The official Japanese Xenoblade account is spoiling us again today with some more juicy details on the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Today, we've got a few more details on the two lead Nopon characters from the game — Riku and Manana.
Nopon's are the adorable (or annoying, depending on who you ask) mascot characters for the Xenoblade series — and they're back again for the third entry. And just like heropon Riki from Xenoblade Chronicles and maid mechanic Tora from Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Riku and Manana will be able to join you in combat, but instead of fighting separately, the pair team up to take down enemies.
The information on these characters has been translated by Perfectly Nintendo, so let's find out a bit more about them!
Riku
A Nopon from Colony 9 in Keves (like Noah and his friends), who sports some rather thick eyebrows. Back at the colony, he’s a mechanic in charge of both item crafting and the maintenance of the Iron Giant. He’s a keen Nopon who always keeps his cool, no matter the situation, and the advice he provides Noah and the others is well worth heeding. Weapons need some maintenance? Riku is your
manNopon!
Riku sounds like an interesting character, and a more serious take on the Nopon than we're perhaps used to. But the most important thing about Riku right now is that he's from a place called Colony 9. Fans of the first game will definitely remember that place, but it seems to be the name of somewhere else on Keves. If there are links there, we'll find out soon enough. Also, that hairdo? It just adorable.
Manana
A Nopon who hails from Agnus and a companion of Mio and the others’. If her chef toque wasn’t clear enough, her specialty is cooking. Her skills are without pair, which is why it’s no big surprise she was in charge of cooking back at her former colony. Manana is literally obsessed with food, so if you come across something that could be used as an ingredient during your adventures, make sure to give it to Manana so that she can whip up one mouth-watering dish! Manana is bound to brighten your travels with her cheerful personality.
Ahh, there we go — a Nopon with sensibilities that we're a bit more familiar with. Sprightly and talkative, with a real passion for food? Sounds like the ideal travelling companion to boost your mood. She hails from the rival nation of Agnus. Female Nopon have mostly been regulated to side characters throughout the series — until Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition's Future Connected gave us Nene.
This pair of Nopon will team up in combat to fulfill the Attacker role. Their key skill is to weaken enemies with status effects and help do damage. How this pairing work in-game, we've yet to see, or even what the seventh party member does — as the other six are all partnered up with another person in the group — so whatever it is, it's sure to be something unique.
Regardless, it's great to see Monolith Soft doing something different with the Nopon characters. Often they are there as the main source of comic relief — though Riki often parted with good wisdom, and Tora's brains and mechanics savvy often served as a huge boon to Rex and Pyra throughout their journey. Given that Riku and Manana are from different nations, we're interested to see what their dynamic is like.
Nintendo also shared some new official art for the pair, which shows them having their game faces on. You're not making them look any less cute by giving them a serious face, Nintendo — you can stop trying.
Don't forget, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is out on 29th July for Switch. You can browse all of your pre-order options down below. Disappointingly, Nintendo revealed over the weekend that Collector's Editions in Europe won't be shipping until later in the year.
If you're in the US, don't forget you can also you can grab a $50 eShop card for 10% less from our store using the code NLIFE10:
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What do you think of these two Nopon? How will they compare to the others in the series? Let us know in the comments!
[source perfectly-nintendo.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 33
I hope the Nopon don't have that prominent of a role in the story.
I find them to be the least interesting aspects of it for every game (and for X's case the worst), while I like Riki and Tora, they were still the least interesting party members for me.
Don't hold a candle to tora...
Never used any of the Nopon characters voluntarily. Skipped most comic relief scenes in X with Nopon. Ignore them to the best of my abilities. Simple as.
Ah yes, my favourite Xenoblade characters.
(they are incredibly cute though)
I like the general cuteness and charm of Nopon, though tbh they can be annoying at times. I didn't mind using Riki on occasion in XC1, but I dropped Tora like a hot potato when I got a hold of a different (and, IMO, better) tank in XC2. He had his uses, but being stuck with Poppi limits his use.
Edit: I retract some of that last sentence. Poppi can apparently be quite versatile, you just have to really work for it.
Well, I like the Nopon characters.
