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Xenoblade |OT| Sorry I Kept You Waiting!
- Thread starter SecretMoblin
- Start date
Ending and final boss spoilers to follow.
Funny you should ask.
I took chaosblade's advice and went on to defeat the final boss tonight with my party at level 81 when the last boss went down. The endgame was pretty great but
Maybe I'm just being hopeful but the ending
While I should probably beat the rest of the content and actually take some time to reflect before casting my final judgement on the title, I have to say that I absolutely loved Xenoblade Chronicles and if MonolothSoft makes another game like this I'll be there day one (of the localization). The voice actors for the vast majority of the characters (and I'd argue the entirety of the main cast) brought a lot of life to their characters and I can't say their rapport in battle ever got stale—if anything it brought a lot to the experience. I really liked them all and appreciated that there was an attempt to give them all some sort of development even if it was a little unevenly distributed; as a result, I think my favourite outside of Shulk would have to be
and I think that character went through the most and was most intriguing by the end. But like I said, I thought they were all very charming.
The dialogue was pretty consistent throughout even if there were a couple oddly read or awkwardly written lines and
. I thought the story had parts that were really solid and compelled me to push forward, and also weaker parts like
and the more random bits of the ending. That said, the game really holds out on rather obvious twists for far too long and I felt like there were too many explicitly stated "you must discover this for yourself" moments intended to be "mysterious" or to extend the plot that seemed rather poorly executed.
I hard this game was amazing and overall it did not disappoint. The locations are huge and have lots of room to explore—perhaps some have a little too much empty space like
and movement speed sometimes felt a little slow for me. This was particularly egregious when I had to swim places, with no combat to break up the travel; that said, quick travel worked pretty well most of the time. I have a bit of gaming OCD, but somehow I never felt overwhelmed by the game's sheer amount of content; it makes it pretty clear that you can ignore whatever you feel like and take your time completing quests and whatnot, with the points of no return being pretty generous. The quests are at their best when they encourage the exploration of the world and introduce you to challenging new enemies, and their worst when they're redundant monster-killing quests or when they spawn items in locations you've visited dozens of times before just because it's now time to collect them.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts right after beating the story and I might make another post after I've completed everything. There are some things I wasn't madly in love with and I think I've addressed them over my posts, but they weren't nearly enough to sour me on the game. I'm really glad it was brought to all regions and I hope that anyone who's on the fence will give it a shot. It's probably not for everyone but for me at least, the positive experiences far outweighed the negatives.
Funny you should ask.
I took chaosblade's advice and went on to defeat the final boss tonight with my party at level 81 when the last boss went down. The endgame was pretty great but
things got kind of insane after they left Prison Island. The spectacle of the final battles was great (even if Zanza's final "transformations" didn't seem that different from each other) and plot points sort of came out of nowhere. I liked the more human concerns much more than the god plot, but the end of the game seemed to promise just that if we ever revisit these characters.
reminded me of Super Mario Galaxy's ending with a new world for the characters to explore—as far as I can tell, there were elements of this new land quite unlike what was there before, and presumably the Bionis no longer exists. I hope we get the Super Mario Galaxy 2 equivalent sometime in the future.
While I should probably beat the rest of the content and actually take some time to reflect before casting my final judgement on the title, I have to say that I absolutely loved Xenoblade Chronicles and if MonolothSoft makes another game like this I'll be there day one (of the localization). The voice actors for the vast majority of the characters (and I'd argue the entirety of the main cast) brought a lot of life to their characters and I can't say their rapport in battle ever got stale—if anything it brought a lot to the experience. I really liked them all and appreciated that there was an attempt to give them all some sort of development even if it was a little unevenly distributed; as a result, I think my favourite outside of Shulk would have to be
--Melia--
I think it may have been a blessing in disguise to use one localization; not only is it great quality, but if there are future releases with these characters, there is one cast that can be turned to for all English-speaking regions.
they really hit you over the head with the "seize your own destiny" and "let's see what the future holds" stuff
Makna Forest
I hard this game was amazing and overall it did not disappoint. The locations are huge and have lots of room to explore—perhaps some have a little too much empty space like
Alcamoth
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts right after beating the story and I might make another post after I've completed everything. There are some things I wasn't madly in love with and I think I've addressed them over my posts, but they weren't nearly enough to sour me on the game. I'm really glad it was brought to all regions and I hope that anyone who's on the fence will give it a shot. It's probably not for everyone but for me at least, the positive experiences far outweighed the negatives.
welp. 120 hours in and i've seen and done pretty much all this game has to offer aside from the crazy optional bosses. planning on killing one last thing, meaning i have to get to level 94-95 first (level 92-93 now).
not fatigued with the game, but now that i've explored all of the nooks and crannies there are, i think it's time to bring this to an end.
not fatigued with the game, but now that i've explored all of the nooks and crannies there are, i think it's time to bring this to an end.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Sort of. On my phone so I can't really get into too many of the details. Ether attacks miss ("resist") but the formula is completely different. They are way more accurate though and the penalty when fighting higher level enemies is a lot more gradual. The max penalty is a -110 adjustment to accuracy at 20 or 21 levels over. Compare that to physical attacks, 11 levels over hits the max agility penalty with a -200 adjustment.
Spikes also work on ether attacks IIRC, unless you mean area spikes.
Well, Spirit Breath only lasts half as long and the secondary effect isn't as useful. In the end debuff removal/resist is actually useless with VI gems. 7th gets improved double attack, which is obviously awesome. So it makes sense it would be longer.
AlphaDragoon
Member
Yeah, I know Ether attacks can be resisted but it happens so little compared to missing with a physical character that she hardly ever misses. Still, I should have said "hardly ever misses".
As an example on spikes, say I'm fighting a Gloria Slobos. Does damage every time you hit it. Melia can stand at max range, nuke the thing into orbit, and not bat an eye. Same for Magnificent Digalus, who has a Topple spike. Max range, GG. As long as you're far enough away when releasing spells with her she has nothing to fear.
Speaking of Melia, I optimized her damage output some more today, changing out the Electric Plus VI (100% increase) for a Back Attack Plus VI (again, 100% increase) and gave her 7th's skill
Explosion of Energy
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Went for Blizzard Belgazas, figured one of two things would happen:
1) He would be easier than Abaasy (most likely)
2) He would be impossibly hard (less likely)
I remembered from my first playthrough that he didn't have any sort of topple resist like Abaasy has (50% topple time reduction on him) and I didn't want to win in a topple lock. So to hell with it, no toppling.
