Xenoblade Chronicles

[Vyk]

I too have a feeling I've figured out the origins of at least the one Metal Face, though that definitely hints at the origins of the others, and why the Monado has trouble hurting them. WK is just a step or two ahead of me. I'm about to head up the back. I have one quest left in the swamp, and then going to head back to Colony 6 to see what (if anything) they need. Had to take a small break from the game to be social. But I'm mowing through again, and enjoying again. Taking my time and doing the quests as they come now though. As the enemies are steadily getting tougher and more strategic. Hating one certain lizard that has an ability to auto-daze the entire team, and another ability that knocks us all down to 3-digit hit-points. When he pairs the two up, we're pretty much dust. I think I'm a level or two too weak to be facing him properly, but I'll prevail

[edczxcvbnm]

Update: I have just gotten past Prison Island and am making my way to the next parts.

[Vyk]

I'm just a tad behind, in the forest. Its old news now, but I should thank WK for pointing out Dunban was meant to be an agility based tank. I was originally using him as another Shulk, mostly because I needed his affinity with Sharla and Reyn up so I made him the lead for a moment. But beefing up his armor and having him on the front line like a regular fighter wasn't cutting it for me, too many buff arts to be all out offensive. Plus I really missed having a second character that could heal when need-be. Especially with me controlling it. But most of the way through the swamp I've been using him in place of Reyn at my side, and beefed up his Agility and its kind of ridiculous watching him draw aggro from whole hordes and never get hit more than once. And if Sharla and Shulk put their sheilds on him, the damage is laughable when it happens..

Though Reyn's current defense is through the roof. And if I do with muscle crystals what I did with Dunban's agility crystals he'd be damn near invincible too. So its more of a preference thing. But agility tank is so unheard of I just have to. And it works out really well. Thanks Wolf lol

[Wolf Kanno]

You're welcome

I have sadly fallen behind thanks to school and family. I played a little over the weekend but stuck to doing a few side missions for the Nonpon merchant by Colony 6 and only ventured very briefly into the swamps, so I am still where I am from the last time I posted.

[edczxcvbnm]

Overall, I just can't do these quests. By and large it just seems like random people asking for random items and I can't get into their fetch quests. I do everything in the fallout games but I can draw some sort of connection to it and most of the time they don't do stuff like "I have a hole in my roof and it is really annoying. I bet if I had 5 some raider helmets then I could fix it but I can't leave because of blah. Would you be so kind as to go out and get them for me?"

It is very big and open and I love to explore but the quests seem like busy work :/

[Vyk]

True. I don't mind them for some reason. But most of them are admittedly pretty lame. The ones that actually have purpose and productively affect affinities make a lot more sense. Like the whole series of quests involving the Nopon boy Pama with the storybook and helping the old lady get better to watch after him. Or helping the old Nopon fix a toy his grandson broke to rekindle a friendship with another little boy. Fortunately I think you get more than enough experience to get by simply by exploring and finding places, and fighting the tougher monsters, or unique monsters of each region. Those fetch quests are generally only for gold or items you could craft or buy or find normally anyway

[Wolf Kanno]

The Fetch Quests are not as much of a bother to me, thanks largely to the streamlined nature of the game design. I like that you don't have to backtrack to the quest giver, have unlimited room for quests you can undertake, and the fact that most of the items requested are often common drops that you will most likely have already obtained by the time you find the quest giver. I am serious about the last one. One sweep through the Bionis Leg before reaching the Refugee Camp, and I was pretty much able to walk around and complete a good 70% of the available missions right on the spot because I already had about a bajillion of each of the arbitrary fetch items in my inventory. So for me, I feel like I'm just getting extra money and XP for doing what I would be doing anyway and often the monetary reward out weighs the price of selling some of these items anyway. The fact the Monado gives you a heads up on whether an item is a quest item helps as well. So the game rewards my pack rack nature.

Though I would agree that the nameless NPC quest givers make it feel like busy work. Like Vyk, I happen to enjoy the ones that are connected to the affinity quests of a location. I just restored the mysterious light at the bottom of the lake under Colony 9. I have not mentioned how I liked that some of the missions have multiple ways to be completed. I'm still wondering what would have happened Minor story spoilershad I had told the writer that his girlfriend is in cahoots with his money-lender; or if there was another way to approach the love triangle between Monica, Erik, and Andreas.

I do kind of wish that the area items for the Collectopedia were not randomized. I have one bug missing from the Ether Caves, and I'm not really in the mood to keep farming items until the random number generator gods decide to be merciful. Its a minor complaint though.

I just have to finish writing one more report, and I can start playing again. Curse you school!

[Madonna]

The best part of these quests, edczxcvbnm, is that you generally do not need to fetch things for people. If someone needs five raider helmets, you kill the things that get you helmets, and on your fifth one, blam, quest done. You get a pop-up detailing what you just completed, a little story about the character you helped, and your reward. If you think you are lacking a connection to people, you should perhaps visit the Affinity Chart. The more quests you do for chumps means these chumps get some more details to their lives and you can see with whom they connect, and suddenly they are less chumps and instead villagers with personality who hold you as some Bionis-wandering badass hero.

Colony 9 loves me. I have not checked out Colony 6 yet. Kalilung is doing horrible things light-years ahead of me, like killing level forty named monsters. I try not to watch, but I am jealous.

[The Captain]

Wow. All I can say is wow. Finally had a chunk of time this week to sit and play this game and I am addicted.

Must admit, the first big twist in the plot reminded me greatly of Xenogears and events at Lahan village but if that means this story will be all twisty and turny, I will be more then happy. Just so long as they had enough budget to actually finish the game properly!