I've always liked the Nopon as a concept a lot. Its unfortunate that most instances of them being prominent in the games haven't been too great.
Riki is alright, though lightly annoying
Tatsu was an absolute nothing character that nobody likes
Tora can go die in a fire for MULTIPLE reasons
Riki's kids in Future Connected have been the best in the series thus far, I think
We've not quite seen enough of these two new ones in XC3 yet to determine how good or bad they are, but I am hoping that Monolith have been learning that Nopon have to be more than the comic relief party slot character, or that they have to at least be an interesting character outside of that subset.
I'm hoping the nopons in this game lean more towards the nopons from XC1 than those in XC2. I played XC1 (DE) after XC2, and Riki was a breath of fresh air after sitting through hours upon hours of Tora's cringe, and his children in FC were great.
And the NPC nopons were also better in XC1 - they seemed to have more varied speech patterns overall, which made them feel more like a real group than a very played out joke.
@Fizza These are the comments I live for on here
I'm really interested to see how you use 2 characters for a single role. Is it July yet?
@Tyranexx
SPOILERS FOR XB2
I mean, hate Tora all you want, but where is that statement about Poopi coming from? Poopi's ability to swap cores for any element (although you can get light or dark on your first playthough), mixed with her insane level of customization though chips makes her, without question, the most versatile blade in ANY role. There is a lull before you get QT, but from that point on, even before QTpie, Tora should be the best driver in your party regardless of if you try and make him tank, damage, or utility.
And that's just play though one. On the second playthrough, with access to her full spec list and all upgrades, she's flat out broken. She can't beat Ursula as a healer and her DPS will always come in a bit lower then Mythra, but beyond that, no other blade can come close in ANY situation, while Poopi can be any role and wield any element.
Dropping Tora because you don't like him is fine, but if you're concerned with raw blade ability, Tora is a MUST until you can just have Rex use Poppi, and even then, Tora's skill tree is better.
I don't care! The game will tell me all this and more. Open up the pre-orders already. Aaaaargh
@HeadPirate Please don't take this as me being rude but do you know how to add spoiler markers over a comment by chance? Just to make sure no-one accidentally sees something they don't want to, put (spoiler) at the start and (/spoiler) at the end of the paragraph and replace the ( ) with [ ].
It's really funny, but not really surprizing, reading Japanese language and English language comments on this.
Nopons are one of the key draws to the series in Japan. Everyone loves these guys, and the "most liked to least like" seems to be in the exact opposite order to what we see in the West, where a lot of people don't like them at all.
I mean, this is pretty consistent with Anime tropes and this type of character so it's not unexpected or anything, but it's still pretty mind blowing just how subjective humour can be.
Personally I like them ... which is odd. Despite almost 2 decades in Japan, I still don't get most of the humour, and the more extreme versions of this type of character really rub me the wrong way.
@Fizza
I live in constant bewilderment. Not only am I baffled at why anyone would keep reading a comment that begins with spoilers in all caps, but I'm also baffled at how such a reasonable and well minded request could be considered rude.
Happy to oblige.
I for one love the Nopon, so I'm glad to see them as a focus again! XC games are intense and depressing enough. The Nopon keep it from being flat out dreary!
@HeadPirate Hate is a strong word lol. I didn't dislike Tora per se, I just found him annoying at times. Plus, though this is clearly a trope, I wasn't really into some of the details that went into creating Poppi...or should I say, one of her modes. I realize this was only a short segment in a very long game, but that's a tidbit that didn't sit well with me.
I'm not knocking Poppi for her versatility - she's VERY customizable on her own - more that you can't switch to other artificial Blades. I was fully expecting Tora to repair and use Lila, but that never happened. Granted, I've never played a New Game + yet, so it's possible I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and that he does pick up more artificial Blades? I also wasn't the biggest fan of tying Poppi's upgrades to that one mini game, I forget the name of it RN. With a few exceptions, I've never been a big fan of using minigames to gate content. To Poppi's credit, I did enjoy her character development and like how she became more "lifelike" as the hours added up.
Overall, I much preferred Mòrag's characterization and playstyle. I ended up with several tank Blades for her, plus it was fun to experiment with Adenine for the occasional heal. My usual party of choice was Rex/Mòrag/Nia (Driver), though I experimented with the others too.
