Xenoblade discussions

1. Put on your "learning hat". At the beginning, there's a somewhat steep learning curve with regards to combat.

2. Explore. Do sidequests. Many people have used "story-driven" to describe this game, a term which I myself refuse to use because there's so much in the game that is not driven by the story.

3. Experiment. One thing I love about the combat is that every character and every "art" is viable in combat, to differing degrees against different enemies.

It's kinda hard to wanna explore in the beginning when your hometown is being attacked by robots, your best friend just got trapped by a spider, or your new friend's brother is being held hostage by a robotic tentacle monster. Exploration sorta ruins the urgency some of those scenes have, though the areas ARE introduced during moments of calmness so maybe it's just me.

Hey guise. I just decided that my field party will be 7th - Riki - Dunban, and my boss party will be Shulk - Riki - Dunban. 7th for the relatively low aggro and the AoE paralysis art (what DOES Paralysis do anyway?), and Shulk for the extra heal and the protective Monado arts.

Your field party should be 7th-Shulk-Dunban.

Trust me

They also make a good boss team as well.

The problem is that Shulk is just as good at drawing aggro as Dunban, but not nearly as good at dealing with it.

And a boss party without two "light healers" seems like it wouldn't go far.

Originally Posted by Double A

The problem is that Shulk is just as good at drawing aggro as Dunban, but not nearly as good at dealing with it.

And a boss party without two "light healers" seems like it wouldn't go far.

Try it, you'll see.

7th has agility that's second to Dunban, plus she can drain ether, auto-regen health and later on insta-topple when she hits high tension.

You'll take down most enemies so fast, you won't even need healing, so Shulk supports that. The party gauge flies up like crazy fast, so you can easily warn party members should it come to that.

It's the party I beat the game with, from the Fallen Arm right up until the final boss.

I'd imagine you can understand why I would rather not stick to any single party til the end of the game, preferring instead to use mix-and-match between whichever four characters I feel like mixing-and-matching with at any given time.

Except Reyn. And possibly Sharla unless I come up to a really difficult battle.

Oh, well I understand that.

You should try the 7th-Dunban-Shulk team a few times.

YOU MUST.

Ok fine. I'll use it in my next boss battle.

The reason I have Dunban and Riki in the same party is because Dunban can attract a bit of aggro, but where there are large groups of enemies around, Riki can take off some of the excess aggro. The aggro will be shared between them, while my attacking character (be it Shulk, Melia or 7th) will just do some attacking ♥♥♥♥ on the side

Just finished Mechonis Core. Holy ♥♥♥♥.

Basically everything and everyone that could have possibly been significant turned out to be VERY, VERY significant. Shulk's odd dual-consciousness dream, Egil's true goals, the visual similarities between 7th's possession by Meyneth and Shulk's visions, why Zanza was sealed, why Dickson was hiding something, why the High Entia breed with Homs.

This, my friends, is how you execute a plot twist.

A question, though:

So do I need to care about the anti-Mechon weapons anymore? It doesn't seem like I'm going to fight many of them ever again.

Originally Posted by Double A

The problem is that Shulk is just as good at drawing aggro as Dunban, but not nearly as good at dealing with it.

And a boss party without two "light healers" seems like it wouldn't go far.

There are ways of recovering HP without relying on healing arts (Gems that restore health) and they go very well with both 7th and Dunban due to their high rate of attack and double attacking potential.

Originally Posted by Rarity

So finally picked this up after hearing people praise its name all over the place. considering my JRPG experience up to now is basically just Final Fantasy, DQ/DW, and Lost Odyssey, is there anything I should know going in as I get the feeling I'll be 'doing it wrong.'

1. Thoroughly explore. This is essential to getting full enjoyment of the game.

The quests are designed to be interlinked with your initial movement through each area (you'll naturally find most of the quest-related enemies and items just by filling in the map), with higher-rank quests relying more on foreknowledge of the map and character relationships and so forth. Personally I tried to uncover as much of the map and complete as many quests as possible before moving through the story. It was a nice feeling to have the story pushing me to go somewhere, but being able to say "♥♥♥♥ that" and go exploring at my own pace.

In hindsight, however, I think a better method might be to progress through the story until you start to notice a push to the next area, then completing as many quests as you can find. This way you'll avoid being overleveled for the major fights in that particular area, while still reaping all the rewards from the quests for the next one.

HOWEVER

There's a certain point in the game where you'll start encountering a lot more Mechon, and I recommend you explore these areas BEFORE going on to the bosses, as you won't be able to come back to some of them later. I'm only saying this because it's not made especially obvious by the game (in other cases it's usually blatantly clear).

2. Make an effort to really learn the battle system. The battle system is very malleable and designed for players to select their own combinations of arts and find out what works best for them.

The main restraints are learning how to manage the game's core mechanics (aggro, tension, visions, topple/daze, etc.), which is sometimes very hard (but as I'm learning not totally impossible) with certain combinations of characters due to their strengths and weaknesses and the way their arts work and so on. A good working knowledge of how to manipulate these mechanics reveals a very deep combat system beneath what appears to consist at first glance of basically "spam strong arts."

...I will admit however that for many story bosses, which are often abridged fights, the mechanics don't really matter all that much, something which has really bugged me in some of the later fights (screw you Egil).

3. Don't burn out.

You seem to have this mindset already, but enjoying the game is more important than finishing every sidequest. I've personally had to take a couple breaks from sidequests at various points because they're very taxing if you've missed a whole bunch of them outside of initial exploration. (Place name spoilers: Frontier Village and Alcamoth in particular.)