I already am at a crossroads as I can literally spent hours just doing side quests, wandering around and finding random things to get me experience points. I just cleared the spider cave or whatever it was called and am ready to take my first steps in to the wider world know as the Leg. Very intrigued by the Monado future aspect and like that Shulk isn't just an out and out fighter but has some defensive purpose too. Oftentimes, the main character is there to just find the biggest sword and be the strongest but this is forcing me to play a much more tactical way.

My only gripes so far: The camera angles can be really annoying as sometimes I find it doesn't put me in the best position to actually SEE what i'm doing or fighting. It's not fun when you are fighting a boss and have to spend a moment adjusting the camera just to see the enemy. Secondly, the tutorials are VERY vague and hard to follow. It took me literally three tries before I figured out how to link an attack and I was at my wits end trying to actually use the gem making subsection. I am still in the dark about the skill tree linking section as well.

However, all of that pales in comparison to what this game is: pure fun. I haven't played an RPG in years that made me want to keep exploring. Even my favorite games of all time had a limit on them, after a while I needed to take a break, but this game is so immense and has so much going on, I actually feel overwhelmed in a good way.

Really, amazing game so far and I have barely scratched the surface!

Take care all.

[edczxcvbnm]

The best part of these quests, edczxcvbnm, is that you generally do not need to fetch things for people. If someone needs five raider helmets, you kill the things that get you helmets, and on your fifth one, blam, quest done. You get a pop-up detailing what you just completed, a little story about the character you helped, and your reward. If you think you are lacking a connection to people, you should perhaps visit the Affinity Chart. The more quests you do for chumps means these chumps get some more details to their lives and you can see with whom they connect, and suddenly they are less chumps and instead villagers with personality who hold you as some Bionis-wandering badass hero.

Colony 9 loves me. I have not checked out Colony 6 yet. Kalilung is doing horrible things light-years ahead of me, like killing level forty named monsters. I try not to watch, but I am jealous.

My problem with that becomes the lack of caring. I don't even read what people say anymore because it is either too unrelatable (like my example) or it doesn't really matter because I am not going to talk to them every again. Anything interesting has been sapped away to give you a glut of things to do and 90% of it isn't interesting. I would actually prefer going back to the people...it might change their situation, or they get up and go do something. It is just check marks on a list as far as I am concerned. Why have me talk to the people? Can't we cut the middle man out of this one?

So, now that I am more than half way through the game I am beginning to fear a potential Chrono Cross style story dump in the final two dungeons. I would say that Prison Island is the equivelent of the Dead Sea. Big revelations are made but they also pile on the mystery and it doesn't seem like it will be resolved until just near the end. I think the pacing of the two games is very similar story wise.

[Fynn]

So, now that I am more than half way through the game I am beginning to fear a potential Chrono Cross style story dump in the final two dungeons. I would say that Prison Island is the equivelent of the Dead Sea. Big revelations are made but they also pile on the mystery and it doesn't seem like it will be resolved until just near the end. I think the pacing of the two games is very similar story wise.

Trust me, it is not so. Game length spoilersIf you're just out of Prison Island, there's still a whole lot of game left. You are not nearly halfway there.

[The Captain]

I just realized what this game is missing: Restoring items!

I was wondering if I was missing a menu or something in the battles but nope, looks like the only curing comes from abilities.

Interesting, though crazy how it took me this long to notice. What does everyone else think of this?

Take care all.

[edczxcvbnm]

The lack of battle items in general has not bothered me. After a battle is over you heal up anyway and during battles, they are not that difficult with all of your abilities to start. You can do some crazy major damage pretty fast.

[NeoCracker]

Since my cousin has a Wii, after I start my new Job on the 7th, this is among my first purchases.

[Wolf Kanno]

t finished the Satorl(sp?) Marsh, or as I like to think of it as "Spira done right". The day time is just a foggy grey, but the night has the entire marsh glowing with multitude of colors and the trees almost look like crystal, and the rainbow colored fog, it really looked like Macalania Woods with the Pyreflies of the Moonglow combined. Not to mention the moody choral background theme that was very reminiscent of the Hymn of the Fayeth. It also turned out to be a huge area about half the size of the Bionis Leg which I was not expecting. There are several hidden caves and the Exile Fortress and the quests connected to it were very interesting an unexpected. Thank god the Lv.80 monsters are not terribly aggressive like the ones on the Bionis Leg were, as they are everywhere and the Nopon Merchants are right about night time being dangerous as half the monsters in the daytime are replaced with endgame versions of themselves.

I'm currently in the Trachea, and I must say that the inside of the Bionis is one of the most otherworldly sights I've seen in a game barring the MegaTen titles. I'll probably head to the next landmark and then backtrack to Colony 6, since it's finally opening up and looks to be an interesting diversionary sidequest of its own. Speaking of quests, I was finally able to finish the letter from Linnia quest that had me go toe to toe with a very angry Lv. 40 frog who nearly wiped my Lv.36 party out multiple times. Also, I have a question for people who may know. The quest where you have to find the mementos of a widows son who tried to reach the Bionis Head, I have two of the items, his armor and his knife. I found one in the Tephra Mines and the other in the Satori Marsh, but it looks like I found the first and third items. Have I already passed the second item? Was it in the Bionis Leg or Ether Mine, or is it actually farther up (I always assumed the last item would be on the head) or is it now in a place that just opened up?

The game is getting pretty good, and Dunban is officially my favorite character (even if his victory speeches are corny) because he's just an awesome character, and he's my favorite character to play as.