Ahh my fav characters !
Ugh..... meh-meh-meh... meesa hatin da nopon. Meesa thinkin theysa bantha poodoo!
@Tyranexx
I get what you are saying, but the way I see it, given that you have three forms of Poppi (Poppi alpha, QT and QTpie) which are all built independently with the same level of customization, the need for additional blades isn't really there. Tora ends up with 3 blade "slots" just like everyone else, but instead of picking 3 from a pool, he custom builds 3 blades to meet whatever specs you want. Not only that, but he can create some unique combination that do not exist, which opens up options for the rest of the party. For example, often by design the top tier of given roles are on the same element, and some roles don't have any blades on a given element. You could make Poopi a darkness element healer, or light element tank, both combinations that don't exist (well, the Poopi buster is a light tank I guess). That frees up options to use other blades while still having every element in your party. Lastly, given all his blades are "Poopi", and he has skills and items that apply to her, he is boosting all 3 of his blades at once.
[spoiler]
I can't defiantly see how it's a system that is easy to miss if you give up on it too early, given you need both upgrade crystals and books, and the fact that QTpie joins the party WAY later then I think she should.
Seems every Japanese RPG franchise has at least one "mascot", either some cute critter or weird being, that accompanies your party and more often than not acts as comic relief (or is intended to, at least). I have to say that Nopon are right up there around the top of my personal list for most annoying and intrusive. I was able to tolerate the one in Xenoblade Chronicles X, but for the mainstream games they've actually contributed heavily to me losing interest and walking away from the games (the awful, endlessly repeated battle cries and often less-than-intuitive, button-mashing fight mechanics and having to babysit AI-controlled party members who tend to get themselves killed being the other things).
Manana is gonna be the new Donald
I tHiNk We cOuLd FiNd sOmE InGrEdIeNtS hErE
Nopon are weird. As much as I didn't care for Tora, he was well-integrated into story. Poppi however is super precious (but she's a humanoid robot so that doesn't really count). I actually liked Rikki but he could have been left out of the game and nothing would have changed.
is Riku a reference from Rex of Xenoblade Chonicles 2?
I hope they dont hire a grown man voice actor for nopon again. Its so cringey.
nopons are the only thing I don't like from these games. Why all JRPG feel the need to add these kind of talking mascot pet like characters
I actually always enjoyed the Nopon, they always provide some comic relief in the series. Really liking the designs on these new Nopon too.
Can't believe people don't like Nopons. They're the best.
@HeadPirate Not sure why I didn't get a notification that you responded, but eh...internet.
Those are all fair points. I'm not disputing Poppi's utility, though I do wish QTpie had appeared earlier like you mentioned. I did experiment with Poppi's unique system quite a bit after picking up Tora and liked it overall, but grinding for upgrades became old for me quickly. Hence why I switched tanks. I don't mind some grinding in RPGs, but there's usually a point where I reach my limit. Granted, I also eventually got sick of the Blade gacha system, but at least core crystals are easier to come by. Perhaps I'll experiment with her setup more when I eventually revisit the game. I just played through and beat XC2 for the first time (~75 hours) a couple of months ago and started Torna: The Golden Country this past weekend, so it'll likely be awhile lol.
For now, I'll retract my statement on Poppi's utility since I realize most of my grievances are really about Tora and how XC2...erm...manages its tutorials. I read through everything that popped up on the screen and still had to get some answers online. I didn't even understand how elemental seals worked until 2/3-3/4 through the game.
I stay away from the Nopon as much as I can.
TWO??? WE DIDN’T EVEN NEED ONE NOPON
@HeadPirate This isn't quite accurate. Built properly, QTP's maximum damage exceeds any other blade in the game. Mythra isn't even in the top 5, and doesn't come close to the kind of damage QTP can output.
Tora is, quite simply, far and away the best character in the game from a game play perspective. He's the best def tank, the best agility tank, the best damage dealer, and the best utility, since he can be whichever 3 elements you want him to be with no loss of power. The only thing he isn't the best at is healing, but given the power of crit heal, lategame healers are redundant.
Manana has a freakin' wok as a shield!
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