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[Benzychenz]

I'm still really, really early. And I have full intention to push through another couple of chapters to see how I feel. But so far this game is immensely disappointing coming off Xenoblade Wii, and if I feel the same way later on I'll probably end up selling it.

It's not clicking at all. The dialogue/cutscenes/characters are unbearably flat and uninteresting, I just want to skip every single dialogue exchange. Visually it's technically impressive and the skyboxes are nice, but the lack of richer colours and interesting worldbuilding through visual design from Xenoblade really let down the overall aesthetic. The soundtrack's great tracks are offset by the terrible ones, so it's far less consistent than Xenoblade as a whole. The UI is a mess. The whole questing structure and game flow is dragging its knuckles.

I'm at the point of bewilderment, to be honest. I loved Xenoblade so much, and that's within a genre that I'm not a big fan of in the first place (I'm exceedingly picky with JRPGS). The praise this has gotten here and elsewhere from people who also loved Xenoblade had me excited. It's obviously drawing a lot from Xenoblade in design and vision. But unlike Shulk I'm not really feeling it at all. So far absolutely nothing, except the Skells, about the story, world, and game design itself is standing out or grabbing my interest. I'm bored, so bored. And I'm sure as shit not grinding 10+ hours of content just to play around with a Skell.

Man

I felt similar to you early on (though not as extreme), but the game has come to grow on me more and more, especially since I got my Skell and then again when I got the flight module.

Overall I prefer the original Xenoblade, but this is a great game in its own right.

 

[Haunted]

there is a little guy that shows up only during this weather

he was so cute

why are we forced to kill cute things?

You're not forced to kill anything (except in self defence, but even that only occurs once you enter a creature's immediate territory).

Let's be clear about one thing here - the humans, you, are the aggressor and invader in the indigen-human relationship.

 

[correojon]

120 hours after I´m at chapter 10 and can still loose a whole day just going around Mira doing Missions, exploring and finding new things. And I still haven´t almost touched Cauldron. I have Primordia, Oblivia and Sylvalum at 93% in the collectopedia, Noctilum at 98% and Cauldron at 41%.
Today I´ll just do some affinity quests, main story will have to wait.

Also, I´m level 49 and have 8 millions in the bank waiting for those sweet level 50 skells

 

[NeoRausch]

Maaaaybe I missed it but... How do I get to "Mechanical Lvl. 5"?!

Is it a questline?

 

[moerser]

just got my first skell, the free one. bought some weapons, but it feels... underwhelming. i dish out almost the same damage as on ground. any tips how to improve this skell or should i just wait until lvl 30 (27 currently) and spend serious money on a lvl 30 skell. what are great weapons for the lvl 30 ones, where to farm weapons? thanks in advance.

 

[moerser]

Maaaaybe I missed it but... How do I get to "Mechanical Lvl. 5"?!

Is it a questline?

yes, its called off the record.

 

[Astral Dog]

Has everyone seen the other outcome for the "Alien Nation" quest yet?

Spoiler warning if you haven't done that quest yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HfmYYe8Vq4

Spoiler

Gotta be one of the darkest moments in a Nintendo game ever. Yikes. Characters betray other characters all the time in Nintendo games but shooting defenseless creatures in the back is a new level of dark for the company. I literally gasped a little when I watched the clip because I don't expect Nintendo games to pull that stuff. I know the third guy gets up in the end but it almost makes it darker because the Ma-non ends up blaming himself for the incident. Xenoblade X has got to be Nintendo's darkest game since, uh, Majora's Mask maybe?

Spoiler

what about Eternal Darkness and Bayonetta?

 

[Astral Dog]

Though in that case, you have to consider the imagery Monolith wanted when they invoked the US - an artist doesn't have a responsibility to reflect 'human ethnic reality' when they're penning an idealised fantasy that uses 'LA' as aesthetic fluff and a tone-setting piece for a JRPG narrative. Changing that wouldn't be forcing diversity when compared to the real population of LA, it'd be forcing diversity when compared to the narratives and imagery the creators find interesting, relatable, and/or engaging. The same goes for sex, gender and orientation.

