Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (2017)

[Londragon]

I love grinding in this game, just wandering around, looking for stuff, and annihilating the local wildlife population, I seem to prefer that than the story, then remember and progress it a bit. Well I just finished Chapter 2. It makes me laugh when the boss gets absolutely trounced by my overpowered team, and then the following cutscene shows the enemy with the upper hand and me winning by chance, well worked chance, but still. Oh come on, I murdered the boss, lol.


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[Emerald Emblem]

This is seriously starting to piss me off. I'm trying to grind but constantly getting ganged up on by weaker monsters and also getting killed constantly by the rare powerful beasts just deciding to ambush me. I'm barely able to get the plot moving at all and I know if I try and take a break I won't be able to keep playing but its reaching that point for me now..

[MindFreak]

10 minutes ago, londragon said:

I love grinding in this game, just wandering around, looking for stuff, and annihilating the local wildlife population, I seem to prefer that than the story, then remember and progress it a bit. Well I just finished Chapter 2. It makes me laugh when the boss gets absolutely trounced by my overpowered team, and then the following cutscene shows the enemy with the upper hand and me winning by chance, well worked chance, but still. Oh come on, I murdered the boss, lol.

Yeah, I've also wondewred about that. It seems weird that they don't just cut off the battle before you win it.

 

Just now, Emerald Emblem said:

This is seriously starting to piss me off. I'm trying to grind but constantly getting ganged up on by weaker monsters and also getting killed constantly by the rare powerful beasts just deciding to ambush me. I'm barely able to get the plot moving at all and I know if I try and take a break I won't be able to keep playing but its reaching that point for me now..

That happened a lot to me as well at some point where I was just having Rex on my team. Remember you can pick out an enemy by clicking R and then D-pad down to throw a rock at it.

Edited January 11, 2018 by MindFreak

[Kav]

Just finished it, had tears in my eyes during that ending! 

Loved the game, 2nd best Switch game for me!

Now to get the final Rare Blades & fight the super bosses etc.

[Sméagol]

I rushed through chapters 6, 7 and 8 a few weeks ago, avoiding all fights, except the few required ones, just to view (most of) the cutscenes (I love the sci-fi twist). Stopped when I arrived at what looks to be the final boss. Since the last few areas don't really seem interesting enough for "repeat" playthroughs, and for other reasons (grinding stuff), I've been mostly just doing (blade) sidequests, and looking for heart-to-hearts. Some of those blades are a bit annoying to develop though. Every time I have to find some specific creature to fight is annoying. "Egh, what am I looking for? Where the hell is it?" And now I have one that is pretty easy, as I mostly just have to feed it, but I also have to talk to Nopon. And at this point in the game, I've talked to most of them already, so it's just a clickfest. That said, I need the field skill, as I only got some extra blades with the Nopon wisdom recently, and before that all the hard Field skill challenges were off-limits. But now I finally got to see Bana again (:D). I wonder how many rare blades come from specific cores though. I don't have that many left to go, but I stumbled on a specific one purely by chance (Kassandra). I've barely touched a guide before now (apart from battle mechanic explanations), and I wouldn't have found it if I were specifically looking for her but without a guide.

Anyway, next session I'll do a little bit more of sidequesting and blade grinding, but then it's time to revisit Morytha and climb the world tree.

[Aperson]

Just finished Chapter 5. The plot is getting really interesting now especially now it's delved more into Jin's backstory. This is only being furthered by the opening moments of Chapter 6.

[Emerald Emblem]

So I managed to hold out and progress the story

(As soon as Tora joined my party it made the game so much easier.)

and powered through chapter 2 from that point, I finally feel like I can start enjoying it now. 

[Glen-i]

Combat in this feels really sluggish compared to the original and X. I put it down to the glacial movement speed in battle and not being able to auto-attack while running.

Not really a complaint, more of a massive difference that keeps throwing me off. I keep moving and I forget I can't attack because of that. Damn you, muscle memory!

