I got my first major chug in frame rate yesterday!
It was a side quest involving the Giants stuff and the three Defiled Queens just destroyed the frame rate. I have to say I got my shit utterly scared because when I got the mirror, a spider crawled up off the side and scared me to death (it then knocked me off the cliff and I went back to kill it again) and then when I placed the mirror THREE SPIDERS. I mean I'm not scared of spiders, but spiders can be creepy.
Main game wise, I just reached Makna Forest.
Thoughts on the other stuff
the Marsh was beautiful. I don't even care if it most likely looks bad on N3DS. The colours, the night time music was all great.
Dunban makes a cool entrance when he joins your party. So that is rad.
Xord was cool. All villains should be this level of British.
I got this game because I missed out on the Xenoblade Wii, I had a N3DS and Xenoblade X looks so damn good. If this is what was achieved on the Wii/N3DS, I'm super looking forward to X.
Damn, I'm always fucking up the names. The other day I posted "Exile of Fortress". That doesn't even make sense =/
I should stop posting at 1am.
And I glanced at the list in the wiki and didn't see any spoilers. Just NPC locations and
required reconstruction levels to recruit them
. Those are definitely far and away from what I consider spoilers
I actually think the Xenoblade Wiki does a great job at shielding you from spoilers. I've been using it to track enemies/collectibles/locations for quests and it hasn't revealed anything I would consider a spoiler.
There are definitely some spoilers related to that. I guess it's good you haven't seen any, maybe the Wiki article is formatted well enough that they are easily avoidable. You'll know what I'm referring to when you get to a certain point in the game though.
It's a mix of tension and party affinity, assuming you can time the B prompt right. Higher affinity between party members and higher tension during chain attacks increases the chance of getting follow ups.
It's a mix of tension and party affinity, assuming you can time the B prompt right. Higher affinity between party members and higher tension during chain attacks increases the chance of getting follow ups.
Wow! That seems fast at ~55 hours. What level did you finish it? I think that's on the quicker side of a play through for your first time. I think I was somewhere in the 70s on my first play through. I'm hoping to stay engaged in the game long enough to try to beat Super Bosses this time around.
The final boss took me three hours to beat. I don't even want to know how many attempts I made. But I told myself I wasn't grinding, and I was sticking to it. This made things "fun" when I arrived at Level 78 (77 for Sharla and Riki!).
I tried Shulk/Seven/Dunban for a fitting fight. But it was very clear that wasn't going to work. I switched out Seven for Riki to have the Smash Bros. team. Got a bit further but still no cigar. Repeat the team switch-outs until I arrive at Shulk/Riki/Sharla. Despite their lower levels, my 9999 HP Riki along with All-Healing Sharla got further than any other combination. I only had to run this combination four times before everything fell into place.
It was frustrating at first, but not wiping out the final boss with higher-level-than-thou power certainly made for a more climactic battle. The battle I ended up victorious in had to have lasted fifteen minutes, easily. A few close calls that had me tensed up just added on to the experience. The one that stands out most being when Sharla and Riki both died. Shulk was at low health, and a Talent Art is charging. I only had two bars, so I revived Sharla, quickly scrolled over to Monado Arts, warned Sharla so that the two could be healed, and then Shielded with a half-second left. During the Art animation I had the time to Shadow Eye for moving Aggro away, giving just enough time to build up the meter for the revival of Riki.
The battle system was great throughout the game, but having to use every single thing at your disposal was not something I had to do until the end. Even the fight with L
orithia
didn't stand close. That felt more like a poorly designed fight to be cheesed instead of the Final Boss' long fight of attrition.
So like... Level 80 probably would have made things less frustrating to start off, but I'm almost glad I was under-leveled. It's not often a boss fight keeps the player engaged for so long without feeling too sponge-y.
A few questions on the ending,
Is Xenoblade's world it's own UNIVERSE more-so than a world? Is there other life in the vast ocean? The big bang showing just one universe appearing among many has me thinking it's the former. There isn't even a world to explore, you can fly as long as you want through the endless ocean and still find nothing.
Second question only loosely related; is XBX in the same over-arching group of universes? The creation of XB's world taking place in space is why this intrigues me.