Took me awhile to learn the battle system, but now it's really fun. Running around the Bionis Leg right now, want to explore everything

So I'm hearing that a game like this most likely could not have been made on the HD twins because the budget would have killed the developers. Is that true?

Originally Posted by Double A

So I'm hearing that a game like this most likely could not have been made on the HD twins because the budget would have killed the developers. Is that true?

No and maybe.

No because a studio in the position of Monolith Soft (recently acquired by a larger company) certainly doesn't have the capital to make it happen on their own. HD development costs versus non-HD is an EXPONENTIAL difference. We wouldn't be talking a mere upscale here; we'd be talking a game graphically designed with HD (not to mention vastly different processing power) in mind.

Maybe because if that larger company had the HD development base to start with (i.e. Sony/Microsoft), the owners certainly could have funded the higher-end side of development if they wanted to. Nintendo doesn't/didn't really have that base, though.

I'm confused, is that "no that isn't true" or "no it couldn't have been made"?

In Monolith Software's current position or pre-acquisition position, absolutely not [they couldn't have done HD development].

Had they been acquired and given budgets by Sony or Microsoft, perhaps [they could have].

Originally Posted by Lex

Just finished Mechonis Core. Holy ♥♥♥♥.

Basically everything and everyone that could have possibly been significant turned out to be VERY, VERY significant. Shulk's odd dual-consciousness dream, Egil's true goals, the visual similarities between 7th's possession by Meyneth and Shulk's visions, why Zanza was sealed, why Dickson was hiding something, why the High Entia breed with Homs.

This, my friends, is how you execute a plot twist.

A question, though:

So do I need to care about the anti-Mechon weapons anymore? It doesn't seem like I'm going to fight many of them ever again.



There are ways of recovering HP without relying on healing arts (Gems that restore health) and they go very well with both 7th and Dunban due to their high rate of attack and double attacking potential.



1. Thoroughly explore. This is essential to getting full enjoyment of the game.

The quests are designed to be interlinked with your initial movement through each area (you'll naturally find most of the quest-related enemies and items just by filling in the map), with higher-rank quests relying more on foreknowledge of the map and character relationships and so forth. Personally I tried to uncover as much of the map and complete as many quests as possible before moving through the story. It was a nice feeling to have the story pushing me to go somewhere, but being able to say "♥♥♥♥ that" and go exploring at my own pace.

In hindsight, however, I think a better method might be to progress through the story until you start to notice a push to the next area, then completing as many quests as you can find. This way you'll avoid being overleveled for the major fights in that particular area, while still reaping all the rewards from the quests for the next one.

HOWEVER

There's a certain point in the game where you'll start encountering a lot more Mechon, and I recommend you explore these areas BEFORE going on to the bosses, as you won't be able to come back to some of them later. I'm only saying this because it's not made especially obvious by the game (in other cases it's usually blatantly clear).

2. Make an effort to really learn the battle system. The battle system is very malleable and designed for players to select their own combinations of arts and find out what works best for them.

The main restraints are learning how to manage the game's core mechanics (aggro, tension, visions, topple/daze, etc.), which is sometimes very hard (but as I'm learning not totally impossible) with certain combinations of characters due to their strengths and weaknesses and the way their arts work and so on. A good working knowledge of how to manipulate these mechanics reveals a very deep combat system beneath what appears to consist at first glance of basically "spam strong arts."

...I will admit however that for many story bosses, which are often abridged fights, the mechanics don't really matter all that much, something which has really bugged me in some of the later fights (screw you Egil).

3. Don't burn out.

You seem to have this mindset already, but enjoying the game is more important than finishing every sidequest. I've personally had to take a couple breaks from sidequests at various points because they're very taxing if you've missed a whole bunch of them outside of initial exploration. (Place name spoilers: Frontier Village and Alcamoth in particular.)

I remember your unflattering reception of Xenoblade on ZeldaInformer. What do you think about the game now?

Originally Posted by Primus

I remember your unflattering reception of Xenoblade on ZeldaInformer. What do you think about the game now?

I never gave Xenoblade any unflattering reception as until a couple weeks ago I'd never played the game. You might be thinking of Damir or Dathen, neither of whom particularly enjoyed the game (along with most of the ZI forum membership).

It's one of my personal top games ever, because even amidst the heap of things it could have done better, like anything related to tracking quests and managing the inventory, it still does tons of things right, like pacing, freedom to explore, scale of the world, non-bloated combat, story presentation, etc.

Originally Posted by Lex

I never gave Xenoblade any unflattering reception as until a couple weeks ago I'd never played the game. You might be thinking of Damir or Dathen, neither of whom particularly enjoyed the game (along with most of the ZI forum membership).

It's one of my personal top games ever, because even amidst the heap of things it could have done better, like anything related to tracking quests and managing the inventory, it still does tons of things right, like pacing, freedom to explore, scale of the world, non-bloated combat, story presentation, etc.

ah sorry .

Haha, wow.

*very late game spoilers involving Colony 6*

So I just did the Melancholy Tyrea surprise quest in Colony 6 - I had no idea High Entia were able to use their wings to fly like that! :B My god, it looked hilarious. The quest itself also surprised me, because I actually wasn't even aware of its existence. I've also just found out that there's a small "scene" of sorts between Melia and Shulk after the Mechonis Core in Colony 6 - try talking to Shulk when you're controlling Melia alone, and this is what happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7EhTlce71E

I'm loving this game more and more.

Man, my Reyn and Dunban aren't pulling agro from shulk too well. Granted I still have a a few levels of intermediate shadow eye to go so maybe that'll help but eh... I don't know. Should I just take off all the double attack/ strength gems I have on shulk since his DPS seems to be an enemy magnet at this point?