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Xenoblade |OT| Sorry I Kept You Waiting!

Finally got around to picking this up. Also dropped $5 on a Last Story pre order. Gonna be showing the Wii a lot of love for the next few months. I can't wait to dive in. Any tips or advice for a newbie?
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Finally got around to picking this up. Also dropped $5 on a Last Story pre order. Gonna be showing the Wii a lot of love for the next few months. I can't wait to dive in. Any tips or advice for a newbie?

Read the FAQ in the OP. Or for more ridiculous details, read this. I never actually finished that post, need to go back to it since so many sources for Xenoblade info have spoilers, intentionally or not. My whole goal was to have some spoiler-free info for people to look at.

That's why I don't recommend using the Xenoblade Wiki. Wikia sucks for games with stories because the recent updates box is on every page, and one of the articles or pictures almost always has a spoiler.
 
Right after posting I had started scanning the op, lot of good info there. Last thing I want to do is spoil the story. With all the praise this game has been getting I want a blind experience. I'll def stay clear from any wikis. I can't wait to crack into this.
 
Chaosblade, what are your thoughts on putting Lightning Attack on 7th? 7th seems to attack ridiculously fast, and 7th's normal attacks to do poor damage. I have Haste +40%, Double Attack +40%, and Lightning Attack +200 on my current weapon, and enemy health just plummets once I activate Speed Shift.

Characters spoilers:
Oh yeah, and is there an easy way to find Art Books for 7th? It's pretty easy to cap her skills out. I also just got to Aginratha, and I now have two new Talent Arts for her - Shield, and Sword. What are your thoughts on them vs. Gun and Cannon Drones? I was honestly a bit disappointed that Meyneth "awakening" within her didn't give her a cool new ability, haha.

Edit:
Big tip for anyone new to the game. I just figured out that when doing Chain Attacks, using a character's Talent Art (middle white skill) lets you retain the chain bonus between types. In other words, while Red-Red-Red will do Chain Bonus x3 on the third red attack, doing Blue-White-Red will have the same effect.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
It's not a bad choice at all, you could stick with that pretty much forever and it would do you well. Of course you would want a better gem eventually, I think Lightning Attack caps at 500. You can double it to 1000 with Electric Plus, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing haste or double attack for. And by the time you've got haste in an armor slot, you're probably going to be using that newly freed up slot for Night Vision.

I guess there is a brief point in the mid-90s where Electric Plus would be beneficial, actually.

Cannon drones sucks. Shield drones isn't really worth it most of the time. Gun drones is very useful against large groups assuming your character is set up to tank reasonably well because you're going to pick up aggro (and it's ether based). Sword Drones is awesome, especially the final version you get in the post-game.

Are you looking for intermediate or advanced books? I think the only places that sell intermediate books for that character are Hidden Village and Colony 6 (some with 4+ Commerce, might be one that doesn't require it that will open up soon). And you can start farming advanced books relatively well once you hit the mid-70s.
 
For those that beat the game how did you like the story? I'm a little under 20 hours into it, and while there's a lot that I'm absolutely loving about the game, the plot so far has been pretty cliché/generic/predictable.
 
Galahad Fortress is really bugging me. I wrecked
Metal Face
, then the game throws a miniboss at you that's 3 levels above everything else (Glorious Jurom), so the boss will have to be even worse. And I don't want to do even more of those meager Alcamoth sidequeests for 1000 experience, that's how much I get out of every battle in the fortress anyway.

Level 53 right now.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Glorious Jurom is kind of a dick, but apart from his surroundings he's not too bad. But in general unique enemies are stronger than story bosses at similar levels.

I assume you missed the real challenging unique in the previous area, Mischievous Naberius. Relative to its level, it's easily the hardest enemy in the game up to point you're at.

For those that beat the game how did you like the story? I'm a little under 20 hours into it, and while there's a lot that I'm absolutely loving about the game, the plot so far has been pretty cliché/generic/predictable.
That means you're paying attention to exactly what the game wants you to. You're playing into its hand, basically. You very well might be right about what's going to happen, but the game expects you to try to predict it and takes advantage of that. The story is fairly cliche in the end, but I think it's enjoyable since it's told well.
 

aceface

Member
For those that beat the game how did you like the story? I'm a little under 20 hours into it, and while there's a lot that I'm absolutely loving about the game, the plot so far has been pretty cliché/generic/predictable.