Lastly for now, is XB's world... even a world? Alvis/Monado basically saying he's a computer of sorts would have you believing the whole world is but a program being controller through outside sources. It gains even more credence when you consider the entire game's focus on "choice" and pre-determined fates. What is more pre-determined yet branching than programs?
Or maybe this is another game I've played in the past year just seeping in to Xeno haha.
So i'm trying to not use a guide, i'm only doing side quests if they come my way, like if i kill a ponio and then get a notification that i need 4 more to complete a quest.
with that said, I just got the point where Colony 6 can be fixed up. So, should i bother with this at all? Or is there a good time to tackle this, if it's worth doing? Or should I just continue with the game?
Nope, but perfect timing increases the chances of getting follow ups for the next party member. So it's basically a combination of how much tension your party member has, the overall affinity of the team and how well you time the B prompts. B prompts outside of chain attack are the ones that raises party gauge, tension and affinity. But if you beat an enemy during chain attack, you automatically gain 1 bar of party gauge. Very useful when you are up against multiple enemies.
So i'm trying to not use a guide, i'm only doing side quests if they come my way, like if i kill a ponio and then get a notification that i need 4 more to complete a quest.
with that said, I just got the point where Colony 6 can be fixed up. So, should i bother with this at all? Or is there a good time to tackle this, if it's worth doing? Or should I just continue with the game?
IIRC, after a certain point in the game some characters in the overworld will die if they haven't been invited to Colony 6 or there isn't enough capacity.
with that said, I just got the point where Colony 6 can be fixed up. So, should i bother with this at all? Or is there a good time to tackle this, if it's worth doing? Or should I just continue with the game?
You can do it at your own pace, but leveling up your restoration by 1 across each category feels a little necessary as the reward you'll get out of it will be the material for a future quest that enables you to craft gems from anywhere.
IIRC, after a certain point in the game some characters in the overworld will die if they haven't been invited to Colony 6 or there isn't enough capacity.
You can do it at your own pace, but leveling up your restoration by 1 across each category feels a little necessary as the reward you'll get out of it will be the material for a future quest that enables you to craft gems from anywhere.
so it sounds like it's a notch above a typical side quest but not exactly the most urgent thing to attend to. I guess i'll do this bridge clearing mission and then maybe get back to it in a while. thanks!
so it sounds like it's a notch above a typical side quest but not exactly the most urgent thing to attend to. I guess i'll do this bridge clearing mission and then maybe get back to it in a while. thanks!
Yeah, besides the materials you'll need at higher level restoration can only be obtained at later parts of the game, and it requires a big amount of cash, so save and amass some fortune for the restoration.
The final boss took me three hours to beat. I don't even want to know how many attempts I made. But I told myself I wasn't grinding, and I was sticking to it. This made things "fun" when I arrived at Level 78 (77 for Sharla and Riki!).
I tried Shulk/Seven/Dunban for a fitting fight. But it was very clear that wasn't going to work. I switched out Seven for Riki to have the Smash Bros. team. Got a bit further but still no cigar. Repeat the team switch-outs until I arrive at Shulk/Riki/Sharla. Despite their lower levels, my 9999 HP Riki along with All-Healing Sharla got further than any other combination. I only had to run this combination four times before everything fell into place.
It was frustrating at first, but not wiping out the final boss with higher-level-than-thou power certainly made for a more climactic battle. The battle I ended up victorious in had to have lasted fifteen minutes, easily. A few close calls that had me tensed up just added on to the experience. The one that stands out most being when Sharla and Riki both died. Shulk was at low health, and a Talent Art is charging. I only had two bars, so I revived Sharla, quickly scrolled over to Monado Arts, warned Sharla so that the two could be healed, and then Shielded with a half-second left. During the Art animation I had the time to Shadow Eye for moving Aggro away, giving just enough time to build up the meter for the revival of Riki.
The battle system was great throughout the game, but having to use every single thing at your disposal was not something I had to do until the end. Even the fight with L
orithia
didn't stand close. That felt more like a poorly designed fight to be cheesed instead of the Final Boss' long fight of attrition.
So like... Level 80 probably would have made things less frustrating to start off, but I'm almost glad I was under-leveled. It's not often a boss fight keeps the player engaged for so long without feeling too sponge-y.
A few questions on the ending,
Is Xenoblade's world it's own UNIVERSE more-so than a world? Is there other life in the vast ocean? The big bang showing just one universe appearing among many has me thinking it's the former. There isn't even a world to explore, you can fly as long as you want through the endless ocean and still find nothing.