I was just thinking about that lol. Everyone is white or tanned-white. Is really dumb, specially when the game set itself in a real-USA setting. It's not even about fitting a quota or whatever, it's about reflecting the human ethnic reality -- I mean, isn't this fucking New LOS ANGELES? What city more diverse than it?.




In other thoughts, The Murderess is kind of a cliche character, but I really love her. <3

Spoiler

There is a (clever?) story reason for that

 

[zroid]

just got my first skell, the free one. bought some weapons, but it feels... underwhelming. i dish out almost the same damage as on ground. any tips how to improve this skell or should i just wait until lvl 30 (27 currently) and spend serious money on a lvl 30 skell. what are great weapons for the lvl 30 ones, where to farm weapons? thanks in advance.

level 20 skell ain't good

I think the only way to do much with it is if you've found some good level 20 drops from killing mechanoid enemies. hang in there till level 30 (or just ignore it, not like you really need the skell at this point), and then go nuts.

edit: also to answer your other question, the G-Buster lv30 weapon you're looking for.

 

[jonjonaug]

Maaaaybe I missed it but... How do I get to "Mechanical Lvl. 5"?!

Is it a questline?

There are three quests from the console called "Off The Record". Each one appears when you raise a field skill to level 4. If you complete the quest, the skill raises to level 5. The mechanical related quest is by far the easiest one and the most useful to get as early as possible.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I was at this on spot in Sylvalum just trying to guess who is the boss in this area I need to kill so I can get the gold area cleared badge added to my 72%

a tyrant patrols the area at night with two other dudes at his shoulder so I got my man

kill all of them

nothing happens

I look around for maybe a little flying bug tyrant for about 40 minutes

nothing shows up

so yeah fly up duh

Spoiler

Luxaar's Xern I could have sworn he was on the other side of the map

 

[SimpleGamer]

I'm having trouble with chapter 5, how the hell did you guys get passed this? It wouldn't be so difficult if I didn't have to worry about all the high level enemies spotting me.

 

[B-Dubs]

I'm having trouble with chapter 5, how the hell did you guys get passed this? It wouldn't be so difficult if I didn't have to worry about all the high level enemies spotting me.

Gotta jump around on the edges and the cliffs and be really sneaky. It's a useful skill as you'll have to navigate a much worse place later on.

 

[moerser]

level 20 skell ain't good

I think the only way to do much with it is if you've found some good level 20 drops from killing mechanoid enemies. hang in there till level 30 (or just ignore it, not like you really need the skell at this point), and then go nuts.

edit: also to answer your other question, the G-Buster lv30 weapon you're looking for.

alright, thanks. any tipp on where to farm the gbuster? or any other good weapons/armor for the lvl30 skell?

 

[Delstius]

I've been doing post game stuff for quite a bit and I'm really enjoying a lot of the scenarios that play out in the sidequests along with seeing the outcomes of my choices. But I've been dwelling on the combat while playing and I dunno if I really enjoy it all that much anymore. It sort of feels like too much of a numbers game? I haven't fought absolutely everything but it's mostly either I completely destroy the enemy because of the way I've built my characters or the fight is over for me fairly quickly because the enemy does too much damage and/or outpaces my party's healing output. I found it pretty rare that a fight ended up being really close.

There are situations where enemies with really strong attacks of a specific element that my party members were not sufficiently resistant to or a tyrant reflecting x element that ended up killing me because I didn't know beforehand. The best solutions to those sort of scenarios just seems to be going back and crafting the right augments to negate the reflect/increase your resistances or equipping a bunch of gear that ups your resistance to whatever element they mostly use. I'm not really sure how you can combat this during battle without preparing in advance for it though.