Well I would say 20-40hrs is the slowest part of the game story-wise. It picks up after that. And let's just say that the plot has some surprises in store for you.
 

aceface

Member
Galahad Fortress is really bugging me. I wrecked Metal Face, then the game throws a miniboss at you that's 3 levels above everything else (Glorious Jurom), so the boss will have to be even worse. And I don't want to do even more of those meager Alcamoth sidequeests for 1000 experience, that's how much I get out of every battle in the fortress anyway.

Level 53 right now.

Did you completely explore
Sword Valley
? There's some hidden locations around there that will give you a ton of experience just for finding them. Also there's some mini-quests where you have to wipe out high level enemies/clear enemies out of a bunker type things that will give you a lot of experience as well. I was having the same trouble you were at that point but completely exploring that area and doing all those quests leveled me up enough.
 

zlatko

Banned
I finally played like an hour and a half after about 2+ months of not touching it. 20+ minutes were spent buying/re-equipping characters. Ugh. :/
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I finally played like an hour and a half after about 2+ months of not touching it. 20+ minutes were spent buying/re-equipping characters. Ugh. :/

That's part of the problem. Never buy armor! You'll get better stuff from unique enemies and some groups of enemies.

Its used twice, once after the ether mines.

Can't remember the other, but I know its used another time, but I agree, this song is tight.

Shimomura's work on this game is definitely eclipsed by what ACE+ pulled off (their area themes and battle themes blow away her work on Colony 9 and battle theme). But this song, along with the second Prologue song and the main theme are all excellent.
 

zlatko

Banned
That's part of the problem. Never buy armor! You'll get better stuff from unique enemies and some groups of enemies.



Shimomura's work on this game is definitely eclipsed by what ACE+ pulled off (their area themes and battle themes blow away her work on Colony 9 and battle theme). But this song, along with the second Prologue song and the main theme are all excellent.

I'm completely ignoring side quests unless they complete while I'm out following the story line, so I feel my odds for finding better gear are a little shittier plus I'll start to be lower leveled then I should be I'm sure, so hence trying to give myself the edge with solid gear throughout. Plus, I don't know what else to spend money on.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
For those that beat the game how did you like the story? I'm a little under 20 hours into it, and while there's a lot that I'm absolutely loving about the game, the plot so far has been pretty cliché/generic/predictable.
Interesting at first but I started to stop caring as much by the end. I'm not that big into stories in general, though. For a JRPG, I'd say its pretty good.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I'm completely ignoring side quests unless they complete while I'm out following the story line, so I feel my odds for finding better gear are a little shittier plus I'll start to be lower leveled then I should be I'm sure, so hence trying to give myself the edge with solid gear throughout. Plus, I don't know what else to spend money on.

You'll probably struggle a lot toward the end of the game that way, but it will work for the most part. But there aren't many side quests that offer worthwhile armor anyway.

Unique monsters though, they're like the game's dirty little secret. The rest of this isn't really directed at you since you're just running through the story, but I'm definitely going to make sure to mention this in that FAQ/info post when I update it some more. Putting the effort into hunting them down is worth it, since they have so many rewards.

- They're the best source of experience in the game. Secret areas offer more, but there aren't many of those and they're one time things. Lots of unique enemies to take out on the way through the game, and killing them will minimize the effort required to keep your level up. It's not unlikely you'll easily end up overleveled if you're doing quests.
- You'll get a crap load of awesome gear since they have 100% gold chest drop rates, and drop the best items available at whatever point in the game they're at.
- They're how you get affinity coins, which allow you to link more skills, which allows you to get stupidly overpowered.

This is like the #1 rule of RPGs. It's almost never worthwhile to buy store gear. Though you want to buy 7th's.