Second question only loosely related; is XBX in the same over-arching group of universes? The creation of XB's world taking place in space is why this intrigues me.
Lastly for now, is XB's world... even a world? Alvis/Monado basically saying he's a computer of sorts would have you believing the whole world is but a program being controller through outside sources. It gains even more credence when you consider the entire game's focus on "choice" and pre-determined fates. What is more pre-determined yet branching than programs?
Or maybe this is another game I've played in the past year just seeping in to Xeno haha.
Klaus's (Zanza) Experiment was to create matter to certain specifications according to values he provided for the system. He was creating a big bang. It was probably only supposed to be a 'little bang', but Klaus went through with the expiriment before they ran enough simulations.
This resulted in the program cutting out the old universe, and pasting in a new one... It probably used the materials from the old to make the new. The systems ai, alvis existed to program matter at the behest of users, the two closest, strongest willed users had their subconcious programmed into reality/matter.
Exactly how wide ranging the effects of the expiriment were, were unknown. Was it the galaxy? The universe?
However, it was reality, it was not a computer program, it was a reality created via a manmade project, and alvis was the main ai behind the technologies systems, and he still has access to the systems, and they are still functional.Speaking of functional, the program uses a purely functional programming language, the kind that doesnt exist yet, but the kind of thing someone invested in teaching haskel will drunkenly spout on about being the purely functional future and monads.
Alvis then, in a sense, became the monad (pythagorean religion/sacred geometry/and functional programming( of the new reality, and the monad begat the diads, zanza and meneyth, which begat the numbers, which begat the points, which begat the lines, which begat 2d forms, which begat 3d forms, which begat the 4 elements that make up the world.
There is likely nothing else in the ocean of whatever chunk of space this reality takes up. However, the universe at large may still be in tact. And probably is, judging by zanzas reaction to arglas waxing philosophical about space travel.
X could be and probably is part of the universe created by shulks big bang.
You don't need to spoiler tag location names. At least not random ones like this. Some of them that actually give something away should be spoiler tagged, though.
You don't need to spoiler tag location names. At least not random ones like this. Some of them that actually give something away should be spoiler tagged, though.
IIRC, after a certain point in the game some characters in the overworld will die if they haven't been invited to Colony 6 or there isn't enough capacity.
This actually isn't true, none of the NPCs that can be invited to Colony 6 ever become unavailable.
There is actually nothing missable in the game other than the timed sidequests, which have fair warning (the timer icon). Also worth noting that most of the timed sidequests (but not all) expire shortly after an "are you sure you want to continue" prompt, though it is never really clear which ones are expiring at a given point.
There is one prompt that doesn't lead to any quests expiring around midgame -
the one when you leave Alcamoth
, and one set of timed quests that doesn't have any expiration warning -
So i'm trying to not use a guide, i'm only doing side quests if they come my way, like if i kill a ponio and then get a notification that i need 4 more to complete a quest.
with that said, I just got the point where Colony 6 can be fixed up. So, should i bother with this at all? Or is there a good time to tackle this, if it's worth doing? Or should I just continue with the game?
It's worth doing if you plan on tackling the tougher side content or want to see some of the more interesting side quests. If you just want to beat the story, you can skip it since it can take up a lot of time and can be rather tedious.
Nope, but perfect timing increases the chances of getting follow ups for the next party member. So it's basically a combination of how much tension your party member has, the overall affinity of the team and how well you time the B prompts. B prompts outside of chain attack are the ones that raises party gauge, tension and affinity. But if you beat an enemy during chain attack, you automatically gain 1 bar of party gauge. Very useful when you are up against multiple enemies.
Story q after the "Core" (also, I've beat the game before, just something I didn't quite get):
When Zanza says that they hid his body in Prison Island and his soul in Ose Tower, what did they find in Prison Island? The body of Arglas? But it was still Zanza because it unlocked the power of the Monado?
And Zanza needed a body... but why couldn't he use the body of the Bionis? Because he wasn't ready?
Story q after the "Core" (also, I've beat the game before, just something I didn't quite get):
When Zanza says that they hid his body in Prison Island and his soul in Ose Tower, what did they find in Prison Island? The body of Arglas? But it was still Zanza because it unlocked the power of the Monado?