For example I was fighting that big Simius tyrant near NLA that was around level 80+ if I remember correctly and it had a thermal attack that was one shotting me or another party member. I couldn't really avoid it during battle because enemy attacks can still hit you even if you're not anywhere near the attack and you can't really dodge unless you use an art like Power Dive or have a high evasion stat. I came back to the fight with better resistances, but that extra preparation trivialized the fight. Also if your damage output is too good then your resistances and what the enemy can do don't really matter all that much because you've probably already killed them before they can do anything. Most fights end up being really short because it's not that hard to do a ton of damage in a small amount of time.

I dunno...it's like the player has to force a middleground with their equipment/builds and hold themselves back if they want thrilling drawn out fights.

I'm about to wrap up the post game and that's pretty much my main complain about it too.
As soon as you get the Ares it's even worse and you enter "One Punch Man mode", past that point the fun in fighting gradually goes away. You can still have some decent battles on ground but again some tyrants force you to abuse broken skills like Ghostwalker or Sleep because they one shot pretty much anything otherwise. At least endless overdrive mode with photon saber is still a blast for me so there's that.

Maybe with full eva gear/augments and some tanky build (be it with skell or on ground) you can actually enjoy some long and interesting fights, but considering the amount of time even a single augment need it's no wonder everyone go for the "one shot" option since it's way easier and more efficient. I'm more or less trying to do that with my skell team, grinding some more eva augments and skell suit atm. We'll see how it goes, but if things go well the 91+ tyrants will be enjoyable that way.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

I'm having trouble with chapter 5, how the hell did you guys get passed this? It wouldn't be so difficult if I didn't have to worry about all the high level enemies spotting me.

Sneak past those enemies. You can also find an underground tunnel near the first site which I believe a safer path reaching the second site.

 

[B-Dubs]

Sneak past those enemies. You can also find an underground tunnel near the first site which I believe a safer path reaching the second site.

THERE WAS A TUNNEL?!? I spent all that fucking time jumping from rock to rock, damn near falling into that fucking gorge god knows how many times and there was a goddamned tunnel?!

 

[Golnei]

Spoiler

There is a (clever?) story reason for that

Is this an endgame thing? I hope that they don't reveal that the

Spoiler

universe was created by a crazed German scientist

for the second time in a row.

You're not forced to kill anything (except in self defence, but even that only occurs once you enter a creature's immediate territory).

Let's be clear about one thing here - the humans, you, are the aggressor and invader in the indigen-human relationship.

I would have liked it if the narrative dwelled a little more on the moral implications of humanity moving on from Earth only to exploit and colonise a foreign planet, and especially how that tied into America's history and the colonial underpinnings of the sci-fi works X draws inspiration from - other than a few of Elma's offhand comments, I think the only time that's touched on at all is Lao's final heart-to-heart.

Of course, I wouldn't necessarily trust them to handle that theme well.

 

[B-Dubs]

Is this an endgame thing? I hope that they don't reveal that the

Spoiler

universe was created by a crazed German scientist

for the second time in a row.

It's nothing that crazy, it's more of a (late-game hint at spoilers)

Spoiler

social commentary

thing.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

THERE WAS A TUNNEL?!? I spent all that fucking time jumping from rock to rock, damn near falling into that fucking gorge god knows how many times and there was a goddamned tunnel?!

Well, it is not exactly leading to the second and third site. But you can evade some high level enemies above ground. You still need to cross the gorge though.

 

[KingBroly]

What level should I be at, with 4 people/Skells for

Spoiler

Chapter 10?

Because

Spoiler

that thing's BIG

Also I'm serious about the Refueling Probes. Tell me where/how I can get them.

 

[B-Dubs]

Well, it is not exactly leading to the second and third site. But you can evade some high level enemies above ground. You still need to cross the gorge though.

Oh, ok. I was about to freak out :lol

To get to that first one I just ran across the bottom lip of the north-side cliff, there's no bad guys down there so it was pretty easy, and scaled the short ridge when I got there.

What level should I be at, with 4 people/Skells for

Spoiler

Chapter 10?