That's the one exception, just because the unique armor available in shops has good gems in it for once! Most unique armor, be it from shops or loot, is junk because of the gems locked in it. I'd rather go with something weaker with a slot for a good gem.
 
I think you need to learn what a spoiler is.

Spoiler is any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element which will give away the outcome of a dramatic episode within the work of fiction, or the conclusion of the entire work

I sure hope Glorious Jurom doesn't turn out to be the one behind it all!

Yeah, I even referred to the boss as "Metal Face." I don't think anything I said is going to hamper anyone's enjoyment of the game. Everything in this thread is already a mass of black bars, I wouldn't be surprised if someone were to hide
Reyn just joined my party.
Now, if it were Galahad Fortress that were a spoiler, well, someone mentioned "Agniratha," which I definitely haven't been to, it hasn't even been mentioned. So is that a spoiler too? Do I suddenly know and have an understanding of plot points yet to happen? Of course not. So if somebody is going to be so picky about what I post, I don't see a problem being picky back.
 
And what kept you from explaining that previously, rather than a snide, single-statement post?

I didn't reveal that he's Mumkhar, or that he actually dies after that fight, so as far as I knew, no spoilers. You can say why it's a spoiler rather than just making a generic, useless derogatory comment. Also, I said Galahad Fortress. You fight Mumkhar at Sword Valley.
 
And what kept you from explaining that previously, rather than a snide, single-statement post?

I didn't reveal that he's Mumkhar, or that he actually dies after that fight, so as far as I knew, no spoilers. You can say why it's a spoiler rather than just making a generic, useless derogatory comment. Also, I said Galahad Fortress. You fight Mumkhar at Sword Valley.
It should be obvious:
Galahad Fortress is really bugging me. I wrecked Metal Face, then the game

In other words,
"right before Galahad Fortress, I fought Metal Face"
.

These things are not difficult to figure out. I trust that you are able to read your own post, recognize your mistake, and fix it. In general, you should be gracious with spoiler tags. The harm done in an unnecessary spoiler tag is minimal compared to the consequences of spoiling an event in the game. The Kid Icarus board was so gracious as to make the number of levels a spoiler, for example.
 
There's nothing explicitly stating that Metal Face comes before Galahad Fortress. What I said could just as easily imply that Metal Face is fought INSIDE Galahad Fortress, maybe that it has two bosses. But then if we're going off of implying and inferring, obviously chaosblade's avatar itself is a massive spoiler, right? Because even if it's just fan art, doesn't it still look like Dunban loses an eye? It's actually just an outfit with no plot relevance, but people won't know that.
Just saying. It's not immediately apparent to everyone what needs to be hidden, so start with your explanation rather than jumping straight to "derisive comment."
 
There's nothing explicitly stating that Metal Face comes before Galahad Fortress. What I said could just as easily imply that Metal Face is fought INSIDE Galahad Fortress, maybe that it has two bosses. But then if we're going off of implying and inferring, obviously chaosblade's avatar itself is a massive spoiler, right? Because even if it's just fan art, doesn't it still look like Dunban loses an eye? It's actually just an outfit with no plot relevance, but people won't know that.
Just saying. It's not immediately apparent to everyone what needs to be hidden, so start with your explanation rather than jumping straight to "derisive comment."
Whether someone interprets your post as the boss coming at point A or point B, it's still a spoiler in nature. If you want to argue with chaosblade about his avatar, go for it. It's not a discussion I am a part of.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
That would suck if Dunban did lose an eye. The guy already practically lost his dominant arm for all intents and purposes :lol

And yet he's still you're best physical damage dealer aside from arts with crazy multipliers like Sword Drive. RPGs, when you gonna make sense?

The Kid Icarus board was so gracious as to make the number of levels a spoiler, for example.

I guess that's sort of like the idea of spoiler tagging the level of the final boss in this game, but I'm not really sure that even matters considering (and I'm not sure you're at this part yet, legit spoilers for stuff semi-close to the end of the game)
you still don't quite understand what's going on with Zanza and Meyneth when you have your showdown with Egil in the Core, just the details you get from Meyneth in Agniratha. That, and the Egil fight really isn't built up to be a final boss. If it was, that would be a pretty terrible build up.
So basically I don't think many people will end up getting a wrong impression and think the game will end earlier than it does. I certainly didn't feel like it was going to end at that point on my first playthrough, and it's about the only one where it seems like it would even be a possibility.

