Made a small Soul Voice guide since the entire system is ambiguous and confusing. Also posted it on Reddit but thought it'd reach more viewers here. I'm not entirely sure it's correct, so post any fixes or additions you guys would like to see. Thanks to everyone on Reddit, GameFAQs, and NeoGAF for posts on Soul Voices, all of which helped contribute to this guide. Screenshots are from Nintendo's
Xenoblade Chronicles X Survival Guide: Planetary Defense 101 video.
Soul Voice Settings
On the 'Soul Voices' page for a character, you are shown 16 Soul Voices.
Each Soul Voice has a:
- Name: The name of the Soul Voice.
- Trigger Condition: The event that causes the Soul Voice to activate. Meeting this condition will not guarantee the Soul Voice to activate. The chances of activating the Soul Voice when the trigger condition is met is affected by party 'Morale'.
- Set of 3 items. Each item has a:
Example:
For your character, 12 of these Soul Voices have preset trigger conditions and 4 have customizable trigger conditions.
You are unable to change any Soul Voice settings for other characters.
Soul Voices In Battle
In battle, this is what a Soul Voice looks like:
Other Characters
When a character that isn't you triggers his/her Soul Voice, you see something similar to the above image. In the following image, Elma activates her Soul Voice and requests a ranged (yellow) art to be used.
Your arts of the requested art type begin to flash, emitting a colored circle (The color is consistent with the art type). Here, your 'Flame Grenade' art is flashing.
Activating an art of the requested type grants the effects of that Soul Voice to *both* members---you and the character who activated the Soul Voice. In addition, both characters are healed for a small amount. You have to wait for the requested art-type to flash before activating it, otherwise the Soul Voice effects will not activate. Successful activation of effects is depicted by the emission of rings around both characters. The color of the rings corresponds to the requested art-type response. Time will also slow down for a brief moment.
Your Character
When a Soul Voice of your character is triggered, it does not immediately activate. Instead, a quick time event (QTE) occurs where you must press the 'B' button. This is called a 'Soul Challenge'. This is what it looks like in-game:
To complete the Soul Challenge, you must press B button when the orange circle overlaps (Perfect) or falls within (Good) the white circle. This will activate your Soul Voice and recover HP for all party members. If a party member responds with the requested art type, both of you will gain the Soul Voice's effects and recover HP. A Perfect Soul Challenge completion additionally grants TP. Completing a Soul Challenge raises the party's morale by 1 bar, increasing the frequency of Soul Voices as well as the amount of TP gained per perfect Soul Challenge completion. Again, the effects of the Soul Voice is depicted by the emission of colored rings around the characters while time is slowed.