And Zanza needed a body... but why couldn't he use the body of the Bionis? Because he wasn't ready?
Yeah, they sealed Arglas body which housed limits to the Monado. Without Monado's ability to kill biological beings I think he wouldn't be able to restart the universe. Something about needing full power of both his and Meyneth's Monado or something. A part of Monado's power was sealed, if you will.
Zanza needed a body because, well, I think in the new universe he and Meyneth created after accident at Earth's orbit they needed a body and Bionis was still weakened after the fight against Mechonis.
OK, my head is spinning, I'm not sure about how it all works tbh.
Well guys, I finally am giving this game the shot it deserves. I got the special edition bundle for Wii when it first came out. I played maybe 3 hours and stopped. I kept dying and I didn't understand at that time that I was attacking enemies far beyond my capabilities that should just be ignored. Shortly after that I moved from an apartment to a house and somehow the game was lost in the shuffle (not literally lost!).
So now I went ahead got it on the N3DS. Wow, it clicked with me this time right away. Haven't had any issues (other than thinking I could actually switch characters in the middle of a fight). Good story, great music, awesome gameplay, graphics are definitely rough but they look great when the scale is shown off. so glad I gave this game a shot (even though it cost me $250!).
Had to do my first main character swap and went with Sharla for
the fight against the Mechon that takes Juju
. The AI was doing a terrible job as a healer so i had to take matters into my own hands.
Am i missing some sort of gambit system, like FFXII or Dragon Age: Origins had? Like scripts? Or should i remove some of their less used abilities to force them into using the more practical ones?
Had to do my first main character swap and went with Sharla for
the fight against the Mechon that takes Juju
. The AI was doing a terrible job as a healer so i had to take matters into my own hands.
Am i missing some sort of gambit system, like FFXII or Dragon Age: Origin had? Like scripts? Or should i remove some of their less used abilities to force them into using the more practical ones?
Had to do my first main character swap and went with Sharla for
the fight against the Mechon that takes Juju
. The AI was doing a terrible job as a healer so i had to take matters into my own hands.
Am i missing some sort of gambit system, like FFXII or Dragon Age: Origins had? Like scripts? Or should i remove some of their less used abilities to force them into using the more practical ones?
You probably had a hard time on that fight because you didn't kill the tentacles on the sides first. That's pretty important for that fight. I did that fight last night and mained Reyen and it went very easy. Even the fight after that.
I think the key is to level up the Arts that you want the AI to use. If you level them up they will have a faster cool down and use them more often, and the AI is more likely to use the Arts that are leveled up higher than the rest. I'm certain they have AI that "If HP is < 30% then Heal X" stuff like that, but you don't see those scripts in this game. So the most influence you're going to have over what Arts they use is to level up the ones you want them to focus on using.
For example on Sharla I have ONLY ever leveled up her healing arts. She's a very good healer for me in combat. I don't even wear armor on any of my characters (the game is funnier in their underwear) and I haven't had any troubles on boss fights... so far.
You probably had a hard time on that fight because you didn't kill the tentacles on the sides first. That's pretty important for that fight. I did that fight last night and mained Reyen and it went very easy. Even the fight after that.
I think the key is to level up the Arts that you want the AI to use. If you level them up they will have a faster cool down and use them more often, and the AI is more likely to use the Arts that are leveled up higher than the rest. I'm certain they have AI that "If HP is < 30% then Heal X" stuff like that, but you don't see those scripts in this game. So the most influence you're going to have over what Arts they use is to level up the ones you want them to focus on using.
For example on Sharla I have ONLY ever leveled up her healing arts. She's a very good healer for me in combat. I don't even wear armor on any of my characters (the game is funnier in their underwear) and I haven't had any troubles on boss fights... so far.
No, the fight I was talking about is a couple of hours after that one. But yes, I agree with you regarding focusing your points on Sharla's healing arts. I bought the intermediate upgrade for her heal all skill, she's gotten really good as a healer and unless a better healer comes along I foresee her being a permanent member of my party.
No, the fight I was talking about is a couple of hours after that one. But yes, I agree with you regarding focusing your points on Sharla's healing arts. I bought the intermediate upgrade for her heal all skill, she's gotten really good as a healer and unless a better healer comes along I foresee her being a permanent member of my party.
