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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 [NS] - storyline spoiler-free please!

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    #31
    [MENTION=7539]briareos_kerensky[/MENTION]

    It puts you back just before the final boss, so you can fast travel out of there and clean up whatever you have left if you want.

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      #32
      Just completed. It's the most refined of the Xenoblade games, but the lack of transformable giant robots you can pilot doesn't make it the best.

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        #33
        Time for some thoughts on the game.
        As I said in my previous post Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is the most refined of the Xenoblade games but there are still some cumbersome mechanics, introduced mosly by the game's new elements. The lack of giant robots you can pilot is also disappointing, but this being more or less linked to the first Xenoblade, it's understandable. The combat also ditches long/short range weapons and the number of special attacks available to characters, but all these changes aren't detrimental to the game, in fact they create a much more compact, focused, and rewarding battle system. I've always felt that the combat in Chronicles X was devoid of weight, you would see damage counters popping up but there was no satisfaction when attacks hit their mark, no matter the class or weapon used; this has been resolved in Chronicles 2, and the chance of cancelling or linking auto-attacks with specials adds that little something to the combat to make it more engaging.

        I like Chronicles 2's setting and graphics, although I prefer Chronicles X. For one X looked a bit sharper throughout the game, Chronicles 2 looks blurrier, probably a combination of the not-so-spectacular FSAA applied, the game engine not on par with Breath Of The Wild, and environments with an intended higher visual density than Zelda. It doesn't look bad, but the overall presentation, both in artistic and technical design, isn't on par with other AAA titles. In portable mode that game looks worse, with a marked decrease in resolution and effect quality, and so far I think it's the game with the largest gap between the two modes. The drop in visual fidelity however means no frames are lost, and I've never experienced slowdowns in both modes. I did experience a few crashes unfortunately, mostly when teleporting between locations, and at times the game ignored inputs as if it was loading the required action. This input problem was mostly experienced in menus for some reason.
        The locations in Chronicles X also looked more unique than here. Again, Chronicles 2 isn't bad but the alien landscapes of X were much more engaging, especially when adverse/strange weather affected the scenery. This is still present in Chronicles 2, but it's not as unique as X; again, this is probably due to the game's closer link to the first Chronicles.

        The characters here are much better than Chronicles 2 however, the smaller main cast allows to explore their personalities more. Not playing as a silent protagonist also helps in caring about the story more, playable characters in Chronicles X might have as well been cardboard cutouts...OK, maybe with the exception of a couple of them. The story won't win any awards for originality or narrative structure, but it was very pleasant to follow, with a good pacing, and has a good balance for humor (found mostly in the opening hours and in sidequests) and dramatic moments.
        The in-game clock shows a total of 150 hours, but 20 or 30 or those are with the game left idling in the home menu without pausing it, but more than 100 hours is still an impressive number and mirrors the time spent with the previous games. I'd say that I've spent the same amount of time chasing sidequests and the main storyline, and nevr really felt the need to grind my way through fights. In fact, all story bosses were three to even ten levels below me, which made most battles easy...once I grasped the various aspects of the combat, support, and class systems.

        Chronicles 2 might have the same basic mechanics as the other two and plenty of tutorials when elements are first introduced, but I feel that a lot of vital aspects are left either unexplained or vaguely mentioned. It took me a while to understand of character classes work, not to mention how important pouch items are if you want to build up trust points with a rare Blade quickly. Well, "quickly" is a relative term here because much more than any of the previous games Chronicles 2 requires a lot of time to do a lot of things, and building trust with Blades is one of the worst offenders. All rare Blades need 9800 trust point to complete or even advance through their skill tree, and that takes an insane amount of time even by farming trust; patch 1.2 made things a bit easier by allowing to skip dialogues, but due to the number of rare Blades, the requirements for their skills, and how slow certain counters move, maxing everything out takes an insane amount of time. Some rare Blades have task-driven improvements (complete this quest, save enough money, collect items) and I surely wished for more of those while I was grinding my way to completing a skill tree...which I still have to do for even the first Blade you get, the closest to completion I have is a rare Blade I've got by completing a sidequest and all her skills were unlocked by fighting, and thankfully enough she's an incredibly strong Blade to fight with.

