Introduction

The full review of the game Xenoblade 3, which I wrote some time ago, can be found here. I highly encourage you to read it, because there I point out many elements that most reviewers never touch on (including about the translation or the portrayal of the characters as they were in the original dialogue version).

In this case, Nintendo handled the collector’s edition a bit strangely. Its release was three months after the release of the standard version of the game. Fortunately, it was made possible to purchase the version without the game for those who already have it in their collection. I’m talking here strictly about the original Japanese version. In the West, not even a release date has been announced yet. However, for me, as a collector, the original version has much more value. Among other things, this is because the artbook uses the original names instead of the made-up ones from the crappy English dubbing.

The contents of the collector’s edition are not very rich this time, but fortunately this is also reflected in the price. The cost of the version without the game is a mere ¥4,000 (that is, at the moment, a little under $30). Unfortunately. The purchase process itself was not so easy. Nintendo’s main Japanese branch does not ship anything overseas. To make matters worse, they also have banned addresses of most proxy services (such as FromJapan and ZenMarket).

When placing an order, we are not even informed of this – I got to this point myself with several users of one internet board. I found, courtesy of one of them, a fairly new service called BlackShip. Only there I managed to order, giving the address of the box belonging to me. Unfortunately, I must warn those who have already searched for their site – currently also their addresses are blacklisted in the Nintendo database. If anyone finds something working – write in the comments.

Xenoblade 3 Collector’s Edition (JP)

The size of the box is quite large. Exactly like the Xenoblade 2 collector’s box (which I also reviewed here). A little smaller than the A3 format, so it’s worth keeping this in mind if you stack collector’s boxes on your shelves. I’ll just briefly list the contents before moving on to a photo presentation:

• Box with the game (or the box itself without the cartridge if you buy the version without the game) for the Nintendo Switch console
• Steelbook
• Artbook

The Box

I’ll start as usual with what the box itself looks like from the front, while below you can see photos of the other sides and the inside.

Game box and steelbook

The first thing we see when we open it is the game box and stellbook. I’m very happy that a box was added, even when we decided to get the version without the game. As a result, I now have the original Japanese box, which is just prettier by virtue of the fact that it doesn’t have the western “CHRONICLES” in the logo and you can see more of the stuff on the cover.

Next to the game box we see a really nice stellbook. It’s just a pity that the game’s title was not placed on its spine.

Artbook

At the very bottom is an artbook in an identical format to the one included in the Xenoblade 2 collector’s edition. Noteworthy is the fact that all names and lettering were written, using the Latin alphabet. The best thing is the fact that the original names were used, and not those substituted in the English dubbing (and there were plenty of them, as I wrote about in the review linked above). I am extremely pleased with this fact, and I feel twice as happy in this case that I opted for the original version of this collector’s edition.

Xenoblade 3 Collector’s Edition (JP) – summary

It’s a bit of a shame that the content is so very limited. Seemingly I knew, since nothing else was listed on the preorder page, but still hoped for something more. On the other hand, however, the price of this Collector’s Edition strongly compensates for this fact and makes it possible for me to recommend it to anyone with a clear conscience (although it’s probably not hard to guess that I definitely recommend the original version more, if only because of how the artbook is published).