You don't really get a better healer, the rest of your party simply becomes better at dodging/ toppling/ everything and having Sharla becomes less useful.
No, the fight I was talking about is a couple of hours after that one. But yes, I agree with you regarding focusing your points on Sharla's healing arts. I bought the intermediate upgrade for her heal all skill, she's gotten really good as a healer and unless a better healer comes along I foresee her being a permanent member of my party.
A lot of players feel like they NEED to use Sharla, but they really don't. The minor healing other characters can do will almost always be more than enough, especially if you're tanking with dodging and not brute defense. You do pick up a character later on that I love using as the player controlled character and he has the best spread heal move in the game.
I've rarely touched Sharla as the player unit. I'm sure you can be far more effective than the CPU at healing, but it's just not for me.
Looking to get a new 3DS game to fill up my new 32GB microsd, but I can't decide between this and Majora's Mask. I've never played either game so it's a hard choice. How does Xenoblade game run on the new 3ds? I've been leaning towards Xenoblade over Majora's, but the fact that I'd be buying the worst looking version, whereas I'd be buying the premiere version with Majora's, has made me hesitant.
If graphics are your main concern, Majora's Mask is waaaaay nicer looking than Xenoblade. Xenoblade has a great sense of scale, but it is pretty damn ugly. Very low resolution.
As far as lasting appeal though, it's supposedly a huge RPG. I'm about 6 hours in and really like it a lot so far. To me it feels kinda like FF12, or a single player MMO.
Majora's is definitely the weirdest Zelda game. It's very odd, some people love it for that fact and some don't. The New 3DS version is quite nice looking to be sure.
Frontier Village is overwhelming in terms of sidequests. I think I'm just going to stop doing them for a while, my characters are already outleveling the main story content too much, I'll just go back and do the sidequests latter for completion sake.
I am on a semi-blackout for that, but it has a gambit-like system? That would be a great way to fix the wonky AI for stuff like Melia (okay, she's beyond "wonky"), Shulk, and Sharla.
I am on a semi-blackout for that, but it has a gambit-like system? That would be a great way to fix the wonky AI for stuff like Melia (okay, she's beyond "wonky"), Shulk, and Sharla.
Like in Xenoblade, characters shout stuff at you during battle but in XCX it actually means something in the way that you get buffs and healing from responding to their cries with the desired Arts. You can set up triggering conditions and customize which things are gonna be called out. This is also the only way to heal other characters.
A lot of players feel like they NEED to use Sharla, but they really don't. The minor healing other characters can do will almost always be more than enough, especially if you're tanking with dodging and not brute defense. You do pick up a character later on that I love using as the player controlled character and he has the best spread heal move in the game.
I've rarely touched Sharla as the player unit. I'm sure you can be far more effective than the CPU at healing, but it's just not for me.
He's referring to Riki, but I don't know if I agree. Heal Round is more reliable, it hits a wide area without a need to aim it, and unless the party members have a couple debuffs it heals more too. It does have a much longer cooldown though.
Not saying You Can Do It is not a good healing art, it's definitely great and plenty sufficient.
No, the fight I was talking about is a couple of hours after that one. But yes, I agree with you regarding focusing your points on Sharla's healing arts. I bought the intermediate upgrade for her heal all skill, she's gotten really good as a healer and unless a better healer comes along I foresee her being a permanent member of my party.
Outside of a handful of instances, or if you are experimenting with fighting high-level monsters, Sharla is a trap. There are other options for healing or avoiding damage entirely, and her lack of offense means fights are dragged out for longer than they have to be. She also ruins chains, effectively removes Topple locking as a strategy, has periods where she can't do anything due to Cool Off, and Cool Off can also accidentally invalidate her from Chain Attacks. There are just better options since she tends to hamper rather than help.
Man, I don't know what to feel. I haven't felt the urge to pick the game back up. Not even once. To roam the land, kill some enemies, do a quest or two, anything. It feels as if the game is just done. The ending really didn't leave me with much to desire, so it's like, "Why would I keep playing? It's over already!"
It feels great and saddening at the same time. Don't regret skipping a lot of the sidequests because then I wouldn't have seen the ending, but it's hard to think it's over.
I would say that maybe I just need more than two days to return, but that's not how I play games. I've probably replayed less than ten games in my entire lifetime.