        And yes, rare Blades. I absolutely hate the gacha system this game runs on. You're given some rules on how it works but in the end everything's up to random rolls, and only one rare Blade came out of all legendary cores with boosters I've spent; the rest came out of common cores, and if anything I was lucky that most Blades ended up with characters with matching classes. I wouldn't be against this system if the various core tiers would have well defined rules for summoning Blades (like common cores 1% of rare Blades, legendary cores 40%, and so on), but routinely getting a 2-stars Blade out of boosted legendary cores is infuriating and makes you question why boosters and character's summoning qualities.
        I've got most of random rare Blades after the game's midpoint and as a result many were left unused until I've beaten the game, resulting in highly enjoyable sidequests left locked away for too long, were you're in just for the story as rewards are vastly inferior to what you have now. And I've recently got three new rare Blades, only endgame content to go with, and soon no time to go through a New Game Plus to see them through without excessive grinding I don't want to do. And the rare Blade roster is still incomplete! Most probably I'll join the ranks of those that will never see KOS-MOS here.

        One more thing I didn't like is how field skills (lockpicking, element mastery, leaping, etc) are managed. After a certain point you have oh-so-many Blades and the game wants you to dig through them for that magical point that will allow you to open a chest, jump from a broken ladder, or start a mercenary mission within an interface that's not that friendly for this purpose. I really wish that a future patch will allow field events to automatically pick the needed Blades without forcing you to swap Blades and hunt for the needed skill, especially on field events that you've already cleared but you might need to do against (like a couple of diving and jumping points for some sidequests).

        But yeah, despite me listing all these gripes I've still enjoyed the game a lot, otherwise I wouldn't have spent more than 100 hours with it. Now Monolith should just do a sequel to Chronicles X along these lines (without gacha aspects).

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          #34
          I ended up mastering quite a few blades just by sending them on Merc Missions. This gave me quite a few of those items that you can use on characters to give them weapon points. My Rex was a bit too OP torwards the end, I used all those items on him and he ended up drawing way too much aggro with the amount of damage he was doing lol.

          I agree with the blade skills thing. They should just look at your entire roster of Blades for the skill checks. Swapping them in to open a door, just to swap them back out again for your good Blades was a waste of time.

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            #35
            Still playing this, clearing as many sidequests as I can, and desperately trying to unlock the last three rare Blades...and I'm starting to lose hope I'll ever will. No matter how many cores, no matter their quality, no matter the booster, I only end up getting 2 and 3 stars Blades. The rare Blade I still need to unlock are also required to clear two Merc missions and continue with a Blade's sidequest, making all this core popping irritating.

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              #36
              Before putting this game down I want to at least complete

              Ursula's sidequest.

              I don't really know how long I've progressed through it but I'll see it through. Also shifting focus to complete as many affinity charts as possible to increase idea leves and hopefully unlock the remaining Blades. Most probably won't be around when the new patch with NG+ hits but I'll play as long as I can.

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                #37
                Can anyone explain the whole "special combo" thing to me?

                I'm repeatedly doing "I" special moves (as opposed to II, III and IV). I once got to II but that's as far as I've managed.

                I've seen the little diagram at the top right of the screen which is about some sort of combo system; does that have anything to do with it? I never seem to get far with that because I don't have the right elements to fulfill a combo.

                In any case, idiot's guide - how do you do the II, III and IV special moves in combat?

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                  #38
                  I've completed

                  Ursula's

                  sidequest! The sooner you get this rare Blade and start doing her sidequest, the better. Took a good chunk of the normal game and several hours after beating it. And the missing rares still elude me

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                    #39
                    Originally posted by Asura View Post
                    Can anyone explain the whole "special combo" thing to me?