Because

Spoiler

that thing's BIG

I did it with three in the late 30's, just load up on beam weapons. Four would be overkill.

 

[Benzychenz]

What level should I be at, with 4 people/Skells for

Spoiler

Chapter 10?

Because

Spoiler

that thing's BIG

Also I'm serious about the Refueling Probes. Tell me where/how I can get them.

40-43 or so.

 

[KingBroly]

Oh, ok. I was about to freak out :lol

To get to that first one I just ran across the bottom lip of the north-side cliff, there's no bad guys down there so it was pretty easy, and scaled the short ridge when I got there.



I did it with three in the late 30's, just load up on beam weapons. Four would be overkill.

Any specific ones?

 

[Golnei]

What level should I be at, with 4 people/Skells for

Spoiler

Chapter 10?

Because

Spoiler

that thing's BIG

Level doesn't matter that much, considering you can do it while never getting out of your Skells. Just make sure everyone has beam weapons and Level 30 Skells, you have a G-Buster and Gravity damage-boosting skill, and target the dishes before the main body. It might also help to not concentrate fire, so that your party members can take out reinforcements while you dismantle the appendages.

 

[B-Dubs]

Any specific ones?

Just stuff with beam damage since it gets bonuses against enemy skells and mechanical enemies. I used a BB-sword on my back slot and was practically one-shotting the enemy skells that appear every so often during that fight. So just load up on beam damage weapons and focus fire on the individual parts of the boss as they take more damage.

 

[zroid]

alright, thanks. any tipp on where to farm the gbuster? or any other good weapons/armor for the lvl30 skell?

you can just buy the G-Buster although it's pricey (180000 credits or so)

honestly at this point in the game IMO just upgrade your AMs to level 5 (particularly Sakuraba I think) and you should have a good enough selection from there. it's not a big deal which weapons and armors you choose but you might want to mix and match types a little bit to get a good balance of arts, traits, and resistances.

 

[moerser]

you can just buy the G-Buster although it's pricey (180000 credits or so)

honestly at this point in the game IMO just upgrade your AMs to level 5 (particularly Sakuraba I think) and you should have a good enough selection from there. it's not a big deal which weapons and armors you choose but you might want to mix and match types a little bit to get a good balance of arts, traits, and resistances.

thanks a lot.

 

[zero shift]

Is Chapter 11 suppose to be this difficult? My party cant pass the entire route to Lao. Am I just underleveled? They are all at level 42.

 

[B-Dubs]

Is Chapter 11 suppose to be this difficult? My party cant pass the entire route to Lao. They are all at level 42.

When's the last time you upgraded your weapons/armor/arts/skills? You shouldn't be having any trouble at that level.

 

[ugoo18]

Why do Tempered Blade Modules have such a terrible drop rate, i had more success with Phoenix and G Buster drops when i was farming them than i've had with these supposedly common items. I need 36 of these things for the level 60 Zenith cannon, is there a specific appendage i should be breaking on Shrads to ensure it drops or a specific Shrad i should be targeting?

 

[Haunted]

Is this an endgame thing? I hope that they don't reveal that the

Spoiler

universe was created by a crazed German scientist

for the second time in a row.



I would have liked it if the narrative dwelled a little more on the moral implications of humanity moving on from Earth only to exploit and colonise a foreign planet, and especially how that tied into America's history and the colonial underpinnings of the sci-fi works X draws inspiration from - other than a few of Elma's offhand comments, I think the only time that's touched on at all is Lao's final heart-to-heart.

Of course, I wouldn't necessarily trust them to handle that theme well.

Yeah... they don't manage to delve deeper into most of the implications and possibilities of that initial premise.

The way this pioneering charge is led by military types and capitalist corporations, I give Mira like one generation before the oceans are polluted, the indigens are wiped out and Noctilum's trees cut down to make space for New New York.

 

[QFNS]

Finally beat Chapter 9 and got the Skell Flight Unit.

Man what a rush that first time you crest over the edge of New LA. This game keeps delivering the feels.

