candidate for this list. He looks like shit, and it’s pretty easy to dismiss him for most of the game. But when you do actually end up recruiting him, he has an amazing recruitment quest, and a very interesting ascension quest. I ended up liking him a lot by the end of those. Also his Class Seraph is *probably* my favorite class in the game. Wow!

Character: 9/10
Design: 5/10
Class: 10/10
Overall: A

Segiri — Machine Assassin

Disappointment. That pretty much sums up Segiri for me. Half the game is spent pursuing something that appears much more interesting than it seems. Both in terms of the character, but also the class itself. Also Colony 0’s questline is fucking awful. I really cannot say too many nice things about Segiri beyond the fact that functionally the Machine Assassin is actually pretty good.

Character: 4/10
Design: 5/10
Class: 7/10
Overall: D