EDIT: Oh, but one complaint I do have so far is that the cutscenes have some serious "Japan Cliché" issues. Some really unfortunate Camera angles when it comes to female characters. (Especially Pyra) And don't get me started on that moment when the game introduces Poppi. I mean, wow. I still can't believe they went there.

There's many problems with Xenoblade X's plot, but at least they didn't stoop to those levels. I hope they drop it once the plot kicks in.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Glen-i

[Aperson]

22 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Combat in this feels really sluggish compared to the original and X. I put it down to the glacial movement speed in battle and not being able to auto-attack while running.

Not really a complaint, more of a massive difference that keeps throwing me off. I keep moving and I forget I can't attack because of that. Damn you, muscle memory!

EDIT: Oh, but one complaint I do have so far is that the cutscenes have some serious "Japan Cliché" issues. Some really unfortunate Camera angles when it comes to female characters. (Especially Pyra) And don't get me started on that moment when the game introduces Poppi. I mean, wow. I still can't believe they went there.

There's many problems with Xenoblade X's plot, but at least they didn't stoop to those levels. I hope they drop it once the plot kicks in.

As someone who is on Chapter 6 I do agree, especially with Chapter 4 where they go the whole hog in some instances (there's even a bath scene...). But when they actually start paying more attention to the plot itself then it gets more interesting. Chapter 5 was a heavily plot focused chapter and easily one of the strongest chapters in the game so far, what gets revealed about many characters is rather interesting. Chapter 6 seems to be heading in the same way.

 

Also, THERE'S CHOIR MUSIC IN THIS GAME WT?

 

 

Also I put Zeke in the front of the party in place of Rex, I can therefore say that I am now playing Zekeblade Chronicles 2...

[The Cape]

I started playing this a few days ago, I'm just starting chapter 3. I'm loving it so far, and I like the blades mechanic, even though I'm just starting to understand how it all works! The game does feel somewhat unfinished though... The jumps and movement in this game seem like they'd need some more polish, the previous Xenoblades moved better. Some animations and actions also seem a bit off, and I'm still not sure why the character you're controlling only shouts sometimes when jumping... None of this is a big issue though, I'm really enjoying the game and the voices

[Sméagol]

After 180 hours, I've finally beaten this shit game. Graphics are bad, controls are bad, enemies are hard to avoid, and you have to go everywhere to grab items. Yeah I'm not touching this game again. Anyway, here's the result:

Spoiler

 

[MindFreak]

I'm doing some side-quests before heading to Mor Ardain and I came across a sidequest that split into four different ones in Torigoth. One of them requires me to salvage for a Morph Orb. I spent 8 tries and ran out of cylinders and still haven't found it - you would've thought that they had increased the likelihood of finding one when that mission is active but alas.

[Kav]

3 hours ago, MindFreak said:

I'm doing some side-quests before heading to Mor Ardain and I came across a sidequest that split into four different ones in Torigoth. One of them requires me to salvage for a Morph Orb. I spent 8 tries and ran out of cylinders and still haven't found it - you would've thought that they had increased the likelihood of finding one when that mission is active but alas.

You’re best using the gold, or silver, cylinders to get the Morph Orb. If you nail the button presses you’ll only need 3 or so dives.

[Kav]

On 11/01/2018 at 7:03 PM, Kav said:

Just finished it, had tears in my eyes during that ending! 

Loved the game, 2nd best Switch game for me!

Now to get the final Rare Blades & fight the super bosses etc.

I can’t get enough of the game, still playing it each day on the commute. Filling in affinity charts, doing side-quests etc.

Although it’s expensive I’m tempted to just go ahead and buy the season pass, given that I love the game so much, the thought extending my playtime with it just makes me happy!

[MindFreak]

33 minutes ago, Kav said:

You’re best using the gold, or silver, cylinders to get the Morph Orb. If you nail the button presses you’ll only need 3 or so dives.