Turns out my choice to not topple him at all made no difference. Breezed through the fight with no problem at all. No video this time (need to figure out how I can record without framerate issues) but I got a screenshot of the dead beast and my gold chest under him (with which I got the Steel Strike advanced book and Glory Gauntlets!)
Spoilers up to Fa
A
.
http://i.minus.com/ijKXSOMvT2nTm.jpg
I don't think I'll be able to beat Despotic Arsene. Ironically enough I think he might be too low level since he's getting to the point where the level penalties start to catch up. And Ancient Daedala would probably be the hardest of the four 100+ enemies despite being the lowest level.
1) He would be easier than Abaasy (most likely)
2) He would be impossibly hard (less likely)
I remembered from my first playthrough that he didn't have any sort of topple resist like Abaasy has (50% topple time reduction on him) and I didn't want to win in a topple lock. So to hell with it, no toppling.
Turns out my choice to not topple him at all made no difference. Breezed through the fight with no problem at all. No video this time (need to figure out how I can record without framerate issues) but I got a screenshot of the dead beast and my gold chest under him (with which I got the Steel Strike advanced book and Glory Gauntlets!)
Spoilers up to Fa
llen
rm
http://i.minus.com/ijKXSOMvT2nTm.jpg
I don't think I'll be able to beat Despotic Arsene. Ironically enough I think he might be too low level since he's getting to the point where the level penalties start to catch up. And Ancient Daedala would probably be the hardest of the four 100+ enemies despite being the lowest level.
Starwolf_UK
Member
Hmm, Despotic Arsene you probably noticed this level 76 defeat (using
no topple from what I watched). The damage taken makes it look like rough going.
Melia, Sharla, 7th
Snegurochka
Neo Member
my wii died and i'm seriously tempted to pick up a second hand one to play this. i know with the wii u on the horizon it would be silly but damn, i've had my copy sitting here on my desk for three months now.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
As long as I can hit him I should be good, probably even without toppling. That's primarily what I'm concerned about. It's only 1 level off the max agility penalty, but I actually struggled with it on my first playthrough even at 99 for some reason. I guess we'll see, I might try tomorrow.
I'm still not letting myself use Sharla (at least for real, I did have her in my party standing around doing nothing while doing those 7th solos) so I'd stick with Monado arts to reduce damage where possible. Sharla/DoT damage is just broken and makes this stuff easy (though he sure didn't make it look easy in that video).
I'd guess the "best" party, no limitations or anything, would probably be Riki (main), Shulk, Sharla. If you do everything accordingly, you should theoretically be able to beat anything in the game in the low 70s (just need to unlock Shulk's last skill tree, can probably be done around level 66(?), then get enough SP to max it).
Just a theory, but have Riki tank with his huge HP and use his DoT attacks to primarily wear down the enemy, warn Shulk and use Monado arts to deflect damage when possible, and Sharla sits around to heal. Everything dies. Slowly, but surely.
Great review, all around. Nice writeup.
This game makes me excited to see what Monolith could do with another Baten Kaitos. The first was a game with some good ideas, nice environments, and a lot of flaws. The second really was a great game, fixed almost all the first one's problems and a lot of fun to play (best RPG on the Gamecube except maybe Paper Mario, though I know that's not saying much). It certainly seems like Monolith is improving over time and a third BK could be really special.
Thanks! I'll definitely have more thoughts in order later on once I've put the game down.
I actually thought that
Riki goofing off in the background when Fiora and Dunban are reunited was pretty great
I thought Melia's bit was pretty much her conceding Shulk's affection to Fiora and putting on her "proper" face. Sad but sincere as it were. That said, I do recall there being some unintentionally funny moments in the game... And I love how Riki always dances around during most non-dramatic cutscenes when he's not needed.
Riki's dance animation is the best and I always love when he is in a cutscene with Dunban like when
they are split up on the beach
InfiniDragon
Member
Honestly, I'd still have Spirit Breath over
Speed Shift
Not to mention Spirit Breath doesn't have any defense penalties unlike
Speed Shift
Healing Energy
That's my two cents on why I prefer it anyway.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Well, I beat Despotic Arsene. No picture or anything, but damn that was a disaster of a fight. That video Starwolf_UK linked was less problematic, and it had people going down left and right.
It's mostly because I did something completely idiotic and ended up entirely losing aggro with Arsene, and so he ended up running off and getting all his HP back when he was at like 20% left. The other bunnits in the area kept attacking and I ended up getting back into a fight with him, so his HP was totally restored and I hadn't restored anything since I was still in battle. Also didn't help that Dunban was KOed the entire time this was going on and I had no party gauge to revive him.
And that led to another big problem since I essentially ended up fighting him twice in a row, and didn't even start at 19:00: Night ended. Have to rely on Night Vision a good bit in order to hit these high level enemies to make up for the levels I don't have (still 79).
Hitting him was very inconsistant, especially during the day, but not as bad as I'd originally feared. Dunban did pretty good, only missing a handful of attacks and arts. Shulk and 7th fared worse, but I still managed to hit him a fair bit. Shulk only dropped into low tension once I think, and 7th a few times.
Didn't rely on toppling at all. He did get toppled a few times since Shulk could easily inflict Break due to the enemy being really small, so Dunban followed up with Steel Strike a few times. Arsene has a big topple time resist though (75%?) so it's not like it made a difference anyway, he gets straight back up almost instantly (he's immune to daze, but his default topple time is about half the length of the Shaker Edge animation).
Speaking of small enemies, that's another thing that makes him tough. With bigger enemies your party tends to stand far apart from each other, and it's easy to see aggro switching between characters. Against a tiny enemy when everyone is huddled together, not so much, so Shulk got taken out a few times after picking up Aggro with a big Back Slash.
That just leaves Ancient Daedala. I seriously don't think it's possible at my level, but I guess it won't hurt to set up for it and try. And arguably Final Marcus, but at level 100 there's no way he won't be balanced for fights with 90s parties, so the agility penalty would probably make the fight totally impossible with a topple lock via Demon Slayer.