I've just rolled with spoiler tagging pretty much anything of note after Valak Mountain/second half of the game. Some people have complained about really minor things getting spoiled before that (well before that in some cases), but I dunno, there's got to be limits for that kind of stuff. If you want to have the game be super-fresh and not see any party member or location names or quest details you probably shouldn't be in the OT in the first place.

Well everyone knows Dunban is the best character. He does the most in cutscenes even with one arm and no magic time sword.

His level of badassery only increases tenfold once you get to a certain plot twist late in the game. It doesn't directly tie in with him, but you can put 2 and 2 together by remembering what he did at Sword Valley in the intro. Then it's like, wait a minute, he did what?
 

Seik

Banned
Hey Snacks, no offense, but the dude is right, just try to spoiler-tag as much as you can.

Shits happen, you'll forget to spoiler-tag something, someone will point it out, you'll fix it, that's all. No need to debate about that.

Now that it has been mentionned, I'd like to add that chaosblade's avatar is great and have me dreaming about a Xenoblade anime. :p
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
getting my ass handed to me by
Mumkhar in Valak Mountain
dafck
at lvl 47 too :(

Remember that he's still Mechon in that armor, so you'll want enchant or use ether arts to damage him. You probably knew that already though. He deals pretty good damage and attacks fairly fast, if I remember correctly, definitely seems stronger outside his mech than in it!

Not really much to say without knowing what you're doing wrong. Take advantage of topple/daze, make sure you have a decent tank (Dunban with as much agility as possible or Reyn with a ton of defense), and Sharla is probably worth having around to heal if you're really struggling. If you're not good at building the party gauge don't bother with chain attacks, keep your gauge to use for reviving characters.
 
Remember that he's still Mechon in that armor, so you'll want enchant or use ether arts to damage him. You probably knew that already though. He deals pretty good damage and attacks fairly fast, if I remember correctly, definitely seems stronger outside his mech than in it!

Not really much to say without knowing what you're doing wrong. Take advantage of topple/daze, make sure you have a decent tank (Dunban with as much agility as possible or Reyn with a ton of defense), and Sharla is probably worth having around to heal if you're really struggling. If you're not good at building the party gauge don't bother with chain attacks, keep your gauge to use for reviving characters.
I'll also throw out there that Riki is amazing at taking down high HP characters. Those DoTs really stack up. If you can put a strong DoT at the end of a Chain Attack, you'll see ticks for 2000+ damage, it's pretty awesome. I'm not sure what your party is, but sometimes I've found bosses hard to beat simply because my party has low HP. Riki/Reyn/???? is surprisingly effective.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I don't remember what levels Riki gets some of his DoT arts and his healing art at. Otherwise I'd just recommend the broken party again (Shulk/Sharla/Riki).
 
Finally, after 82 hours of gameplay, I have beat this game.

When it first came out, I got distracted by finals, then I went to Japan for a month, and then I had to move to a new place. Needless to say, I haven't had all the free time in the world, but I've finally finished this game.

Easily the best JRPG of the generation, and I'd put it in the top 5 JRPGs ever made. This game completely surprised me with its quality, and other than some forced dialogue, I can't think of any glaringly obvious flaws. What a game.
 
Finally, after 82 hours of gameplay, I have beat this game.

When it first came out, I got distracted by finals, then I went to Japan for a month, and then I had to move to a new place. Needless to say, I haven't had all the free time in the world, but I've finally finished this game.

Easily the best JRPG of the generation, and I'd put it in the top 5 JRPGs ever made. This game completely surprised me with its quality, and other than some forced dialogue, I can't think of any glaringly obvious flaws. What a game.
Damn, 103 hours here and I just got to
Aginratha
. I can think of a lot of flaws this game has, but they're all minor in comparison to how great it is.
 