I haven't met the Gold cylinders yet. But I did do some perfect button presses on some Silver and it didn't show up. This is totally RNG, unfortunately.

[Kav]

12 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

I haven't met the Gold cylinders yet. But I did do some perfect button presses on some Silver and it didn't show up. This is totally RNG, unfortunately.

I’d say leave it until you can buy the gold cylinders then, that’s what I did anyhoo.

[Sheikah]

I've been playing this game an awful lot, really enjoy it. Such a great game after the disappointing XCX, never understood why they ruined the typical story structure format in the previous game.

I've already clocked over 110 hours and don't seem to be that far (most characters around L50). What a game!

[Emerald Emblem]

I still get defeated a decent amount but it almost spurs me on to persevere with it. Even though I got the fourth party member I just can't bring myself to drop anyone for them, the first three are such a great compliment to each other that when you are forced to using said fourth party member I really struggle.

[Sméagol]

This seems to be getting one of the season pass updates tomorrow. Several new quests, and some extra items I'll ignore just like the previous ones.

[Sheikah]

I still get defeated a decent amount but it almost spurs me on to persevere with it. Even though I got the fourth party member I just can't bring myself to drop anyone for them, the first three are such a great compliment to each other that when you are forced to using said fourth party member I really struggle.

I'm really bad for that too, I think they don't make it easy for you to swap characters either. The starter 3 work well in attack/defense/healer roles and you can only have 3 characters in your active party so it feels so much easier to stick with them.

Weirdly though the additional characters that join seem to be a much higher level, maybe they do that to encourage you to switch out?

[Glen-i]

That's strange. I know that in Xenoblade Wii, the initial Attack/Tank/Healer setup ended up being one of the worst setups you could choose.

I've just got the fourth character and I'm hoping that there's more than 3 classes. The original had a magic based attacker, an evasive fighter, a status inflicted and a Jack of all trades as well as the attacker, healer, and defender.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Glen-i

[Emerald Emblem]

From the spacing of the character portraits on the Inn level up screen, unless you can scroll through characters there will be 5 characters, but that's only the minimum.

[Glen-i]

9 minutes ago, Emerald Emblem said:

From the spacing of the character portraits on the Inn level up screen, unless you can scroll through characters there will be 5 characters, but that's only the minimum.

The problem I'm seeing is that this fourth character is initially another attacker like Rex. You could argue that it's the multiple weapons that make up the variety. But they still fall into only 3 categories.

All that said, I'm still enjoying the game. Hearing Gramps call Rex a "Cheeky Sod" is a stark reminder of why I love British localisations.

[Sméagol]

Spoiler

There are 5 characters total. Or that is, there are 5 drivers (and two temporary ones, but that's a spoiler). There are 3 base classes, but you can create mixes between these, and you can customize all characters to be almost any kind of class. This is done by assigning blades with the class you want. So this is a bit RNG dependent. All drivers have one blade they can't change, like Pyra (though obviously Pyra is an even more special case). If you have 3 Attack blades, your role is an attacker. 3 tank blades, you're a tank etc. 1 attack and 2 healers, you're a mix focussing on healing etc. But since you have one blade you can't change, you can't assign every class to a driver. I believe Rex is an exception in the end-game, but I haven't tried that out. And Tora is an exception because the Poppys work differently, and they all can have any role you want them to, if you've got the ether, but they come with a default role.

 

[Sheikah]

That's strange. I know that in Xenoblade Wii, the initial Attack/Tank/Healer setup ended up being one of the worst setups you could choose.
I've just got the fourth character and I'm hoping that there's more than 3 classes. The original had a magic based attacker, an evasive fighter, a status inflicted and a Jack of all trades as well as the attacker, healer, and defender.

Tora keeps the attacks on him when you aggro too much as Rex, and Nia heals you. I have had literally no problem breezing through most encounters so far this way.