I usually don't have a problem with 7th picking up aggro off Dunban, and aside from monsters way over my level that character tanks well enough and dodges a most attacks anyway. I don't really choose between them, I use both. I'd probably go with Dunban if I was only using one, but it's pretty situational.
And double attack, well, I'll take as much as I can get!
Edit: Ancient Daedala down. Wheeew. That was rough too, took quite a few tries. Generally, I lost that fight in a slaughter, especially when the crazed aura went up. A few seemed kind of cheap - Dunban went down, then the enemy used that AoE topple attack that took out Shulk and toppled 7th with no vision tag, then finished off 7th in one hit. Lameness.
In the winning battle, I only toppled him once, pretty much to save myself. Needed to get enchant up for Dunban so he could get aggro back, but Shulk probably would have gone down or I'd have gotten a vision I'd need to deal with before I'd have been able to fill the gauge.
Still, I feel like I had to use some rather cheap tactics. Used the enemies to the north to build my talent gauge before the fight and started it at a distance, used enchant, then when I got the vision tag for his laser I was able to use armor instantly. Allowed me to cover both necessary Monado arts with no problem. Cheap, but effective. (Edit, Contains Spoilers: And speaking of which, I never cleaned up the chests, so this mess remains)
Also relied pretty heavily on chain attacks, more so than probably any of the other 3 fights except maybe Abaasy. Also made heavy use of Monado arts to negate damage, but since most of his arts were 1HKOs, I didn't really have much choice. Plus his standard attacks were very accurate (especially compared to the others) and did a good chunk of damage (2300ish). Dunban did okay, but still went down regularly, and that sucks against this particular enemy since it's Mechon, and I had no weapon to compensate for that. Fortunately, I was able to hit much better than expected and was able to keep enchant up most of the time, and still throw in some Monado armor here and there.
But yeah, after several tries I managed to get it all right and come out victorious. Didn't think I would on that last attempt since I was a tad late in purging to prevent his crazed aura, but purge hit successfully and I was able to finish it out from there.
Edit2:
Since I had the four big ones down, I went after Final Marcus too, with no topple. Auto-attacks missed a whole lot unless I got high/very high tension and even then they were unreliable, everybody struggled to dodge enemy attacks (even Dunban). But somehow after a few attempts I pulled it off. I'll admit it was probably pure luck thanks to a combination of Unbeatable VI kicking in at the perfect moment, and the enemy heavily using arts I could avoid with Monado arts toward the very end of the battle. It was his normal attacks that were really brutal, since they could easily take out a party member in three shots without armor up, and he can double attack.
But that covers all five 100+ enemies. Blizzard Belgazas takes the crown for the easiest one at least with my level/setup. Hardest... probably Despotic Arsene, but given how bad I screwed up that fight I made it a lot harder on myself.
Abaasy is the only one I really used topple on, apart from that one topple on Ancient Daedala and a few unintentional but meaningless ones on Despotic Arsene. Thinking about trying a no topple (or at least bare minimal topple) attempt on him before I turn exp back on, but I doubt it's possible since those frequent but brief reprieves really help cover the damage he deals.
It's mostly because I did something completely idiotic and ended up entirely losing aggro with Arsene, and so he ended up running off and getting all his HP back when he was at like 20% left. The other bunnits in the area kept attacking and I ended up getting back into a fight with him, so his HP was totally restored and I hadn't restored anything since I was still in battle. Also didn't help that Dunban was KOed the entire time this was going on and I had no party gauge to revive him.
And that led to another big problem since I essentially ended up fighting him twice in a row, and didn't even start at 19:00: Night ended. Have to rely on Night Vision a good bit in order to hit these high level enemies to make up for the levels I don't have (still 79).
Hitting him was very inconsistant, especially during the day, but not as bad as I'd originally feared. Dunban did pretty good, only missing a handful of attacks and arts. Shulk and 7th fared worse, but I still managed to hit him a fair bit. Shulk only dropped into low tension once I think, and 7th a few times.
Didn't rely on toppling at all. He did get toppled a few times since Shulk could easily inflict Break due to the enemy being really small, so Dunban followed up with Steel Strike a few times. Arsene has a big topple time resist though (75%?) so it's not like it made a difference anyway, he gets straight back up almost instantly (he's immune to daze, but his default topple time is about half the length of the Shaker Edge animation).
Speaking of small enemies, that's another thing that makes him tough. With bigger enemies your party tends to stand far apart from each other, and it's easy to see aggro switching between characters. Against a tiny enemy when everyone is huddled together, not so much, so Shulk got taken out a few times after picking up Aggro with a big Back Slash.
That just leaves Ancient Daedala. I seriously don't think it's possible at my level, but I guess it won't hurt to set up for it and try. And arguably Final Marcus, but at level 100 there's no way he won't be balanced for fights with 90s parties, so the agility penalty would probably make the fight totally impossible with a topple lock via Demon Slayer.
I usually don't have a problem with 7th picking up aggro off Dunban, and aside from monsters way over my level that character tanks well enough and dodges a most attacks anyway. I don't really choose between them, I use both. I'd probably go with Dunban if I was only using one, but it's pretty situational.
And double attack, well, I'll take as much as I can get!
Edit: Ancient Daedala down. Wheeew. That was rough too, took quite a few tries. Generally, I lost that fight in a slaughter, especially when the crazed aura went up. A few seemed kind of cheap - Dunban went down, then the enemy used that AoE topple attack that took out Shulk and toppled 7th with no vision tag, then finished off 7th in one hit. Lameness.
In the winning battle, I only toppled him once, pretty much to save myself. Needed to get enchant up for Dunban so he could get aggro back, but Shulk probably would have gone down or I'd have gotten a vision I'd need to deal with before I'd have been able to fill the gauge.
Still, I feel like I had to use some rather cheap tactics. Used the enemies to the north to build my talent gauge before the fight and started it at a distance, used enchant, then when I got the vision tag for his laser I was able to use armor instantly. Allowed me to cover both necessary Monado arts with no problem. Cheap, but effective. (Edit, Contains Spoilers: And speaking of which, I never cleaned up the chests, so this mess remains)
Also relied pretty heavily on chain attacks, more so than probably any of the other 3 fights except maybe Abaasy. Also made heavy use of Monado arts to negate damage, but since most of his arts were 1HKOs, I didn't really have much choice. Plus his standard attacks were very accurate (especially compared to the others) and did a good chunk of damage (2300ish). Dunban did okay, but still went down regularly, and that sucks against this particular enemy since it's Mechon, and I had no weapon to compensate for that. Fortunately, I was able to hit much better than expected and was able to keep enchant up most of the time, and still throw in some Monado armor here and there.