Alright, missables question:
Junks just landed in Colony 6, and all the High Entia are dead. If I didn't recruit a High Entia to Colony 6 before, is the opportunity gone? Thinking of Don Argentis and his daughter(s) in particular.
 

Exeunt

Member
Alright, missables question:
Junks just landed in Colony 6, and all the High Entia are dead. If I didn't recruit a High Entia to Colony 6 before, is the opportunity gone? Thinking of Don Argentis and his daughter(s) in particular.

You have only missed
timed quests; as far as I know, it is impossible to "miss" recruiting any of the Colony 6 migrants. Some are mutually exclusive (such as Don Argentis' daughters as it happens) and one will give you a different quest line than the other. But which one you recruit has no real bearing on what you will be able to get and you need to choose anyway to get 100%. The High Entia with small headwings have fled Alcamoth and you can check which ones have not turned into Telethia and their general locations on your Affinity Chart.
 

Samyy

Member
Is there some reason why I can't find any quests? I mean I know I haven't done most of them. I keep checking quest guides and can see I haven't done a bunch but I'm not seeing them even at the right times.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Is there some reason why I can't find any quests? I mean I know I haven't done most of them. I keep checking quest guides and can see I haven't done a bunch but I'm not seeing them even at the right times.

Some quests require you to have a certain affinity with the area. Some also require you to have certain NPCs on your affinity chart to activate, and others even require you to have gotten the relationship between two NPCs to a certain point with perquisite quests and conversations.

And some also don't open up until certain points in the game.
 

Samyy

Member
Some quests require you to have a certain affinity with the area. Some also require you to have certain NPCs on your affinity chart to activate, and others even require you to have gotten the relationship between two NPCs to a certain point with perquisite quests and conversations.

And some also don't open up until certain points in the game.

.... This is starting to get a little tedious
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
.... This is starting to get a little tedious

Doing all of the quests is extremely tedious. You're not expected to do them all. This is a rough game for completionists.

It does make getting Shulk's 4th skill tree pretty annoying. It requires more affinity with the specific area than any of the other skill trees (most require a little over 3 stars, Shulk's requires nearly 5). And you can technically get it relatively early on, but you have to have almost every single ounce of affinity possible to get it before the final stretch of the story.
 

Gunsmithx

Member
God this game draws you in, I'm at
Sword Valley
and at 62 hours! Man can't wait to see what else the game has in store. Also love using Riki, so much fun.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
I didn't use a guide until the end of my first playthrough. Going around talking to every NPC, trying to find conversations that would open up quests or get me a little bit of affinity that I'd need to unlock something, only to talk to more NPCs.

It's not something I'd want to do again, that's for sure!

But what I do want to do again... I kind of want to fight Abaasy. Again. But instead of going with an even lower level, I want to get to 99 again and just completely tear him up in like 2-3 minutes for the lulz.
 

Zornica

Banned
I didn't use a guide until the end of my first playthrough. Going around talking to every NPC, trying to find conversations that would open up quests or get me a little bit of affinity that I'd need to unlock something, only to talk to more NPCs.

It's not something I'd want to do again, that's for sure!

But what I do want to do again... I kind of want to fight Abaasy. Again. But instead of going with an even lower level, I want to get to 99 again and just completely tear him up in like 2-3 minutes for the lulz.

you could gear down fighting him naked... with weapons bought in colony 9 :p
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Only problem with that most of your stats come from armor (except agility). So I'd not only die if I take one hit, I'd also only be able to equip a single gem (weapon slot) and I wouldn't be able to deal more than like 50 damage.




I could do it, but it would take a few hours!
 

Exeunt

Member
They respawn after a random amount of time or reloads just like all other non-quest specific unique enemies. But honestly, there isn't much else you can do with a "completed" game in my opinion.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
And fortunately this isn't like some games where the strongest enemy in the game is the exclusive source of some awesome weapon or whatever. I think all of the 100+ enemies (including Final Marcus) drop Glory armor and whatever that one glyph is you need to trade for love sources. So you can start collecting that stuff in the mid-90s easily (though really only the gauntlets matter).
 
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