Before I start, I honestly don't think there is a real bad combo in this game for the classes. Most of them are very well balanced so any combination should cover most bases. I'd honestly give White Mage to Knight if you're looking for great damage. Excalibur is ridiculously powerful in this game and getting access to White Robes is not a bad idea. It's the main reason why I don't like the idea of Bushi and Knight together cause both the Excalibur and Masemune are overpowered weapons in this game and giving them to the same character means they'll only ever be using one over the other when it's more advantageous to have both on the field when needed. The only concern I have with a Knight/White Mage combo is that you'll essentially give all the high end buff spells like Protectga and Shellga to one class, but considering I rarely used those abilities until the very end of the game, it's not as bad as you would think, but I might change my mind with Trial Mode. Honestly, Bushi is Ashe's best class cause unlike Basch, she has naturally good strength and magic stats, meaning she will get more out of the weapona than Basch will since he'll have to rely heavily on magic boosting gear to get the same effect, whereas Ashe can gain enough strength/magic boosting options with the Bushi/Time Battlemage combo. Ashe was kind of my MVP in my file. I don't really recommend Vaan's class choices since that's what I gave him. Largely cause getting weapons for both Foebreaker and Shikari in the early game is rough. Going back to my issues with Foebreaker, while the class is great in mid-game and grants a long range option with the Bombs, the weapons eventually become unreliable and having a shield doesn't matter as much by end game so the Ninja blades do compliment this class really well at that point. Shikari is great for Vaan due to his great speed stat though. Vaan ended up being the character I was the least satisfied with but also the necessary evil as well cause both Shikari and Foebreaker lack any real synergy with the other classes. As for Machinist, I should warn you that the class primarily uses guns as it's weapons (Measures are the other weapons it uses and they're useless) and Skills, though it is possible to open up Black Mage spells with the class using Espers and Quickenings which will go well with the magic boosting licenses offered by the mage class, yet you'll still be making Balthier a primarily long range fighter, and he may wind up being more fragile and less versatile than you think. Due to the low difficulty, White Mage really doesn't start to pull its own weight in the party until you reach Archades and even then it's primarily with the Mark Hunts and Espers. Not helping is how stupidly well-balanced Red Battlemage is and can easily carry a team as the primary healer for most of the game.
So I’ve consulted a bit with Karifi and this is around the job setup I think I want for the game: Vaan: Shikari/Foebreaker Penelo: Black Mage/Monk Balthier: Machinist/White Mage Fran: Red Battlemage/Archer Basch: Knight/Bushi Ashe: Uhlan/Time Battlemage Thoughts?
Still, having read through your commentary as you played the game again, I doubt I’ll have trouble regardless of my choice, since the game has been made so easy. So what would you recommend to compliment a Knight? Or a Bushi, since both classes kinda fit Basch for me and I can’t teally decide between them, it would depend on what works with it
I feel the Knight/Bushi combos is a poor choice actually since both classes perform a similar function of being heavy hitting classes. Not to mention that Katanas use Magic with their damage formula and it's the Knight s lone weakness. Yeah, you get the highest strength build and you can make the class a one man army if you're willing to give them a majority of the espers but i feel it;s a disservice to the rest of the party. Making Penleo a Black/White Mage combo was probably not ideal either since it drops variety for her. My biggest suggestion is to make sure you don't make a class double dip. Having three melee gods (Knight, Ulhan, Bushi) you can play all at once is pretty powerful, similarly, three mage classes you can play at once is also nice for certain Mark Hunts. For the most part, all of the classes are nice with the exception of Foebreaker which is just an awkward class. I will say that White Mage doesn't shine until the second half of the game, so don't be afraid to make it a secondary class choice instead of a starter class, the Ninja/Thief class is also better as a secondary class since the weapons for the class don't start becoming available until Ashe joins the party. Also, the characters stats have been altered with Vaan getting nerfed and Ashe and Fran getting beefed up, so there is also that to consider.
Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s what I meant when I mentioned fanboying though I can’t really decide on how I feel about the order since I have not played XC2, XSIII, and I dropped XSII halfway. But maybe someday I’ll get to that. As for now, I’m on the fence whether I like XC or XCX better. I just beat chapter 9 and on my way to get flight, so I hope that can breathe some new life into the game for me because after a whole weekend of doing almost exclusively side content, as much as I love the game overall, I am starting to feel burnt out (which, as I think I’ve mentioned before, wasn’t the case for me with the Witcher 3, oddly enough, despite me spending a stupid amount of time on that game and I really felt like I could have played more). Chapter 9 has pretty much co firmed my suspicions regarding the twist, and were it not for the fact that I have two more party members to unlock and that I need to keep my levels up, Jd be tempted to just rush the remaining three chapters of the game. Meanwhile the Zodiac Age is running nicely, though I won’t be playing yet. I am, however, thinking about job choices, and while I’m pretty set on Archer/Red Battlemage for Fran and Knight/Bushi, I don’t know what order I should go with for them, and I’m not really sure how to handle all the other characters. I guess I’ll see how it goes once I get down to it. I probably won’t be playing it right after X, though, considering open world burnout
Well congratulations on the gift. To be fair to Takahashi writing, he's been taking more and more of a backseat in development with each game, and after getting so disenfranchised with Xenosaga, I can see him pushing back more on a "narrative driven" RPG. I've heard most of the complaints people have with XCX was the plot, and how it was less up to par for his works. As for the article, I disagree with his ordering and reasons. I'm still feeling let down by XSIII and I certainly disagree with his statement that it has the best combat of the Xeno games. I honestly think it's the blandest of the three Saga titles. Neither being a nice evolution of Xenogears system like XS1 nor a daring, if ultimately misguided attempt like XSII. XSIII's just feels kind of generic in comparison and I would rather give the nod to either XS1 or Xenoblade 1. I'm also leery of reviews that lump a new entry so high on a list with older titles in a franchise. That's coming from someone who did something similar in my own list. Granted, I can't place XCX or Xenoblade 2 on the list, but neither game has really grabbed my attention like some of his past efforts.
I’ve also just found out a certain generous soul has gifted me the Zodiac Age on Steam
Article was fairly amusing, and I do appreciate that the series has such devoted fans because it definitely deserves it. But like, he fanboys out quite a bit XD
Thanks, I’ll take a look. Still, it does feel a lot shorter even that Xenoblade 1. After meeting Melia, there was still the whole trip to Mechonis, the Severed Hand, the return of Fiora, and then the big twist and there was quite a bit of story content before the end. Over here, a big thing happened, and there’s just four story missions left - and they’re never really long (like I said, not really a bad thing since most of the character centric stuff is in the affinity missions now), and I can see what twist the game is setting up, but it really doesn’t feel like a lot. On Xenogears it was curveball after curveball, and even XC1 did those, but over here there just doesn’t seem to be enough room for it since aside from the story missions, the game kinda needs to follow a strict formula because of the gameplay. That said, I’m not complaining really, sonde if the twist is what I think it is, it’s well foreshadowed and is much more grounded and in line with the game’s themes than Takahashi’s usual shocking swerves. I guess it just comes with the territory of the game not being a hero’s journey and the exploration of the world being non-linear. That said, I do feel villains are uncharacteristically weak for Takahashi. There were some nice side missions with really scary human villains whose shade of villainy was very effectively grounded and that definitely helped make them hit much closer to home, but while it nicely reinforces the theme and is perfectly in line with this harder sci go setting, they’re not really characters, per de, and disappear after they’re dealt with in the mission. The main villains, meanwhile, are just... not complex, for now at least. Although one recurring antagonist kinda died anticlimactically and wasn’t really given much of a character so. The only interesting antagonists so far are quite obviously set up to turn face later on. But who knows. Maybe I’ll be surprised. If my suspicions on the twist are correct, we might be getting a very interesting antagonist still. But it’s still kind of the Disney villain problem - they used to be a big presence but now they’re dying out, replaced by perhaps more nuanced but also less impressive antagonists.
Also, you may find this article amusing.