But yeah, after several tries I managed to get it all right and come out victorious. Didn't think I would on that last attempt since I was a tad late in purging to prevent his crazed aura, but purge hit successfully and I was able to finish it out from there.
Edit2:
Since I had the four big ones down, I went after Final Marcus too, with no topple. Auto-attacks missed a whole lot unless I got high/very high tension and even then they were unreliable, everybody struggled to dodge enemy attacks (even Dunban). But somehow after a few attempts I pulled it off. I'll admit it was probably pure luck thanks to a combination of Unbeatable VI kicking in at the perfect moment, and the enemy heavily using arts I could avoid with Monado arts toward the very end of the battle. It was his normal attacks that were really brutal, since they could easily take out a party member in three shots without armor up, and he can double attack.
But that covers all five 100+ enemies. Blizzard Belgazas takes the crown for the easiest one at least with my level/setup. Hardest... probably Despotic Arsene, but given how bad I screwed up that fight I made it a lot harder on myself.
Abaasy is the only one I really used topple on, apart from that one topple on Ancient Daedala and a few unintentional but meaningless ones on Despotic Arsene. Thinking about trying a no topple (or at least bare minimal topple) attempt on him before I turn exp back on, but I doubt it's possible since those frequent but brief reprieves really help cover the damage he deals.
SecretMoblin
Member
Congrats, chaosblade!
I'm really fascinated by the breakdown of all the game's mechanics and exploits. It shows how deep (and how shallow, frankly) a lot of the basic rules of the game are.
I'm really fascinated by the breakdown of all the game's mechanics and exploits. It shows how deep (and how shallow, frankly) a lot of the basic rules of the game are.
"Post-game" spoilers again.
I ran into a surprise quest last night
I'm really glad that it
I kind of wish more quests were like that instead of the less consequential ones; in fact, I wish there were more surprise quests in general. I remember the one on the
had me looking forward to what other secret missions I would find while exploring the map, but sadly there weren't very many.
I am now
. It's been cool to finally fight some of the monsters that had red names some hundred or so hours ago, particularly
who was pretty nerve-wracking the first time I almost ran into it. I've received some more Art Booksmost of which are fairly mediocrebut I suppose the rare ones have a better chance of being dropped by high-level monsters. I'm at level 82 right now so I think I might head to
and see what I can clean out there seeing as how I have some quests that need me to
.
I ran into a surprise quest last night
near the entrance of Colony 6 involving Tyrea.
finally wrapped up the subplot introduced in Alcamoth, and I thought the voice acting really added a sense of urgency to the quest even though it wasn't timed.
Bionis' Leg in which you save the girl from the Volf pack
I do understand that a lot of voiced quests would raise the budget however, so I can see why they weren't included.
I am now
two Hill Fireflies away from completing the reconstruction of Colony 6, but I still have a couple people on the affinity chart that I need to move in
Territorial Rotbart
Alcamoth
kill off some Telethia
Starwolf_UK
Member
Advanced arts are a matter of gold chest enemies and uniques (as these always are Gold Chest) from F
(also uniques in Valak and high level stuff in earlier areas) and persistence. Also looking up what they contain so you don't spend hours on an art that isn't there (Summon Wind was the only one I spent quite a bit on). I don't think it works as stronger enemies have better ones, they might have better drop rates though. It basically seems like everything above level so and so has 4.
For the record, I did not bother grinding enemies for gold chest drops, I just made (almost) the most of the gold chests thrown at me.
Nothing as impressive as taking out level 100+ uniques but at level 74 I decided to give the final bosses a try (I guess its impressive for me considering last time I did it at level 97
). How it went.
Using Shulk, Dunban, 7th (Shulk has all skill trees complete...you can guess where this is going...)
allen Arm
For the record, I did not bother grinding enemies for gold chest drops, I just made (almost) the most of the gold chests thrown at me.
Nothing as impressive as taking out level 100+ uniques but at level 74 I decided to give the final bosses a try (I guess its impressive for me considering last time I did it at level 97
). How it went.Using Shulk, Dunban, 7th (Shulk has all skill trees complete...you can guess where this is going...)
Disciple D. Easy. Nearly got to topple lock as well.
Z. 1. Not too bad. Kind of relied on the summons for tension building though.
Z. 2. Tried twice with that party. Both times barely made it to world reconstruction or whatever the attack is called (which brings more summons and hopefully tension), too much blocking was happening ruining double attacks. Third attempt was cheap DoT with Riki, Shulk and Sharla (at this point levels are 76/75/74). Props go to Shulk AI using Monado speed in places (I was lazy and armored any visions). Emulator crashed (it did the hardware crash buzzing and screeching rather than how it normally crashes) when Z. 2 was 60% health and I didn't make any savestates so we will try again another day.
I wonder if I could have switched parties back had I made it to Z3.
Z. 1. Not too bad. Kind of relied on the summons for tension building though.
Z. 2. Tried twice with that party. Both times barely made it to world reconstruction or whatever the attack is called (which brings more summons and hopefully tension), too much blocking was happening ruining double attacks. Third attempt was cheap DoT with Riki, Shulk and Sharla (at this point levels are 76/75/74). Props go to Shulk AI using Monado speed in places (I was lazy and armored any visions). Emulator crashed (it did the hardware crash buzzing and screeching rather than how it normally crashes) when Z. 2 was 60% health and I didn't make any savestates so we will try again another day.
I wonder if I could have switched parties back had I made it to Z3.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Advanced arts are a matter of gold chest enemies and uniques (as these always are Gold Chest) from F(also uniques in Valak and high level stuff in earlier areas) and persistence. Also looking up what they contain so you don't spend hours on an art that isn't there (Summon Wind was the only one I spent quite a bit on). I don't think it works as stronger enemies have better ones, they might have better drop rates though. It basically seems like everything above level so and so has 4.allen Arm
For the record, I did not bother grinding enemies for gold chest drops, I just made (almost) the most of the gold chests thrown at me.