Then I immediately went on online and used that map floating around out there to pimp out my cashflow so that I'm earning over 150k/tick. I can finally afford to outfit my 3/4th party members with skells now! Simply loving it. Everytime you think you have seen it all, the game throws in a new twist that keeps things fresh. Now I need to figure out how to pimp my Miranium income because all this refueling after flying around is gonna be expensive!

 

[Astral Dog]

I'm still really, really early. And I have full intention to push through another couple of chapters to see how I feel. But so far this game is immensely disappointing coming off Xenoblade Wii, and if I feel the same way later on I'll probably end up selling it.

It's not clicking at all. The dialogue/cutscenes/characters are unbearably flat and uninteresting, I just want to skip every single dialogue exchange. Visually it's technically impressive and the skyboxes are nice, but the lack of richer colours and interesting worldbuilding through visual design from Xenoblade really let down the overall aesthetic. The soundtrack's great tracks are offset by the terrible ones, so it's far less consistent than Xenoblade as a whole. The UI is a mess. The whole questing structure and game flow is dragging its knuckles.

I'm at the point of bewilderment, to be honest. I loved Xenoblade so much, and that's within a genre that I'm not a big fan of in the first place (I'm exceedingly picky with JRPGS). The praise this has gotten here and elsewhere from people who also loved Xenoblade had me excited. It's obviously drawing a lot from Xenoblade in design and vision. But unlike Shulk I'm not really feeling it at all. So far absolutely nothing, except the Skells, about the story, world, and game design itself is standing out or grabbing my interest. I'm bored, so bored. And I'm sure as shit not grinding 10+ hours of content just to play around with a Skell.

Man

It grows on you, thanks to the gorgeous visual design, combat and way of progression/pacing (not worse or better but very different from the first game) but it takes time. and if you are not feeling it a Skell will not be of much help.
I thought the same about the colors at first but the game is varied and vibrant enough in most places.

But yes, this game is a totally different beast from Xenoblade Chronicles, despite similar design choices.

 

[Haunted]

For everyone with fuel problems - bind bind bind. It straight up replenishes your fuel during the duration. It's probably mentioned somewhere, but I wasn't aware of that for the longest time and it made keeping up my fuel so much easier.

 

[correojon]

Got some tips on Skell setup and fighting? I´m approaching the point of buying lvl50 skells and I think I´m not using my lvl30 skells correctly. Also, fighting on a skell is a bit boring compared to fighting on foot (using an Overdrive build), there aren´t as many soul voice chances as there are on foot so I just use my attacks whenever I feel like it and am not as active, I just fly around the enemy waiting for the cooldowns to end. I haven´t found any positional attacks either, at least that would give some meaning to moving around.
It seems that the game´s been teaching you how to use all these complicated systems like soul voices, art cooldowns, combos and overdrive but they aren´t really necessary once you start using a skell.

 

[B-Dubs]

Yeah... they don't manage to delve deeper into most of the implications and possibilities of that initial premise.

The way this pioneering charge is led by military types and capitalist corporations, I give Mira like one generation before the oceans are polluted, the indigens are wiped out and Noctilum's trees cut down to make space for New New York.

Nah, New New York is gonna sit on that land bridge between Primordia and Sylvalum. Gonna move some sand around and just rebuild that shit just the way it was because how can you improve on perfection?

 

[Delstius]

Why do Tempered Blade Modules have such a terrible drop rate, i had more success with Phoenix and G Buster drops when i was farming them than i've had with these supposedly common items. I need 36 of these things for the level 60 Zenith cannon, is there a specific appendage i should be breaking on Shrads to ensure it drops or a specific Shrad i should be targeting?

Get on foot and break both arm.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

I feel like maybe I'm enjoying this because I never played the first game and expected a single player MMO with mechs and not much else interesting about it and so far that's what I got.

 

[EatChildren]

I felt similar to you early on (though not as extreme), but the game has come to grow on me more and more, especially since I got my Skell and then again when I got the flight module.