                    I'm repeatedly doing "I" special moves (as opposed to II, III and IV). I once got to II but that's as far as I've managed.

                    I've seen the little diagram at the top right of the screen which is about some sort of combo system; does that have anything to do with it? I never seem to get far with that because I don't have the right elements to fulfill a combo.

                    In any case, idiot's guide - how do you do the II, III and IV special moves in combat?
                    Using Blade Arts charges the specials I to II to III to IV. The Special Combo is when you chain all 4 from various characters and blades together, e.g. Earth I -> Fire II -> Earth III -> Earth IV.
                    Obviously if you can charge it fast enough you can't complete the combo.

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                      #40
                      Originally posted by kryss View Post
                      Using Blade Arts charges the specials I to II to III to IV. The Special Combo is when you chain all 4 from various characters and blades together, e.g. Earth I -> Fire II -> Earth III -> Earth IV.
                      Obviously if you can charge it fast enough you can't complete the combo.
                      Note: there's no level IV Blade Combo, they all stop at three. To reach level IV you need to first reach level III, then have the Driver/Blade link turn yellow (normally it's blue, it's that squiggly line connecting two characters), and then wait for the gauge to fill up on its own as you execute normal attacks; trigger special attacks will stop the gauge.

                      You can start a Blade Combo with whatever level you want, but the next must be equal or higher than the step you're in.
                      Example: you reach level III with a fire Blade and you start a Blade Combo (no diagram on the upper right, center bottom shows "Heat"). The next character in line (either fire or water special attack) must be at level II or higher; the third character must reach level III or higher. If you trigger a special attack on a level inferior than required or not beloning to the combo tree you'll simply execute that attack.

                      Something I've started to do way too late: discover a Blade's favourite pouch item and fill the pouch with it (put as many of that item as you can) to have trust skyrocket. This will make reaching those 9800 trust points that most rare Blades require much easier. Then use merc missions to fill the affinity chart.

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                        #41
                        Oops, my mistake with the level 4.

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                          #42
                          After 99 common, 18 rare, and 3 legendary cores I've got...one more rare Blade. I swear, I could downright buy those two missing Blades with real money if given the chance.

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                            #43
                            Discovered a level 99 boss that drops rare and legenday cores if you do a full Driver Combo. Neat.

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                              #44
                              Got KOS-MOS! The bonding sequence went Adenine (I still have to get her, and she's the last one), random, and a silhouette I never seen before...and when the Vector logo appeared on screen I was happy like a baby.
                              The bonding happened on Rex with a legendary core and 2 justice boosters, but as pretty much every other Blade it was down on pure luck.
                              For quite some time I've been building Rex as my best bonding character, and it took quite some time: a total of 160 hours, everyone at level 99, Rex with two luck-boosting items, random Blades with the highest luck boost, luck-boosting chips on them and Homura
                              (capping Rex's luck at 999), and all of Rex's idea at level 10 (so 5 boosters will bring it to 15, the max). This is not the first bonding round I do with these stats, before I popped more than 100 assorted cores and I've only got on rare Blade out it.

                              For this round I stockpiled 24 common, 50 rare, and 15 or so legendary cores, and I've got KOS-MOS after going through all the commons, half the rares and more than half the legendary. So yeah, a lot of luck.

                              I've seen videos that suggest to fill up the Blade roster until you can no longer summon any (oh yeah, merc level 5 for the largest Blade roster possible as well) then dismiss all the Blades not belonging to the rare Blade's element, then use the correct boosters on the best cores you have. The reasoning is that there's a Blade pool and having the highest number of Blades belonging to one element will increase the chances of getting a rare Blade of that element, but I don't think it's the case as 1-4 star Blades are randomised.
                              And KOS-MOS is the second and last light Blade in the whole game, so...you'll get rare Blades if you're lucky.
                              I think that's it. You can steer rolls but that's about it IMO.

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                                #45
                                Good stuff dude, I never had the patience. Does she sound KOS-MOSy in English?

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