Nothing as impressive as taking out level 100+ uniques but at level 74 I decided to give the final bosses a try (I guess its impressive for me considering last time I did it at level 97
Using Shulk, Dunban, 7th (Shulk has all skill trees complete...you can guess where this is going...)
Disciple D. Easy. Nearly got to topple lock as well.
Z. 1. Not too bad. Kind of relied on the summons for tension building though.
Z. 2. Tried twice with that party. Both times barely made it to world reconstruction or whatever the attack is called (which brings more summons and hopefully tension), too much blocking was happening ruining double attacks. Third attempt was cheap DoT with Riki, Shulk and Sharla (at this point levels are 76/75/74). Props go to Shulk AI using Monado speed in places (I was lazy and armored any visions). Emulator crashed (it did the hardware crash buzzing and screeching rather than how it normally crashes) when Z. 2 was 60% health and I didn't make any savestates so we will try again another day.
I wonder if I could have switched parties back had I made it to Z3.
79, not 74, but given how most of it went down that probably would have been doable too, the last couple at least would have been even more difficult though. I beat the final boss at
77
just hitting the QTEs to get visions was really all it took to take him down.
Wonder if I can set up a negative exp multiplier just right and reset myself to level 1, then I'll do that no-level-up NG+ thing I mentioned. It would be pretty fun running around Colony 9 and even Bionis Leg at level 1 killing everything thanks to awesome gems, weapons, armor, and skills. But it would probably also take my arts away so that would add an interesting dimension to it (wonder if I'd have to level them up again? Hmm.)
First I need to see if I can keep taking out uniques. Will probably just keep going from the top down and see what I can and can't beat. I imagine the biggest challenge would be the two enemies from the
Battling Brutes quest.
Hill Fireflies were a PITA. If you have trouble finding them, go to the last landmark on Bionis Leg where it meets up with Colony 6, and get the blue orbs in the water at night. Got like 2-3 of them that way.
AlphaDragoon
Member
You wanna know what's annoying as all hell? Getting Advanced books for Summon Ice and Steel Strike. I've fought Moonlight Paimon/Vague Barbas and Wandering Amon like fifty billion times and come up goose eggs.
InfiniDragon
Member
I only have issues with 7th yanking aggro if I'm playing 7th, which is the only time I'd be worried about them taking hits (because most of the time I'm Dunban). And I wholeheartedly agree with you on using both, those two along with Shulk = my group 99% of the time.
Because come on, you can't just separate a dude from his baby sister, gotta keep them together. XD
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
You can cheese it since the contents of a chest are randomized when you open it and not when it's dropped. Kill the enemy, save, then open the chest. Don't get what you want, just reload and try again. If they respawn on you, just kill them and save again, now you get two chests to try. Etc.
AlphaDragoon
Member
Nice, didn't think about that. I'll try that next time I play.
Starwolf_UK
Member
Final boss dead. Ended at level
As for how it went. Following from last time
75 (the morsels of EXP from the guardians pushed me over)
As for how it went. Following from last time
Second form is the hardest by far. Nearly won with Shulk, Dunban, 7th (the guardians had appeared and were just about dead, main boss must have been 40% health) but AOE attack wiped out party. The slowdown was bad for this fight.
So I whipped out the cheap party (Riki, Shulk, Sharla) and won with ease.
Third form is too easy, I switched back to my first party. Also I forgot to put any gems on Monado III Won with a Max chain Sword Drones II.
But going back. The third form is too easy. Half the health of the second one, the attacks are somewhat weaker and the guardians have a third of their health (so die before they can do anything useful...).
So I whipped out the cheap party (Riki, Shulk, Sharla) and won with ease.
Third form is too easy, I switched back to my first party. Also I forgot to put any gems on Monado III
Won with a Max chain Sword Drones II.But going back. The third form is too easy. Half the health of the second one, the attacks are somewhat weaker and the guardians have a third of their health (so die before they can do anything useful...).
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Same spoilers as all the other links I've had. And a sort-of-kind-of Colony 6 related spoiler.
This thing can rot in the depths of whatever Hell may or may not exist in Xenoblade. He was accurate, hard to hit, and since his attacks aren't really that strong (i.e., rarely 1KHOs), I often didn't get vision tags and he would take a big chunk of my health away, especially with some of his AoE attacks.
This thing can rot in the depths of whatever Hell may or may not exist in Xenoblade. He was accurate, hard to hit, and since his attacks aren't really that strong (i.e., rarely 1KHOs), I often didn't get vision tags and he would take a big chunk of my health away, especially with some of his AoE attacks.
I actually received two Art books from a regular enemy during my last session, but they weren't anything to write home about (as you might expect). I'm not really planning on grinding for Art books at this point but I might try to get some of the better ones for the characters I use frequently. Now that I've beaten the game, I might look up some of the unique drops in that spreadsheet I was linked to ages ago; the unique enemy names tend to be stuff like "Disgruntled Understudy" so I don't think anything too spoilery will appear.
I suspected there was some generation going on when the game noticeably loads when you open a treasure chest but I didn't know you could manipulate it like that. I suspect this will come in handy if I do decide to chase after some rare Art books.
I picked up on the "collectibles are more common in certain spots under certain conditions" idea but had yet to find the best spawn points for the Hill Fireflies. Thanks for that; collectables don't seem to be too hard to find when you determine their spawn points, but it can be really tough to figure out where those are sometimes. I actually had a lot less trouble with them than I thought I would, but that might be a result of all that time spent exploring the maps and picking up everything along the way. I actually stumbled upon a random unique monster in the rain while searching for Fireflies, so I don't feel like I wasted too much time on them.
Final boss dead. Ended at level75 (the morsels of EXP from the guardians pushed me over)
As for how it went. Following from last time
Second form is the hardest by far. Nearly won with Shulk, Dunban, 7th (the guardians had appeared and were just about dead, main boss must have been 40% health) but AOE attack wiped out party. The slowdown was bad for this fight.
So I whipped out the cheap party (Riki, Shulk, Sharla) and won with ease.
Third form is too easy, I switched back to my first party. Also I forgot to put any gems on Monado III
But going back. The third form is too easy. Half the health of the second one, the attacks are somewhat weaker and the guardians have a third of their health (so die before they can do anything useful...).