Overall I prefer the original Xenoblade, but this is a great game in its own right.

It grows on you, thanks to the gorgeous visual design, combat and way of progression/pacing (not worse or better but very different from the first game) but it takes time. and if you are not feeling it a Skell will not be of much help.

But yes, this game is a totally different beast from Xenoblade Chronicles, despite similar design choices.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe it's a very different game as a whole, and you really need to stick with it. Not sure I have it in me, unfortunately, when I'm just not really enjoying the gameplay loop and underlining game systems. It kinda feels like Xenoblade: Inquisition to me.

I'll probably come back to it in the future and really enjoy it.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

Is there anyone love the transformation animation of each skell? As a mecha and plastic model fan, I nearly scream when I discover that each skell frame has its own unique animation. This is crazy.

In fact, I actually scream out loud when I see this, a Formula being developed by Kotobukiya, which is claimed to be fully transformable.

 

[zroid]

Is there anyone love the transformation animation of each skell? As a mecha and plastic model fan, I nearly scream when I discover that each skell frame has its own unique animation. This is crazy.



In fact, I actually scream out loud when I see this, a Formula being developed by Kotobukiya, which is claimed to be fully transformable.

I haven't even been paying attention to this. I probably should!

 

[B-Dubs]

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe it's a very different game as a whole, and you really need to stick with it. Not sure I have it in me, unfortunately, when I'm just not really enjoying the gameplay loop and underlining game systems. It kinda feels like Xenoblade: Inquisition to me.

I'll probably come back to it in the future and really enjoy it.

As far as the story goes it's structured more like a TV series than a movie, each normal, affinity and story quest being it's own episode. Keeping that in mind can help a lot and once I identified that change in structure as the source of my odd feelings early on I felt a lot better about it.

 

[ugoo18]

Get on foot and break both arm.

Thank you, will do.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Beat chapter 9 and got the flight module and mechanical level 5, woo!

 

[Jim_Cacher]

I haven't even been paying attention to this. I probably should!

Haha, I discover this accidentally. Before getting a skell I thought the transformation is only a flash of light, then BAM it transforms into a vehicle! But no, it only appears when the skell is moving during transformation. If it stands still, the skell will show its unique animation.

 

[Golnei]

Is there anyone love the transformation animation of each skell? As a mecha and plastic model fan, I nearly scream when I discover that each skell frame has its own unique animation. This is crazy.

I love the stationary transformation animations, it's a shame you see them so rarely. Though it's kind of jarring that there's no animation at all for getting out of the Skell in vehicle mode.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the vibe it's a very different game as a whole, and you really need to stick with it. Not sure I have it in me, unfortunately, when I'm just not really enjoying the gameplay loop and underlining game systems. It kinda feels like Xenoblade: Inquisition to me.

I'll probably come back to it in the future and really enjoy it.

I had a similar reaction early on - it was only after delving deeper into the side content around Chapter 3 that it even remotely began to work for me. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if you never came around to it, especially if the core gameplay loop is a chore for you and you find nothing engaging about the design of the world - it's undoubtedly a very uneven game.

 

[Omzz]

Ugh, fuck the field skill level 5 quests. for mechanical and biological I've had to to do so many fast travels already :|

 

[correojon]

Is there anyone love the transformation animation of each skell? As a mecha and plastic model fan, I nearly scream when I discover that each skell frame has its own unique animation. This is crazy.



In fact, I actually scream out loud when I see this, a Formula being developed by Kotobukiya, which is claimed to be fully transformable.

Yay, I love mechas and I love the designs in X. First thing I did with all my skells was transforming them on and on to watch the animations and the transformed model

 

[B-Dubs]

Ugh, fuck the field skill level 5 quests. for mechanical and biological I've had to to do so many fast travels already :|

I know the archaeology one requires a fight with a lvl70-ish tyrant, I just noped out when I saw it. Maybe after I get a third level 50 skell.