I think
Zanza's third form is supposed to be easy. The second form is the "real" battle before you unlock the power of your "True Monado" and at that point the fight becomes a foregone conclusion; that it plays out like a lesser version of the second form rather than something new is a bit of a tip-off in that regard. Maybe not the most satisfying conclusion, but I think that's what they were going for.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
I've probably done it as much for weapons and armor as I have for art books on this playthrough. Getting better and better equipment really helps. Had Dunban's best weapon ages ago, got Shulks a while back (well, sort of...), and 7th's earlier.
Loaded up on lots of artbooks too though since I've been killing so many unique enemies. Leveling up the arts I use a lot makes a big difference. I think Dunban has just about every art I use maxed, just one left that's still limited from the Intermediate book I think.
And I have 3 skill trees left to get now - Sharla, Riki, Reyn. First one will be easy, just need to do quests. Other two will require me to kill some tough enemies, but they shouldn't be any worse than what I've gone through so far.
When I started this playthrough I had the intention of killing every unique enemy in the game. What I didn't plan to do was to do it all at without going over level 80. It's really made the post-game content a lot more interesting, and fighting enemies my level, even unique ones, is just mind-numbingly easy. I can win with auto-attacks.
(14/157 UMs remain, all over level 90)
I might have to look at that spreadsheet soon as I have no idea what the best weapons/armour are yet. I got really good ones for
both Melia and Sharla
Monado Shield and Armour
Summon Bolt and You Can Do It!
Final Cross and Light Heal
In terms of skill trees, I still need to unlock the last for
Reyn, Melia, Riki, and Fiora
Reyn's and Riki's are from the quests for which you have to kill high-level monsters in Tephra Cave and for the Nopon Sage respectively,
As for unique monsters, I don't know how many I've killed at this point
aside from the "Master Hunter" achievement a while ago
I have to say, you're making a low-level playthough sound really intriguing. I will probably put the game down for a while after I complete everything, but it sounds pretty interesting from the different stories you post (and that I can actually highlight now as well).
I played a lot like you did and beat the game at roughly the same amount of time; I'm guessing you finished at around level 80? I definitely echo the sentiments in your post.
Elfforkusu
Member
:lol, the final boss is going to be so anti-climactic at that level.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Unreliable Renzo is daytime only?
.....Damn. This is really going to be tricky.
Edit: Night vision really makes an noticeable difference. I had to struggle for 2 in-game hours to stay alive until night before my night vision gems kicked in. Managed to get something like a quarter or so of his health down, but fighting to stay alive was the biggest challenge. Probably one of the only times I've actually felt the need to take advantage of the "warn" mechanic (usually it just gets in the way), since I could make Dunban use Jaws of Life when he was at low HP and got a vision.
When night came around things slowly but surely turned in my favor. Was able to hit frequently enough to throw the occasional armor up to heavily reduce his damage, and just in general someone other than Dunban was chipping away at his HP. Not as bad as I expected considering I managed it on my first attempt, but still pretty rough.
.....Damn. This is really going to be tricky.
Edit: Night vision really makes an noticeable difference. I had to struggle for 2 in-game hours to stay alive until night before my night vision gems kicked in. Managed to get something like a quarter or so of his health down, but fighting to stay alive was the biggest challenge. Probably one of the only times I've actually felt the need to take advantage of the "warn" mechanic (usually it just gets in the way), since I could make Dunban use Jaws of Life when he was at low HP and got a vision.
When night came around things slowly but surely turned in my favor. Was able to hit frequently enough to throw the occasional armor up to heavily reduce his damage, and just in general someone other than Dunban was chipping away at his HP. Not as bad as I expected considering I managed it on my first attempt, but still pretty rough.
HeresSomeWeapons
Member
What's the name of that awesome music that usually plays right before a boss battle? I've been digging up all the OST tracks in my search but I can't find it. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
and at 123 hours, i'm done.
i don't know of any other single player game i've poured 123 hours into. my pokemon red says 150 hours, but that was aided by the triple-time thing from pokemon stadium. this may be the longest single-player game i've ever played. i think the only other ones near this are gta iii (80 hours), dragon quest viii (76 hours), and xenogears (72 hours). \
but it deserves it. everything is done so well. the cast was great throughout, aside from some obvious things (this guy does old wise man voice. this guy does evil villain voice!), the music is fantastic, and there's just so much shit to do. from questing to building affinity between characters, to creating gems, and how all of it played into exploration.
stepping onto bionis' leg for the first time gave me flashbacks to hyrule field in 1998. it's been such a long time a video game has shocked me due to its scale. and what was particularly exciting was knowing i could go to those far off distant places, see where i'd been, and discover hidden locations all throughout this world. it's also been a long time since it's taken me close to two months to beat just one video game.
xenoblade was a firm reminder that i love exploration in games. i was one of the few who liked the planets of the original mass effect, as it played into the whole space explorer man thing. wanting to go to someplace, and having that curiosity rewarded is so much stronger than being told to go someplace to advance the plot.
i don't think the story is that great. i actually liked the initial revenge plot a lot, but then it entered crazyville at about the 1/3 (40 hour) mark. the game did steadily raise the stakes until the crazy finale, but i preferred the blunt and simple motivation for shulk and friends at the beginning versus the broader goal towards the end. i think the voice cast saves an otherwise boring latter part of the game. they did a great job in bringing the characters to life.
that said, the plot twists were actually pretty crazy at the very end, in a good way. the final revelations, and the final area right before the final boss was actually a great 'oh shit!' moment when it happened. i think that post-final boss, the final conversation was too reminiscent of xenosaga's, but i'm glad the relationships between the characters worked until the end.
the battle system was pretty cool. i'm a fan of final fantasy xii, so the mmorpg style of it wasn't that bad. later in the game, it was pretty great taking down extremely high-leveled monsters when you had to have extra gems equipped if you wanted a chance to strike them down.
and again, the music is great. not so much the battle music (which i think comes out of nowhere), but satorl marsh at night, colony 6 at night, and especially
are absolutely fantastic.
overall, i feel extremely satisfied with this game. i'm not in love with it like a lot of people, but if something can hold my attention for 123 hours, then i guess it's doing something right.
i don't know of any other single player game i've poured 123 hours into. my pokemon red says 150 hours, but that was aided by the triple-time thing from pokemon stadium. this may be the longest single-player game i've ever played. i think the only other ones near this are gta iii (80 hours), dragon quest viii (76 hours), and xenogears (72 hours). \
but it deserves it. everything is done so well. the cast was great throughout, aside from some obvious things (this guy does old wise man voice. this guy does evil villain voice!), the music is fantastic, and there's just so much shit to do. from questing to building affinity between characters, to creating gems, and how all of it played into exploration.
stepping onto bionis' leg for the first time gave me flashbacks to hyrule field in 1998. it's been such a long time a video game has shocked me due to its scale. and what was particularly exciting was knowing i could go to those far off distant places, see where i'd been, and discover hidden locations all throughout this world. it's also been a long time since it's taken me close to two months to beat just one video game.
xenoblade was a firm reminder that i love exploration in games. i was one of the few who liked the planets of the original mass effect, as it played into the whole space explorer man thing. wanting to go to someplace, and having that curiosity rewarded is so much stronger than being told to go someplace to advance the plot.
i don't think the story is that great. i actually liked the initial revenge plot a lot, but then it entered crazyville at about the 1/3 (40 hour) mark. the game did steadily raise the stakes until the crazy finale, but i preferred the blunt and simple motivation for shulk and friends at the beginning versus the broader goal towards the end. i think the voice cast saves an otherwise boring latter part of the game. they did a great job in bringing the characters to life.
that said, the plot twists were actually pretty crazy at the very end, in a good way. the final revelations, and the final area right before the final boss was actually a great 'oh shit!' moment when it happened. i think that post-final boss, the final conversation was too reminiscent of xenosaga's, but i'm glad the relationships between the characters worked until the end.
the battle system was pretty cool. i'm a fan of final fantasy xii, so the mmorpg style of it wasn't that bad. later in the game, it was pretty great taking down extremely high-leveled monsters when you had to have extra gems equipped if you wanted a chance to strike them down.
and again, the music is great. not so much the battle music (which i think comes out of nowhere), but satorl marsh at night, colony 6 at night, and especially
mechonis fields
overall, i feel extremely satisfied with this game. i'm not in love with it like a lot of people, but if something can hold my attention for 123 hours, then i guess it's doing something right.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
I assume you mean Engage the Enemy?
Been doing some gem farming and UM hunting. Not many left, and only a few more art books to collect.
Clamorous Dablon (92)
Deadly Medorlo (93)
Musical Vanflare (93)
Judicious Bunnitzol (94)
Wicked Sallos (95)
Furious Jozan (96)
Exposure Wolfol (97)
Wandering Amon (98)
Plan to hit up Ancient Daedala a second time for another night vision crystal and craft up some VI ones for Shulk and 7th, then go after Abaasy again with no topple. Not sure if I can do it, but hey, I've managed my other goals pretty well, so we'll see.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
So I did a little experimenting on my previous "which tank has priority" inquiry, and here are my findings so far:
I put Sharla on my team and had the AI control her. She always throws her shield buff on the tank at the start of a battle so I figured that would show who the AI thought the main tank was. Reyn is seen as the #1 priority tank. Dunban is #2, and 7th is #3. I haven't tested who has priority between 7th and Riki yet, though.
I've been really liking the team of Dunban, 7th and Sharla. With Sharla there I can forgo some defensive gems, skills and arts and just focus on attacking with reckless abandon. The AI does a pretty good job with 7th so I've been controlling Dunban. Even though Sharla has proved that the AI sees Dunban as the main tank, when the AI controls him it still acts wonky. He rarely uses his auras and there was one fight where I noticed that he just auto attacked the entire time. WTF?
Plus, it's fun using Dunban and battling it out with 7th for aggro priority. When I'm controlling 7th there's no contest and Dunban won't pull aggro off me. Not even Reyn could do it, which surprised me. Poor Reyn, I never use him anymore.
I put Sharla on my team and had the AI control her. She always throws her shield buff on the tank at the start of a battle so I figured that would show who the AI thought the main tank was. Reyn is seen as the #1 priority tank. Dunban is #2, and 7th is #3. I haven't tested who has priority between 7th and Riki yet, though.
I've been really liking the team of Dunban, 7th and Sharla. With Sharla there I can forgo some defensive gems, skills and arts and just focus on attacking with reckless abandon. The AI does a pretty good job with 7th so I've been controlling Dunban. Even though Sharla has proved that the AI sees Dunban as the main tank, when the AI controls him it still acts wonky. He rarely uses his auras and there was one fight where I noticed that he just auto attacked the entire time. WTF?
Plus, it's fun using Dunban and battling it out with 7th for aggro priority. When I'm controlling 7th there's no contest and Dunban won't pull aggro off me. Not even Reyn could do it, which surprised me. Poor Reyn, I never use him anymore.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Reyn is probably the best topple character in the game since he can topple and daze, and both arts have short cooldowns. That's about all he has going for him other than being a decent tank as far as I can tell. Reyn+7th+Shulk is probably the best party for it since they all have topple+daze arts, but Shulk and 7th both have kind of gimped topples (one requires max tension, the other requires a full talent gauage) so switching in Dunban/Steel Strike for one of them isn't a bad choice. Starlight Kick unfortunately requires Spear Break to do anything, it doesn't re-topple enemies or work on enemies with break, so that kind of balances it's usefulness.
And as far as attacking with reckless abandon and taking advantage of Sharla (that sounds terrible...) I've gotten good enough gems that I don't even need Sharla to do that. For anything I can hit with reasonable accuracy on autoattacks, 7th is currently healing somewhere around 500HP per second. I noticed how ridiculous it was while killing Feris's (Ferii?) for back attack crystals. Constantly had green numbers popping up everywhere, though not as much as gray numbers for my damage! Hoping things like that will come in handy in my rematch against Abaasy.
Speaking of back attack, those gems are amazing. Still haven't seen just what I can do with it yet, but I've hit for 60k+ in chain attacks with Back Slash so far, and that's not even the best I can do since it was without Shadow Eye. Means I could have potentially hit for 90k. At level 79.
Though, I'd still like to see what Reyn could do with a maxed Sword Drive. What I want to try:
1. Character slot one being someone with a red and blue art, probably 7th (see below), slot 2 being Reyn with 100% back attack, slot 3 probably being Melia. You could switch the 1st and 3rd slot potentially, if 7th can pick up aggro even under AI control, which could allow for even more interesting things (2x fire summons?) but it would be tough to make sure Reyn ends up behind the enemy.
2. Let someone else take aggro - good reason to have 7th in slot 1 to pick up aggro and has the red+blue arts - and maneuver so Reyn is behind the enemy.
3. Do a chain attack. 7th uses the blue art
power drain
4. Reyn uses maxed out Magnum Charge.
5. Melia unleashes a summon with the talent art allowing 7th to change the color to red without losing the multiplier.
6. Reyn uses Sword Drive and destroys the world.
Plus there are all sorts of variables involved. Strength buffs via skills, and even via Melia's fire element that could make it even stronger. Also strength up gems. You could do something similar with Dunban's talent art, but he doesn't have a 4.2x multiplier with Magnum Charge.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
What exactly are you doing that lets you pull this off? I gave 7th Dunban's heal 2% on crit skill link, because I saw you mention that was part of it. What else did you do? Although that sounds really broken and I might wait until I beat the game to do it. I'm currently at the part where
Egil's sister joins your party and you're finding a way to get to the capital.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Aura Heal VI and HP Steal VI since I have an "open" weapon slot due to haste being in the armor.
Aura Heal does 150HP per two seconds, and the character pretty much always has an aura active between
. Not to mention both of those auras are also good for healing since
makes you attack faster and increases your double attack rate, meaning more crits more frequently, meaning more healing. The other is rather obvious I think.
HP Steal has a 25% chance of healing 200HP with every attack, so basically 1 in 4 attacks heal 200HP. And as fast as the character attacks, well, I'm not sure there's much to add. I don't think it would be worth it for a character that doesn't regularly have a good haste buff, but in this case it works well.
Edit: Also gave Dunban a 100% Bleed Damage gem. I've seen bleed go as high as 8000 after being used at Chain 5 in a chain attack. Craziness.
Aura Heal does 150HP per two seconds, and the character pretty much always has an aura active between
Speed Shift and Healing Energy
Speed Shift
HP Steal has a 25% chance of healing 200HP with every attack, so basically 1 in 4 attacks heal 200HP. And as fast as the character attacks, well, I'm not sure there's much to add. I don't think it would be worth it for a character that doesn't regularly have a good haste buff, but in this case it works well.
Edit: Also gave Dunban a 100% Bleed Damage gem. I've seen bleed go as high as 8000 after being used at Chain 5 in a chain attack. Craziness.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
Thanks for the info. I have not yet come across an HP Steal gem. I think I have an Aura Heal one though, but I'm pretty sure it's a low level one.
Also, I keep hearing talk about a 4th skill tree. I think 5 out of my 7 characters have all of their skill trees maxed out, so I've been eagerly awaiting this new tree. Is it possible for me to get it right now, or is it post-game/a spoiler?
Also, I keep hearing talk about a 4th skill tree. I think 5 out of my 7 characters have all of their skill trees maxed out, so I've been eagerly awaiting this new tree. Is it possible for me to get it right now, or is it post-game/a spoiler?
moving kinda fast. at this rate you might beat the game before the 50 hour mark.
what's your level?
DragonGirl
Member
If you're blazing along that fast, then I'd say you're probably skipping the bulk of the game's content. Which is a shame.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
I think I reached it around 60ish hours
AlphaDragoon
Member
Yeah, Dunban does good with Bleed Plus, especially since he uses Gale Slash to set up several of his other moves. Riki's does a metric ton of damage as well. The highest DoT I've ever seen though belongs to Melia, I got a 20,000 HP Poison DoT without doing a Chain Attack.
Back Attack 100% + Poison Plus 100% gems, then released an Earth summon behind the mob (IIRC it was a Deinos Saurus) after using Burst End. Needless to say he wasn't standing up for very long, especially since he had Chill/Flame DoTs from Melia and Bleed from Dunban.
Yeah, all the characters have a fourth
(and a fifth)
Oh, and chaosblade, thanks for the tip on saving and loading chests to get the drops instead of killing the mob for it. Finally got my Summon Ice and Steel Strike, now I just have to get a Fascia Bunniv to drop a gold one so I can farm it for Mind Blast, since I didn't get it off the one-time Unique Monster that had it. :/
nintendoman58
Member
Well I'm almost at the capital of Mechonis and-
That makes me sad as I'm practically only 30 hours in. What sort of things am I missing? Quests? Items? Collectables? I know that
but what rewards do you exactly get for that?
That makes me sad as I'm practically only 30 hours in. What sort of things am I missing? Quests? Items? Collectables? I know that
you can go back to Colony 6 to help it out
AlphaDragoon
Member
You get two of the characters' fourth skill trees, a boatload of quests, and several items.
DragonGirl
Member
There's no right or wrong way to enjoy the game of course. It's just that there is a ton of world building content in the form of side quests from NPCs, Colony 6, Heart to Hearts, and the pure joy of exploration, particularly the places that don't become accessible until late game. I just advise taking it slowly and ignoring the plot from time to time in favor of the innumerable other things to do. I actually beat the game at 159 hours (at level 81), and did so deliberately leaving side quests undone, unique monsters unchallenged, and areas unexplored so that I'd have new things to do on my new game plus (in addition to all of the things I no doubt missed on round one).
Xenoblade invests a lot into its environments, creatures, and characters (not just the playable ones) and it's fun and rewarding to indulge in its world. I'd go so far as to say that just following the plot while ignoring all of the distractions (or at least mostly ignoring) diminishes the impact of the plot on the world. There are hundreds of tiny stories, from tragedies, to triumphs, to simple asides in Xenoblade, and I thought they enriched the entire experience.
Xenoblade invests a lot into its environments, creatures, and characters (not just the playable ones) and it's fun and rewarding to indulge in its world. I'd go so far as to say that just following the plot while ignoring all of the distractions (or at least mostly ignoring) diminishes the impact of the plot on the world. There are hundreds of tiny stories, from tragedies, to triumphs, to simple asides in Xenoblade, and I thought they enriched the entire experience.
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